Ex Ubrii 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 LITERARY ftf HISTORICAL 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 LIMITED LONDON
 
 Firs t f>uHis hed Septe mber 1921
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 NOTE 
 
 To Lord Rosebery's friends, and to all lovers of 
 good prose, it has long been a matter for regret 
 that it was difficult to obtain anything like a 
 complete set of his literary and historical addresses 
 and occasional writings, or his consent to their 
 republication. Most were out of print ; some 
 had been issued only in small private editions ; 
 some had never been rescued from the files of 
 the daily press. 
 
 Their author has been so good as to yield to 
 my importunity, and permit me to make a collec- 
 tion of these opuscula, he himself standing aside 
 in benevolent neutrality. The responsibility for 
 the selection and for the original importunity 
 is therefore mine. 
 
 No speeches dealing with controversial politics 
 have been included. A few notes have been 
 added, and now and then a sentence has been 
 omitted which had a purely local and topical 
 application. Otherwise the chapters are reprinted 
 as they were first spoken or written. 
 
 JOHN BUCHAN. 
 
 ~ ' ' ' > 
 -a.'-*--*.*.* ,
 
 CONTENTS 
 I 
 
 APPRECIATIONS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. ROBERT BURNS . . . . . .3 
 
 II. DR. JOHNSON . .31 
 
 III. THACKERAY . . . . . . .59 
 
 IV. CROMWELL . . . . ... . . 77 
 
 V. FREDERICK THE GREAT . . . . . .101 
 
 VI. BURKE . . 130 
 
 VII. WILLIAM WINDHAM . . . . . . .145 
 
 VIII. THE COMING OF BONAPARTE ..... 160 
 
 IX. SIR ROBERT PEEL 185 
 
 X. DR. CHALMERS . . ... . . 238 
 
 XI. MR. GLADSTONE ....... 255 
 
 XII. LORD SALISBURY . . . . . ', 264 
 
 XIII. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL . 275 
 
 vii
 
 I 
 
 APPRECIATIONS 
 
 VOL. I
 
 ROBERT BURNS 
 
 I COME here as a loyal burgess of Dumfries to do 
 honour to the greatest burgess of Dumfries. We 
 citizens of Dumfries have a special claim to be 
 considered on this day. We are surrounded by 
 the choicest and the most sacred haunts of the 
 poet. You have in this town the house in which 
 he died, the " Globe " where we could have 
 wished that some phonograph had then existed 
 which could have communicated to us some 
 of his wise and witty and wayward talk. You 
 have the street commemorated in M'Culloch's 
 tragic anecdote when Burns was shunned by his 
 former friends, and you have the paths by the 
 Nith which are associated with some of his 
 greatest work. You have near you the room in 
 which the whistle was contended for, and in 
 which, if mere legend is to be trusted, the im- 
 mortal Dr. Gregory was summoned to administer 
 his first powders to the survivors of that memor- 
 
 1 An Address delivered at Dumfries on the centenary of the poet's 
 death, July 21, 1806. 
 
 3
 
 4 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. able debauch. You have the stackyard in which, 
 lying on his back and contemplating 
 
 Thou lingering star, with lessening ray, 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 
 he wrote the lines to " Mary in Heaven " 
 perhaps the most pathetic of his poems. You 
 have near you the walk by the river, where, in 
 his transport, he passed his wife and children 
 without seeing them, " his brow flushed and his 
 eyes shining " with the lustre of " Tarn o' 
 Shanter." " I wish you had but seen him," said 
 , his wife ; " he was in such ecstasy that the tears 
 were happing down his cheeks." That is why 
 we are in Dumfries to-day. We come to honour 
 Burns among these immortal haunts of his. 
 
 But it is not in Dumfries alone that he is 
 commemorated to-day ; for all Scotland will 
 pay her tribute. And this, surely, is but right. 
 Mankind owes him a general debt. But the 
 debt of Scotland is special. For Burns exalted 
 our race ; he hallowed Scotland and the Scottish 
 tongue. Before his time we had for a long 
 period been scarcely recognised, we had been 
 falling out of the recollection of the world. 
 From the time of the union of the Crowns, and 
 still more from the time of the legislative union, 
 Scotland had lapsed into obscurity. Except 
 for an occasional riot or a Jacobite rising, her 
 existence was almost forgotten. She had, indeed, 
 her Robertsons and her Humes writing history 
 to general admiration, but no trace of Scottish 
 authorship was discoverable in their works ; 
 indeed, every flavour of national idiom was 

 
 ROBERT BURNS 5 
 
 carefully excluded. The Scottish dialect, as 
 Burns called it, was in danger of perishing. 
 Burns seemed at this juncture to start to his 
 feet and reassert Scotland's claim to national 
 existence ; his Scottish notes rang through the 
 world, and he thus preserved the Scottish 
 language for ever for mankind will never allow 
 to die that idiom in which his songs and poems 
 are enshrined. That is a part of Scotland's 
 debt to Burns. 
 
 But this is much more than a Scottish demon- 
 stration ; it is a collection of representatives 
 from all quarters of the globe to own a common 
 allegiance and a common faith. It is not only 
 Scotsmen honouring the greatest of Scotsmen 
 we stretch far beyond a kingdom or a race we 
 are rather a sort of poetical Mohammedans 
 gathered at a sort of poetical Mecca. 
 
 And yet we are assembled in our high en- 
 thusiasm under circumstances which are some- 
 what paradoxical. For with all the appearance 
 of joy, we celebrate not a festival, but a tragedy. 
 It is not the sunrise but the sunset that we 
 commemorate. It is not the birth of a new 
 power into the world, the subtle germ of a fame 
 that is to survive and inspire the generations of 
 men. But it is perhaps more fitting that we 
 celebrate the end and not the beginning. For 
 the coming of these figures is silent ; it is their 
 disappearance that we know. At this instant 
 that I speak there may be born into the world 
 the equal of a Newton or a Caesar, but half of us 
 would be dead before he had revealed himself. 
 Their death is different. It may be gloomy
 
 6 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. and disastrous ; it may come at a moment of 
 shame or neglect ; but by that time the man 
 has carved his name somewhere on the Temple 
 of Fame. There are exceptions, of course ; cases 
 where the end comes before the slightest, or 
 any but the slightest, recognition Chatterton 
 choking in his garret, hunger of body and soul 
 all unsatisfied ; Millet selling his pictures for a 
 song ; nay, Shakespeare himself. But, as a 
 rule, death in the case of genius closes the first 
 act of a public drama ; criticism and analysis 
 may then begin their unbiassed work free from 
 jealousy or friendship or personal consideration 
 for the living. Then comes the third act, if 
 third act there be. 
 
 No, it is a death, not a birth, that we celebrate. 
 This day a century ago, in poverty, delirium, 
 and distress, there was passing the soul of Robert 
 Burns. To him death comes in clouds and 
 darkness, the end of a long agony of body and 
 soul; he is harassed with debt, his wife is daily 
 expecting her confinement, his bodily constitu- 
 tion is ruined, his spirit is broken. He has lost 
 almost all that rendered his life happy much 
 of friendship, credit, and esteem. Some score 
 years before, one of the most charming of English 
 writers, as he lay dying, was asked if his mind 
 was at ease, and with his last breath Oliver 
 Goldsmith owned that it was not. So it was 
 with Robert Burns. His delirium dwelt on the 
 horrors of a jail ; he uttered curses on the trades- 
 man who was pursuing him for debt. " What 
 business," said he to his physician in a moment 
 of consciousness, " what business has a physician
 
 ROBERT BURNS 7 
 
 to waste his time upon me ; I am a poor pigeon 
 not worth plucking. Alas ! I have not feathers 
 enough to carry me to my grave." For a year 
 or more his health had been failing. He had a 
 poet's body as well as a poet's mind : nervous, 
 feverish, impressionable ; and his constitution, 
 which, if nursed and regulated, might have carried 
 him to the limit of life, was unequal to the storm 
 and stress of dissipation and a preying mind. 
 In the previous autumn he had been seized with 
 a rheumatic attack ; his digestion had given 
 way ; he was sunk in melancholy and gloom. 
 In his last April he wrote to his friend Thomson : 
 " By Babel's streams I've sate and wept almost 
 ever since I saw you last ; I have only known 
 existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of 
 sickness, and have counted time by the reper- 
 cussions of pain. Rheumatism, cold, and fever 
 have formed to me a terrible combination. I 
 close my eyes in misery, and open them without 
 hope." It was sought to revive him by sea- 
 bathing, and he went to stay at Brow- well. 
 There he remained three weeks, but was under 
 no delusion as to his state. " Well, madam," 
 he said to Mrs. Riddell on arriving, " have you 
 any commands for the other world ? " He sat 
 that evening with his old friend, and spoke man- 
 fully of his approaching death, of the fate of 
 his children, and his fame ; sometimes indulging 
 in bitter-sweet pleasantry, but never losing the 
 consciousness of his condition. In three weeks 
 he wearied of the fruitless hunt for health, and 
 he returned home to die. He was only just in 
 time. When he re-entered his home on the 18th
 
 8 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. he could no longer stand ; he was soon delirious ; 
 in three days he was dead. " On the fourth day," 
 we are told, " when his attendant held a cordial 
 to his lips, he swallowed it eagerly, rose almost 
 wholly up, spread out his hands, sprang forward 
 nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on his face, 
 and expired." 
 
 I suppose there are many who can read the 
 account of these last months with composure. 
 They are more fortunate than I. There is 
 nothing much more melancholy in all biography. 
 The brilliant poet, the delight of all society 
 from the highest to the lowest, sits brooding in 
 silence over the drama of his spent life : the 
 early innocent home, the plough and the savour 
 of fresh-turned earth, the silent communion with 
 nature and his own heart, the brief hour of 
 splendour, the dark hour of neglect, the mad 
 struggle for forge tfulness, the bitterness of van- 
 ished homage, the gnawing doubt of fame, the 
 distressful future of his wife and children, an 
 endless witch-dance of thought without clue or 
 remedy, all perplexing, all soon to end while he 
 is yet young, as men reckon youth ; though none 
 know so well as he that his youth is gone, his race 
 is run, his message is delivered. 
 
 His death revived the flagging interest and 
 pride that had been felt for him. As usual, men 
 began to realise what they had lost when it was 
 too late. When it was known that he was dying, 
 the townspeople had shown anxiety and distress. 
 They recalled his fame and forgot his fall. One 
 man was heard to ask, with a touch of quaint 
 simplicity, " Who do you think will be our poet
 
 ROBERT BURNS 9 
 
 now ? " The district set itself to prepare a public i. 
 funeral for the poet who died penniless among 
 them. A vast concourse followed him to his 
 grave. The awkward squad, as he had foreseen 
 and deprecated, fired volleys over his coffin. 
 The streets were lined with soldiers, among them 
 one who, within sixteen years, was to be Prime 
 Minister. 1 And while the procession wended its 
 gloomy way, as if no element of tragedy were 
 to be wanting, his widow's hour of travail arrived, 
 and she gave birth to the hapless child that had 
 caused the father so much misgiving. In this 
 place and on this day it all seems present to us 
 the house of anguish, the thronged churchyard, 
 the weeping neighbours. We feel ourselves part 
 of the mourning crowd. We hear those dropping 
 volleys and that muffled drum ; we bow our heads 
 as the coffin passes, and acknowledge with tears 
 the inevitable doom. Pass, heavy hearse, with 
 thy weary freight of shattered hopes and ex- 
 hausted frame ; pass, with thy simple pomp of 
 fatherless bairns and sad moralising friends ; 
 pass, with the sting of death to the victory of 
 the grave ; pass, with the perishable, and leave 
 us the eternal. 
 
 It is rare to be fortunate in life ; it is infinitely 
 rarer to be fortunate in death. " Happy in the 
 occasion of his death," as Tacitus said of Agricola, 
 is not a common epitaph. It is comparatively 
 easy to know how to live, but it is beyond all 
 option and choice to compass the more difficult 
 art of knowing when and how to die. We can 
 generally by looking back choose a moment in 
 
 1 See p. 24.
 
 10 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. a man's life when he had been fortunate had he 
 dropped down dead. And so the question arises 
 naturally to-day, was Burns fortunate in his 
 death that death which we commemorate ? 
 There can, I fancy, be only one answer ; it was 
 well that he died when he did ; it might even 
 have been better for himself had he died a little 
 earlier. The terrible letters that he wrote two 
 years before to Mrs. Riddell and Mr. Cunning- 
 ham betoken a spirit mortally wounded. In 
 those last two years the cloud settles, never to 
 be lifted. " My constitution and frame were 
 ab origins blasted with a deep incurable taint of 
 hypochondria which poisons my existence." He 
 found perhaps some pleasure in the composition 
 of his songs, some occasional relief in the society 
 of boon companions ; but the world was fading 
 before him. 
 
 There is an awful expression in Scotland 
 which one never hears without a pang " So- 
 and-so is done," meaning that he is physically 
 worn out. Burns was " done." He was 
 struggling on like a wounded deer to his death. 
 He had often faced the end, and not unwillingly. 
 " Can it be possible," he once wrote to Mrs. 
 Dunlop, " that when I resign this frail feverish 
 being I shall still find myself in conscious exist- 
 ence ? When the last gasp of agony has 
 announced that I am no more to those who 
 know me and the few who loved me, when 
 the cold unconscious corse is resigned to the 
 earth to be the prey of reptiles and become a 
 trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, enjoying 
 or enjoyed ? " Surely that reads as if he foresaw
 
 ROBERT BURNS 11 
 
 this day and would fain be with us as indeed he 
 may be. 
 
 Twelve years before he had faced death in a 
 less morbid spirit : 
 
 Why [he asked] am I loath to leave this earthly scene ? 
 
 Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
 Some days of joy, with draughts of ill between, 
 
 Some gleams of sunshine, 'mid renewing storms. 
 
 He had, perhaps, never enjoyed life so much as 
 is supposed, though he had turned to it a brave, 
 cheerful, unflinching face, and the last years 
 had been years of misery. " God have mercy 
 on me," he wrote years before the end, " a poor, 
 damned, incautious, duped, unfortunate fool ! 
 The sport, the miserable victim of rebellious 
 pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonising 
 sensibility, and bedlam passions." There was 
 truth in this outburst. At any rate, his most 
 devoted friends and to be an admirer of Burns 
 is to be his friend may wish that he had not 
 lived to write the letter to Mr. Clark, piteously 
 pleading that a harmless toast may not be visited 
 hardly upon him ; or that to Mrs. Riddell, 
 beginning, " I write you from the regions of 
 hell and the horrors of the damned " ; or to be 
 harried by his official superiors as a political 
 suspect ; shunned by his fashionable friends for 
 the same reason ; wandering like a neglected 
 ghost in Dumfries, avoided and ignored. " That's 
 all over now, my young friend," he said, speaking 
 of his reign in society, " and werena my heart 
 licht I wad dee." All this was in 1794. Had he 
 died before then, it might have been happier 
 for himself, and we should have lost some parts
 
 12 MISCELLANIES 
 
 of his life which we would rather forget ; but 
 posterity could not have spared him ; we could 
 not have lost the exquisite songs which we owe 
 to those years ; but, above all, the supreme 
 creed and comfort which he bequeathed to the 
 
 world 
 
 A man's a man for a' that 
 
 would have remained undelivered. 
 
 One may, perhaps, go further and say that 
 poets or those whom the gods love should 
 die young. This is a hard saying, but it will 
 not greatly affect the bills of mortality. And 
 it applies only to poets of the first rank ; while 
 even here it has its exceptions, and illustrious 
 exceptions they are. But surely the best poetry 
 is produced before middle age, before the morning 
 and its illusions have faded, before the heaviness 
 of noon and the baleful cool of evening. Few 
 men, too, can bear the strain of a poet's tempera- 
 ment through many years. At any rate, we may 
 feel sure of this, that Burns had produced his 
 best, that he would never again have produced 
 a " Tarn o' Shanter," or a " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night," or a " Jolly Beggars " ; and that long 
 before his death, though he could still write lines 
 affluent with tenderness and grace, " the hand of 
 pain and sorrow and care," to use his own words, 
 " had lain heavy upon " him. 
 
 And this leads to another point. To-day is 
 not merely the melancholy anniversary of death, 
 but the rich and incomparable fulfilment of 
 prophecy. For this is the moment to which 
 Burns looked when he said to his wife, " Don't 
 be afraid ; I'll be more respected a hundred
 
 ROBERT BURNS 13 
 
 years after I am dead than I am at present ! " 
 To-day the hundred years are completed, and we 
 can judge of the prediction. On that point we 
 must all be unanimous. Burns had honour in 
 his lifetime, but his fame has rolled like a snow- 
 ball since his death, and it rolls on. There is, 
 indeed, no parallel to it in the world ; it sets 
 the calculations of compound interest at defiance. 
 He is not merely the watchword of a nation 
 that carries and implants Burns-worship all over 
 the globe as birds carry seeds, but he has become 
 the champion and patron-saint of Democracy. 
 He bears the banner of the essential equality of 
 man. His birthday is celebrated one hundred 
 and thirty-seven years after its occurrence more 
 universally than that of any human being. He 
 reigns over a greater dominion than any empire 
 that the world has ever seen. 
 
 Nor does the ardour of his devotees decrease. 
 Ayr and Ellisland, Mauchline and Dumfries, are the 
 shrines of countless pilgrims. Burns statues are 
 a hardy annual. The production of Burns manu- 
 scripts was a lucrative branch of industry until 
 it was checked by untimely intervention. The 
 editions of Burns are as the sands of the sea. No 
 canonised name in the calendar excites so blind 
 and enthusiastic a worship. Whatever Burns may 
 have contemplated in his prediction, whatever 
 dream he may have fondled in the wildest moments 
 of elation, must have fallen utterly short of the 
 reality. And it is all spontaneous. There is no 
 puff, no advertisement, no manipulation. In- 
 tellectual cosmetics of that kind are frail and 
 fugitive ; they rarely survive their subject ;
 
 14 MISCELLANIES 
 
 they would not have availed here. Nor was 
 there any glamour attached to the poet ; rather 
 the reverse. He has stood by himself; he has 
 grown by himself. It is himself and no other 
 that we honour. 
 
 But what had Burns in his mind when he 
 made this prediction ? It might be whimsically 
 urged that he was conscious that the world had 
 not yet seen his masterpiece, for the " Jolly 
 Beggars " was not published till some time after 
 his death. But that would not be sufficient, for 
 he had probably forgotten its existence. Nor 
 do I think he spoke at haphazard. What were 
 perhaps present to his mind were the fickleness 
 of his contemporaries towards him, his conviction 
 of the essential splendour of his work, the con- 
 sciousness that the incidents of his later years 
 had unjustly obscured him, and that his true 
 figure would be perceived as these fell away into 
 forgetfulness or were measured at their true 
 value. If so, he was right in his judgement, for 
 his true life began with his death ; with the body 
 passed all that was gross and impure ; the clear 
 spirit stood revealed, and soared at once to its 
 accepted place among the fixed stars, in the 
 firmament of the rare immortals. 
 
 n 1 
 
 WHAT the direct connection of Burns with 
 Glasgow may be I am not exactly sure ; but, 
 at any rate, I am confident of this, that in the 
 
 1 An Address delivered in the St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow, on the 
 evening of the same day.
 
 ROBERT BURNS 15 
 
 great metropolis of the West there is a clear 
 claim that we should celebrate the genius of 
 Robert Burns. I have celebrated it already 
 elsewhere. I cannot, perhaps, deny that the 
 day has been a day of labour, but it has been a 
 labour of love. It is, and it must be, a source of 
 joy and pride to us to see our champion Scotsman 
 receive the honour and admiration and affection 
 of humanity ; to see, as I have seen this morning, 
 the long processions bringing homage and tribute 
 to the conquering dead. But these have only 
 been signs and symptoms of the world-wide 
 passion of reverence and devotion. That gener- 
 ous and immortal soul pervades the universe 
 to-day. In the humming city and in the crowd 
 of men ; in the backwood and in the swamp ; 
 where the sentinel paces the bleak frontier, and 
 where the sailor smokes his evening pipe ; and 
 above all, where the farmer and his men pursue 
 their summer toil, whether under the Stars and 
 Stripes or under the Union Jack, the thought 
 and sympathy of men are directed to Robert 
 Burns. 
 
 I have sometimes asked myself, if a roll-call 
 of fame were read over at the beginning of every 
 century, how many men of eminence would 
 answer a second time to their names. But of 
 our poet there is no doubt or question. The 
 adsum of Burns rings out clear and unchallenged. 
 There are few before him on the list, and we 
 cannot now conceive a list without him. He 
 towers high, and yet he lived in an age when the 
 average was sublime. 
 
 It sometimes seems to me as if the whole
 
 16 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. eighteenth century was a constant preparation 
 for, a constant working up to, the great drama 
 of the revolution which closed it. The scenery 
 is all complete when the time arrives the dark 
 volcanic country ; the hungry, desperate people ; 
 the firefly nobles ; the concentrated splendour of 
 the Court ; in the midst, in her place as heroine, 
 the dazzling Queen. And during long previous 
 years brooding nature had been producing not 
 merely the immediate actors, but figures worthy 
 of the scene. What a glittering procession it 
 is ! We can only mark some of the principal 
 figures. Burke leads the way ; then come Fox 
 and Goethe ; Nelson and Mozart ; Schiller, 
 Pitt, and Burns ; Wellington and Napoleon. 
 And among these Titans, Burns is a conspicuous 
 figure, the figure which appeals most of all to the 
 imagination and affection of mankind. Napoleon 
 looms larger to the imagination, but on the affec- 
 tion he has no hold. It is in the combination 
 of the two powers that Burns is supreme. 
 
 What is his secret ? We are always discussing 
 him and endeavouring to find it out. Perhaps, 
 like the latent virtue of some medicinal baths, it 
 may never be satisfactorily explained. But, at 
 any rate, let us discuss him again. That is, I 
 presume, our object to-night. What pleasanter 
 or more familiar occupation can there be for 
 Scotsmen ? But the Scotsmen who enjoy it have 
 generally, perhaps, more time than I. Pardon, 
 then, the imperfections of my speech, for I speak 
 of a subject which no one can altogether compass, 
 and which a busy man has perhaps no right to 
 attempt.
 
 ROBERT BURNS 17 
 
 The clue to Burns's extraordinary hold on 
 mankind is possibly a complicated one ; it has, 
 perhaps, many developments. If so, we have not 
 time to consider it to-night. But I personally 
 believe the causes are, like most great causes, 
 simple ; though it might take long to point out 
 all the ways in which they operate. The secret, 
 as it seems to me, lies in two words inspiration 
 and sympathy. But, if I wished to prove my 
 contention, I should go on quoting from his 
 poems all night, and his admirers would still 
 declare that I had omitted the best passages. 
 I know that profuse quotation is a familiar form 
 of a Burns speech ; but I am afraid to begin 
 lest I should not end, and I am sure that I should 
 not satisfy. I must proceed, then, in a more 
 summary way. 
 
 There seem to me to be two great natural 
 forces in British literature. I use the safe 
 adjective of British, and your applause shows 
 me that I was right to do so. I use it partly 
 because hardly any of Burns's poetry is strictly 
 English ; partly because he hated, and was 
 perhaps the first to protest against, the use of 
 the word English as including Scottish. Well, 
 I say, there are in that literature two great forces 
 of which the power seems sheer inspiration and 
 nothing else I mean Shakespeare and Burns. 
 This is not the place nor the time to speak of that 
 miracle called Shakespeare, but one must say a 
 word of the miracle called Burns. 
 
 Try and reconstruct Burns as he was. A 
 peasant, born in a cottage that no sanitary 
 inspector in these days would tolerate for a 
 
 VOL. I C
 
 18 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. moment ; struggling with desperate effort against 
 pauperism ; almost in vain snatching at scraps 
 of learning in the intervals of toil, as it were 
 with his teeth ; a heavy silent lad, proud of 
 his ploughing. All of a sudden, without preface 
 or warning, he breaks out into exquisite song, 
 like a nightingale from the brushwood, and 
 continues singing as sweetly with nightingale 
 pauses till he dies. A nightingale sings because 
 he cannot help it ; he can only sing exquisitely, 
 because he knows no other. So it was with 
 Burns. What is this but inspiration ? One 
 can no more measure or reason about it than 
 measure or reason about Niagara. 
 
 Under the limitations which I have imposed 
 on myself to-night, we must take for granted 
 the incomparable excellence of his poetry. But 
 I must ask you to remember that the poetry is 
 only a fragment of Burns. Amazing as it may 
 seem, all contemporary testimony is unanimous 
 that the man was far more wonderful than his 
 works. " It will be the misfortune of Burns's 
 reputation," writes an accomplished lady, who 
 might well have judged him harshly, " in the 
 records of literature, not only to future genera- 
 tions and to foreign countries, but even with 
 his native Scotland and a number of his contem- 
 poraries, that he has been regarded as a poet, and 
 nothing but a poet. . . . Poetry," she continues 
 " (I appeal to all who had the advantage of being 
 personally acquainted with him), was actually 
 not his forte. . . . None, certainly, ever out- 
 shone Burns in the charms the sorcery, I would 
 almost call it of fascinating conversation, the
 
 ROBERT BURNS 19 
 
 spontaneous eloquence of social argument, or 
 the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repartee." 
 And she goes on to describe the almost super- 
 human fascination of his voice and of his eyes, 
 those balls of black fire which electrified all on 
 whom they rested. 
 
 It seems strange to be told that it would be 
 an injustice to judge Burns by his poetry alone ; 
 but as to the magnetism of his presence and 
 conversation there is only one verdict. " No 
 man's conversation ever carried me so completely 
 off my feet," said the Duchess of Gordon the 
 friend of Pitt and of the London wits, the queen 
 of Scottish society. Dugald Stewart says that 
 44 all the faculties of Burns's mind were, so far 
 as I could judge, equally vigorous, and his 
 predilection for poetry was rather the result of 
 his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper 
 than of a genius exclusively adapted to that 
 species of composition. From his conversation 
 I should have pronounced him to be fitted to 
 excel in whatever walk of ambition he had 
 chosen to exert his abilities." And of his prose 
 compositions the same severe judge speaks thus : 
 " Their great and varied excellences render some 
 of them scarcely less objects of wonder than 
 his poetical performances. The late Dr. Robert- 
 son used to say that, considering his education, 
 the former seemed to him the more remarkable 
 of the two." " I think Burns," said Principal 
 Robertson to a friend, " was one of the most 
 extraordinary men I ever met with. His poetry 
 surprised me very much, his prose surprised me 
 still more, and his conversation surprised me
 
 20 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. more than both his poetry and prose." We are 
 told, too, that " he felt a strong call towards 
 oratory, and all who heard him speak and some 
 of them were excellent judges admitted his 
 wonderful quickness of apprehension and readi- 
 ness of eloquence." All this seems to me mar- 
 vellous. It surely ratifies the claim of inspiration 
 without the necessity of quoting a line of his 
 poetry. 
 
 I pass, then, to his sympathy. If his talents 
 were universal, his sympathy was not less so. 
 His tenderness was not a mere selfish tenderness 
 for his own family, for he loved all mankind, 
 except the cruel and the base. Nay, we may 
 go further and say that he placed all creation, 
 especially the suffering and despised part of it, 
 under his protection. The oppressor in every 
 shape, even in the comparatively innocent em- 
 bodiment of the factor and the sportsman, he 
 regarded with direct and personal hostility. But 
 above all, he saw the charm of the home ; he 
 recognised it as the basis of all society; he 
 honoured it in its humblest form, for he knew, 
 as few know, how unpretentiously, but how 
 sincerely, the family in the cottage is welded by 
 mutual love and esteem. " I recollect once," 
 said Dugald Stewart, speaking of Burns, " he 
 told me, when I was admiring a distant prospect 
 in one of our morning walks, that the sight of 
 so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to 
 his mind which none could understand who 
 had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness 
 and worth which they contained." He dwells 
 repeatedly on the primary sacredness of the
 
 ROBERT BURNS 21 
 
 home and the family, the responsibility of father- 
 hood and marriage. " Have I not," he once 
 wrote to Lord Mar, " a more precious stake in 
 my country's welfare than the richest dukedom 
 in it ? I have a large family of children, and 
 the prospect of many more." The lines in which 
 he tells his faith are not less memorable than 
 the stately stanzas in which Gray sings the 
 11 short and simple annals of the poor." I must 
 quote them again, often quoted as they are : 
 
 To mak' a happy fireside clime 
 
 To weans and wife, 
 That's the true pathos and sublime 
 
 Of human life. 
 
 His verses, then, go straight to the heart of 
 every home ; they appeal to every father and 
 mother. But that is only the beginning, perhaps 
 the foundation, of his sympathy. There is some- 
 thing for everybody in Burns. He has a heart 
 even for vermin ; he has pity even for the arch- 
 enemy of mankind. And his universality makes 
 his poems a treasure-house in which all may 
 find what they want. Every wayfarer in the 
 journey of life may pluck strength and courage 
 from it as he passes. The sore, the weary, the 
 wounded, will all find something to heal and 
 soothe. For this great master is the universal 
 Samaritan. Where the priest and the Levite 
 may have passed by in vain, this eternal heart 
 will still afford a resource. But he is not only 
 for the sick in spirit. The friend, the lover, the 
 patriot, will all find their choicest refreshment 
 in Burns. His touch is everywhere, and it is 
 everywhere the touch of genius. Nothing comes
 
 22 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. amiss to him. What was said of the debating 
 power of his eminent contemporary, Dundas, 
 may be said of his poetry : " He went out in 
 all weathers." And it may be added that all 
 weathers suited him ; that he always brought 
 back something precious, something we cherish, 
 something that cannot die. 
 
 He is, then, I think, the universal friend in 
 a unique sense. But he was, poetically speak- 
 ing, the special friend of Scotland, in a sense 
 which recalls a profound remark of another 
 eminent Scotsman, I mean Fletcher of Saltoun. 
 In an account of a conversation between Lord 
 Cromarty, Sir Edward Seymour, Sir Christopher 
 Musgrave, and himself, Fletcher writes : "I 
 said I knew a very wise man, so much of Sir 
 Christopher's sentiment that he believed if a 
 man were permitted to make all the ballads, he 
 need not care who should make the laws of a 
 nation." This may be rudely paraphrased that 
 it is more important to make the songs of a 
 nation than to frame its laws, and this again 
 may be interpreted to mean that in the days of 
 Fletcher, at any rate, as in the days of Burns, it 
 is the familiar songs of a people that mould their 
 thoughts, their manners, and their morals. If 
 this be true, can we exaggerate the debt that we 
 Scotsmen owe to Burns ? He has bequeathed 
 to his country the most exquisite casket of songs 
 in the world ; primarily to his country, though 
 others cannot be denied their share. I will give 
 only one example, but that is a signal one. 
 From distant Roumania the Queen of that 
 country wrote to Dumfries to-day that she has
 
 ROBERT BURNS 23 
 
 no copy of Burns with her, but that she knows i. 
 his songs by heart. 
 
 We must remember, too, that there is more 
 than this to be said. Many of Burns 's songs 
 were already in existence in the lips and minds 
 of the people rough and coarse and obscene. 
 Our benefactor takes them, and with a touch of 
 inspired alchemy transmutes them and leaves 
 them pure gold. He loved the old catches and 
 the old tunes, and into these gracious moulds he 
 poured his exquisite gifts of thought and ex- 
 pression. But for him, those ancient airs, often 
 wedded to words which no decent man could 
 recite, would have perished from that corruption 
 if not from neglect. He rescued them for us 
 by his songs, and in doing so he hallowed the 
 life and sweetened the breath of Scotland. 
 
 I have also used the words patriot and lover. 
 These draw me to different lines of thought. 
 The word " patriot " leads me to the political 
 side of Burns. There is no doubt that he was 
 suspected of being a politician ; and he is even 
 said to have sometimes wished to enter Parlia- 
 ment. That was perhaps an excusable aberration, 
 and my old friend Professor Masson has, I think, 
 surmised that had he lived he might have been 
 a great Liberal pressman. My frail thought 
 shall not dally with such surmise, but it conducts 
 us naturally to the subject of Burns's politics. 
 From his sympathy for his own class, from his 
 indignation against nobles like the Duke of 
 Queensberry, and from the toasts that cost him 
 so dear, it might be considered easy to infer his 
 political opinions. But Burns should not be
 
 24 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. claimed for any party. A poet, be it remembered, 
 is never a politician, and a politician is never a 
 poet that is to say, a politician is never so 
 fortunate as to be a poet, and a poet is so fortunate 
 as never to be a politician. I do not say that 
 the line of demarcation is never passed a poli- 
 tician may have risen for a moment, or a poet 
 may have descended ; but where there is any 
 confusion between the two callings, it is generally 
 because the poet thinks he discerns, or the 
 politician thinks he needs, something higher than 
 politics. Burns's politics were entirely governed 
 by his imagination. He was at once a Jacobite 
 and a Jacobin. He had the sad sympathy which 
 most of us have felt for the hapless house of 
 Stuart, without the least wish to be governed by 
 it. He had much the same sort of abstract 
 sympathy with the French Revolution, when it 
 was setting all Europe to rights ; but he was 
 prepared to lay down his life to prevent its 
 putting this island to rights. And then came 
 his official superiors of the Excise, who, not- 
 withstanding Mr. Pitt's admiration of his poetry, 
 snuffed out his politics without remorse. 
 
 The name of Pitt leads me to add that Burns 
 had some sort of relation with three Prime 
 Ministers. Colonel Jenkinson, of the Cinque 
 Ports Fencible Cavalry afterwards Minister for 
 fifteen years under the title of Liverpool was 
 on duty at Burns's funeral, though we are told 
 the good man that he disapproved of the 
 poet, and declined to make his acquaintance. 
 Pitt, again, passed on Burns one of his rare 
 and competent literary judgements, so eulogistic,
 
 ROBERT BURNS 25 
 
 indeed, that one wonders that a powerful Minister i. 
 could have allowed one whom he admired so 
 much to exist on an exciseman's pay when well, 
 and an exciseman's half-pay when dying. And 
 from Addington, another Prime Minister, Burns 
 elicited a sonnet, which, in the Academy of 
 Lagado, would surely have been held a signal 
 triumph of the art of extracting sunshine from 
 cucumbers. 
 
 So much for politics in the party sense. " A 
 man's a man for a' that " is not politics it is 
 the assertion of the rights of humanity in a sense 
 far wider than politics. It erects all mankind ; 
 it is the charter of its self-respect. It binds, it 
 heals, it revives, it invigorates ; it sets the bruised 
 and broken on their legs ; it refreshes the stricken 
 soul ; it is the salve and tonic of character ; it 
 cannot be narrowed into politics. Burns's politics 
 are indeed nothing but the occasional overflow 
 of his human sympathy into past history and 
 current events. 
 
 And now, having discussed the two trains of 
 thought suggested by the words " friend " and 
 " patriot," I come to the more dangerous word 
 " lover." There is an eternal controversy which, 
 it appears, no didactic oil will ever assuage, as 
 to Burns's private life and morality. Some 
 maintain that these have nothing to do with his 
 poems ; some maintain that his life must be read 
 into his works; and here again some think that 
 his life damns his poems, while others aver that 
 his poems cannot be fully appreciated without 
 his life. Another school thinks that his vices 
 have been exaggerated, while their opponents
 
 26 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. scarcely think such exaggeration possible. It is 
 impossible to avoid taking a side. I walk on 
 the ashes, knowing the fire beneath, and unable 
 to avoid it, for the topic is inevitable. I must 
 confess myself, then, one of those who think 
 that the life of Burns doubles the interest of 
 his poems, and I doubt whether the failings of 
 his life have been much exaggerated, for contem- 
 porary testimony on that point is strong ; though 
 a high authority, Mr. Wallace, has recently taken 
 the other side with much power and point. 
 
 But the life of Burns, which I love to read 
 with his poems, does not consist in his vices ; 
 they lie outside it. It is a life of work, and 
 truth, and tenderness. And though, like all 
 lives, it has its light and shade, remember that 
 we know it all, the worst as well as the best. 
 His was a soul bathed in crystal; he hurried to 
 avow everything. There was no reticence in 
 him. The only obscure passage in his life is the 
 love passage with Highland Mary, and as to 
 that he was silent not from shame, but because 
 it was a sealed and sacred episode. " What a 
 flattering idea," he once wrote, " is a world to 
 come ! There shall I with speechless agony of 
 rapture again recognise my lost, my ever dear 
 Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, 
 honour, constancy, and love." He had, as the 
 French say, the defects of his qualities. His 
 imagination was a supreme and celestial gift. 
 But his imagination often led him wrong, and 
 never more than with women. The chivalry 
 that made Don Quixote see the heroic in all 
 the common events of life made Burns (as his
 
 ROBERT BURNS 27 
 
 brother tells us) see a goddess in every girl that i. 
 he approached. Hence many love affairs, and 
 some guilty ones ; but even these must be judged 
 with reference to time and circumstance. This 
 much is certain, that had he been devoid of 
 genius, they would not have attracted attention. 
 It is Burns 's pedestal that affords a target. And 
 why, one may ask, is not the same measure 
 meted out to Burns as to others ? The bastards 
 of great captains and statesmen and princes are 
 treated as historical and ornamental incidents. 
 They strut the scene of Shakespeare, and ruff it 
 with the best. It is for the unlawful children 
 of Burns, though he and his wife cherished them 
 as if born in wedlock, that the vials of wrath 
 are reserved. Take two brilliant figures, both of 
 royal ancestry, who were alive during Burns 's 
 life. We occupy ourselves endlessly and severely 
 with the lapses of Burns. We heave an elegant 
 sigh over the kindred frailties of Charles James 
 Fox and Charles Edward Stuart. 
 
 Again, it is quite clear that, though excep- 
 tionally sober in his earlier years, he drank too 
 much in later life. But this, it must be remem- 
 bered, was but an occasional condescendence 
 to the vice and habit of the age. The gentry 
 who pressed him to their houses, and who were 
 all convivial, have much to answer for. His 
 admirers who thronged to see him, and who 
 could only conveniently sit with him in a tavern, 
 are also responsible for this habit, so perilously 
 attractive to men of genius. From the decorous 
 Addison and the brilliant Bolingbroke onward, 
 the eighteenth century records hard drinking as
 
 28 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. the common incident of intellectual eminence. 
 To a man who had shone supreme in the most 
 glowing society, and who was now an exciseman 
 in a country town, with a home that cannot 
 have been very exhilarating, and with a nervous 
 system highly strung, the temptation of the 
 warm tavern, and the admiring circle there, 
 may well have been almost irresistible. Some 
 attempt to say that his intemperance was ex- 
 aggerated. I neither affirm nor deny. It was 
 not as a sot he drank ; that no one insinuated ; 
 if he succumbed it was to good fellowship. 
 
 Remember, I do not seek to palliate nor excuse, 
 and, indeed, none will be turned to dissipation 
 by Burns's example ; he paid too dearly for it. 
 But I will say this, that it all seems infinitely 
 little, infinitely remote. Why do we strain, at 
 this distance, to discern this dim spot on the 
 poet's mantle ? Shakespeare and Ben Jonson 
 took their cool tankard at the "Mermaid"; we 
 cannot afford, in the strictest view of literary re- 
 sponsibility, to quarrel with them for that. When 
 we consider Pitt and Goethe we do not concentrate 
 our vision on Pitt's bottles of port or Goethe's 
 bottles of Moselle. Then why, we ask, is there 
 such a chasm between the " Mermaid " and the 
 " Globe," and why are the vintages of Wimbledon 
 and Weimar so much more innocent than the 
 simple punch-bowl of Inveraray marble and its 
 contents ? 
 
 I should like to go a step further and affirm 
 that we have something to be grateful for even 
 in the weaknesses of men like Burns. Mankind 
 is helped in its progress almost as much by the
 
 ROBERT BURNS 29 
 
 study of imperfection as by the contemplation 
 of perfection. Had we nothing before us in 
 our futile and halting lives but saints and the 
 ideal, we might well fail altogether. We grope 
 blindly along the catacombs of the world, we 
 climb the dark ladder of life, we feel our way to 
 futurity, but we can scarcely see an inch around 
 or before us. We stumble and falter and fall, 
 our hands and knees are bruised and sore, and 
 we look up for light and guidance. Could we 
 see nothing but distant unapproachable impecca- 
 bility, we might well sink prostrate in the hope- 
 lessness of emulation and the weariness of despair. 
 Is it not then, when all seems blank and lightless 
 and lifeless, when strength and courage flag, and 
 when perfection seems as remote as a star, is it 
 not then that imperfection helps us ? When we 
 see that the greatest and choicest images of God 
 have had their weaknesses like ours, their tempta- 
 tions, their hours of darkness, their bloody sweat, 
 are we not encouraged by their lapses and 
 catastrophes to find energy for one more effort, 
 one more struggle ? Where they failed we feel 
 it a less dishonour to fail ; their errors and 
 sorrows make, as it were, an easier ascent from 
 infinite imperfection to infinite perfection. 
 
 Man, after all, is not ripened by virtue alone. 
 Were it so, this world were a paradise of angels. 
 No ! Like the growth of the earth, he is the fruit 
 of all the seasons ; the accident of a thousand 
 accidents, a living mystery, moving through the 
 seen to the unseen. He is sown in dishonour ; 
 he is matured under all the varieties of heat and 
 cold ; in mist and wrath, in snow and vapours,
 
 30 MISCELLANIES 
 
 i. in the melancholy of autumn, in the torpor of 
 winter, as well as in the rapture and fragrance 
 of summer, or the balmy affluence of the spring 
 its breath, its sunshine, its dew. And at the 
 end he is reaped the product, not of one climate, 
 but of all ; not of good alone, but of evil ; not 
 of joy alone, but of sorrow perhaps mellowed 
 and ripened, perhaps stricken and withered and 
 sour. How, then, shall we judge any one ? 
 How, at any rate, shall we judge a giant, great 
 in gifts and great in temptation, great in strength 
 and great in weakness ? Let us glory in his 
 strength and be comforted in his weakness. 
 And when we thank heaven for the inestimable 
 gift of Burns, we do not need to remember wherein 
 he was imperfect, we cannot bring ourselves to 
 regret that he was made of the same clay as 
 ourselves.
 
 II 
 
 DR. JOHNSON 1 
 
 THREE days hence will occur the two-hundredth n. 
 anniversary of Johnson's birth in this ancient city 
 of Lichfield. Born poor and scrofulous and half 
 blind, and with an hereditary melancholy not 
 far removed from madness, the advent of the 
 small bookseller's son cannot have caused a ripple 
 among your people. He seemed destined to his 
 father's back shop until in the course of nature he 
 should appear as principal in the front, in the 
 pleasantest and most congenial of all modern 
 trades, but one rarely leading to fame. And yet 
 it is this obscurest of events which we have this 
 week hurried to Lichfield to celebrate. 
 
 What is the cause of Johnson's extraordinary 
 hold upon us, of his immortality among us ? It 
 does not, I think, mainly rest upon his works. 
 His twelve volumes sleep, I fear, on our shelves ; 
 at least they do on mine. He has written two of 
 the noblest poems in the language, yet these, I 
 think, have only once been separately printed, in 
 1785 ; though they contain immortal lines, and 
 were the poems that Walter Scott, so remote 
 
 1 An Address delivered at the Johnson bicentenary celebration at 
 Lichfield, September 15, 1909. 
 
 31
 
 32 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ii. in style and thought, most admired, much as 
 Byron admired Pope. His Lives of the Poets 
 are destined, I think, to an enduring reputation. 
 He cannot always appreciate ; he is unjust to 
 Gray ; some of his criticisms remind one of the 
 poulterer's phoenix of Whitbread ; they seem not 
 infrequently to gauge poetry in the spirit of an 
 exciseman. His critical faculty indeed did not 
 always inspire confidence. He could not enjoy 
 Lycidas ; he did not care for Theocritus ; his pre- 
 judice against Gray was even stronger than it 
 appears in the Lives ; he greatly preferred Richard- 
 son to Fielding. His Shakespearian criticism is, 
 I believe, held by competent judges not to possess 
 any special value. 
 
 But the Lives are terse, vigorous, and delightful 
 sketches of poets and poetasters, which once one 
 has taken them in hand one can scarcely lay 
 down ; and one cannot doubt that these are 
 destined to a long life ; for they are the work of a 
 master of letters dealing with that department of 
 literature which he loved the best, so that genius 
 and inclination worked hand in hand. But who 
 reads the rest ? I speak only for myself. The 
 Ramblers and the Idlers are dead for me. I hope 
 that there are others more fortunate. Rasselas, I 
 read not voluntarily, but assiduously at school, 
 and, probably for that reason, never wish to 
 read again. Even the thought of this celebration 
 could not overcome my repugnance. Of Irene it 
 may be ambiguously said that it is like no other 
 tragedy in existence, and that it leaves the reader 
 cold and less than cold. I have read for business 
 purposes speeches under other names, which
 
 DR. JOHNSON 33 
 
 Johnson no doubt composed. But speaking as an n. 
 individual and illiterate Briton I make this con- 
 fession ; I make it in dust and ashes, with a sheet 
 and a candle, under every visible form of penance, 
 but I cannot honestly withhold it. And, after 
 all, two poems and some pleasing biographies do 
 not of themselves as a rule constitute a claim to 
 lasting fame. 
 
 He was, I think, our greatest man of letters in 
 a large sense of that vague term. The variety of 
 his writings in what we should now consider as 
 periodicals, his knowledge of literature, his deal- 
 ings with literature, his command of literature, 
 the mass of his writing discovered or untraced 
 which he could scarcely recall himself, his pas- 
 sionate interest in letters, above all his convers- 
 ance with literary biography, entitles him to that 
 position. It is a reputation which would vaguely 
 have remained to him even had his works not 
 survived. But it would have been a fame widely 
 different from that concrete and personal base on 
 which he is now established for ever. 
 
 Then, again, there is that which does not 
 appear in his works, the great Dictionary. Here 
 our consciences are easy, for no one is known 
 to have read a dictionary through except Lord 
 Chatham, who boasted that he had read Bailey's 
 Dictionary twice through. This is an idle vaunt 
 which none would wish to emulate, though 
 Boswell tells us, not without truth, that Johnson 
 " was so attentive in the choice of the passages in 
 which the words are authorised, that one may 
 read page after page of his Dictionary with 
 
 improvement and pleasure." The enterprise of a 
 VOL. i D
 
 34 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ii. dictionary is indeed a vast task, which Johnson 
 like a hero undertook single-handed, and accom- 
 plished in less than nine years. That no doubt 
 was what originally gave Johnson his fame. 
 Such a fame of itself would scarcely extend to 
 the fifth or sixth generation, for it is the melan- 
 choly fate of dictionaries to be superseded. But 
 the man who frames a dictionary, and a great 
 dictionary, in an age when such collections are 
 few and barren, at once attains a singular, though 
 not necessarily a lasting fame. That reputation 
 Johnson achieved, his work became proverbial, 
 and Johnson's Dictionary was the authority to 
 which all appealed. We all remember it as Miss 
 Pinkerton's prize book in the first chapter of 
 Vanity Fair, but we do not often handle it in 
 these days. 
 
 I come then to this conclusion, speaking 
 always for myself alone, that his literary fame 
 substantially survives in the two supreme poems, 
 the Lives of the Poets and the Dictionary, but that 
 if these stood alone, remarkable as they are, we 
 should not be assembled here to-day. I pass then 
 to the most solid base, Boswell, and the figure 
 which remains eternally resting on Boswell. 
 
 Boswell himself is an enduring problem. He 
 is universally acknowledged as the prince of all 
 biographers, chief in a department of literature 
 which is perhaps the most popular and appreciated 
 of all. And yet until last year, so far as I know, 
 there existed no memorial, no bust, no statue of 
 him anywhere, whereas second-rate poets, third- 
 rate statesmen, fourth-rate soldiers would have 
 their effigies in suitable places. This was not
 
 DR. JOHNSON 35 
 
 from want of recognition, but from the complexity n. 
 of his character. On one side of him he was the 
 most preposterous of human beings, of an eccen- 
 tricity which partook of insanity, but which was 
 always grotesque. In his youth he aimed only 
 at notoriety, and was content to exhibit himself 
 in any capacity so long as he could obtain 
 attention. In his intimate correspondence with 
 his bosom friend, Temple, he displays a childish 
 vanity, a volatile self-sufficiency, a total insensi- 
 bility to ridicule, which make the collection some 
 of the most amusing reading on record, till it ends 
 in piteousness and tragedy. And yet all this 
 time he must have had the root of the matter in 
 him. Such a biographer as he is, is born not 
 made. And so we realise him as a strange com- 
 pound of incredible vanity, fatuity, and absurdity, 
 in which, as precious and unexpected as radium, 
 is amalgamated enough of genius to leaven and 
 redeem the whole. 
 
 He had assuredly the root of the matter in him 
 from the first. He had primarily the instinct of 
 hero-worship, but that was not enough ; he had 
 to know how to turn it to the best advantage. 
 Here he had an instinct which did not fail him. 
 To be with his subject by day and by night, on 
 every possible occasion to absorb him as it were 
 essentially by the pores of the skin, so as, to use 
 his own strange expression, " to become strongly 
 impregnated with the Johnsonian aether," to 
 disdain no detail as trivial which added to the 
 completeness and perfection of the portrait, all 
 this Bos well understood as no other man has 
 understood. After giving an account of his
 
 36 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ii. hero's clucking like a hen, and blowing like a 
 whale, holding his hand on one side and rubbing 
 his left knee in the same direction, and so forth, 
 he says with admirable sense and discrimination : 
 " I am fully aware of how very obvious an 
 occasion I here give for the sneering jocularity 
 of such as have no relish for an exact likeness ; 
 which to render complete, he who draws it must 
 not disdain the slightest strokes." And again : 
 " I cannot allow any fragment whatever that 
 floats in my memory concerning the great subject 
 of this work to be lost. Though a small particular 
 may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by 
 others ; while every little spark adds something 
 to the general blaze ; and to please the true, 
 candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any 
 degree increase the splendour of his reputation, 
 I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule and even of 
 malignity." This is the true Boswellian spirit, 
 content to be a martyr so that he might increase 
 the completeness of his delineation in the slightest 
 degree. 
 
 And he immolated himself to his subject. 
 It was not only the bitterness of his critics that 
 he had to encounter. Their shafts of ridicule 
 were blunt compared to those which he had to 
 encounter from the hero himself. For the 
 recorder of Johnson had to be content to bear the 
 heaviest strokes that a random wit could suggest. 
 To portray Johnson in all his moods one had to 
 be out in all weathers, to be tossed and buffeted, 
 with rare consolations of benignant serenity. All 
 this and more Boswell was ready to face provided 
 he could secure what was wanted, the speaking
 
 DR. JOHNSON 37 
 
 likeness of his hero ; what he himself called " the n. 
 Flemish picture which I give of my friend." And 
 so we seem to see him like St. Sebastian in the 
 pictures, bound to Johnson's reputation, and 
 perforated with arrows from every quarter. His 
 sufferings, which he did not grudge, have pro- 
 cured to posterity a lasting pleasure, and we here 
 who all boast ourselves to be " true, candid, 
 warm admirers of Johnson " tranquilly enjoy the 
 society that he had enjoyed in full and delightful 
 measure. Honour and gratitude then to him. 
 I, speaking from experience, can say that in sick- 
 ness when all other books have failed, when 
 Dickens, Thackeray, Walter Scott, and other 
 magicians have been useless to distract, Boswell's 
 book is the only one which could engage and 
 detain the languid attention of an invalid. 
 
 By far the most striking feature of their con- 
 nection to me is how Johnson and Boswell became 
 connected at all. Let it be at once conceded 
 that Boswell was determined to make Johnson's 
 acquaintance, and that when Boswell was deter- 
 mined to make an acquaintance there was no 
 human possibility of preventing him ; there was 
 no personage or situation so inaccessible as not 
 to have to receive him if he desired it. That, 
 however, might only be a terminable acquaint- 
 ance. But here is an awkward, rather ridiculous 
 young Scotsman, with an accent of which the 
 best that Johnson could say was that it was not 
 offensive, belonging to a race which Johnson 
 hated with a hatred which was almost insane, a 
 youth at once impudent, pushing, and fawning, 
 in a word, all that was most repellent to Johnson,
 
 38 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ii. attempting to force the acquaintance of the most 
 formidable and the most dreaded of literary 
 tyrants. For two years Boswell had hoped and 
 languished. One year he had expectations from 
 Derrick, the next he had a prospect through the 
 elder Sheridan, both rudely marred. At last 
 Johnson appears suddenly to him as he sits 
 drinking tea in a bookseller's parlour. The 
 trembling Boswell is presented, and his nation- 
 ality is divulged. Johnson at once rends him. 
 " This stroke," says Boswell, " stunned me a 
 good deal." But he recovers, attempts another 
 remark, and receives another mortal snub. " I 
 now felt myself much mortified ... and in truth 
 had my ardour not been uncommonly strong, 
 and my resolution uncommonly persevering, so 
 rough a reception might have deterred me for 
 ever from making any further attempts." But 
 within eight days he is in Johnson's private room, 
 sketching, so to speak, on his thumbnail, the little 
 old shrivelled unpowdered wig striving in vain to 
 compass the mighty head, the breeches loose at 
 the knee and so leaving the stockings loose, and 
 other " slovenly particulars " ; the same costume, 
 by the by, in which, at a later period, with a 
 " noise like thunder," Johnson hurried down from 
 his lodgings into the street to escort Madame de 
 Boufflers to her carriage in Fleet Street, amid a 
 wondering and probably scoffing crowd. Before 
 Boswell leaves the great man he has invited 
 Johnson to supper and received an acceptance. 
 And within three months, as he had to pursue his 
 studies at Utrecht, Johnson volunteers to accom- 
 pany him to Harwich.
 
 DR. JOHNSON 39 
 
 In the meantime they have been supping n. 
 and drinking and conversing together. Boswell 
 determined to know as much of Johnson as 
 possible, and Johnson not unwilling to be 
 known. And so it culminates in this " raw, 
 uncouth young Scot " (he was only twenty-two) 
 dragging the great man from his moorings, 
 dragging him from London, the place he loved 
 best, and taking him on a frisk to Harwich. It 
 was Johnson, indeed, who volunteered. " I must 
 see thee out of England : I will accompany you 
 to Harwich." That he should use " thee " and 
 " you " in the same sentence shows how deeply 
 the lexicographer was moved. It was the day 
 of their famous jaunt to Greenwich, when they 
 " took a sculler at the Temple Stairs and set 
 out for Greenwich," then " landed at the Old 
 Swan and walked to Billingsgate," where they 
 " took oars and moved smoothly along the silver 
 Thames," a picture which almost consoles us 
 for the present dearth of river steamers. They 
 dined at Greenwich and walked in the Park, 
 which they thought " not equal to Fleet Street," 
 returned in a boat by night, Boswell shivering, 
 for which he was reproved by his illustrious 
 friend, and so returned to genial conviviality at 
 the " Turk's Head," concluding the day " very 
 socially." It was then in the warmth of his 
 heart that Johnson volunteered. The day of 
 their first meeting was May 16 ; in little more than 
 two months Johnson has expressly promised to 
 accompany Boswell to the Hebrides, declaring 
 that " there are few persons whom I take so 
 much to as to you " ; and on August 5 they were
 
 40 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. setting off in the Harwich stage-coach after a 
 fashion which reminds one irresistibly of Mr. 
 Pickwick setting off with Mr. Winkle. Surely 
 this may be called Love at second sight. 
 
 How can one explain this sudden heat of 
 affection, which was to last for the rest of their 
 lives ? 
 
 We can only conjecture. There was probably 
 something ingenuous about the young fellow 
 which appealed to Johnson ; his open adoration 
 was not displeasing, though it sometimes bored 
 him; he early discerned, I think, that Boswell 
 would be his biographer, though not for years 
 afterwards did Boswell openly talk in that char- 
 acter. Then Boswell probably appealed to his 
 sense of humour, and, above all, the young Scot 
 was an invaluable butt. His pertinacity and 
 tactlessness were sometimes intolerable ; but his 
 pertinacity was a compliment, and his tactlessness 
 would always be open to a rebuff which Johnson 
 did not object to administering. " Sir," he broke 
 out one day, " you have but two topics, yourself 
 and me. I am sick of both ! " But as a rule 
 Boswell's fussiness and grotesqueness did not, 
 to use the modern phrase, get on his nerves. His 
 system, though morbid in some particulars, was 
 in this robust. The family he collected round 
 him would have afflicted a more fastidious bene- 
 factor. Add to this that Johnson saw in Boswell 
 a young fellow devoted to himself, a Tory as 
 high-flown as himself, with accesses of melancholy 
 not unlike his own, addicted to various follies, 
 but with a real love of learning and an honest 
 though distracted ambition, whom he could guide
 
 DR. JOHNSON 41 
 
 and assist as a son. There was much of the n. 
 paternal in his relation to his biographer. 
 
 Lastly, and there is perhaps most in this 
 consideration, Johnson under his rough exterior 
 had a heart of manly tenderness. " No man 
 alive," said Goldsmith, who often suffered under 
 him, " has a more tender heart. He has nothing 
 of the bear but his skin." He realised BoswelPs 
 enthusiasm, and his heart went out to the lad. 
 Boswell loved him and so he came to love Boswell. 
 Much more might be said on this point, which is 
 full of interest to students of human nature ; 
 but it would occupy too much space in a short 
 address to dwell on it further. What one must 
 remember in this strange partnership is that the 
 canvas was first spread when the artist was 
 twenty- two and the subject fifty-four, and that 
 Johnson was sitting for his portrait for the rest 
 of his life, while Boswell waited pencil in hand 
 and " constantly watched every dawning of 
 communication from that great and illuminated 
 mind." 
 
 What then makes this book so extraordinary, 
 so unique, is this, that it is the photographic 
 delineation of a great man by a daily, hourly, 
 and minute observer, who disdained no pains or 
 detail to make his picture perfect, who was willing 
 himself to be a butt, not merely of his patron's 
 cruel pleasantries, but of the world at large, so 
 that he might produce a living speaking portrait. 
 There is nothing like it. The price of success in 
 such a work is more than most men care to pay. 
 For it cannot be denied that as with poverty in 
 Juvenal's famous lines it tends to make those
 
 42 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. who write it ridiculous ; the recorder has to be a 
 foil to the recorded. And so Boswellian imita- 
 tions are rare. The books which occur to me as 
 resembling it are all foreign, and, as Boswell's 
 book has never, I believe, been translated into 
 any language, though there is, I am told, an 
 abstract in Russian, they are not strictly imita- 
 tions. Eckermann's records of Goethe's con- 
 versations lack nature and simplicity ; we feel 
 that all is transacted in full dress. Another 
 recent journalist was content to endure hard 
 things so that he might collect the crumbs which 
 fell from a great man's table ; but the crumbs 
 had better have gone whither other crumbs go. 
 Gourgaud's Journal at St. Helena comes perhaps 
 nearest to Boswell's life as the faithful constant 
 portraiture of a great man by a resident observer. 
 But Gourgaud had not Boswell's qualities, and 
 there was not sufficient play of life at St. Helena 
 to lighten the record. 
 
 Such biographies must be rare, if only because 
 great men are rare, and Boswells still rarer. 
 And great men, even when you find them, are 
 not always various. The conversations of the 
 Duke of Wellington, which have been sedulously 
 recorded, certainly lack this quality. And so 
 if we delight in Boswell for the picturesqueness 
 and fidelity of his representation, we acknowledge 
 that that would be of little value without the 
 greatness and variety of the subject. We may 
 fairly suppose that had Boswell similarly attached 
 himself to Paoli, Oglethorpe, Rousseau, or any 
 other of his idols, he would have produced a 
 remarkable book (though Rousseau, we may be
 
 DR. JOHNSON 43 
 
 sure, would not long have tolerated his intrusive n. 
 familiarity), but a book wholly unequal to that 
 on which his fame securely reposes, for in Johnson 
 he had an exceptional model. He would not, 
 it is probable, have added to Rousseau's fame ; 
 he might have prolonged that of Paoli and Ogle- 
 thorpe ; but he has rendered Johnson immortal 
 by the qualities of Johnson himself manifested 
 through his own. 
 
 The book then remains and is likely to remain 
 unique because of the peculiar genius of the 
 biographer and the subject. Its rank in litera- 
 ture is unparalleled. It is annotated and com- 
 mentated on as if it were Holy Writ. Except 
 the Greek and Latin Classics and the Scriptures, 
 I know of no book which has been treated with 
 such reverence. Croker began with an edition 
 which Macaulay denounced, but which, whether 
 good or bad, illustrates the elaboration of treat- 
 ment which Boswell's book seems to elicit; and 
 without forgetting the delightful edition of Napier, 
 as well as countless others, we end with Dr. Birk- 
 beck Hill's prodigious and exhaustive collections, 
 a sort of Cornelius a Lapide on Boswell, in which 
 at least ten massive volumes are consecrated to 
 Johnson all interesting, all worth publishing, an 
 almost unprecedented homage of worship. 
 
 From first to last the book is all good, there 
 is not a dull page in it. There is, I think, one 
 unsurpassed episode which is worth recalling as 
 being the gem of the whole book : I mean the 
 story of Dr. Johnson's first meeting with Wilkes. 
 The narrative is told with admirable raciness. We 
 admire the consummate diplomacy of Boswell,
 
 44 MISCELLANIES 
 
 H. in face of the difficulty of securing Johnson to 
 meet a man he abhorred, luring his elephant to 
 capture with extraordinary skill ; then, when 
 they met, Wilkes's material attentions to John- 
 son : " Pray give me leave, Sir, a little of the 
 brown, some fat, Sir, a little of the stuffing- 
 some gravy, let me have the pleasure of giving 
 you some butter allow me to recommend a 
 squeeze of this orange," and so forth ; so that 
 Johnson, who looks at him at first with " surly 
 virtue," is reconciled through the palate to his 
 bugbear, and they talk together the whole evening 
 with brilliancy and even cordiality. As we read, 
 we realise the whole affair, the crafty crimp 
 Boswell, the wheedling demagogue, and the 
 reluctant moralist. 
 
 This is a specimen of the whole book ; the 
 best, I think, but there are many scarcely inferior. 
 And so we have for ever before us, living and 
 vigorous, one of the most interesting of our great 
 men, the greatest, I suppose, of our men of letters, 
 certainly our greatest known conversationalist, 
 with his manifold tricks of speech, his eccen- 
 tricities, his strange, uncouth ways. Of all the 
 men whom we have never seen, Johnson is the 
 man whom we know best, whom we can best 
 imagine, whom we can most easily fancy that we 
 have seen and heard. His appearance in this 
 hall at this moment would no doubt cause a 
 sensation, but in five minutes it would be the 
 sensation of a friend restored to us after a long 
 absence abroad. It is that feeling, common, I 
 think, to all of us, which is the supreme tribute 
 to Boswell's work. We can fancy him approach-
 
 DR. JOHNSON 45 
 
 ing now, rumbling and grumbling, " What is this n. 
 concourse of silly people, Sir ? ' " This is strange 
 nonsense, Sir." " To celebrate a man's birthday 
 without his consent is an impertinence, Sir." 
 " What is it to you, Sir, whether I am two hundred 
 years old or not ? Methuselah, of whom we know 
 practically nothing, was undoubtedly my senior, 
 and we do not commemorate him," Boswell at 
 his side obsequiously explaining and anticipating. 
 Dubious grunts follow, possibly an explosion, 
 but Lucy Porter, Molly Aston, Peter Garrick, 
 and the Sewards rally round him ; he beams 
 serenely and calls for tea. 
 
 And what manner of man was it whose portrait 
 has been presented with so much unction and 
 fidelity, whose reputation has been thus almost 
 consecrated ? 
 
 Well, in the first place he was emphatically a 
 big man, a man who loomed large in his times, 
 whose supremacy was acknowledged by the 
 greatest of his contemporaries, who paid him an 
 unquestioning homage. Gibbon, whose printed 
 work is so much more remarkable and permanent, 
 who was himself a conversational dictator, re- 
 mained silent before him, and for that reason 
 loved him not. The mighty mind of Burke met 
 his with reverence. He enchained the brilliant 
 intellect of Windham. The delightful genius 
 of Goldsmith worshipped also, though it some- 
 times chafed. Garrick and Reynolds, in their 
 own arts supreme, acknowledged his supremacy. 
 There is, perhaps, no trustworthy record of so 
 much respect paid by so many remarkable men 
 to one whom they regarded as more remarkable
 
 46 MISCELLANIES 
 
 H. than themselves. Neither of the Pitts nor Mans- 
 field seem to have known him, and they stand out 
 as exceptions from the curious crowd of intellect 
 which came to him. Mansfield's abstinence is 
 strange and unaccountable, except on the hypo- 
 thesis that he resented or feared Johnson's dislike 
 to Scotsmen, and no doubt Johnson ignorantly 
 disliked him. Otherwise few abstained from the 
 pious pilgrimage, though some did not care to 
 take it more than once. It was the same sort 
 of testimony that was rendered to Bolingbroke, 
 whose character we may not admire and whose 
 works we may not taste, but whose quality we 
 recognise in receiving tribute of admiration from 
 such men as Pope and Swift. 
 
 Secondly, we see in him the truest love of his 
 own kind, of humanity at large. If the proper 
 study of mankind be man, Johnson was a supreme 
 student, for it was the dominating interest of his 
 life. He had known and mixed with all classes 
 from the highest to the lowest all sorts and 
 conditions of men and women, from George III. 
 to Bet Flint. His strangest acquaintance was, 
 perhaps, Santerre, who was destined to drown 
 with his drums the dying words of Louis XVI. 
 Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in his con- 
 versation than the way in which people keep 
 rising up, as it were, whom no one suspected him 
 to have known. In the period of his fame he 
 was brought into contact with almost everybody 
 worth knowing, for every one wanted to know 
 him, and he was readily accessible. But he 
 would readily recur to the years of famine when 
 he prowled about London with Savage, and could
 
 DR. JOHNSON 47 
 
 sign his letters " impransus." And when he said n. 
 that literary biography was his favourite study, 
 it was in reality because it was a congenial branch 
 of the great study of mankind. It presented 
 itself, however, in its least agreeable form at his 
 own hearth. Moved by benevolence, by his 
 intense and compassionate love of his fellow 
 creatures, he had collected around him a family 
 of indigent persons, whose only recommendation 
 was their want, who were querulous to him and 
 quarrelsome with each other ; Levett, a per- 
 ambulating apothecary, " obscurely wise and 
 coarsely kind," whose death he commemorated 
 in lines of true pathos, but whom he described 
 in prose as " a brutal fellow, but his brutality is 
 in his manners, not in his mind " ; then there 
 were those whom Johnson playfully called his 
 seraglio, Mrs. Desmoulins, whom Levett hated 
 with an unbounded hatred ; Mrs. Williams, a 
 blind and peevish versifier ; and Poll Carmichael, 
 whom Johnson described as " a dull slut." 
 " Williams," he once wrote, " hates everybody ; 
 Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love 
 Williams ; Desmoulins hates them both ; Poll 
 loves none of them." This was the domestic 
 circle of that great intellect. Surely we may say 
 that his heart was even greater, and that this is 
 the part of Johnson's life most beautiful to us. 
 " If I did not assist them," he said, " no one else 
 would." 
 
 But his charity and generosity were un- 
 bounded. It has been truly said by one who 
 knew him well " that the lame, the blind, and the 
 sorrowful found in his house a sure retreat."
 
 48 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. Once he found a poor woman lying exhausted in 
 the street one of the city waifs ; he took her 
 on his back, carried her to his house, and had her 
 tenderly taken care of till she was restored to 
 health, and put in a better way of life. But this 
 ready and Christian charity was accompanied by 
 a common sense not less prompt. Of that there 
 is no more comical instance than his method with 
 Goldsmith in difficulties. The unfortunate poet 
 sent word to Johnson that he was in great dis- 
 tress. Johnson at once sent a guinea, promising 
 to follow it as soon as he was dressed. He went, 
 and found the guinea had been changed, and that 
 Goldsmith was sitting before a bottle of Madeira. 
 Now comes the immortal touch. " I put the 
 cork into the bottle and desired that he would be 
 calm." The benefactor then walked off with 
 The Vicar of Wakefield in his pocket, and sold it 
 for sixty pounds. 
 
 He knew men well, with the exception, perhaps, 
 of himself, for he was neither a " good-humoured 
 fellow " nor a polite fellow, as he proclaimed 
 himself to be : his temper was extremely ex- 
 plosive, and no one could be so rude. But this 
 contact with his fellows made him love the 
 practical side of life. He " loved business, loved 
 to have his wisdom actually operate on real life." 
 He liked to advise Boswell on domestic economy 
 and the management of his estate, to dictate 
 opinions on legal points, to act as a general 
 referee. He delighted in bustling about the 
 brewery as Thrale's executor, with an inkhorn 
 and pen in his buttonhole. Indeed he did not 
 altogether escape the fatal fascination which
 
 DR. JOHNSON 49 
 
 Parliament exercises over literary men of high n. 
 ability. Strahan wrote a letter, to be shown to 
 Lord North, pointing out the value of the support 
 which Johnson could give as a member of the 
 House of Commons ; a letter written probably 
 with the privity of Johnson. And Johnson 
 himself would sometimes regret that he had not 
 made an attempt for fame in Parliament : a 
 regret which has, perhaps, crossed the minds of 
 most able men, but which is at least compre- 
 hensible in one who claimed to have composed 
 many of the speeches attributed to our great 
 orators. But this was, perhaps, less a matter 
 of ambition than an aspect of his humanity ; he 
 wished to have a taste of everything that was 
 savoury in life. 
 
 This essentially human nature of Johnson, 
 combined with his insular existence, for his trip to 
 Paris scarcely counts, and his expedition to the 
 Hebrides strictly speaking was insular too, is 
 one great secret of his popularity. He was John 
 Bull himself. He exalted the character, of which 
 he may be regarded as its sublime type, but he 
 embodied the spirit. His Toryism was part of 
 his John Bullism ; his love of London was rather 
 that of the John Bull than the cockney ; his 
 hatred of Scotland was that of the John Bull of 
 his youth. When Foote threatened to caricature 
 him, he furnished himself at once with an oaken 
 cudgel. He asked the price of one, and, being 
 told sixpence, demanded a shilling one. " I'll 
 have a double quantity." Could anything be 
 more John Bullish than this ? Physically and 
 combatively he embodied the character, not of 
 VOL. i E
 
 50 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. the ordinary agricultural but of the literary John 
 Bull. 
 
 I must not, however, linger on this fancy. 
 For we have to consider him in his most famous 
 character as a conversationalist, and to treat 
 this adequately would require an essay of itself. 
 Talk with him was not a luxury or an amuse- 
 ment, it was an article of prime necessity. He 
 dreaded solitary or vacant moments, for he had 
 then to cope with the terrors of constitutional 
 melancholy, and as nothing but want of money 
 could make him overcome his native indolence 
 sufficiently to compel him to write, he was thrown 
 back on conversation both as a prophylactic and 
 as the intellectual exercise necessary for his mental 
 health. 
 
 What is the impression that we derive from the 
 vivid and careful reports of his talk ? Well, the 
 first salient fact is that he sate at the receipt of 
 custom, at the counter of his intellectual bank, 
 ready to honour all drafts. He did not appar- 
 ently start his own topics, Boswell or some crony 
 had to lure him on. Then he would turn on the 
 powerful mechanism of his mind, twist the subject 
 about, defend, if possible, some glaring paradox, 
 and, warming to his work, might not impossibly 
 gore his opponent. He was " a tremendous 
 companion," as was happily said by one of the 
 Garricks. Then one is struck with his choice of 
 diction. He never seems to pause for a word ; 
 they come to him spontaneously ; but he is 
 never satisfied with the second best, it must 
 , always be that which exactly represents his 
 conception. It was not always graceful, it was
 
 DR. JOHNSON 51 
 
 often pompous or Latinified, but it was always n. 
 exact and expressive. He, again like Boling- 
 broke, had perfected his conversational style by 
 a long-standing determination to express himself 
 as well as possible on every occasion, whether 
 trivial or not, and so he had acquired without 
 effort a singular vigour of phrase. 
 
 Another signal feature of his conversation is 
 this, that his little discourses spring forth unpre- 
 meditated but full-fledged ; he gives the number 
 of his reasons before he utters them, as if what 
 he were going to say was already complete in 
 his mind, though the subject has only just been 
 put before him. And this extraordinary quality 
 goes far beyond conversation. He is ready at 
 any moment, so far as one can judge, to dictate 
 a paper admirable in argument, knowledge, and 
 form on any topic that may be raised. Bos well 
 brings him Scottish law cases, the great man bids 
 him take the pen, pulls out as it were the necessary 
 organ stop in his mind, and produces a remarkable 
 essay. Take, for example, that which he dictated 
 on the liberty of censure from the pulpit, an 
 apparently mature production put forth on the 
 spur of the moment, which earned the admiration 
 of Burke. 
 
 What a journalist he would have made ! 
 not merely from his readiness of ripe composition, 
 but from the range of his mind and reading, as 
 well as the ready and inexhaustible stores of his 
 memory. One example must suffice to-day. At 
 a dinner at Sir Joshua's, after Johnson has dis- 
 coursed on the alleged fact that the brook which 
 Horace describes in his voyage to Brindisi is still
 
 52 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n flowing, Mr. Cambridge quotes from a Spanish 
 writer as to things fugitive surviving things 
 seemingly permanent. Johnson at once caps 
 this with a quotation from Janus Vitalis, a name 
 which would remain unknown to most of us, 
 did not the invaluable Birkbeck Hill tell us that 
 he was a poet and theologian of Palermo who 
 lived in the sixteenth century. No instance, 
 though scores could be given, so well illustrates 
 his readiness, his range of reading, and his 
 memory. Adam Smith, a high authority, said 
 that Johnson knew more books than any man 
 alive. Dr. Boswell called him " a robust genius 
 born to grapple with whole libraries." He seems 
 indeed to have grappled with them. In his own 
 strange way he tore the heart out of a book 
 without reading it through, but carried away in 
 his memory all that was abiding or material. 
 But though his learning was always at command, 
 it never seems obtrusive : his manliness saved 
 him from pedantry. 
 
 Again, and as part of his John Bullism, note 
 his robust common sense. He abounded in 
 common sense, and also in some that was un- 
 common. But his common sense never failed 
 him. He would break in upon a discussion or 
 sum it up with a sentence sometimes brutal, 
 sometimes coarse, but always tersely expressing 
 the core and common sense of the matter. This 
 quality made him intolerant of anything like 
 sentimentalism or affectation. One of his special 
 irritants was the idea that people composed 
 better at some times and seasons than others, in 
 spite of the case of Milton, whose genius, we are
 
 DR. JOHNSON 53 
 
 told, flowed most happily " from the autumnal n. 
 equinox to the vernal." For this he falls foul 
 of Gray, not reluctantly, and of any one else who 
 cherished this " fantastic foppery." He himself 
 sate down, full or fasting, doggedly to work at 
 one time as well as another, though we have to 
 record that a whole year would sometimes pass 
 without his producing anything at all. In the 
 same spirit he would not admit that any one 
 could be affected by the weather. That again 
 was all stuff and fancy. This robustness carried 
 him far. Though he became a water-drinker him- 
 self, he uttered many sentiments which teetotalers 
 could not quote. Even in questions of morality 
 he would often fail to satisfy the austere, or even 
 some who are not. He could even on occasion 
 slang a bargee in appropriate language. 
 
 Johnson is always called our great moralist, 
 and, indeed, in his writings he earns the title. 
 But when in a mocking mood, or from his love of 
 paradox, or his honest scorn of cant, he often 
 broaches opinions to which he certainly would 
 not have given his deliberate authority. His 
 epigrams should not be quoted as opinions or as 
 anything but epigrams. He knew, indeed, that 
 Boswell was preserving them for publication. 
 But he probably gave posterity credit for dis- 
 criminating between deliberate judgement and the 
 caprice of easy conversation. In truth, his love 
 of paradox and his delight in the exercise of his 
 dialectic skill would make him sustain or con- 
 trovert almost any imaginable proposition. This 
 sometimes puzzled the less nimble-witted Boswell, 
 who, however, got to understand him at last,
 
 54 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. and would lure him or gently goad him. But 
 there were moments when he would not be guided 
 or restrained, when the noble animal broke 
 through all nets and precautions. Woe, then, 
 to his opponent, for he could be truculent and 
 even brutal, and conversation with him was a 
 battlefield. " He fought on every occasion," 
 said Reynolds, " as if his whole reputation 
 depended on the victory of the minute, and he 
 fought with all the weapons. If he was foiled 
 in argument he had recourse to abuse and rude- 
 ness." In such a frenzy he could even insult 
 Sir Joshua, the sweetest and most amiable 
 member of his society. As Goldsmith said, who 
 himself had suffered, quoting from a comedy of 
 Gibber's : "If his pistol does not go off, he knocks 
 you down with the butt end." 
 
 But that is the way with all, or almost all, who 
 claim predominance in conversation, and no one, 
 when the fit was over, could be more anxious to 
 appease the animosities that he had caused. With 
 old Mr. Sheridan, whom he had hurt by a sarcasm, 
 he sought reconciliation, but in vain. " Great lords 
 and ladies, too," he said once, " I think, give me 
 up ... they don't like to have their mouths 
 stopped." Others, no doubt, shared the feelings 
 of this sublime class, and after one trial remained 
 away. Some categories of persons he did not 
 seek to conciliate. He hated Whigs with a 
 devout hatred : " the first Whig," he always said, 
 " was the devil." He hated Scotsmen scarcely 
 less, though his hatred came at last to be 
 mainly an opportunity for jests, which now afford 
 only amusement to the most sensitive patriot.
 
 DR. JOHNSON 55 
 
 Freethinkers he detested most of all, though he n. 
 could not resist Wilkes. And in his conversation 
 there was this element of harmless and agreeable 
 gambling. One never knew what side he would 
 take ; one never could guess his line of argument, 
 for that was never commonplace ; one never 
 knew whether he would be warm or cold, irascible 
 or serene. There was only this certainty, that 
 he would be human, manly, and profoundly 
 interesting. 
 
 His natural melancholy made him dread soli- 
 tude ; and he preferred his " seraglio " to a lonely 
 home. But as visitors were not certain, he sought 
 mankind where he could find it, haunted taverns 
 and founded clubs. His own illustrious Club, of 
 which I have the misfortune to be the father, 
 was founded in 1764 at the instance of Reynolds, 
 and still survives in pristine vigour ; successful 
 candidates are still apprised of their election in 
 the formula composed by Gibbon. We celebrated 
 our founder's bicentenary this year, as he would 
 have wished, by a full dinner. That club he 
 sedulously cherished so long as it was composed 
 of a small knot of his most sympathetic friends ; 
 there he long reigned supreme. But its fame 
 drew many candidates of a kind impossible to 
 exclude, but not all congenial. In 1777 it was 
 proposed to increase the number of its members 
 from twenty to thirty, which he approved. 
 " For as we have several hi it," he wrote, " with 
 whom I do not much like to consort with, I am 
 for reducing it to a mere miscellaneous collection 
 of conspicuous men without any determinate 
 character." Thenceforward he attended it but
 
 56 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ii. little ; but he dined there on June 22, in the 
 last year of his life. But such was his passion 
 for this form of society that but a twelvemonth 
 before his death he not merely resuscitated a 
 small club of his early days which had met in 
 Ivy Lane ; but, though moribund, and knowing 
 himself to be on the verge of the grave, he founded 
 a new club at the " Essex Head," which he 
 ardently promoted. Reynolds objected to some 
 of the company and refused to belong, but 
 Johnson was less nice. To him, society of some 
 kind was a necessity of life, a refuge from the 
 dark terrors of solitude ; he had known and 
 enjoyed it in all forms ; and so his new club with 
 its dubious element continued, and was prolonged 
 for some years after Johnson's death. 
 
 What more remains ? The highest of all, the 
 great Christian soul, the ardent champion and 
 firm bulwark of the faith. It was not always so. 
 For some years, Johnson tells us, he was wholly 
 regardless of religion, indeed a " lax talker " 
 against it. That was in youthful days. But 
 when after meeting Boswell he comes under our 
 close view, all that is changed. This is not to 
 say that he was free from the anguish of doubt, 
 for that is not the impression he gives. But first 
 and last with him stands his religious faith. He 
 was a High Churchman of the old school, some- 
 times intolerant of Nonconformists, but on the 
 whole of a broad embracing scope. " All Richard 
 Baxter's books are good, read them all," he would 
 say. On other occasions he would speak warmly 
 of the Church of Rome, sometimes defending it 
 so warmly, when it was attacked, that one of
 
 DR. JOHNSON 57 
 
 his friends died under the belief that he was of n. 
 that communion. Finally, he would declare that 
 " all denominations of Christians have really little 
 difference in point of doctrine, though they may 
 differ widely in external form." He was, it may 
 be seen, however strict and earnest an Anglican 
 himself, large and generous in his comprehension. 
 
 None the less did his extreme conscientiousness 
 inspire him with an abnormal fear of death, much 
 more than men of infinitely less virtue. " Death, 
 my dear, is very dreadful," he wrote to his step- 
 daughter ten months before his end. But when 
 he thought that it was near, he displayed a high 
 composure, and he wrote the most striking of 
 his letters : " Dear Sir, It has pleased God this 
 morning to deprive me of the power of speech ; 
 and as I do not know but that it may be His 
 farther good pleasure to deprive me soon of my 
 senses, I request you will on receipt of this note 
 come to me and act for me as the exigencies of 
 my case may require." And when the shadow 
 was finally on him, he was able to recognise that 
 what was coming was divine, an angel, though 
 formidable and obscure ; and so he passed with 
 serene composure beyond mankind. 
 
 Men like this are the stay of religion in their 
 time, and for those who come after. Laymen 
 who hold high and pure the standard of their 
 faith do more for Christianity, it may safely be 
 averred, than a multitude of priests. To say 
 this is not to disparage the clergy ; rather the 
 reverse, for it implies that their course is regular 
 and habitual. But their championship is felt 
 to be the natural result of their profession and
 
 58 MISCELLANIES 
 
 n. their vows, while the conspicuous layman, who is 
 also a conspicuous Christian, has all the honours 
 of a volunteer. No one, I think, can doubt that 
 Samuel Johnson and William Ewart Gladstone 
 were priceless champions of their faith, and that 
 their places will not easily be filled. 
 
 And now we have lingered long enough, 
 perhaps too long, round this absorbing figure, 
 and must perforce leave him. There is a human 
 majesty about him which commands our rever- 
 ence, for we recognise in him a great intellect, 
 a large heart, a noble soul. He lived under 
 grievous torments, in dread of doubt, in dread of 
 madness, in terror of death, yet he never flinched ; 
 he stood four square to his own generation as he 
 stands to posterity. We leave him more re- 
 luctantly than any of the dead, for he is the only 
 one with whom we can hold converse ; and so it 
 is with the conviction that it will not be for long, 
 as life is insipid without him. Therefore we do 
 not say good-bye. Rather let us think that 
 we have only paid one more pilgrimage to his 
 shrine ; for though his dust rests with a whole 
 Sahara of various kinds in Westminster Abbey, 
 his memory, which lives throughout the Anglo- 
 Saxon world, is especially green in Fleet Street 
 and in Lichfield. We salute once more with 
 reverence to-day the memory of that brave, 
 manly, tender soul, and pass on with the hope 
 that from his abundant store we may draw some 
 measure of faith and courage to sustain our own 
 lives.
 
 Ill 
 
 THACKERAY 1 
 
 IT is not easy from the din and current of a in. 
 Coronation to bring ourselves back to the cool 
 and quiet of a library, and contemplate the figure 
 and works of a man of letters, even if he be a 
 man of genius. Yet that is our business to-day, 
 to bring back our mind to such a personage, and 
 to wander about a little museum of relics that 
 may refresh our memories. 
 
 Celebrations of this kind have become to some 
 extent vulgarised, and they should almost be 
 divided into classes, first, second, third, or the 
 like. For we live in the age of centenaries. As 
 there are only three hundred and sixty-five days 
 in the longest year, and as there are many 
 thousands of excellent and respectable people 
 who deserve commemoration by somebody or 
 other, there is no reason why we should not 
 celebrate such festivals daily or oftener. But as 
 it is, we pick our path through a tropical tangle 
 of centenaries, only pausing by those which detain 
 us whether we will or no. 
 
 Two of these overlap this year, the anniversaries 
 
 1 A Speech delivered at the opening of the Exhibition of Thackeray 
 Relics at the Charterhouse on June 30, 1911. 
 
 59
 
 60 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. of the two great humourists who were among 
 the chief glories of the reign of Victoria, who 
 lived into the times of middle-aged men, and 
 who have been the delight of three generations : 
 I mean Dickens and Thackeray. They are 
 already ranked among the immortals, so that 
 this first century is only an instalment of 
 their lives. They are numbered with the gods, 
 though it is probable that in the course of 
 time their humour may evaporate or lose its 
 savour, and our descendants will examine it 
 with critical curiosity to know what it was that 
 so delighted their ancestors, much as we read 
 Scarron or Rabelais. But their names will survive 
 as representing two mighty influences in the 
 civilised world. 
 
 Thackeray is the giant whom we discuss to-day, 
 not without some disadvantage. He left strict 
 injunctions that no authoritative memoir of 
 him should be produced. These it was impossible 
 to obey. He left a daughter and a son-in-law 
 of rare literary endowment, and their filial 
 enthusiasm has to some extent skirted the veto, 
 and has revealed much of Thackeray's inner life. 
 Moreover, there have been two notable bio- 
 graphies by strangers. Thackeray himself no 
 doubt wished that the temple of his home, in 
 which he found his chief happiness, should have 
 a curtain to protect its sanctity. But the 
 tenderness of his children has lifted it with 
 delicate discretion, and perhaps all is known 
 now that need be known. Absolute silence and 
 darkness were impossible, for a genius in these 
 days cannot play the part of an ostrich. Nor
 
 THACKERAY 61 
 
 could he foresee the comprehensive net of the in. 
 Dictionary of National Biography, whose narrow 
 mesh much lesser men may not escape. 
 
 But after all, in the life of a man of letters, 
 his work is the one notable thing, and there is 
 rarely much else to record. This is eminently 
 true of Thackeray. He was born in India, a 
 circumstance which had some influence on one of 
 his books, and on his way home saw the distant 
 form of Napoleon. Then, though with a name 
 eminently Etonian, he went to Charterhouse, 
 gathering impressions valuable, but not always 
 pleasant, and a permanent one of a fist which 
 broke his nose ; passed fitfully through Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, led a Bohemian life in Paris 
 and in Germany, where he saw Goethe in the 
 flesh, and ended that phase of his life by losing 
 his patrimony at the gambling table, or in the 
 not less precarious hazard of a newspaper. This 
 deplorable incident, which he may well have 
 viewed with despair, was perhaps his salvation, 
 as we have always entertained a suspicion that 
 an opulent Thackeray would have produced no 
 Vanity Fair. For he was naturally indolent, almost 
 as indolent as Thomson, and sensitive, almost as 
 sensitive as Keats two great hindrances to 
 successful production. Finally he settled down 
 and married happily, a brief happiness ; and 
 became a father a lifelong joy. For his wife 
 and children he had to work ; at the age of 
 thirty-five he produces his masterpiece, claims 
 his seat on Olympus. Henceforth all is honour 
 and success. He strays for a moment into 
 politics, lured by the strange fascination which
 
 62 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. has beguiled so many men of literary fame and 
 power. But that is his only aberration. He 
 enjoys some sixteen years of celebrity, and dies 
 prematurely at the age of fifty-two. 
 
 To judge by the immense number of portraits 
 which appear to exist of him, he must have 
 impressed his contemporaries to a singular degree. 
 His was indeed a commanding figure, for he was 
 physically as well as intellectually a giant, and 
 artists have been emulous to portray that tower- 
 ing form, surmounted by the leonine head and 
 illuminated by the inseparable spectacles, which 
 seemed to peer into the very core of the human 
 heart. As to his personality, one would surmise 
 that he was rather beloved than popular, enthusi- 
 astically beloved by his children and his friends, 
 a little alarming to acquaintances. 
 
 The monument of such a man is his work, 
 and for those who have been soaked in it since 
 childhood, it is difficult to appreciate, and still 
 more difficult to criticise. For me to-day it is 
 out of the question. I have promised to make 
 a short speech, but that is impossible, for one 
 cannot sufficiently condense. A long speech is 
 equally impossible, for if one began to dilate, 
 one would never end. We must stumble along 
 as best we may. 
 
 Among his books there is one that towers 
 above the rest, and that we must discuss for a 
 moment, however severe our limit of time. For 
 Vanity Fair appears to many of us the most full 
 and various novel in the English language. Not 
 the most perfect, that epithet belongs to Tom 
 Jones; not faultless, for the titular hero and
 
 THACKERAY 63 
 
 heroine are flavourless and insipid ; but the in. 
 richest, the most interesting, the most piquant. 
 
 These judgements are of course mere individual 
 impressions, and carry no weight. A real critic 
 picks the plums with a knife and eats them on 
 the blade. He has rules and a science of his 
 own. He knows the whole business, and perhaps 
 thinks that he could do it better. But the 
 ordinary reader has no such pretension. He 
 comes at last, if not at first, to be guided by the 
 simple fact that he likes what he likes, and 
 dislikes what he dislikes. He does not always 
 know why ; he is only conscious of pleasure or 
 the reverse. He knows that he takes one book 
 down a second time or a third, and leaves another 
 to the dust. 
 
 And so on that humble but natural footing 
 I disclaim all pretension to discriminate except 
 by an individual palate. To me it seems that 
 Thackeray wrote one great, one immense book, 
 a book which could not be repeated. His previous 
 attempts imperceptibly led up to it, his later 
 books illustrated it. He could live by it had he 
 written nothing else, just as Mrs. Gaskell could 
 have lived by Cranford, or Dickens by Pickwick. 
 Admirable as is his other work, he could throw 
 it all overboard and face posterity with Vanity 
 Fair. 
 
 When a genius writes for his livelihood there 
 must be inequality of product. It is the genius 
 that writes for pleasure, as the inspiration comes, 
 as the humour strikes, like the divine Miss 
 Austen, or Gray the poet, who maintains a serene 
 level approaching perfection. Even the gigantic
 
 64 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. Sir Walter, labouring with a hundred pen power 
 to rear a castle or remove mountains of debt by 
 faith, faith in his good right arm, has to produce 
 volumes, as it were, from hand to mouth, not 
 always with success. 
 
 When a man, however, produces a book like 
 Vanity Fair, he accomplishes much more than 
 the mere presentation of a supreme work. He 
 gives the world a new standpoint, a new method, 
 new perceptions, a new style. All that he may 
 write afterwards is only the development of this 
 first revelation. He sets his mark on his age by 
 his masterpiece ; what he may do afterwards is 
 only to stamp and rub it in. 
 
 Vanity Fair, as I have said, is not free 
 from defects. The attraction in it is all to 
 vice, virtue sits gloomily in a garb of whitey- 
 brown. Lord Steyne, Sir Pitt Crawley, the 
 coarse tyrant Osborne, the preposterous poltroon 
 Jos Sedley, the incomparable Becky herself, 
 these are the characters which loom large in the 
 book, and obscure the limp Amelia and the 
 shadowy Dobbin. Lady Jane, indeed, on the 
 virtuous side, seems preferable to either the 
 vapid hero (though a hero is disclaimed in the 
 title) or the impalpable heroine. It is almost 
 pathetic to note the total failure of Amelia, and 
 the elaborate pains that Thackeray takes with 
 her. He sweats blood to make her interesting 
 and attractive, but in vain. And when he at 
 last confesses, as he seems to do in one of the 
 last sentences of the book, that Dobbin himself 
 was bored with her, he throws up the sponge. 
 It is quite easy to imagine that Dobbin was bored
 
 THACKERAY 65 
 
 with Amelia or Amelia with Dobbin, but that in. 
 is not the stuff of which heroes and heroines are 
 made. The fact is that it is the very earnestness 
 of elaboration that destroys Amelia. Thackeray 
 found that he could not strike the right note at 
 once, so spends pages in vainly trying to catch 
 it. Genius often fails with great pains to do 
 what it succeeds in sketching to admiration in 
 an instant with a piece of charcoal. A portrait 
 at the first sitting always seems a better likeness 
 than afterwards. The author himself hoped, 
 as he wrote to his mother, that Amelia would be 
 redeemed by Love. But she is not ; she was 
 beyond redemption ; she remains feeble, plaintive, 
 mawkish to the last. And yet Thackeray with 
 a few strokes has drawn one woman in this book 
 who is virtuous, attractive, delightful Lady 
 Jane Sheepshanks, who married the younger 
 Sir Pitt. 
 
 Dobbin is little better than Amelia. He is 
 always thin and crushed and insipid, except 
 when he quarrels with Amelia and brings her 
 to heel. And then, though different, he is worse, 
 for he speaks unlike himself, and like the hero 
 of a transpontine drama. " You couldn't reach 
 up," he says, " to the height of the attachment I 
 bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours 
 might have been proud to share." No Dobbin 
 ever spoke like this, certainly not this one. No, 
 let us leave this tiresome pair, admirable foils 
 for the brilliant knaves and vivid fools who 
 surround them. 
 
 Why dwell on these blemishes ? Because 
 their very heinousness proves the greatness of 
 
 VOL. I
 
 66 MISCELLANIES 
 
 m. the book. No other book could have borne lightly 
 and gallantly such a dead weight. The Vicar of 
 Wakefield is a classic in spite of a preposterous 
 story. That fact makes the success more conspicu- 
 ous. Clarissa is reputed a classic in spite of its 
 ponderous and endless volumes. Sense and Sensi- 
 bility holds its ground, though on a lower plane 
 than its sister stories, in spite of the extreme 
 inanity of its hero. The blemishes of Vanity 
 Fair exalt the book ; for what must be the merits 
 of a work which absolutely eclipse such defects ? 
 
 And when we turn to the other side, how 
 are we to end in recording its merits ? The 
 admirable figures, the various play of feature in 
 every page, the dramatic power, the sublime 
 scorn which governs and inspires the book, all 
 are admirable. How true and stirring are the 
 chapters in Brussels, the city which Vanity Fair 
 and Villette have combined to illustrate. How 
 dramatically they close : ' The darkness came 
 down on the field and city, and Amelia was 
 praying for George, who was lying on his face, 
 dead with a bullet through his heart." How 
 dramatic, again, is the scene with Lord Steyne, 
 where Rawdon knocks him down, and Becky 
 in her shame and terror " admires her husband, 
 strong, brave, and victorious." 
 
 It was once my fortune, forty-five years ago, 
 to hear Mr. Disraeli talk about the various re- 
 presentations of Lord Hertford in fiction. He 
 enumerated Lord Steyne in Vanity Fair, Lord 
 Guloseton in Pelham, and his own Lord Monmouth 
 in Coningsby. He obviously, as was natural, 
 preferred the last. Lord Hertford's character,
 
 THACKERAY 67 
 
 he said, was more subtle and refined than Lord in. 
 Steyne's ; Lord Monmouth was the better portrait. 
 We who did not know Lord Hertford are not 
 called upon to judge. Both delineations are 
 excellent in their different ways, but their ways 
 are so different that both cannot be likenesses. 
 We may well enjoy and admire, without dis- 
 criminating as to a resemblance on which we can 
 pronounce no decision. Probably neither Disraeli 
 nor Thackeray ever saw Lord Hertford, which 
 makes the difference which we find in the delinea- 
 tions less difficult to understand. 
 
 But if Thackeray in Vanity Fair accentuates 
 the criminal and the vile, and puts virtue at a 
 discount, how nobly he atones in The Newcomes. 
 Here you have tragedy sublime, the good man 
 struggling with adversity, overwhelmed by the 
 black clouds of life and emerging triumphant, 
 borne to the heavens in an unspeakable glamour 
 of pathos. He dictated most of this book, but 
 when he came to the death of the Colonel he had 
 to take the pen himself. The Colonel had to 
 die in the livery of poverty, in adversity and 
 desolation, and Thackeray could not trust his 
 voice to tell the story. 
 
 The story, indeed, told itself, he could not 
 control it. He wrote, he tells us, by a sort of 
 instinct : the figures moved beyond his control. 
 " The characters once created lead me, and I 
 follow where they direct," he said. " I have 
 no idea where it all comes from. I have never 
 seen the persons I describe, nor heard the con- 
 versations I put down. I am often astonished 
 myself to read it after I have got it on paper."
 
 68 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. He would receive appeals, such as I suppose 
 all great novelists receive, to give a pleasant 
 turn to his story or happiness to some favourite 
 character. But he could not yield, for he could 
 not guide. People wished Clive Newcome to 
 marry Ethel, and Thackeray conceded a shadowy 
 hope. But one sees that this was not his real 
 conviction, and that as the figures moved in his 
 mind the real fifth act was something different. 
 That is by the way, only an illustration of the 
 writer's methods. The great fact is that just 
 as he had depicted in Vanity Fair vice clever, 
 brilliant, and on the whole sympathetic, so in 
 The Newcomes he displayed an heroic, simple, 
 almost apostolic character of chivalrous honour 
 which attracts the affection of every reader and 
 remains supreme through all the pains and tribu- 
 lations of life. In the great country dance of 
 fiction, when the characters cross hands in the 
 Elysian Fields, let us hope that Colonel Newcome 
 will have Becky Sharp as a partner to represent 
 Thackeray's most consummate creations. 
 
 Even under stress of time I must say a word 
 of Esmond. For Esmond is a great effort, a 
 wonderful revival, a triumphant masquerade. 
 So marvellous is the skill of the master in repro- 
 ducing the words, the thoughts, and the manners 
 of a past age that some have placed this remark- 
 able book as high as Vanity Fair. I must frankly 
 own myself a dissentient. The plot to me is 
 simply repulsive. The transformation of Lady 
 Castlewood from a mother to a wife is unnatural 
 and distasteful to the highest degree. Thackeray 
 himself declared that he could not help it. This,
 
 THACKERAY 69 
 
 I think, only means that he saw no other than in. 
 this desperate means of extricating the story. 
 I cannot help it, too. One likes what one likes, 
 and one dislikes what one dislikes, and so I must 
 face the just indignation of Thackeray idolaters 
 by declaring that, much as I admire this master- 
 piece in one respect, it is to me a story with a 
 painful blot. I must reluctantly pass Pendennis, 
 a delightful story, in which the most striking 
 characters are a fogey major and his volcanic 
 valet, but marred again, I think, by an un- 
 sympathetic heroine. That, however, does not 
 affect the charm. The book is full of light and 
 full of character. I must pass by The Virginians, 
 a bright story on a new scene, not sufficiently 
 appreciated ; The Great Hoggarty Diamond, a 
 special favourite of some of us as a simple story 
 full of fun and sprightliness, not overlaid with 
 discussions and moralising, containing one of 
 the most touching passages that Thackeray ever 
 wrote, wrung out of his own sorrows. I must 
 pass by Barry Lyndon, which many good judges 
 esteem a masterpiece, and which is at any rate 
 an admirable eighteenth - century panorama. I 
 must pass by the terrible and sardonic tragedy of 
 Deuceace. These omissions and others only prove 
 the hopelessness of the task of dealing with this 
 prodigious and multifarious genius in a short 
 speech. Only the other day I was reading Philip 
 again, and felt that, though it was not one of 
 his great books, no one else could have written 
 it, and one paused now and then at a passage to 
 exclaim, " How marvellously good this is ! J! 
 It may also fairly be maintained that Vanity
 
 70 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ni. Fair and its kindred fictions of the first class do 
 not represent the only department of letters in 
 which Thackeray left a masterpiece. There are 
 at least two others to which he contributed original 
 works of the highest merit : I mean the collection 
 of essays called The Book of Snobs and The Rose 
 and the Ring. This last, as a mere expression of 
 genius, seems to me to come next to Vanity 
 Fair. The exquisite irony and extravagance of 
 this unique piece would, perhaps, not have 
 attracted adequate notice had it not had an 
 illustrious name upon its title-page. But with 
 that name we realise that this is another facet 
 of the big diamond, and then we can give our- 
 selves up to pure enjoyment. That enjoyment 
 is the same whether the reader be seven or 
 seventy, and grows from the one age to the 
 other. How often in reading the most solemn 
 and dreary histories does some analogy to The 
 Rose and the Ring flash out, and one sees a corner 
 of the portentous tapestry lifted and the queer 
 face of Titmarsh peep out with a wink and a leer 
 of irresistible drollery. Nor are the rhymed 
 headings or the drawings inferior. It is a perfect 
 whole, harmonious through and through. 
 
 As with The Rose and the Ring, so it is with 
 The Book of Snobs. There is seldom a week spent 
 with the human race in which one does not, so 
 to speak, rub up against The Book of Snobs. 
 This is not to imply that one's sweet converse 
 is with snobs, but it is to indicate that the 
 universal touches of nature constantly remind 
 one of that shrewd little volume. The fact is 
 that The Book of Snobs is ill-named. It is not
 
 THACKERAY 71 
 
 a book of snobs, but a book of impostors. The in. 
 characters, for the most part, are not snobs at 
 all, and the snobs are chiefly female. Ponto, 
 whose germ we find, by the bye, in Vanity Fair 
 (for Dobbin, when he married, hired the " Ever- 
 greens " of the gallant major), Ponto was not a 
 snob, though Mrs. Ponto was one without doubt. 
 So was Miss Wirt, who also makes her dbut 
 as a "raw-boned vestal" in Vanity Fair. But 
 as a rule the characters are impostors and hum- 
 bugs, and Thackeray had a keen nose and de- 
 testation for humbug. Still, they are not, strictly 
 speaking, snobs. The word has a curious history, 
 and I am not sure that Thackeray himself under- 
 stood it. Originally meaning a shoemaker, and 
 then a townsman as against a gownsman at 
 the Universities, it is now superseded by the 
 modern synonym of bounder, a better word. But 
 Thackeray interpreted it as one who meanly 
 admires mean things. That is far too capacious 
 a definition. A snob is one who basely aims at 
 or apes social superiority. He would only furnish 
 out a lean treatise. But the theme of imposture 
 is illimitable and eternal. 
 
 However we may differ as to the category, 
 this at least cannot be denied, that Thackeray 
 as an essayist, whether on snobs or on other 
 topics, ranks among our greatest. There is 
 perhaps no Englishman who can weave wit, and 
 allusion, and sarcasm, and knowledge of human 
 nature into a poignant but delightful whole so 
 deftly as he. That is another aspect of his 
 various and powerful genius, another art in which 
 he may claim the highest rank.
 
 72 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. There are also two other aspects of Thackeray's 
 
 genius which are apt to be overlooked in the 
 general splendour of his other work I mean his 
 poetry and his drawings. Now these have both 
 a quality in common : they lack form, but what 
 is wanting in grace is made up in character. 
 Thackeray is not reckoned among the poets, and 
 yet his verse has the inexplicable knack of leaving 
 a strong impression ; it is terse, vigorous, and 
 original. I will only give two specimens. Take 
 the first stanza of the ode on the Crystal Palace : 
 
 But yesterday a naked sod 
 The dandies sneered from Rotten Row 
 And cantered o'er it to and fro : 
 And see 'tis done. 
 
 As though 'twere by a wizard's rod 
 A blazing arch of lucent glass 
 Leaps like a fountain from the grass 
 To meet the sun. 
 
 That may not be high poetry, but it pleases ; 
 it is brisk and vivid, it dwells. Where, again, 
 will you find a stanza more exquisite in its pathos 
 than the one on Charles Buller ? 
 
 Who knows the inscrutable design ? 
 
 Blessed be He who took and gave ! 
 Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, 
 
 Be weeping at her darling's grave ? 
 
 It rings in the memory where poems of greater 
 reputation leave us cold. 
 
 So much for his verse. There is the same 
 quality in his sketches. I suppose that as 
 drawings they are not very good. But that 
 makes their success all the more remarkable,
 
 THACKERAY 73 
 
 for he contrives to give a life and character to m. 
 his illustrations such as few artists but Hogarth 
 have been able to impart. Some of them I 
 admit are incredibly bad. At no time could he 
 delineate beauty and charm in a woman. His 
 Becky Sharp, who should have been fascinating, 
 is repulsive. His Dobbin, too, who should be a 
 hero, looks like one of Mr. Squeers's ushers after 
 six months at Dotheboys Hall. His Rawdon 
 Crawley is never a dandy dragoon, and is some- 
 times squalid. Thackeray in these cases is always 
 trying to force his conception through a medium 
 which will not respond. But, when he succeeds, 
 how well he succeeds. How admirable are Lord 
 Steyne and both the Crawley baronets, how 
 inimitable the drawing of Lady Southdown tak- 
 ing medicine to Becky. The drawings in The 
 Virginians seem to me even better. Then there 
 comes the matchless series in The Rose and the 
 Ring. Where can one find greater fun or more 
 delight ? I must not omit the illustrations to 
 " Mrs. Perkins's Ball," or the striking sketch of 
 O'Connell as Lord Mayor of Dublin. And yet 
 I am only taking those that occur to me at the 
 moment. The list could be indefinitely pro- 
 longed. His real ambition was to be an artist, 
 but his literary genius was too strong for his art, 
 it could only adequately express itself in litera- 
 ture, and his pencil has to be satisfied with rude, 
 untutored, but unmistakable force. So strong 
 is the inspiration that it overrides art. 
 
 Let us sum up these hasty and inadequate 
 remarks. In the first place, no one will deny to 
 Thackeray the rare and priceless gift of genius.
 
 74 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. He produced what many would call the greatest 
 novel in our language, certainly, one would say, 
 the first or second. He produced several others 
 which must be ranked high in any list. His 
 penetration, his humour, his imagination formed 
 an immense combination of qualities, and when 
 he chose to touch the note, his pathos rings true. 
 He had imbibed the spirit of the eighteenth 
 century, and knew well what he had seen of 
 the nineteenth, though it was unhappily very 
 incomplete when he died. His strength lay in 
 dealing with the middle class, their foibles and 
 ambitions ; he loved, too, to dwell on Bohemia 
 and its inhabitants, boasting that he had lived 
 in Bohemia all his life ; but the idea of titular 
 rank drove him off his balance, the sight of a 
 coronet made him run amuck with a scourge, 
 and the specimens which received the lash well 
 deserved punishment if they ever existed. He 
 himself, secretly sensitive as a new-born child, 
 could pick out all the tenderest places for the 
 whip. 
 
 And so with all these priceless gifts he has 
 bequeathed a range of works all brilliant and 
 all interesting. It is difficult to name any writer 
 of fiction who has produced so much on so high 
 a level of interest and power, though he appealed, 
 no doubt, to a much smaller audience than 
 Dickens. " Saul has slain his thousands and 
 David his tens of thousands." But that was 
 natural and inherent in the work of the two men ; 
 it is no disparagement to Thackeray. If one 
 must criticise, one would say that his point of 
 view was a little monotonous, that one sometimes
 
 THACKERAY 75 
 
 feels that one knows what he is going to say, or in. 
 that what he is saying he has said more than 
 once before. And one has perhaps the same 
 feeling about his characters that he expressed 
 himself. " All I can do now," he said towards 
 the end, "is to bring out my old puppets and 
 put new bits of ribbon upon them. I have told 
 my tale in the hovel department. I only repeat 
 things in a pleasant way, but I have nothing 
 fresh to say." One may also regret that he lacks 
 the realism say of Defoe, that he delights too 
 much in being the showman and the moralist, 
 in by-discourses on life and morals and in handing 
 out his puppets for inspection by his audience, 
 lest they should be mistaken for real figures 
 all this to the disparagement of the story itself. 
 There are other points more minute : in so 
 much production there must be flaws. Every 
 author who is worth his salt must be conscious 
 of his own shortcomings, he must always be 
 aware of inadequacy, he must sometimes feel 
 that if he wrote all the book over again it would 
 be better done ; and even then he may be wrong. 
 But who are we that we should criticise ? Let 
 us be grateful and enjoy. Let us be grateful 
 for the imagination which inspires, and for the 
 labour which completes and embodies imagina- 
 tion ; let us unreservedly enjoy the wit, the 
 romance, and the pungent perception ; let us 
 remember with thankfulness the writer who has 
 given us so many happy hours, constantly re- 
 newed, and who, if he has not achieved an 
 impossible perfection or produced a mass of 
 virgin gold without dross, has left supreme
 
 76 MISCELLANIES 
 
 in. and precious work. Let us remember, too, the 
 simplicity and purity of his gospel. Let us 
 never forget that in his sincerest moods he always 
 inculcated charity in its largest sense, that that 
 was his deepest, innermost note ; and that he 
 was the mortal enemy of imposture and hypocrisy 
 in every form. Ecrasez Vinfdme was as much 
 his motto as it was Voltaire's, but with him the 
 infamous reptile to be crushed was humbug. 
 Those were his two messages : hatred of all that 
 was false, charity human and divine ; and though 
 the first may sometimes have clouded over the 
 second, the last was strong, penetrating, and 
 profound. " I think, please God, my books are 
 written by a God-loving man, and the morality 
 the vanity of success and so forth, of all but 
 love and goodness is not that the teaching of 
 Domini Nostri ? " he wrote towards the end of 
 his life, and we join with him in thinking that 
 the better his teaching is known the loftier it 
 will appear. He faces posterity as a great figure 
 of rich genius and honest purpose, a purpose 
 occasionally obscured by the force of imagination 
 and the irresistible promptings of humour ; weigh- 
 ing mankind in a gloomy balance, but not without 
 hope ; and bequeathing to us rich and various 
 treasures of literature, which may well survive, 
 if anything survives.
 
 IV 
 CROMWELL * 
 
 I AM very glad to be here to-night. We are all, iv. 
 I imagine, glad to be here to-night, even if we are 
 not proud to be here. For, after all, this is no 
 great occasion for pride, as we are commemorat- 
 ing the erection of the first statue to Cromwell in 
 London a statue which ought to have been 
 erected long ago, and which has even now met 
 with some not unimportant difficulties. 
 
 I do not know whether you remember the 
 history of the inception of this statue. It was 
 promised by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, as First 
 Commissioner of Works under the late Govern- 
 ment ; then under pressure in the House of 
 Commons that promise was withdrawn, and 
 immediately on that promise being withdrawn 
 an individual, who, I understand, felt that Crom- 
 well's immortal memory should not be made a 
 football for contending factions in the House of 
 Commons, wrote to offer to bear the cost of the 
 memorial. The Government of the day accepted 
 that offer, and it was ratified by the Government 
 now in power. Since that time a new opposition 
 
 1 A Speech delivered at the Cromwell Tercentenary celebration, 
 1899. 
 
 77
 
 78 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. has sprung up. It is slender in numbers, but I 
 do not pretend to say that it is not representative 
 of a considerable volume of prejudice and even 
 of passion ; but as far as it has gone it has not 
 assumed a very serious complexion. It has, 
 indeed, carried in the House of Lords, when the 
 House of Lords was not very crowded, a resolution 
 denouncing the present position of the statue ; 
 and though the Government loyally stood to 
 their pledges, they were unfortunately defeated 
 by a majority of six to four. 
 
 I for one do not complain of that opposition ; 
 but there are two features in connection with it to 
 which I would call attention for a moment. The 
 first is that it is not very logical, because in the 
 very heart of the House of Commons that sacred 
 shrine of the Constitution, to which the presence, I 
 presume, of Oliver Cromwell was supposed by the 
 majority in the House of Lords to be deleterious- 
 there has been placed by the present Government, 
 not by arrangement with the late Government 
 and not under any pressure whatever, a bust 
 of Oliver Cromwell. I do not, therefore, quite 
 understand that tenderness of conscience which 
 protests against a statue in the open air and out- 
 side Parliament, but which raises no objection to 
 a bust in the very heart and centre of Parliament 
 itself. Secondly, I would urge this that if this 
 opposition were to be raised, it would have been 
 more graceful and fair had it been urged some 
 four years ago. A statue was promised, and the 
 sculptor was commissioned somewhere about June 
 1895, for I remember it preceded almost immedi- 
 ately the fall of the late Government not that
 
 CROMWELL 79 
 
 I associate the two facts in the slightest degree. iv. 
 Some four years ago the commission was given, 
 and it is not till the pedestal has been actually 
 erected, and the statue itself is rumbling on its 
 way to occupy that pedestal, that the opposition 
 lifts up its voice, and in the House of Lords even 
 goes to a division. I think that that was, to 
 speak in the vernacular, hardly playing the game, 
 and I hope that we shall hear no more on this 
 subject. 
 
 But there is an evil fate which attends 
 statues of Cromwell, and Manchester, I believe, 
 had the honourable distinction of being the only 
 city that possessed one. Scotland was prepared 
 to erect a statue to Oliver, although he had 
 inflicted a considerable defeat upon her forces ; 
 yet so great was her gratitude for the good 
 government that came from this unwelcome 
 source that a statue was ordered to be erected 
 to Cromwell on the site now occupied by a statue 
 of his successor, Charles II. Unfortunately, the 
 statue was not more than rough-hewn at the time 
 of the Protector's death, and therefore it lay an 
 almost shapeless mass, a figure in a shroud, at 
 Leith, until it was put up in some obscurer part of 
 Edinburgh, and ultimately went no man knows 
 whither. We, at any rate, are more fortunate, 
 for we have a statue which, so far as I can judge 
 from seeing it in the Academy, is worthy of the 
 subject and worthy of the genius of the sculptor 
 I am glad that the sculptor is here to listen to 
 your applause. 
 
 Sir, you have insinuated that I am going to 
 give to-night an exhaustive description of Oliver
 
 80 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. Cromwell. That is exactly what I shall not 
 attempt to do ; for to do so in a speech would be 
 inevitably to fall short of my object, and also 
 altogether to mistake the character of a speech. 
 Were I going to write you an essay it might be 
 possible to make some such attempt ; but the 
 character of a speech must be of necessity com- 
 paratively shallow, and must not attempt more 
 than it can well achieve. Moreover, so as to 
 make my survey in its very inception imperfect, 
 there are two great acts in the Protector's career 
 on which I propose to offer none but the very 
 fewest and sparsest observations. The first is 
 his policy towards Ireland. With regard to that 
 I am bound to say that it admits of explanation, 
 but it hardly admits of excuse. I am one of 
 those who feel that were I an Irishman I, at any 
 rate, should not be a contributor to a statue to 
 Oliver Cromwell. I am not sure that even as a 
 Scotsman I may not have to bear some little 
 censure for being present on this occasion. But 
 to our Irish friends I may say that as we do not 
 interfere with the statues which they choose to 
 put up in Dublin, they might refrain from inter- 
 fering with the statues which we choose to put up 
 in London. It is true that the policy of Cromwell 
 towards Ireland was ruthless and cruel in the 
 extreme, but two things should be remembered, 
 not by way of palliation, but of explanation. 
 In the first place there was great provoca- 
 tion ; and in the second place the Puritans, of 
 whom he was the leader, were deeply imbued, for 
 reasons which it would take too long to explain, 
 with the lessons of the Old Testament. They
 
 CROMWELL 81 
 
 believed that they were the chosen people of God iv. 
 and had the right to deal with their enemies as 
 the Israelites dealt with the Amalekites. The 
 Amalekites, it should be noted, were not the Irish, 
 but the Roman Catholics. It is indeed stated 
 on high authority that the majority of the 
 garrison of Drogheda, which was put to the 
 sword, consisted of English people. However 
 that may be, this Old Testament view is the 
 explanation, but not the palliation, of Cromwell's 
 conduct towards Ireland. 
 
 Nor will I say anything about the execution 
 of Charles I. That was an act which I think was 
 barely justified by the circumstances. But it 
 was an act as to which one or two facts are 
 generally forgotten, if they were ever known, by 
 the critics of the memory of Cromwell. The 
 first is that it was not a willing act on the part of 
 Cromwell. He endeavoured as far as he could 
 to work with the king; and it was not until he 
 found that the king would accept no position 
 short of the absolute ideal of kingship which he 
 had formed for himself that Cromwell was forced 
 to desist from the attempt. You must remember 
 also that he had found from painful experience 
 that Charles held no measure with his opponents ; 
 that he was in no respect to be trusted ; and you 
 must also recollect what is now better known 
 that it is not possible for a feudal monarch to be 
 his own constitutional successor. The two things 
 cannot combine in one man. That was made 
 clear nearly a century and a half later in the case 
 of Louis XVI. of France, who was willing to be 
 a constitutional sovereign, to be his own con- 
 
 VOL. I G
 
 82 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rv. stitutional successor, which Charles I. was not. 
 But it was not possible. If, then, you were to 
 have a constitutional sovereign, you were bound 
 in one way or another to get rid of Charles I. ; 
 though it seems to me that as a stroke of 
 policy means much more gentle might have been 
 adopted, which would have prevented the act 
 being, as in essence it was, not merely a crime, 
 if crime you call it, but a political blunder as well. 
 There is only one further remark that I will make 
 on this subject. Happy is the dynasty which 
 can permit without offence or without fear the 
 memory of a regicide to be honoured in its capital. 
 Happy the sovereign and happy the dynasty 
 that, secure in their constitutional guarantees 
 and in the world -wide love of their subjects, 
 can allow such a ceremonial as this to take place 
 without a shadow of annoyance or distrust. 
 
 What manner of man was this Cromwell whom 
 we seek to honour to-night ? Probably we shall 
 get as many answers as there are people in this 
 hall. Every one has his own theory of Cromwell, 
 and they are apt to be jarring theories. There 
 is, of course, the popular but perhaps illiterate 
 view which you sometimes hear expressed, that 
 he was " a damned psalm-singing old humbug, 
 who cut off the head of his king." To a con- 
 siderable number of those who talk about Crom- 
 well, the knowledge of him is limited to that 
 simple assertion. I do not know whether that 
 is the opinion of the majority of the House of 
 Lords. At any rate let me quote two or three 
 testimonies on the other side. Lord Macaulay 
 said of him that he was " the greatest prince
 
 CROMWELL 83 
 
 that ever ruled England." The greatest liv- iv. 
 ing authority on that period Samuel Rawson 
 Gardiner, who by no means is a favourable 
 critic of all the policy of Cromwell, sums him up 
 in these words : "It is time for us to regard 
 him as he really was, with all his physical and 
 moral audacity, with all his tenderness and 
 spiritual yearnings in the world of action what 
 Shakespeare was in the world of thought ; the 
 greatest because the most typical Englishman of 
 all time." But there is one testimony which I 
 regard as more valuable because I cannot say 
 it is more unbiassed it is more naturally biassed 
 in the other direction : it is the testimony of 
 Southey, the great Tory man of letters in his 
 day not Conservative, remember, but the Tory 
 historian of his day. He speaks of Cromwell 
 thus : " Lord of these three kingdoms and 
 indisputably the most powerful potentate in 
 Europe, and certainly the greatest man of an 
 age in which the race of great men was not extinct 
 in any country, no man was so worthy of the 
 station which he filled." I balance these testi- 
 monies against the majority in the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 But if I am asked on what grounds I person- 
 ally admire him, I could not give them all 
 to-night ; but I should say that in the first place 
 he was a great soldier ; that in the second place 
 he was a great ruler ; and that in the third place 
 he was a great raiser and maintainer of British 
 influence and power abroad. 
 
 Let me take him as a soldier. I am not, of 
 course, competent to give any technical opinion
 
 84 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rv. upon his merits as a soldier ; but I believe that 
 the experts of the day do now pronounce the 
 opinion that Cromwell was one of the great 
 soldiers of his day and of all days. But, at any 
 rate, whether we can judge of him as a strategist 
 or not, we laymen who are not soldiers can, at 
 any rate, understand certain broad features of 
 Cromwell's military career which appeal to us 
 all. In the first place, it was so marvellously 
 short. It was begun at so late a period of life. 
 I think he was forty-three when he entered the 
 Army, and fifty-two when he finally sheathed his 
 sword. His military career lasted only nine 
 years. That seems to me to be a most remark- 
 able feature. I think that no man ever entered 
 the Army so late who rose to so great a position, 
 except, perhaps, that still more singular and 
 startling instance, considering the time in which 
 he lived, of Lord Lynedoch, who entered the 
 Army at about forty-six and who lived to be a 
 Field Marshal. Another peculiarity about Crom- 
 well was that he won every battle that he fought. 
 And we also know the fervour of enthusiasm 
 which he managed to inspire in his soldiers ; the 
 coolness and judgement with which, even on the 
 battlefield, he managed to guide and restrain 
 that enthusiasm ; the extraordinary instinct by 
 which he was able to detect the weakest point 
 of the enemy's battle array and to direct his full 
 force on that weak point. In a word, it was his 
 eye for battle. No one who has read the account 
 of the^ battles of Cromwell can doubt that he was 
 a born soldier ; that he had military capacity 
 in its truest sense and in the highest degree.
 
 CROMWELL 85 
 
 Let me take him now as a ruler. I have iv. 
 deliberately not called him a statesman, because 
 Cromwell had no opportunity of showing what 
 were his qualities as a statesman. His reign was 
 too short ; his life was too short. He died at an 
 age at which a man would be thought almost 
 young for a Prime Minister in these days. But 
 there is also this to be recollected of him he 
 was always ruling on behalf of a minority. It is 
 perfectly true that he was fighting the battle of 
 freedom. It is perfectly true that he was fighting 
 the battle of toleration. But I think it is equally 
 and indisputably true that the majority of the 
 nation were not favourable to his policy, and 
 that if he were fighting for their rights he had to 
 fight against their instincts and prejudices. That 
 I believe to be the explanation of his parlia- 
 mentary difficulties the Parliaments that he 
 had to dissolve, the Parliaments that he had to 
 watch, the Parliaments that he had to sift, the 
 Parliaments in which he had to guard the doors, 
 so that no member of the Opposition could 
 possibly gain entrance. If we consider what 
 Cromwell's position really was how in truth 
 he was a destructive agent, appointed as it were 
 to put an end to the feudal monarchy, and to be 
 the introducer of a new state of things and 
 consider also that he had to do all this not resting 
 upon the will of the people, but upon the will of 
 the army, I think we shall feel that Cromwell 
 achieved extraordinary results. Even in Scot- 
 land, where he was no welcome intruder, he 
 governed the country as Scotland and I am 
 sorry to say that it was no great compliment
 
 86 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. had never been governed before, and was not 
 governed for a long time afterwards. He effected 
 the union between Scotland and England, and 
 he effected what was practically far more im- 
 portant to Scotland freedom of trade between 
 Scotland and England : a measure which was 
 regarded with so much prejudice that it was one 
 of the causes of the opposition to him in England. 
 These alone are great achievements in any reign, 
 especially so short a one as Oliver's. 
 
 There is one more feature which has been 
 already alluded to in his policy as a ruler, and 
 on which we cannot lay too great an emphasis. 
 He was the first ruler who really understood and 
 practised toleration. It is quite true that it 
 was by no means universal. For example, it 
 did not extend, generally speaking, to Episco- 
 palians. It is quite true that some Episcopalians 
 were not allowed to practise their faith so freely 
 as they might have desired ; but I believe that 
 in that case the reasons were political, and that 
 it was the Royalist and not the Episcopalian 
 who was forbidden to influence the people. But 
 we do know that he was capable of an act of 
 toleration almost incredible in those days, and 
 not even in these days by any means universal. 
 He was the first prince who reigned in England 
 who welcomed and admitted the Jews. I am 
 glad to see that the heads of that community, 
 such as Lord Rothschild, Sir Samuel Montagu, 
 and Mr. Benjamin Cohen, are here to-night to 
 show their appreciation of that act of beneficence. 
 It is a peculiarity of great men that they have 
 a tendency to wreck the throne on which they
 
 CROMWELL 87 
 
 sit. Take Frederick the Great : he led the life 
 of a drill sergeant, of an estate steward, of a 
 bureaucrat, of a minister and a general, all in 
 one, making the details of every department 
 of government centre in himself. He indeed 
 absorbed everything, and nothing could be done 
 without his sanction and knowledge. Such a 
 man makes himself the mainspring of the machine, 
 and when he withdraws the machine collapses and 
 has to be constructed afresh. Take Napoleon : 
 he differed from Frederick in that he did not 
 find a throne, and had to construct one, but, 
 being on it, one of his objects would appear to 
 have been to make it impossible for any one else 
 to occupy it. Combining the activity of a score 
 of men with a mind embracing the largest ques- 
 tions and the smallest details, directing every- 
 thing, making everything derive light and guid- 
 ance from him, so completely did he centralise 
 all in himself, that, had he died as Emperor, 
 his disappearance would have caused not a 
 vacancy, but a gulf in which the whole apparatus 
 of government must have disappeared. And so 
 of Cromwell, but in a different sense. He, too, has 
 a throne resting on the support of 60,000 armed 
 men, so that if it loses their support it falls, because 
 it is antagonistic to the nation at large. Cromwell 
 soon sees his throne is held on a personal tenure. 
 So fully does he realise that he could not bequeath 
 to any one the power on which his rule rested, 
 that it is by no means certain that he ever thought 
 it worth while to name a successor. He dies, 
 and the fabric disappears. The real founder of 
 a dynasty is one who produces not merely a
 
 88 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rv. throne, but institutions, and if the institutions 
 are sound the throne remains part of the fabric. 
 That is why so few lasting dynasties are founded ; 
 the founder is ordinarily the only potent institu- 
 tion, and he is essentially mortal. 
 
 Then I take Cromwell as the raiser and 
 maintainer of the power and empire of England. 
 I do not propose to-night to trace the method 
 by which he made his name and the name of his 
 country honoured and respected ; it would take 
 me too long, and, indeed, it is not particularly 
 easy to define. But there is one ground, one 
 clear ground, upon which he fixed the attention 
 of Europe. He was not born to the title as were 
 his predecessors and successors, but he was 
 essentially the Defender of the Faith. You 
 know what he did with regard to the Waldenses, 
 those persecuted Protestants, the massacres and 
 horrors perpetrated upon whom remain so black 
 a page in European history. Cromwell spoke 
 he did not interfere by arms, though I have 
 seen his action on this subject cited as a precedent 
 for religious interference by arms he did not 
 interfere by arms, but he wrote despatches, and 
 by the force of diplomacy, backed by a great 
 army and his supreme reputation, he achieved 
 his object, and what remained of the Waldenses 
 were saved. When Europe saw that Cromwell 
 was in earnest, Europe had no hesitation as to 
 the course it had to adopt. Indeed it is very 
 remarkable it is not, as I have said, wholly 
 explicable the extraordinary deference, I had 
 almost said the adoration, that Europe paid 
 to him. Spain and France contended for his
 
 CROMWELL 89 
 
 alliance. Two great Roman Catholic countries iv. 
 strove for the honour of the alliance with the 
 Defender of the Protestant Faith. The great 
 Roman Catholic monarch, Louis XIV., put on 
 mourning for him. Cardinal Mazarin, a Prince 
 of the Roman Church, earnestly, almost humbly, 
 sought his alliance ; and, as showing the position 
 of power and honour Cromwell held, I may 
 quote a letter from the great Conde, the greatest 
 general on the continent of Europe at a time when 
 the continent of Europe produced many great 
 generals : "I am exceedingly delighted," he 
 says, " with the justice which has been paid to 
 your Highness 's merit and virtue. I consider 
 that the people of the three kingdoms are in the 
 height of their glory in seeing their goods and 
 their lives entrusted at last to the management 
 of so great a man." That is no republican 
 sentiment, that is no Protestant testimony ; it 
 is that of a great Roman Catholic French Prince. 
 Well, I would ask, What is the secret of this 
 extraordinary power ? As I said before, you 
 will all of you probably give one answer or 
 another, many of them likely to conflict. There 
 is one answer I suppose everybody here would 
 give that the secret of Cromwell's strength 
 rested in his religious faith. I discard that 
 answer, because it would be begging the question. 
 No, my answer is this that he was a practical 
 mystic, the most formidable and terrible of all 
 combinations. A man who combines inspiration 
 apparently derived in my judgement really 
 derived from close communion with the super- 
 natural and the celestial, a man who has that
 
 90 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. inspiration and adds to it the energy of a mighty 
 man of action, such a man as that lives in com- 
 munion on a Sinai of his own, and when he pleases 
 to come down to this world below seems armed 
 with no less than the terrors and decrees of the 
 Almighty Himself. 
 
 Let me take him first as a man of action. I 
 present to you the portrait of Cromwell as he 
 has come down to us depicted by contemporary 
 writers such as Sir Philip Warwick, and, having 
 given you his portrait as the man of action, then 
 we will get glimpses of him from the other side. 
 How does he appear to us ? He comes tramping 
 down to us through the ages in his great wide 
 boots, a countenance swollen and reddish, a 
 voice harsh, sharp, and untunable, with a country- 
 made suit, a hat with no band, doubtful linen 
 with a speck of blood upon it. He tramps over 
 England, he tramps over Scotland, he tramps 
 over Ireland, his sword in one hand, his Bible 
 in the other. Then he tramps back to London, 
 from whence he puts forth that heavy foot of 
 his into Europe, and all Europe bows before him. 
 When he is not scattering enemies and battering 
 castles he is scattering Parliaments and battering 
 general assemblies. He seems to be the very 
 spirit of destruction, an angel of vengeance 
 permitted to reign for a season to efface what 
 he had to efface and then to disappear. Then 
 there comes the end. The prophetic Quaker sees 
 the " waft of death " go out against that man, 
 there is a terrible storm, and he lies dying in 
 Whitehall, groaning out that his work is done, 
 that he will not drink or sleep, that he wishes
 
 CROMWELL 91 
 
 to " make what haste he can to be gone," and iv. 
 the sun as it rises on his great day, the 3rd of 
 September, the day of Dunbar and of Worcester, 
 finds Cromwell speechless, and, as it sets, leaves 
 him dead. That is practically the view that we 
 get from contemporary portraits. 
 
 Yet there is another side ; for with all his 
 vigorous characteristic personality there is some- 
 thing impersonal about Cromwell. Outside the 
 battlefield he never seems a free agent, but 
 rather the instrument of forces outside and about 
 him. The crises of nations, like the crises of 
 nature, have their thunderbolts, and Cromwell 
 was one of these ; he seems to be propelled, to 
 be ejected into the world in the agony of a great 
 catastrophe, and to disappear with it. On the 
 field of battle he is a great captain, ready, 
 resourceful, and overwhelming ; off the field he 
 seems to be a creature of invisible influences, a 
 strange mixture of a strong practical nature with 
 a sort of unearthly fatalism, with a sort of spiritual 
 mission. It is this combination, in my judge- 
 ment, which makes the strength of Cromwell. 
 This mysterious symbolism appears to have 
 struck the Eastern Jews so much that they sent 
 a deputation to England to inquire if he was the 
 Messiah indeed. That is not exactly a combina- 
 tion that can be produced in bronze or any 
 known metal, but Mr. Thornycroft has given us 
 in his statue the nearest equivalent to it. He 
 has given us Cromwell with sword in one hand 
 and Bible in the other. Well, I suppose our 
 critics will say there is no question whatever 
 about the appropriateness of the sword, but there
 
 92 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. is a great deal of doubt about the genuineness 
 of the Bible ; indeed, the whole controversy as 
 to Cromwell really hinges on the question, Was 
 he a hypocrite or not ? That is why I told you 
 the answer resting his success on his religious 
 faith would be begging the question, and that is 
 why I discarded it. It is a question that must 
 stand unanswered until the secrets of all hearts 
 are revealed ; for it is a secret between Cromwell 
 and his God. 
 
 Those who hate his memory for other reasons 
 are determined to believe that he was a hypocrite, 
 but, at any rate, we who are here to-night do 
 not believe that he was a hypocrite, or we should 
 not be here. I think those who call Cromwell 
 a hypocrite can never have read his letters to 
 his children. Those are not state documents. 
 Those were not meant to be published in blue- 
 books it was a happy age when there were no 
 blue-books they were not meant to put the 
 Governor and Protector in a favourable light. 
 They were the genuine outpourings of a sincere 
 soul. Let me take a further incident of Crom- 
 well's life not familiar perhaps to those who have 
 called him hypocrite. The pious Quaker, George 
 Fox, not then in the position that Quakers occupy 
 now in this country for they were harried, im- 
 prisoned, and persecuted he, an outcast among 
 men, was brought in bonds to see the great 
 Protector. He did not beg compassion for his 
 people or ask for any particular favour. He 
 came to testify to the great man, to preach to 
 the great man, and in his leathern jerkin he 
 did preach to him. I think the account of this
 
 CROMWELL 93 
 
 little interview, which I will not read at length iv. 
 but only summarise, is one of the most interest- 
 ing and touching episodes in the whole of Crom- 
 well's career. George Fox, when he came in, 
 said nothing apologetic. He uttered a prayer : 
 " Peace be in this house." Some Sovereigns 
 might have been annoyed at this condescension 
 from a man continually within the grasp of the 
 law, one who was still a prisoner. But Cromwell 
 receives it with humility. 
 
 " I exhorted him," says Fox, " to keep in the 
 fear of God that he might be directed, and order 
 all things under his hand to God's glory. I 
 spoke much to him of truth, and much discourse 
 I had with him about religion, wherein he carried 
 himself very moderately." Then Fox and Crom- 
 well held a discussion on " priests, whom he 
 (Cromwell) called ministers. ... As I spoke 
 he several times said it was very good, and it 
 was truth. . . . Many more words I had with 
 him, but people coming in I drew a little back ; 
 and, as I was turning, he caught me by the hand, 
 and, with tears in his eyes, said, ' Come again to 
 my house, for if thou and I were but an hour 
 a day together, we should be nearer one to the 
 other ; ' adding that he wished me no more ill 
 than he did to his own soul." 
 
 What had Cromwell to gain by being civil to 
 this man and by listening to what many people 
 would have thought rodomontade ? Most people 
 would have thought it a duty to hand him back 
 to justice ; but Cromwell saw the sincerity of 
 the man, welcomed him, released him, and took 
 him to his heart.
 
 94 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. Let me tell you another little story you may 
 
 not have heard before not much in itself, but 
 curious for the directness with which it comes. 
 It was told me by a friend of mine, a Bishop of 
 the Established Church by no means one of 
 the oldest of the Bishops, because he is of my 
 own age and he was told it by a gentleman who 
 had it from a doctor that makes three people 
 and the doctor heard it from the Sir Charles 
 Slingsby of his day, who had it from a nurse. 
 That is but five people, and covers a long period. 
 Sir Charles Slingsby heard it from the nurse, who 
 as a girl was the heroine of the story. The day 
 before Marston Moor, Cromwell arrived at Knares- 
 borough, and while there he disappeared from 
 among his troops. Search was made for him for 
 two hours, but he could not be found ; but this 
 girl, who afterwards became a nurse, remembered 
 an old disused room at the top of the tower ; it 
 was the only possible place where Cromwell could 
 be, and the girl, peeping through the keyhole of 
 the locked door, saw the Protector on his knees 
 with his Bible before him, wrestling, as he would 
 have said, in prayer, as he had been wrestling for 
 the two hours he had been missing. Was there 
 anything to be gained by this ? Was there any 
 effect to be made by his locking himself in the 
 neglected, ruined chamber, and imploring the 
 blessing of the God of battles in the contest of 
 the following day ? I at any rate see nothing to 
 be gained, and if those who read the story still think 
 him a hypocrite, why then he must have become a 
 hypocrite so consummate that hypocrisy became 
 as much part of his being as the air he breathed.
 
 CROMWELL 95 
 
 But I will give a more practical reason for iv. 
 my belief that Cromwell was not a hypocrite. 
 Had he been, he could not have achieved such 
 enormous success ; he could not have wielded 
 the prodigious force that he did. A religious 
 force which is based on hypocrisy is no force at 
 all. It may stand inspection for a moment, like a 
 house built upon the sands, but when the storms 
 come, when the rain descends, and when the 
 winds blow, under the stress of adverse circum- 
 stances, the house and the fabric disappear. 
 I believe, then, that had Cromwell been a 
 hypocrite he would have been found out ; I 
 believe that if he had been a hypocrite he would 
 not have been able to maintain himself in the 
 dazzling position which he attained ; and had 
 he been a hypocrite he could not have formed 
 that army which he commanded, and which was 
 indubitably the greatest army in Europe at the 
 time of his death. 
 
 Let me take the point of the army. He early 
 became aware of the overwhelming force which 
 religious fervour would give to his army, but he 
 did not utilise this conviction by making hypo- 
 crites of his army. He utilised it by selecting 
 those men who he knew were of good repute 
 among their neighbours ; steady, earnest, God- 
 fearing men who would be equal to sustaining 
 the onset of the brilliant army commanded by 
 the King and his cousin. Cromwell told his 
 friend and kinsman, the illustrious Hampden 
 and I think that we have the pleasure of seeing 
 a descendant of Hampden and the possessor 
 of Hampden's house here to-night he told
 
 96 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rv. Hampden that the men whom he was. leading 
 were no match for the chivalry of the King's 
 army. Let me give Cromwell's account. " I 
 told him . . . ' You must get men of a spirit ; 
 and take it not ill what I say I know you will 
 not of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as 
 gentlemen will go ; or else you will be beaten 
 still ? ' I told him so ; I did truly. He was a 
 wise and worthy person ; and he did think that 
 I talked a good notion, but an impracticable one. 
 Truly I told him I could do somewhat in it. I 
 did so, and the result was impute it to what you 
 please I raised such men as had the fear of God 
 before them, as made some conscience of what 
 they did. And from that day forward, I must 
 say to you, they were never beaten, and wherever 
 they were engaged against the enemy they beat 
 continually." With these men he won his battles 
 and beat down the chivalry of England. Are 
 we to believe, then, that these Ironsides were 
 merely canting hypocrites, that they rode to 
 death with a lie on their lips and a lie in their 
 hearts ? Surely not. To believe that would be 
 to misunderstand the nature of the forces that 
 sway mankind. Nor did the lives of these men 
 belie them. As a contemporary chronicler says : 
 " The countries where they come leap for joy 
 of them " which I believe is not always the 
 welcome given to an army by the peaceful 
 inhabitants of the country they traverse " and 
 come in and join with them." And so by his 
 selection, and by influence, he welded that im- 
 pregnable force, that iron band which he himself 
 at the last could hardly sway to his will. Had
 
 CROMWELL 97 
 
 they been hypocrites this could not have been ; iv. 
 and as they could not have been hypocrites, their 
 exemplar, their prophet, their commander could 
 scarcely have been a hypocrite either. 
 
 It is quite true that Cromwell's action not 
 unfrequently jars with Christianity as we in this 
 nineteenth century understand it. But, as I 
 have said, his religion and that of the Puritans 
 was based largely on constant, literal, daily 
 reading of the Old Testament. The newer criti- 
 cism would have found no patron in Cromwell. 
 Indeed, I believe that its professors would have 
 fared but ill at his hands. He himself lived with 
 an absolutely childlike faith in the atmosphere 
 and with the persons of the Old Testament. 
 Joshua and Samuel and Elijah were as real and 
 living beings to him as any people in history, or 
 any of the persons by whom he was surrounded. 
 His favourite psalm, we are told, was the 68th 
 the psalm that, even in the tumult of the 
 victory of Dunbar, he shouted on the field of 
 battle before he ordered the pursuit of the re- 
 treating army. But it always seemed to me that 
 another psalm, the 149th, much more closely 
 reproduces the character, the ideas, and the 
 practice of Cromwell : " Let the saints be joyful 
 in glory. . . . Let the high praises of God be in 
 their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their 
 hand ; To execute vengeance upon the heathen, 
 and punishments upon the people ; To bind their 
 kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters 
 of iron ; To execute upon them the judgement 
 written : This honour have all his saints." It 
 is not a comfortable or patient or long-suffering 
 
 VOL. I
 
 98 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. creed, it is true ; but, remember, it is the creed 
 that first convulsed and then governed England 
 the faith of men who carried their iron gospel 
 into their iron lives, who could not have done 
 what they did had they been hypocrites, and who 
 would not have received their incomparable in- 
 spiration from a hypocrite. 
 
 To the end of time the contest will rage as to 
 the merits and the sincerity of Cromwell. Cowley, 
 in a noble piece of prose, such prose as was only 
 produced in the seventeenth century, pictures 
 himself as returning from the funeral of the 
 Protector. He records the pomp of the obsequies, 
 and continues thus : " But yet, I know not how, 
 the whole was so managed that, methought, it 
 somewhat expressed the life of him for whom 
 it was made much noise, much tumult, much 
 expense, much magnificence, much vainglory, 
 briefly a great show, and yet, after all this, but an 
 ill sight." Cowley was a Royalist, and he wrote 
 when no unbiassed opinion was possible. But 
 his words are striking enough, and I make a 
 present of them to the opponents of the Cromwell 
 statue. But was it indeed a splendid adminis- 
 tration, a masculine and honest career, or, as 
 Cowley says, an ill sight ? On that point, at any 
 rate, my mind is clear. I will go so far as to say 
 that great and opulent and powerful as we are, 
 so far from banishing his memory, we could find 
 employment for a few Cromwells now. The 
 Cromwell of the nineteenth or the Cromwell of 
 the twentieth century would not be the Cromwell 
 of the seventeenth century, for great men are 
 coloured by the age in which they live. He
 
 CROMWELL 99 
 
 would, at any rate, not be Cromwell in his iv. 
 externals. He would not decapitate ; he would 
 not rise in rebellion ; he would not speak the 
 Puritan language. But he would retain his 
 essential qualities as a general, as a ruler, as a 
 statesman. He would be strenuous. He would 
 be sincere. He would not compromise with 
 principles. His faith would be in God and in 
 freedom, and in the influence of Great Britain 
 as promoting, as asserting, both. In that faith 
 he lived, by those lines he governed, imperfectly, 
 no doubt, as mortals must be imperfect, but 
 honestly. In that faith, by those principles, 
 he lived, and governed, and died. 
 
 I hope that we, too, as a nation are animated 
 in our patriotism by no lower an ideal. I speak 
 of the nation as a whole, for I know that there 
 are some individuals to whom this theory is 
 cant, and the worst of cant. I know it, and I 
 am sorry for them. But, on the other hand, I 
 believe that the vast majority of our people are 
 inspired by a nobler creed ; that their Imperial- 
 ism, as it is called, is not the lust of dominion or 
 the pride of power, but rather the ideal of Oliver. 
 If that be so he is influencing us yet, and a 
 statue more or less matters little. So long as 
 his tradition pervades the nation the memory of 
 Cromwell is not likely to suffer disparagement 
 for the want of an effigy. And, even were it 
 otherwise, he has a surer memorial still. Every 
 man, I think every man, at any rate, who is 
 worth anything has in his heart of hearts a 
 Pantheon of historical demigods, a shrine of 
 those who are demigods for him ; not even
 
 100 MISCELLANIES 
 
 iv. demigods, for they would then be too far and too 
 aloof from mankind, but the best and noblest 
 of born men. In that Pantheon, in many 
 English hearts, and those not the worst whether 
 the effigy of Cromwell be outside or inside Parlia- 
 ment, or altogether invisible will be found eter- 
 nally engraved the monument and the memory 
 of the Great Protector.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 1 
 
 CATT'S book on his relations with King Frederick 
 II. is a book of human interest. It has, too, 
 the unexpected advantage of being written in 
 French, for Catt was a French-speaking Swiss, 
 and Frederick disdained to speak German. 
 Indeed, on Thiebault's expressing a wish to learn 
 that language, the King forbade him almost 
 with violence, and made him give his word of 
 honour not to acquire it, as he was fortunate in 
 being ignorant of such a tongue. 
 
 Catt's narrative is one of the most faithful 
 portraits of that monarch that we possess. It 
 covers, indeed, only two years of the long period 
 during which Catt served him, but they are 
 tremendous years of trial and stress, and there 
 could not be a better test period. Zorndorf, 
 Hochkirch, and Kunersdorf are all comprised : 
 doubtful and bloody victory, crushing defeat, 
 annihilation or little less, and we can see how 
 Frederick comported himself under all. Prussian 
 critics with all the elaborate minuteness of 
 German editorship have picked holes in Catt, 
 which are not serious. They think, for example, 
 
 1 An Introduction to the Memoirs of Henri de Colt, 1916. 
 101
 
 102 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. that Catt wrote or rewrote much of his memoirs 
 at a later date than the professed one. That is 
 highly probable ; of few memoirs can it not be 
 said. Memory amplifies the rude notes of the 
 time, and imagination perhaps is kindled. We 
 certainly would not wish to swear to every word 
 of Catt's record. Nevertheless we believe it 
 to be a generally veracious account of Frederick 
 as seen through the medium of highly-coloured 
 glasses. 
 
 Catt was a Swiss student at the University of 
 Utrecht. He was, we are told, well acquainted 
 with French literature, and had besides the 
 manners and usages of good society, having 
 frequented the best houses in Holland. More- 
 over, he possessed a still more precious treasure 
 in a disposition the cheerfulness of which must 
 have been invaluable to him in his official life. 
 An element less congenial to his master was 
 a strict adherence to the doctrines of Calvin. 
 Still, so pleasing was he to Frederick that the 
 King bestowed on him the customary compliment 
 of an epistle in verse, and the affectionate nick- 
 name of Cresset, after the graceful French poet. 
 Moreover, not satisfied with an epistle to Catt, 
 he also composed love poems for Catt addressed 
 to his betrothed : so close were their relations for 
 a long period of years. 
 
 The meeting of Catt and Frederick was almost 
 a romance. It was on a canal boat in Holland. 
 Catt, a Swiss teacher twenty-seven years old, 
 out on a holiday, sees a gentleman in a black 
 wig and cinnamon-coloured coat who describes 
 himself as first musician to the King of Poland,
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 103 
 
 and who, after staring at him some time, asks 
 him abruptly who he is. Catt, nettled at his 
 summary manners, refuses to reply. But pre- 
 sently the musician becomes more polite, and 
 draws Catt into amiable converse. They dis- 
 cuss government, religion, literature, and such 
 high topics. Finally Frederick, for he is the 
 strange gentleman, parts with the young man 
 as from a friend, and soon sends for him, keeps 
 him for some score of years under the title of 
 " reader," which should rather be " listener," 
 and which veils the duties of a Literary Crony, 
 Catt's real employment. To listen reverentially 
 to Frederick declaiming tragedies or funeral 
 orations or any pieces that he happens to know 
 by heart, or, worst of all, his own intolerable 
 verses, to profess enjoyment of these recitations, 
 and to place adroitly sympathy or compliment, 
 these are Catt's functions. Great men, and 
 even men not great, often have need of such 
 retainers. Johnson had Boswell, Goethe had 
 Eckermann, Byron had Moore, Southey had 
 Grosvenor Bedford, and so forth. It is something 
 to possess a blind and devoted admirer in whose 
 presence one can, so to speak, unbutton oneself 
 and discourse about one's emotions, recite one's 
 works, and explain their subtle meaning or 
 sublime intention a friendly conduit of egotism. 
 
 Catt joined Frederick at Breslau in March 
 1758, and boasts of having retained his entire 
 confidence for twenty-four years a unique boast 
 if true till their relations chilled in the last 
 five years of the King's life. 
 
 As to this breach there is an allegation, true
 
 104 MISCELLANIES 
 
 or false, which would serve to explain it. A 
 gentleman, it is said, wished to obtain a Prussian 
 Order and gave Catt a hundred louis-d'or to 
 procure it for him. Catt failed, but bought the 
 insignia of the " Order of Generosity," which he 
 sent to his friend, who wore it with pride. We 
 are not surprised to learn that the " Order of 
 Generosity " had come to an end at the accession 
 of Frederick, at least as regards his own subjects ; 
 so the reappearance of the Order brought about 
 an inquiry damaging to Catt. Then there was 
 a suspicion that Catt was in the pay of the 
 French Government, and also that he had levied 
 a share of the profits on the books supplied to 
 the King's library. Truly or falsely, Frederick 
 suspected or discovered some such circumstance, 
 and rid himself of Catt. It may only have 
 been a pretext. " You may serve the King 
 faithfully and always," said the hapless Colonel 
 Balbi, when writhing under Frederick's " in- 
 fernal " sarcasms, " but if you fail once, all the 
 rest goes for nothing." And Marwitz, one of 
 the King's aides-de-camp, confirmed this. " For 
 the least thing, and even for nothing, he will 
 send you about your business after thirty years' 
 service." Bielfeld, too, just before he bids a 
 final farewell to Berlin, makes a not less signifi- 
 cant remark : " A small fault is sufficient to 
 obliterate the memory of twenty years' faithful 
 service." 
 
 Catt was, of course, a devoted admirer, but 
 his incense was not of that gross kind, burned by 
 others, which obscures the idol and defiles the 
 worshipper. He was, indeed, a Court official,
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 105 
 
 librarian or secretary, and might by the ill-natured 
 be considered a sycophant. That he was not. 
 He was an innocent young student, overawed 
 and enchanted by contact with a great monarch, 
 but capable of speaking out frankly, and even 
 boldly. At an early period of their intercourse 
 he gave Frederick clearly to understand that 
 he would not submit to the brutal practical jokes 
 in which that monarch indulged. And his can- 
 dour was constantly tested, for Frederick was 
 perpetually asking what was said about him. 
 Catt was, moreover, used as a channel to convey 
 to the King the criticisms and alarms of the 
 camp. These Frederick would dismiss, intent 
 on reading aloud his newest stanzas, which the 
 most loyal of secretaries cannot follow with 
 relish when full of the dismal forebodings of 
 the army. On one occasion these were amply 
 realised, while Frederick occupied himself with 
 a parody on Ecclesiastes. 
 
 It is clear, of course, that Frederick knew 
 and intended that Catt should keep a journal. 
 At such close quarters Catt could not have kept 
 such a record without the knowledge and there- 
 fore connivance of the King, who indeed bids 
 him write. It is obvious, too, that when Frederick 
 discoursed about his plans and battles to the 
 young man, it was with the intention that they 
 should be recorded ; otherwise it would not have 
 been worth his while. This, however, by no 
 means lessens the value of the journal. It is 
 well to know what Frederick said and wished 
 to be thought. Moreover, in certain supreme 
 junctures the poignancy of his position deprived
 
 106 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. him of his mask, and he displayed the natural 
 man, so far as there was a natural man to display. 
 
 This last phrase is not intended by way of 
 disparagement. A great general inured to tre- 
 mendous hazards and vicissitudes has to curb 
 and disguise his emotions until he almost loses 
 the sensations of nature. He has to appear calm 
 when uneasy, imperturbable in the face of 
 calamity, confident when least confident, so as to 
 inspire his officers and his troops ; he is, in fine, 
 ground by fortune into temper harder than steel. 
 Little or nothing of nature survives, or is possible. 
 And this is pre-eminently true of Frederick. 
 
 If tears be a test, however, this is subject to 
 modification; though tears vary in kind. But 
 whatever their quality, the quantity of Frederick's 
 tears is undeniable. Catt reveals him as the 
 most lachrymose of monarchs. He bursts into 
 tears when reading Racine's Britannicus aloud, 
 and is unable to continue. He weeps, and no 
 wonder, on hearing that the brother whose heart 
 he had broken was dead. He weeps, and no 
 wonder, when he hears of the illness and death 
 of his sister, the Margravine of Baireuth. She 
 was his favourite in early years, but the Mar- 
 gravine's account of their latest relations hardly 
 makes one expect any violent explosion of 
 sorrow. However, any allusion unlocks new 
 fountains. When he returns from Kunersdorf, 
 tears. When he hears that the disaster of 
 Maxen has only enhanced the zeal of his troops, 
 tears. Catt, indeed, represents him as constantly 
 weeping. There is nothing discreditable in these 
 emotions, but they comport little with the con-
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 107 
 
 ception of the grim sardonic sovereign ; they 
 remind one rather of the " iron tears down 
 Pluto's cheek." 
 
 It is, of course, true that we have frequent 
 records of Frederick's lachrymatory powers. But 
 these tears were public and theatrical tears, 
 tears of ceremony, tears of etiquette. The flow 
 recorded by Catt on various occasions was for 
 Catt alone, and is perhaps less open to suspicion. 
 This aspect of Frederick is alien to Englishmen. 
 But it should be remembered that the habits of 
 continental nations are more emotional than our 
 own. Men here do not embrace each other, and 
 they weep with difficulty. On the mainland it 
 is different, and we must make this allowance 
 when we record the constant sobs of this re- 
 doubtable warrior. 
 
 But the King has a stranger and even more 
 copious relief than tears. Each calamity has a 
 welcome aspect for him in that it provides an 
 occasion for verse. When he hears of the critical 
 condition of his sister he announces the news to 
 Catt, and also the fact that he has already drafted 
 an epistle on the melancholy topic, and at once 
 reads it aloud to Catt, till interrupted by his 
 emotion. " Vous me voyez tout triste, mon 
 ami, et dans de grandes angoisses sur l'6tat de 
 ma soeur, je m'occupe d'elle dans cet instant, fai 
 fait un croquis tfune 6pitre pour elle, je veux la 
 travailler avec soin pendant le temps de notre 
 sejour dans ce quartier-ci." Presently he is 
 anxious to read this sketch, but is again silenced 
 by tears. He read it aloud constantly next day, 
 and again the day afterwards. The third day
 
 108 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. he again read it to Catt, who remained with him 
 two hours. He was engrossed with it. It was 
 the eve of Hochkirch. Next day he seemed to 
 be ruined. 
 
 The evening of the defeat he summoned Catt, 
 and declaimed a passage from Racine's Mithri- 
 date. When Catt mentions the anxiety of the 
 soldiers for the preservation of his life, the ready 
 tears stream down his cheeks. Catt is dismissed 
 and recalled. The King has heard of the death 
 of Marshal Keith. He laments his loss in a 
 sentence, then asks what the Earl Marischal will 
 feel under such a bereavement. A method of 
 consolation at once occurs to him : " Je celebrerai 
 en vers notre perte commune." 
 
 Here there is a tragic interlude. He laments 
 his fate and the odious trade to which the chance 
 of his birth has condemned him. A strange self- 
 deception. But he adds that he has that about 
 him which will end the drama when it becomes 
 insupportable ; and he produces from below his 
 shirt a little oval gold box containing eighteen 
 opium pills. " There are enough here," he says, 
 " to take one to those gloomy shores whence 
 there is no return." 
 
 His other and less drastic consolation is 
 Lucretius. " That is my breviary." 
 
 His compositions, however, are by no means 
 confined to the elegiac epistles we have men- 
 tioned. Once, for example, we catch a glimpse 
 of a " Plan of Education " for those destined to 
 the ecclesiastical profession. To this, too, the 
 hapless Catt has to listen, and he alone seems to 
 have been cognisant of it, as it was burned
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 109 
 
 unfortunately, as every school of theology would 
 welcome such a treatise from such a hand. 
 
 What are we to make of this portrait, of this 
 strange figure thus represented ? 
 
 We must acknowledge at once that we are not 
 in a position at this time to be confident of the 
 impartiality of our judgement. Waves of blood 
 are washing over the world at this moment, 
 and the source of much of this is Frederick. 
 For his policy of rapacity without scruple and 
 without conscience has inspired or tainted 
 Prussian policy ever since. The House of 
 Brandenburg has, it is true, both before and 
 after him, pursued its elevation with a single 
 mind and energy, without any tenderness as to 
 the means. Even Frederick William II. could 
 distract his mind from his mistresses sufficiently 
 first to guarantee and then plunder Poland. 
 Even the conscientious and molluscous Frederick 
 William III. filched Hanover from his ally when 
 he got the chance, and attempted to swallow 
 Saxony, though with only partial success. Some- 
 times by money-lending, sometimes by pawn- 
 broking, sometimes by grabbing, the burgraves 
 of Nuremberg pursued their undeviating purpose. 
 But Frederick as their greatest sovereign con- 
 densed this practice into avowed and definite 
 policy. It had been a tradition ; it was now an 
 heirloom from a national hero, as sacred as such 
 an unsanctified heirloom could be. Frederick 
 stamped himself ineffaceably on Prussia. 
 
 The greatest success of the family was perhaps 
 the appropriation of East Prussia, the territory 
 of the Teutonic Knights, of which one of their
 
 110 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. princes was the Grand Master and Trustee for 
 life. This Hohenzollern, by deftly converting 
 his life interest in trust property into a freehold 
 for himself, secured this great province for his 
 future realm. Acquisition by any means was 
 the object of the successive Hohenzollerns, until 
 at last they fashioned a long, lean kingdom which 
 was said from its shape and aggressiveness to 
 be all sting. Then there came the King of pre- 
 paration, Frederick William I., a half-crazy boor 
 with a shrewd zest for accumulation of money 
 and men, giants if possible, which he had the 
 wit not to attempt to use, but to prepare for the 
 son whom he had wished to kill. Then came 
 the man who was to use them for the further 
 aggrandisement of his house. Frederick lost no 
 time. His father had been one of the guarantors 
 of the Austrian dominions, and almost at the 
 moment of his own accession the guarantee came 
 into force when there succeeded to the Austrian 
 throne a young woman whose interests that 
 guarantee was framed to protect and whose 
 father was thought to have saved his life. That 
 solemn bond and that claim of gratitude did not 
 cause Frederick a moment's hesitation. While 
 exchanging cordial assurances with the young 
 Queen he poured a great army into her territories 
 and seized Silesia. Not otherwise did his Prussians 
 in the twentieth century deal with guaranteed 
 Belgium. 
 
 To his plunder or acquisition, call it what you 
 will, Frederick clung with superb and indomitable 
 tenacity. That is the one sublime strain in his 
 character. And he rounds off his reign by parti-
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 111 
 
 tioning Poland. In this nefarious scheme, of 
 which he was the prime instigator, he was also 
 the greatest gainer, for he obtained West Prussia, 
 which linked the two portions of his kingdom 
 together, and entitled him to declare himself 
 King of instead of in Prussia. Again, in the 
 affair of the Bavarian succession, when he took 
 up arms, he declared, for the purest and highest 
 motives in the interests of Germany alone, it 
 transpired at the peace that the reversion of 
 Anspach and Baireuth had, as it were by accident, 
 accrued to him as the reward of his altruism. 
 
 Rich slices of Austria and Poland, these satisfy 
 the Hohenzollern for the time. But the reign 
 of Frederick means much more than these 
 provinces. For, as has already been set forth, 
 he stamped and moulded Prussian policy into 
 the shape which it wears this day. Get what 
 you can when occasion offers, reputably if 
 possible, if not, unscrupulously; keep up huge 
 armaments as a menace to the world and a means 
 of taking advantage of opportunity, this, stated 
 crudely, is the policy that Frederick bequeathed 
 to his country. Prussia has been ever since like 
 a pike in a pond, armed with sharp teeth and 
 endless voracity, poised for a dart when the 
 proper prey shall appear. But this policy, brutal 
 as it is, requires genius, and Prussia has not 
 been richly endowed in that way. There was 
 one such, but he was discarded, and Phaeton 
 mounted the chariot of the sun in his stead, 
 with the results that we know. 
 
 This is a digression only intended to show 
 that Frederick, and so Catt's book, is well worthy
 
 112 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. of study at this time. Let us then renew our 
 examination of the portrait presented by our 
 faithful Swiss. We have seen Frederick's tears 
 and his verses. His only other pleasure, except 
 those of the table, was the flute, in which he was 
 no mean proficient. The flute was to Frederick 
 what smoking is to the men of to-day. It filled 
 up gaps in his time, soothed him, assisted medi- 
 tation and digestion. Tears, verses, flute, there 
 is something in this Meliboean aspect of a great 
 Captain fighting for desperate life in a welter of 
 war which is not without its fascination. 
 
 Is all this natural ? Were these tears, shed 
 in conjunction with the composition of unread- 
 able odes, a theatrical posture intended to im- 
 press Catt, or the irrepressible ebullitions of a 
 stern and repressed nature ? It is hard to say, 
 for human nature has strange labyrinths, but it 
 is scarcely possible to think that they were not 
 the result of dramatic art. They seem to us 
 the necessary screen of the passionate emotions 
 of ill-fortune and disaster. So considerable is 
 the imposture, indeed, that did one only know 
 Frederick through Catt one might regard him 
 as a man mainly of literary tastes. But it was 
 his duty to wear a mask. 
 
 Both as a general and as a sovereign he was 
 bound to dissimulate ; in both it is often not a 
 vice but a virtue. Moreover, we must remember 
 that the King was well aware that his officers 
 cross-questioned Catt as a sort of royal confidant 
 with regard to the King's demeanour and in- 
 tentions, while Frederick would constantly ask 
 Catt as to what was being said in the camp.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 113 
 
 On the whole, we may say that Frederick knew v. 
 his business, that he regarded Catt as a channel, 
 but that frequently he forgot that character 
 and enjoyed a debauch of odes and recitations 
 without any afterthought. 
 
 But the young scribe gives at least some 
 lamentations of Frederick which indicate, if 
 not an attempt to deceive others, at least an 
 effort to deceive himself. One of the reasons, 
 he says, which must make him always regret the 
 death of his beloved brother was that it put an 
 end to a favourite plan of his own, which was 
 to hand over the government to this prince and 
 retire to a chosen society of enlightened friends 
 with whom to pass the rest of his existence. 
 Whether Frederick ever seriously entertained 
 such an idea seems much more than doubtful 
 when we remember that he devoted the peaceful 
 remainder of his life to the work of administra- 
 tion, a toil in which he delighted and which he 
 carried on till the very moment of death. If he 
 did, no man ever deceived himself so completely. 
 If he did not, Catt would seem to have recorded 
 either a passing mood or an attempt to impose 
 on his hearer. More than once did he expatiate 
 to the secretary on his passion for a quiet life 
 had not the gods disposed of him otherwise, 
 and dilate on the repose which he loved above 
 all things, except it may be presumed in the 
 autumn of 1740. But he did not impose on our 
 innocent Swiss, for at last Catt blurted out, " It 
 is an admirable plan, Sire, but it will never be 
 realised." And when Frederick asks, " Why 
 not ? " Catt points out that when the King 
 
 VOL. I I
 
 114 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. has concluded an advantageous peace, he will 
 not be willing to descend from a throne which 
 will have been assured by so many sacrifices. 
 And the clear-sighted secretary does not hesitate 
 to indicate an opinion, though not to Frederick, 
 that the whole is a little comedy. In which we 
 are disposed to agree with him. 
 
 We must remember, and this is a vital con- 
 sideration, that Frederick had passed a terrible 
 youth under the tutelage of a mad, intemperate 
 father, who had caned and degraded him, and 
 taunted him with his degradation. By the same 
 paternal monarch he had been imprisoned and 
 condemned to death, and rescued with difficulty 
 from execution. He had had, moreover, the 
 supreme horror of witnessing the execution of 
 a friend who died for being his confidant. His 
 experience had been that of those wooden effigies 
 of their heroes which the Prussians of to-day 
 delight to honour by driving nails into them ; 
 but in his case the nails had been driven into 
 his living body by his own father. When love 
 might have afforded a consolation he was driven 
 into a marriage which he ostentatiously abhorred. 
 Hence when he came to the throne he came 
 with a shrivelled heart and a sardonic scorn for 
 all mankind, its morals, its conventions, its cant ; 
 there was little human left. That, it seems to 
 us, is the secret of Frederick's character. It is 
 revealed in his wish to be buried with his dogs. 
 Friends he had none, with the possible exception 
 of the Earl Marischal, who had almost made 
 him believe in virtue. 
 
 The dual nature of his famous intimacy with
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 115 
 
 Voltaire is notable as throwing light on Frederick's 
 character. It was proclaimed to the world as a 
 sublime friendship, but it was strongly modified by 
 shrewd and cynical penetration. Frederick never 
 ceases talking with Catt about the great French- 
 man. An idolater of Voltaire's vast and active 
 intellect, he never flags in his admiration, submits 
 his compositions to him as to a schoolmaster with 
 diffidence and apprehension, but never fails to 
 speak of his character as the vilest and most 
 contemptible that can be conceived. He regards 
 him, in fact, with the rigid discrimination which 
 makes a Russian official ask a pope's blessing 
 as a priest after having been compelled to flog 
 him as a man. He was always ready to adore 
 Voltaire as a poet and repudiate him as a friend. 
 So definite a distinction was a hindrance to 
 genuine affection. Another symptom of his 
 cynicism was that though there were some in 
 his circle like the Earl Marischal who would not 
 tolerate liberties, he had enough of his father in 
 him to delight in coarse practical jokes, and even 
 more in cruel sarcasms on those who were his 
 boon companions at Sans-Souci. One of these 
 practical jokes he narrated with glee to Catt. 
 Pollnitz and d'Argens could have reported many 
 others. Men in private life who are guilty of 
 such outrages soon find themselves alone, or 
 alone with dishonest sycophants ; and kings 
 against whom no reprisals are possible are apt 
 to discover that, though they may still be sur- 
 rounded by an abject and mercenary court, 
 they have forfeited all possibility of friendship. 
 It is not too much to say that Frederick died
 
 116 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. as friendless as his father, though with his spaniels 
 pigging around him, and that his isolation was 
 the deliberate and not unwelcome result of his 
 scorn and distrust of mankind. 
 
 Indeed, in spite of the tears and epistles, we 
 see no proof of real sensibility recorded by Catt, 
 with the exception of his apparent emotion on 
 hearing of the anxiety of his soldiers for his 
 safety. His sorrow for his brother and sister 
 and Marshal Keith falls in the category of his 
 tears and epistles, and need not be analysed 
 here. We are not offering blame. We have 
 already explained that in our judgement great 
 generals must be composed of beaten steel. 
 When to that composition is added the hardness 
 produced by Frederick's training in childhood 
 and youth, enough has been said. One cannot 
 make puddings out of a grindstone. 
 
 Again, his cynicism reveals itself in his method 
 of recruiting his forces from deserters, prisoners, 
 and crimped men. On one occasion the whole 
 Saxon army, some fifteen thousand men, after 
 surrendering to him, was incorporated without 
 its officers in his own, though they never ceased 
 to show their abhorrence of his service, and 
 deserted in numbers at every opportunity. " They 
 make as good cannon fodder as any others ; what 
 does it matter to these wretches on which side they 
 fight." So, we can fancy, the King reasoned. 
 
 Was, too, his vaunted tolerance more than the 
 expression of a cynical contempt for all creeds ? 
 A " conscientious objector " who crossed him 
 would, we apprehend, have speedily found the 
 limit of Frederick's toleration.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 117 
 
 Frederick, then, if entitled at all to the epithet 
 of Great, by which it is indeed convenient to 
 distinguish him from the crowd of Fredericks, 
 deserves it only as a general, an administrator, 
 and as a man of heroic persistency. Apart from 
 these it would be a daring advocate who would 
 claim anything in his character that entitled 
 him to such a title. It is one which requires the 
 assent of mankind ; it cannot be conferred, as such 
 epithets were wont to be by the Roman Senate 
 in its degradation. The present German Emperor, 
 William II., has constantly endeavoured to affix 
 it to his grandfather, the Emperor William I. 
 But the label will not stick ; it falls off as often 
 as it is placed, and history will not recognise it. 
 
 As to his generalship, only experts can decide, 
 and they, it would seem, have pronounced a 
 high and final judgement in his favour. When 
 Napoleon has pronounced at least one of his 
 battles to be a masterpiece, there is nothing 
 more to be said. But it may be alleged, though 
 we are not competent to decide the question, 
 that Frederick does not seem to have been a 
 born general like his eulogist, but to have learned 
 his business on the battlefield, not without pain- 
 ful and sometimes disastrous experience. Even 
 our author, a humble but candid idolater, did 
 not shrink from criticism. Before the disaster 
 of Hochkirch, he tells Frederick that his officers 
 said that his camp was commanded by the 
 enemy and was exposed to imminent danger. 
 But as Marshal Keith had told the King the 
 same with emphasis and vigour, it was not likely 
 that Catt would be successful. " If the Austrian
 
 118 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. generals let us stay quiet in this position," the 
 Field Marshal had remarked, " they deserve to 
 be hanged." After Kunersdorf, Catt tells the 
 King that many people think he was too eager 
 to engage in that battle, and that if he had been 
 satisfied with the great advantages he gained at 
 first the enemy would have retreated, but that 
 in pushing things too far he had given Loudon 
 the opportunity to fall on him with fresh cavalry. 
 Frederick thanks him for his frankness and 
 answers the criticism at length. 
 
 A few months later Catt tells his master that 
 he has observed that when Frederick was too 
 confident he was usually unsuccessful, and success- 
 ful when he was despondent; hinting at rash- 
 ness and lack of foresight. The King challenges 
 instances. " Olmiitz," cites Catt. " Vero," is the 
 reply. " Then Zorndorf, where you expected to 
 smash the Russians without much loss. Then 
 at Hochkirch you said you would drive the 
 Austrians into Bohemia." If this conversation be 
 not an afterthought of Catt's, it required no slight 
 courage in him to remind an irascible monarch, 
 smarting under disaster, of former faults. 
 
 But we have not the competence nor the 
 courage, as we have said, to follow Catt's example 
 and criticise in the slightest degree the general- 
 ship of this great soldier. Still, thus much must 
 at least be admitted, that it was the death of 
 the Empress Elizabeth that saved Frederick 
 from ruin, rather than his own splendid achieve- 
 ments. 1 When the odds against which he fought 
 
 1 Catt and Frederick had a bet on this event which Catt won. 
 But he cannot conceal his disappointment. The wager was to be a
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 119 
 
 are considered this is not remarkable, but it 
 shows how precarious was the triumph on which 
 his fame rests. 
 
 We must, however, under present circum- 
 stances call attention to his views of " frightful- 
 ness " as now practised by his countrymen. 
 " Le premier qui pillera ou detruira une maison 
 doit etre pendu sur 1'heure," he said, speaking 
 of his own soldiers. Speaking of the enemy 
 and of the havoc they had wrought in the house 
 where he lodged, and of a dead woman in the 
 garden, he asks, " Tout cela ne fait-il pas dresser 
 les cheveux de la tete, est-ce la faire la guerre ? 
 Les princes qui se servent de telles troupes, ne 
 devraient-ils pas rougir de honte ? Its sont cou- 
 pdbles et responsdbles devant Dieu de toutes les 
 horreurs qu'elles commettent." And again, " Les 
 nouvelles que je re9ois de ces cosaques barbares 
 font dresser les cheveux a la tete, ils mettant 
 tout a feu et a sang dans mon pauvre pays, 
 leur marche est sans cesse ensanglantee par 
 toutes les horreurs imaginables ; fespere que la 
 justice divine me vengera un jour ou V outre de ces 
 chefs qui ordonnent ou qui permettent de pareilles 
 abominations" Admirable and memorable as 
 are these sentiments, it is strange to hear this 
 professed infidel appealing to the Almighty for 
 redress. 
 
 And again, speaking of atrocities alleged to 
 have been committed by the troops of Loudon : 
 
 " discretion." " I shall make you a present if I lose, and you what 
 you please if I win," said the King. The supreme news arrives, and 
 Frederick with low bows hands poor Catt an epitaph on the Empress ; 
 priceless, no doubt, in its way, but still something less than the young 
 Swiss had expected.
 
 120 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. " Je vous 1'ai dit, mon cher, la guerre qui ne se 
 fait qu'en barbare perd toutes les mceurs et fait 
 de I'homme un etre sauvage, elle les rend brutaux, 
 feroces et barbares ; je ne saurais vous dire, 
 mon cher, jusqu'ou va mon indignation et ma 
 colere." 
 
 It would have been well, we think, if the 
 Prussians of to-day had assimilated this part 
 of the heritage they received from Frederick as 
 devoutly as they have adopted his other methods. 
 
 We pass from his generalship to his civil 
 administration. Here there is something to 
 admire and much to criticise. His devotion to 
 his duty is beyond praise. He fagged like a 
 clerk under the eye of a stern master, and his 
 master was duty. In summer he generally rose 
 at three, in winter an hour later, and worked 
 at his correspondence till eight. Then till ten 
 he received his Cabinet secretaries, unhappy 
 slaves condemned to unremitting toil; then till 
 noon he gave audiences, rode or walked or 
 reviewed. At noon he dined, and digestion 
 was facilitated by the flute. Then came the 
 secretaries with his letters. After this task he 
 might walk. But the hours four to six he rigidly 
 and unfortunately reserved for literary composi- 
 tion. Later he supped or received his intimate 
 associates, and at nine went to bed. 
 
 This was his day at Potsdam. But this re- 
 presents but a small part of the labours of this 
 indefatigable man. He was always pervading 
 his kingdom, reviewing, inspecting, planning, or 
 surveying improvements. Nothing was above or 
 below his notice. His finger, to use an expressive
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 121 
 
 vulgarism, was in every pie. He scrutinised 
 every penny that was spent. In his own house- 
 hold he knew the proper price of every dish, 
 the place of every bottle of wine. And the 
 same system was applied everywhere. Uneasy 
 were the heads of those who had to render to 
 him an account of their stewardship. 
 
 Frederick, like his father, administered the 
 whole kingdom as a vigilant and frugal proprietor 
 manages his estate. The father would hang a 
 man whose accounts showed a defalcation, and 
 he no doubt got his pennyworth. But Frederick, 
 with far greater application and immeasurably 
 more ability, proceeded on the same principles. 
 
 Now a virtuous and able despotism, when it 
 can be secured, is held by many to be the best 
 form of government. But a meddling and minute 
 despotism, however beneficently it may some- 
 times operate, whether exercised by a man or a 
 community, is, we take it, one of the most intoler- 
 able ; and Frederick's can hardly be characterised 
 otherwise. He cut, no doubt, some Gordian 
 knots in a way which provokes our envy. No 
 lawsuit, for example, was to last more than a 
 year. But even this summary jurisdiction did 
 not always secure justice. Still worse was it 
 when Frederick personally intervened. The case 
 of the miller Arnold is memorable, in which he 
 arbitrarily punished the innocent and rewarded 
 the guilty. Nor, when convinced of his error, 
 would he atone for it ; that was left for the 
 tardy equity of his successor's reign. A mistaken 
 sense of royal dignity, we are told, prevented 
 Frederick from revoking his decision. But the
 
 122 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. maintenance of the royal dignity does not solace 
 defrauded parties or imprisoned judges, nor does 
 it reassure a nation as to the administration 
 of justice. A county court judge would have 
 been a greater blessing to Prussian justice than 
 Frederick's meddlesome interference. 
 
 One reads of the hundreds of schools and 
 villages built by the King, of the advances in 
 money and kind made to communities and 
 individuals, of the areas of waste land reclaimed. 
 For all this part of his administration we cannot 
 award praise too high, more especially when 
 we consider the exiguity of his means. Here 
 also he no doubt made mistakes, as who would 
 not who insisted on so minute a supervision as 
 he exercised. But it cannot be doubted that in 
 his agricultural and colonising policy he must 
 have done much good. 
 
 In another direction, however, what he did 
 was extremely injurious and derogatory to his 
 subjects. On the advice of Helvetius he in- 
 augurated a new system of customs and excise, 
 with a multitude of Frenchmen to work it. Why 
 he should have insisted on importing a financial 
 executive from a country whose finances, to say 
 the least, were in a most questionable condition, 
 does not appear. Prussians might well resent 
 the tutelage of the French, but they resented 
 more than the reproach to their honesty and 
 capacity the intolerable vexations which they 
 experienced at the hand of these foreigners. 
 The increase in the revenue was small, but as 
 Sir Andrew Mitchell remarked, " The French 
 were beaten once in the field of Rossbach by the
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 123 
 
 Prussians, but they are every day taking their 
 revenge in the towns." It cannot be doubted 
 that this strange attempt at drastic but alien 
 reform profoundly affected the popularity of 
 the monarch. But it was eminently character- 
 istic of Frederick, for it displayed his cynical 
 indifference to the resentment and the proper 
 pride of his people. To be tickled by a plausible 
 project, and to introduce it at once without for 
 a moment balancing the effect on the feelings of 
 his subjects, was part of his universal scorn. 
 These poor tax-payers were pawns, to be moved 
 at will. It is in this way that great legislators 
 meet with great catastrophes. 
 
 Indeed, one feels inclined to ask what were 
 the feelings of Frederick's own Prussians under 
 the oppression of his blessings. In every one 
 of these there was the fatal taint of despotism : 
 paternal if you like, benevolent if you will, but 
 interfering and oppressive. Free initiative was 
 guided, controlled, or suppressed. Everything 
 proceeded from the King. The same despotism 
 which enabled Frederick to drench Europe with 
 blood without a word of consent or authority 
 from a single subject, enabled him to hedge 
 and ditch and drain. To people in other coun- 
 tries these gifts of Frederick would have been 
 unwelcome under such conditions. It does not 
 seem to have been so in Prussia. The severe 
 discipline of the army pervaded the nation. 
 
 In one curious instance there were signs of 
 recalcitrancy. Frederick, following his father's 
 example, abolished villeinage and serfdom in 
 his dominions. But it was proved to the King
 
 124 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. this emancipation, so far from being welcome, 
 would cause every able-bodied man to leave the 
 country. Another local experiment of the kind 
 actually caused the peasants to sell their stocks 
 and emigrate, hiring themselves out as labourers 
 elsewhere. They were afraid, it would seem, to 
 cultivate for themselves without the customary 
 assistance of their lords. Frederick appears to 
 have learned this lesson so thoroughly that he 
 afterwards decreed that all disbanded soldiers 
 should return as serfs to their former lords, 
 and that their wives, widows, and children, 
 though born free, should be bound in the same 
 way. And with the same pen he was writing 
 declamatory letters in a tone of exalted philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 This is all part of the man. He was the last 
 person in the world to deceive himself or be 
 deceived by phrases. No doubt, on the other 
 hand, he thought that he could so deceive other 
 men. That Voltaire and he when interchanging 
 compliments were never each other's dupe is, 
 we think, certain. But Voltaire was a genius 
 from whom Frederick could not bear to be 
 altogether separated, while Frederick was a 
 king whose assiduities flattered Voltaire. This 
 is, however, an exceptional case, for they were 
 exceptional men. But Frederick's phrases were, 
 we think, the outcome of his general contempt 
 for mankind. The phrases might be accepted 
 at their face value, or they might not, what did 
 it matter ? They had a good appearance and 
 might succeed. If they did not succeed, nothing 
 was lost but a little paper and ink. In this system
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 125 
 
 of florid but transparent professions he had only 
 one rival, his great contemporary, Catherine II. 
 
 But, to return to his domestic administration, 
 it may be said, except on the intellectual side, 
 the encouragement of universities, academies, 
 and the arts, to have been an intelligent develop- 
 ment of his father's, tainted perhaps with an 
 even greater predominance of paternal inter- 
 ference and oppression. Of its kind there was 
 nothing better to be seen. But his system, 
 like that of Napoleon, had one mortal defect, it 
 was personal and suited only to his own powers. 
 It was a fatal inheritance, for the qualities 
 necessary to its efficient working could not be 
 bequeathed with it. Fredericks and Napoleons 
 are exceptional products. The ordinary man 
 cannot wield the weapon of the giant ; Excalibur 
 passed with Arthur. Frederick was succeeded 
 by a voluptuous mystic who could only emulate 
 his uncle in perfidy. The Napoleonic Empire 
 must have crumbled on the accession of the 
 King of Rome. Neither Frederick nor Napoleon 
 could have imagined that his administration 
 could be successfully continued by any beings 
 much inferior to himself. 
 
 There is perhaps this difference in the case of 
 Frederick. He could not follow the advice of 
 Dr. Pangloss, as he had no garden to cultivate ; 
 he had to plough sands. And he may well 
 have felt that his first duty was to make the 
 very best of his barren estate and bequeath 
 it, fertilised as much as possible and developed, 
 to his successor, who must do the best he could 
 to administer it by any available means. But
 
 126 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. it would have been more reasonable, one would 
 think, to have framed a less centralised system 
 which would not depend for success on the single 
 supervision of one exceptional man. 
 
 What, in fine, did Frederick bequeath to 
 Prussia ? Well, he bequeathed his name and 
 fame as a great conqueror. He became in a 
 secular sense the Patron Saint of Germany. To 
 him they looked up, to him they could always 
 appeal when they contemplated some peculiarly 
 flagrant act. His immediate successor, warmed 
 by his example, pocketed British subsidies with- 
 out an effort to perform the service for which 
 they were bestowed, and employed them in the 
 dismemberment of Poland which he had just 
 sworn to guarantee. In truth, except under 
 the tepid personalities of Frederick William 
 the Third and Fourth, we find Frederick in all 
 Prussian history. Why not ? He had succeeded 
 to scattered territories and left a compact, homo- 
 geneous, Prussian kingdom, doubling its popula- 
 tion, nearly doubling its territory, and trebling 
 its revenue. And how had he done this ? By 
 seizing the guaranteed province of Silesia, and 
 the convenient provinces of Poland. That, it 
 was felt henceforth, was obviously the proper 
 policy : take what you can and how you can 
 without regard to the means. He bequeathed 
 territory, power, and comparative prosperity, 
 but he also bequeathed the terrible heritage of 
 systematic perfidy. He bequeathed too, what 
 is not so easily transmissible, an heroic and in- 
 domitable tenacity. With a heterogeneous army 
 of Prussians, deserters and prisoners of war, he
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 127 
 
 bade defiance to Europe. Whatever storms might v. 
 rage round him, although every great military 
 power was arrayed against him, himself often 
 racked with disabling illness, he survived, with 
 poison next his heart, composing and reciting 
 to Catt with death and destruction on either 
 side. How splendid a figure had his cause been 
 just. 
 
 He also bequeathed, it is fair to say, abhorrence 
 by anticipation of the nameless deeds of infamy 
 which the Prussians of our day have perpetrated, 
 though his own hands were by no means clean in 
 this respect ! 
 
 Finally, he bequeathed the doctrine that all 
 was right for Prussia, which had a code of public 
 morality that did not apply elsewhere. The 
 end, the aggrandisement of Prussia, justified 
 any means. But no such extenuation was valid 
 for any other country. Prussia, to apply a 
 common proverb, might steal a horse when 
 another Power might not look over a hedge. 
 When Joseph II. attempted to annex Bavaria, 
 not by spoliation but by agreement with the 
 Elector, the stern Prussian moralist was up in 
 arms at once to prevent so obvious an iniquity. 
 And now, when we hear Prussia which starved 
 Paris denouncing to God and man a blockade 
 which affects her supply of food, we plainly 
 discern once more the voice and heritage of 
 Frederick. 
 
 Again, all through the Seven Years' War we 
 hear the King complaining of the wanton malice 
 of his enemies who will not leave him alone, 
 the wail of oppressed innocence, with Silesia in
 
 128 MISCELLANIES 
 
 v. the background. So now we hear his kingdom, 
 after preparing for a generation a vast conspir- 
 acy against the freedom of mankind, protesting 
 against the iniquitous attack of her neighbours, 
 the wolf attempting to bleat. This too is part 
 of the heritage of Frederick. 
 
 Again, when Bute withdrew the British sub- 
 sidy, the pure indignation of Frederick, who 
 shifted his alliances as he shifted his shirt, was 
 little less than sublime. 
 
 Systematic perfidy, rapacity, and hypocrisy, 
 these would seem to be the sinister inheritance 
 that Frederick bequeathed to his people. If in 
 the Elysian Fields he should meet with one who 
 charged him with this, he would, we think, 
 shrug his shoulders and admit it, for denial 
 would no longer be useful. 
 
 The contemplation of this repulsive and formid- 
 able personage has led us far from Catt and 
 Catt's book, and for this we must apologise. 
 We must also repeat that under present circum- 
 stances it is scarcely possible to judge Frederick 
 impartially, for we regard him as not remotely 
 the cause of the holocausts of to-day. But we 
 further contend that it is well worth while, for 
 that very reason, to investigate and analyse his 
 sinister character, for if his spirit and example 
 be allowed to permeate the world there is little 
 hope for the future of mankind. Nations will 
 become mere herds of wild beasts, preying on 
 each other when occasion offers, and planning 
 with bestial cunning a favourable opportunity 
 for treacherous attack. 
 
 What is greatness ? What is glory ? These
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT 129 
 
 are the questions which arise on a contemplation 
 of Frederick's life. He indeed had his full 
 measure of glory and is usually designated as 
 " Great." But his death was preceded by scores 
 of thousands of others for which he was solely 
 responsible, a gloomy and sorrowful procession 
 of plain folk slaughtered because " ambition, 
 interest, the desire to make people talk about 
 me " had let him seize without provocation or 
 justification a province from a young woman 
 unable at the moment to defend it. These souls 
 surely await him at the gates of the future. 
 
 And at this time Howard, in obscurity, was 
 lightening prisons and succouring hopeless 
 prisoners. Jenner was ridding mankind of the 
 loathsome scourge of smallpox. An obscure 
 group of pious enthusiasts were striving to free 
 the world from the curse of slavery. Wesley 
 was bringing a new joy of hope and faith into 
 the dark places of his country. No one called 
 these men great and glorious for their poor 
 achievements ; they were merely preserving and 
 solacing humanity, while the great and glorious 
 were earning laurels by destroying it. 
 
 But history, when it is written in just propor- 
 tion and with regard to the eternal truths which 
 ultimately govern the world, may distribute its 
 honours in a different spirit. Then these humble 
 benefactors may rank higher than the wanton 
 conqueror who, possessing consummate qualities 
 of brain and fortitude, was a curse to his age and 
 to his kind. 
 
 VOL. I
 
 VI 
 BURKE 
 
 i 1 
 
 vi. WE meet to-day to fulfil a tardy act of expiation. 
 It is about 114 years since Bristol dismissed 
 Edmund Burke from her service. She has long 
 since repented that dismissal. She repents it 
 to-day, not in sheet and with candle, not in dust 
 and ashes, but in the nobler and more significant 
 form of that effigy which has been unveiled 
 outside. It is well to be a great city. It is well 
 to have your port filled with the commerce of 
 the seas. But it is better to be able to own that 
 you have been in the wrong and to put up a signal 
 monument of acknowledgment. But there is this 
 to be remembered on the other side. Bristol 
 gave Burke the greatest honour that Burke had 
 ever received, for in what we call honours, 
 contemporary honours, the career of Burke was 
 singularly deficient. A subordinate office in the 
 Government, a pension or two, the Rectorship of 
 a Scottish University about represent all that 
 Burke received of official honour in his lifetime. 
 
 1 A Speech delivered at Bristol on the occasion of the unveiling of 
 a statue of Burke on October 30, 1904. 
 
 130
 
 BURKE 131 
 
 But Bristol returned Burke unsolicited, as York- vi. 
 shire returned Brougham ; and when we re- 
 member that the representation of Yorkshire was 
 more to Brougham than the woolsack, we may 
 measure without difficulty what Bristol was to 
 Burke. Brougham, in a moment of unwisdom, 
 left Yorkshire for the woolsack. But Burke 
 would never have left Bristol of his own accord, 
 for he well knew the strength and power that is 
 given to a public man when he stands forward, 
 not on his own merits, but as the representative 
 of a . great public constituency. And in those 
 days great popular constituencies were infinitely 
 rarer than they are now, and Bristol was then 
 the second city of the Empire. 
 
 Well, then, why did Bristol dismiss Burke ? 
 We know the ostensible reasons, because he has 
 given them himself. One was because he voted 
 for the relaxation of the penal laws against 
 Roman Catholics and for the relaxation of the 
 hide-bound commercial policy that separated 
 England and Ireland. But I am inclined to think 
 that the real reasons were more practical and less 
 magnificent ; I am inclined to think that the 
 first reason why Bristol rejected Burke was that 
 he was too negligent of his constituents, did not 
 pay visits enough, was too long absent from 
 them, and that through his absence his opponents 
 were always on the spot, were constantly em- 
 ployed in sowing tares among his wheat. And 
 the other reason I shall give is this, that he had 
 no money to fight Bristol in those days, and that 
 in those days a contest for Bristol was enormously 
 expensive ; and that while he had no money,
 
 132 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. his supporters at the first election had become 
 impoverished owing to the unjust and foolish 
 American War and were unable to come to his 
 assistance. Those, at least, are the deductions 
 I arrived at after reading the most interesting 
 and exhaustive book on the connection of Burke 
 with Bristol published by Mr. Weare. I confess 
 I could hardly lay down that book until I had 
 finished it. I have only one fault to find with it. 
 It went to disprove a historic story of Cruger, 
 Burke 's colleague, who, when Burke sat down 
 at the end of his great oration to the electors 
 of Bristol, said, " Gentlemen, I say ditto to Mr. 
 Burke." I am happy to think that time-worn 
 anecdote is beyond reach of Mr. Weare or any other 
 seeker after historical truth, because so good a 
 story, when it has been current for a century, is 
 certain to be immortal whether it be true or false. 
 You must remember that, as I have said, you 
 were then the second city of the Empire and your 
 seat was not an easy seat to win. You now get 
 through the poll in a day. The poll then lasted 
 from three weeks to five. All that time new 
 electors were being admitted under the guise of 
 freemen, and as often as they were admitted they 
 voted. Two thousand of these freemen and more 
 were admitted during the course of the three 
 weeks' poll when Mr. Burke was elected, and the 
 certificates of these freemen, " copies " as they 
 were called, were begged, borrowed, and stolen 
 with the greatest readiness in the world. And 
 when it was impossible to beg, borrow, steal, 
 or manufacture any more of these certificates, 
 one desperate course was at last resorted to,
 
 BURKE 133 
 
 which was this the widow or the daughter of vi. 
 a freeman of Bristol could confer on her second 
 husband or on her husband the privilege of the 
 franchise by marriage, and so these interesting 
 ladies were dug out and discovered wherever they 
 might exist, even in the recesses of the workhouse, 
 and were taken to church to be married to some 
 enterprising and ambitious politician who wished 
 to exercise for that occasion the privilege of the 
 franchise. It is recorded that these conscientious 
 couples were invariably separated at the church 
 door ; the husband hurried to fulfil the new 
 duties that had been enforced upon him by his 
 union, and when he had done that the ceremony 
 of divorce was gone through with equal expedi- 
 tion. Proceeding to the churchyard, the couple 
 stood, each on one side of a grave, and, in allusion 
 to the solemn words of the marriage service, they 
 said to each other what was true in a sense, 
 " Death does us part." Both parties went their 
 way rejoicing. That was considered sufficient 
 divorce of such a marriage, and I am not sure 
 that the opinion was ill founded. 
 
 Well, for one reason or another, Burke and 
 Bristol parted ; but, after all, whether they 
 parted or not, it is a noble episode in both their 
 histories. That was a great period for Bristol. 
 Four years before Burke came to this city, a 
 lonely, starving, desperate Bristol lad of seventeen 
 burned his manuscripts in a London garret, took 
 poison, and made an end of himself one of the 
 two great poetical prodigies of the eighteenth 
 century, Thomas Chatterton, perhaps the greatest 
 instance on record of lonely, self-relying, self-
 
 134 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. sufficing, precocious poetical genius. Well, the 
 short space of twenty-eight years from 1752 to 
 1780 covers the whole life of Chatterton and the 
 whole connection of Burke with Bristol. But 
 think how those names decorate Bristol for all 
 time ! They are, after all, the two foremost 
 names of their time in their several departments 
 Chatterton, to whom Wordsworth, who was 
 not prone to external admiration, bent in reverent 
 homage, and Burke. Surely we may say that 
 Bristol was then in every sense the second city 
 of the Empire, if not the first. 
 
 Now, let me say one word to you of Burke as 
 apart from Bristol. It is too vast a subject for 
 me to enter upon in any detail or as approaching 
 any but a corner of the subject, for so wide and 
 various are the genius and career of Burke that 
 you might as well attempt to exhaust the char- 
 acter of Shakespeare in a speech of this kind as 
 attempt to deal adequately with the genius of 
 Burke. But what is the key to Burke 's char- 
 acter ? There is, on the face of it, some apparent 
 complexity. Burke was an ardent reformer all 
 his life, but ended in a frenzy of Toryism so 
 violent that it transcended the ministerial Tory- 
 ism of that day. That appears inconsistent on 
 the face of it, but it seems to me to bear no real 
 inconsistency. The secret of Burke 's character 
 is this in my judgement that he loved reform 
 and hated revolution. He loved reform because 
 he hated revolution. He hated revolution be- 
 cause he loved reform. He regarded revolution 
 as the greatest possible enemy of that large, 
 steady, persistent, moderate reform that he loved,
 
 BURKE 135 
 
 and because by its indiscriminating violence it vi. 
 provoked indiscriminate reaction. And, on the 
 other hand, he regarded reform not merely as 
 good in itself, but as tending by its action to 
 prevent and anticipate the horrors of revolution. 
 
 Now, you know his horror of anything like 
 parliamentary reform. He would not touch the 
 smallest rotten borough ; he would move no hand 
 in doing away with the slightest of those abuses 
 which all Englishmen have long agreed to see in 
 the parliamentary history of his time. In my 
 opinion that is no real exception to the rule I 
 have laid down, because in his judgement the 
 balances and safeguards of the Constitution hung 
 so nicely and by so delicate an adjustment that 
 he had the greatest fear that if you touched 
 them at all they would all come tumbling down 
 together ; and so when at last he did see the 
 violence, the massacre, and the bloodshed of the 
 French Revolution, transcending all that he had 
 feared in a cataclysm of that kind, he burst out 
 in a sublime frenzy of passion and denunciation. 
 
 I think to this day we feel the thrill of what 
 he wrote then. If you remember, Sir Philip 
 Francis wrote to complain that his description 
 his famous description of Marie Antoinette 
 and the contrast with her fallen fortunes was too 
 florid for the exact canons of good taste. What 
 was Burke's reply ? He said, " I tell you again " 
 that it " did draw tears from me and wetted my 
 paper. These tears came again into my eyes 
 almost as often as I looked at the description 
 they may again." And I think that when a 
 genius such as this puts tears into prose, posterity
 
 136 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. may still continue to shed them. Where he 
 failed with regard to the French Revolution was 
 in being blinded, by his disgust at what was 
 passing, to any appreciation of the other side of 
 the question. He saw the horrors as we see them 
 and as we read of them. What he did not see 
 was that they were the outcome of a century of 
 misgovernment, and of misrule and debauchery 
 such as had caused a long continuance of terrible 
 calamity. The palaces and the campaigns and 
 the mistresses of the last two Louis had ground 
 down the faces of the poor in France, and had 
 made life not merely intolerable, but almost 
 impossible to them. There is no doubt that 
 those who suffered on the scaffold in the French 
 Revolution were not the real causes of the Revolu- 
 tion, but they expiated a long series of intoler- 
 able crimes against the nation itself. And the 
 result is that Burke passes out of history with 
 the appearance of a reactionary to whom the re- 
 action of his day was totally insufficient, while he 
 passed his life as a reformer, daring and grasping 
 enough to frighten the very souls of his admirers. 
 I would ask you to remember two other points 
 in the career of Burke, two admirable points to 
 my mind. The first was his superiority to every- 
 thing in the nature of private friendship and party 
 ties when the call of duty summoned him. There 
 was no stronger party man than Burke. He was 
 a Whig of the Whigs. He glorified Whigs. He 
 inspired the Whigs. He was, if I may so express 
 myself, the prose Poet Laureate of Whiggery. 
 And yet, without hesitation or murmur, he for- 
 sook all and followed what he believed to be the
 
 BURKE 137 
 
 truth. He loved Charles Fox and all his other 
 political associates. His eulogy on Charles Fox 
 in his speech on his India Bill is perhaps the 
 noblest tribute ever paid in eloquence by one 
 politician to another. But he forsook them all, 
 Charles Fox and all, to follow what he believed 
 to be the truth. The wrench was terrible. It 
 brought tears to the eyes of all who witnessed it. 
 But Burke never flinched and never blenched. 
 He went home to his lonely country home. He 
 went home to see his son die, and all his hopes 
 and future die with that son, and then to die in 
 solitude and sorrow himself. 
 
 There is another point to which I would call 
 your attention in regard to Burke which, as I 
 have said, seems to me eminently creditable to 
 him. When, in 1784, he saw himself out of office 
 for life he did not contentedly settle down to 
 the functions of a barren and windy opposition. 
 He seized and grappled with the huge problems 
 of Indian administration, a topic which then in 
 Great Britain was imperfectly understood and 
 imperfectly appreciated, and, with a courage 
 which may almost seem heroic, he brought the 
 great pro-consul of those days, Warren Hastings, 
 to an impeachment, which was indeed unsuccess- 
 ful, but which will remain always one of the most 
 enduring monuments of his fame. I have no 
 personal application to draw from that lesson, 
 but I think that every earnest man must have 
 felt in opposition the want of sincere and serious 
 and patriotic work which may enable him to 
 fulfil his duty to his country even when he is not 
 able to do it in office, and that the lesson of
 
 138 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. Burke is one that has not been lost and will not 
 be lost on our statesmen. 
 
 The last point I would call your attention 
 to in the character of Burke is this, for there is 
 much of practical consolation to be derived by 
 the politicians of to-day from a contemplation 
 of the life-work of Burke. Burke, though his 
 reputation is so prodigious and is perhaps still on 
 the rise, did not during his career perceive many 
 of the contemporaneous symptoms of success. 
 His speeches when they were delivered fell on 
 deaf or heedless ears. There are two famous 
 instances. He made a speech on Indian adminis- 
 tration which was so wearisome and so ineffective 
 that Dundas, who was the Minister to answer it, 
 turned round to Pitt and they both agreed that 
 it was not worth answering. When it came to be 
 printed it was that famous speech on the Nabob 
 of Arcot's debts, which Pitt and Dundas both 
 read with a stupor of admiration and wondered 
 how they could have so mistaken it when it was 
 delivered. Another was a speech I do not re- 
 collect at this moment which it was but it was 
 one which Sir Thomas Erskine, surely no mean 
 judge of eloquence, found absolutely intolerable 
 to listen to. I forget whether he fell asleep or 
 went out. When it came to be published he wore 
 out one or two copies in reading and re-reading it 
 in a frenzy of admiration. So we see that Burke's 
 speeches were unsuccessful as speeches but not 
 as treatises. In the next place, he rose to no 
 high office in the State. For a few months he 
 held one subordinate office which used to be held 
 by men of great eminence because it had been
 
 BURKE 139 
 
 so extremely lucrative, the office of Paymaster- vi. 
 General. But Burke, as the first-fruits of his 
 economic reform, practised it, which is rare, upon 
 his own office. He cut down the emoluments 
 and held the office with a salary which in those 
 days was considered comparatively insignificant. 
 Well, then, his speeches were ineffective. He 
 held no high office. What is the last point in 
 which his life as regards temporary success was 
 a failure ? The last point, in my mind, is this. 
 In none of the great objects of his earlier days 
 did this sublime genius see any real success while 
 he was alive. His success has followed after 
 death, but he never lived to see it. What were 
 his great objects ? Roman Catholic emancipation. 
 He never lived to see Roman Catholic emancipa- 
 tion, though it has come after his death. Con- 
 ciliation with America. That never came about ; 
 Ministers would not listen to it. Economical 
 reform, the India Bill, the impeachment of 
 Hastings, the control of the French Revolution. 
 Is it not a consolation for us pigmies of this time, 
 with our halting tongues and feeble weapons, to 
 reflect that this great master of eloquence and 
 political genius saw so little of success in his 
 lifetime ? It only exemplifies the truth of almost 
 the last exclamation that arose from his lips in 
 this city of Bristol, those words of which I would 
 remind you " What shadows we are and what 
 shadows we pursue ! " Those memorable and 
 pathetic words which he uttered, and which sum 
 up the life of every politician and perhaps of 
 every man, are not less applicable to the career 
 of Burke than to many lesser men. It is not yet
 
 140 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. a century since he passed away. We are able to 
 realise him as he was, but in life the objects 
 that he pursued must have seemed to him 
 to be shadows, and they have only petrified 
 into monuments since his death. After a long 
 struggle between the forces of Europe and the 
 forces of France, the French Revolution was 
 at length controlled and subdued for a time. 
 Roman Catholic emancipation was carried. His 
 great policy of conciliation both towards India 
 and towards Ireland was largely carried into 
 effect, and his prospects of economical reform 
 have been much more than realised. 
 
 And what of him ? Is he a shadow ? No, he 
 is, in my opinion, the one figure of the time which 
 is likely never to be a shadow. He brightens on 
 the historic canvas as the other figures fade 
 by virtue of those speeches, which, as I have 
 said, were read and not listened to. He will be 
 remembered as long as there are readers to read, 
 when those orators on whose lips Parliaments 
 and people hung enthralled are forgotten with the 
 tongues that spoke and the ears that listened to 
 them. Day by day the powerful Ministers whom 
 he could not persuade, the great nobles whom he 
 had to inspire and to prompt, the sublime states- 
 men who, forsooth, could not admit him to their 
 Cabinets, wax dimmer and dimmer, and he 
 looms larger and stronger ; for their fame rests 
 on Bills and speeches ephemeral Bills and 
 ephemeral speeches but his is built on a broader 
 and stronger foundation, built on a high political 
 wisdom ; like some noble old castle or abbey 
 which while it stands is a monument and beacon
 
 BURKE 141 
 
 to man, but which even in its decay furnishes vi. 
 a landmark, remarkable to posterity. 
 
 n 1 
 
 LORD CURZON has alluded to the part the very 
 small part that I have played in to-day's 
 ceremony. Small as that part was, it was 
 distinguished by, I believe, a crucial error on a 
 critical point. As I have been reminded by my 
 friend the rector, I spoke of Beaconsfield, not 
 " Beconsfield." I well knew what I was doing, 
 and I think my friend Lord Curzon, who so ably 
 represents this part of the world on the Con- 
 servative side of politics, will agree with me in 
 thinking I was right. I was brought up to believe 
 the pronunciation was " Beconsfield " until on 
 the creation of the title of Lady Beaconsfield, 
 and still more of Lord Beaconsfield, I was im- 
 pressed by those distinguished persons with a 
 creed, which will only leave me with my life, that 
 the proper pronunciation was Beaconsfield, and 
 not " Beconsfield." I can assure you it would 
 have required more courage than I possess to 
 address Lady Beaconsfield as Lady " Becons- 
 field," or Lord Beaconsfield as Lord " Becons- 
 field." I do not know how it will be fought out 
 in this district, that conflict of pronunciation ; I 
 only give you the historical authority on one side, 
 and I do not know whether it will countervail 
 local tradition on the other. 
 
 1 A Speech at a luncheon given by Sir Edward Lawson (Lord 
 Burnham) at Hall Barn on July 7, 1898, after a memorial to Burke had 
 been unveiled in the Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Beaconsfield.
 
 142 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. I think we have had a most interesting 
 
 ceremony to-day. It has been interesting in 
 part because of its simplicity, not because of 
 the grandeur or of the celebrity of those who 
 attended it, though I confess I was very glad 
 to see a detachment of Irishmen present to 
 do honour to the greatest of Irishmen. But I 
 think some of us who stood in the church to-day 
 must have felt their thought revert for a moment 
 to the sublime ceremony a few weeks ago in 
 which all that was mortal of one of the greatest 
 of Englishmen 1 was enshrined in Westminster 
 Abbey. There is a great contrast between that 
 noble and signal procession and our little cere- 
 mony of to-day. But the little ceremony of 
 to-day is not incongruous. It would not have 
 taken place had Burke been buried among the 
 great of the earth in Westminster Abbey ; and, 
 indeed, Charles Fox proposed it, but by his will 
 Burke absolutely forbade it. It would not have 
 been out of place had Burke been buried in 
 Westminster Abbey, but it seems to me to be 
 more strictly appropriate that a man whose life 
 was distinguished in the higher walks of thought 
 but not by many of the outer rewards of this 
 world, for he was never a Cabinet Minister 
 should be buried, not in Westminster Abbey 
 among those who have achieved those distinctions, 
 but in that quiet home of his where he was seen 
 at his best, and in the church where he worshipped 
 among the poorer neighbours whom he loved. 
 
 There was, of course, more than one Burke. 
 There was the Burke who has left works which 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone.
 
 BURKE 148 
 
 will only perish with the English language ; but VL 
 to-day we are thinking more of the Burke as he 
 was seen at Gregories, the farmer, the unsuccess- 
 ful farmer as all gentlemen farmers are the 
 man who strolled about his place, who showed 
 with pride his pigs and his cattle and his horses 
 and his sheep, the man for whom nothing was too 
 small or too simple in the midst of this home. 
 There have been published in a Scottish paper 
 quite recently extracts from the diary of a Miss 
 Shackleton, belonging to that family of Shackle- 
 tons to whom Burke had been attached all his 
 life, which, I think, give almost the most perfect 
 picture of Burke at Gregories I have ever read. 
 She describes with the greatest reverence how 
 she came to see Burke, and how he presented her 
 to Crabbe the poet, and how Burke took her into 
 the grounds and made his dog jump into the 
 pond after a stick to show her how well it swam, 
 how he showed her his stables, his granaries, and 
 his domestic animals. And then, how does 
 Burke end the day ? There is no light more 
 instructive on this extraordinary man than that 
 he ended by compounding pills for his poorer 
 neighbours who were ill. Talk of cutting blocks 
 with a razor ! The man whose eloquence was the 
 delight of his country, whose writings created 
 an impulse over the world such as no political 
 writings perhaps have ever exceeded, sat down 
 to waste his time, as some might have thought it, 
 in compounding rhubarb with other disagreeable 
 adjuncts into remedies for his poorer neighbours. 
 And as he did so he told a story which I think 
 is worthy to be told on such an occasion as this.
 
 144 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vi. He said, " I am like an Irish peer whom I used 
 to know, who was also fond of dealing out 
 remedies to his neighbours. One day that noble- 
 man met a funeral, and asked a poorer neighbour 
 whose funeral it was. ' Oh, my lord,' was the 
 reply, ' that's Tady So-and-So, the man whom 
 your lordship cured three days ago.' ' 
 
 Well, that is the side of Burke we are thinking 
 of to-day. There has been no pompous pro- 
 cession to hallow this centenary, nothing in the 
 nature of ceremony, nothing that would attract 
 the outer eye. But I think we who have been 
 present in the little church to-day have felt that 
 we have taken a moment out of the world and its 
 cares and its businesses for a higher and more 
 sublime process of thought, that we have been 
 enabled to enshrine in our lives a memory in 
 thought and in prayer to-day a memory which 
 the world will never let die.
 
 VII 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 1 
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM, though by no means flawless, vii. 
 was one of the great gentlemen of our history. 
 Had he lived in the great days of Elizabeth, he 
 would have been one of the heroes of her reign ; 
 indeed he almost seemed out of place in the times 
 of George III. As a country gentleman no doubt 
 he was not the equal of his friend and neighbour 
 Coke, whom genius and fortune made the greatest 
 of benefactors to agriculture ; but Coke as a 
 politician was narrow and fanatical. And with 
 devotion to rural life and manly sport Windham 
 combined much more. He was a statesman, 
 an orator, a mathematician, a scholar, and the 
 most fascinating talker of his day. He was 
 brilliant in that galaxy which comprised Johnson 
 and Burke, Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan, though 
 their memory will survive his. For, by the irony 
 of events, he is now best remembered as the 
 successful advocate of bull-baiting. So that it 
 is worth while to revive his real character and 
 repute. 
 
 As a statesman he was proud of his inde- 
 
 1 An Introduction contributed to the Windham Papers, London, 
 1913. 
 
 VOL. I 145 L
 
 146 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vii. pendence, a rare and intrepid quality in political 
 life. It was indeed reproached against him that 
 he was so enamoured with this virtue that he 
 sought out occasions of being on the unpopular 
 side. This, indeed, if it were true of him, is not 
 likely to be a contagious quality. It could only 
 exist, so far as parliamentary life is concerned, in 
 the House of Lords or in close boroughs, and 
 Windham was at last driven to this latter refuge. 
 He was more than once invited to join the House 
 of Lords, but he greatly preferred Higham 
 Ferrers or St. Mawes. 
 
 This aloofness, mainly due to the paramount 
 influence of Burke, is shown by the fact that 
 Windham in domestic politics could be found 
 arrayed with both the great political parties. 
 He was the enthusiastic advocate of Roman 
 Catholic emancipation, and the unflinching oppo- 
 nent of parliamentary reform. He had a foot, 
 therefore, firmly planted in each of the two 
 camps. He was, however, in reality by tempera- 
 ment a Tory. No disciple of Burke could be 
 other than a supporter of Catholic emancipation. 
 But where Windham was left to himself his 
 attitude to politics was strongly conservative. 
 He was not, indeed, often left to himself. For 
 it is strange to find of a man who piqued himself 
 on independence that no one was so susceptible 
 to personal influence. It is this circumstance 
 which gives a strange and fickle appearance to 
 his political career. He was called by turns a 
 Foxite, a Pittite, a Grenvillite, and a Greyite, 
 but was always and supremely a Burkite. Burke 
 influenced many minds, but none so much as
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 147 
 
 Windham's. It was his essential fidelity to the vn. 
 creed of Burke which made him apparently 
 variable. No man, indeed, under an appearance 
 of change was so truly faithful to his principles 
 and himself. But as Burke was charged with 
 inconsistency, so, as a necessary consequence, 
 was Windham. He seemed to wish always to 
 know what Burke thought or would have thought 
 on any subject, and when he knew, to feel no 
 doubt or misgiving. In the great agony of the 
 Whig party, when every Whig felt the anguish 
 of a separation from Fox, Windham hesitated 
 for a moment. He was under the charm of Fox, 
 whose tastes he shared ; but as soon as the voice 
 of the master was heard, clear and imperative, 
 Windham came to his side, without further 
 question or doubt. 
 
 When the storm of the French Revolution 
 broke, it swept all minor issues away ; you were 
 either a "Jacobin" or an " anti- Jacobin "; 
 you either thought that good might come out of 
 the convulsion while deploring its excesses, or 
 you saw in it the root of all evil, you descried 
 its poison in all sorts of unexpected forms and 
 developments, and you proclaimed that the 
 Revolution was the monster to be destroyed 
 at all costs. The reader, indeed, becomes a 
 little weary of the monotonous denunciation of 
 " Jacobinism " and " Jacobins " in the speeches 
 of Windham and the writings of Burke. No 
 consideration of means or proportion weighed 
 with either for one moment. The dragon must 
 be utterly exterminated, even should it devour 
 all the available St. Georges in the process. Then
 
 148 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vii. and then only should we have done our duty. 
 Then and then only would the world know peace. 
 This violence of conviction kept Windham 
 both uncompromising and independent. Though 
 he joined Pitt he regarded Pitt as little less than 
 a necessary evil, as a minister who had parlia- 
 mentary power and so was able to carry on the 
 war with France, but who fell sadly short of 
 grace. They were only colleagues in a war, as 
 to the methods and objects of which they funda- 
 mentally differed. 
 
 To Pitt the war was a disagreeable necessity 
 forced on him by circumstance, but from which 
 he hoped that circumstance would relieve him 
 and his country. To Windham it was a high 
 and holy crusade to be carried on to extermina- 
 tion. The object with him was to replace on the 
 throne of France the sacred race of Bourbon. 
 Pitt cared less than nothing for the Bourbons ; 
 his object was the preservation of his country, 
 and of some sort of balance of power. Windham 
 looked on him, therefore, as a Peter the Hermit 
 may have looked on a soldier of fortune. WTien 
 Pitt retired Windham felt relief ; he was no longer 
 linked to an uncongenial colleague, and was free 
 to pummel the luckless Addington and Adding- 
 ton's peace. He thundered against this truce 
 with the evil one, but some years afterwards 
 acknowledged his error manfully enough to 
 Addington. For he saw in 1809, what Pitt had 
 seen in 1801, that a pause was necessary to 
 recruit the exhausted energies of Great Britain. 
 When Pitt returned to office, Windham thundered 
 against Pitt ; Pitt was inadequate, all that he
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 149 
 
 did was insufficient. But Windham had yet to vn. 
 give a further and final proof of independence. 
 For, when Pitt died, he joined Grenville's Cabinet, 
 and when that ministry came to an end in the 
 ensuing year, was fierce against Grenville and on 
 the brink of an individual resignation. 
 
 All these changes, though they were nominal 
 and not real, put him in the bad books of both 
 political parties. He obtained the nickname of 
 the " Weather-cock " ; the virulent and pedantic 
 Parr called him the " Apostate." But the in- 
 dependent man in politics must accustom himself 
 to harder knocks than nicknames. Windham 
 was, indeed, the most consistent of politicians. 
 He was neither Whig nor Tory, but always an 
 anti-Jacobin, and always, as has been already 
 said, a Burkite. 
 
 His oratory must have been remarkable, 
 though his voice was ineffective. But he had 
 presence and charm. He was not indeed hand- 
 some, yet his deportment was manly and 
 dignified. " A tall, thin, meagre, sallow, black- 
 eyed, penetrating, keen-looking figure." We 
 have three volumes of his speeches, but reporting 
 in those days does not seem vivid or exact, and 
 latterly Windham, rushing, as his way was, to 
 join an unpopular cause, quarrelled with the press, 
 and henceforth went unreported. But he revised 
 and published several of his orations from which 
 a fair idea of his powers may be obtained. One 
 of these, that in which as Secretary for War he 
 developed his military proposals in 1806, was 
 pronounced by Fox to be one of the most eloquent 
 ever delivered. Fox's nephew, Lord Holland,
 
 150 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vn. who did not like Windham, gave him the highest 
 praise as an orator. In fancy and imagery, in 
 taste and above all in delivery, says Holland, he 
 was far superior to the great god of his idolatry, 
 Mr. Burke. In variety of illustration, in acute- 
 ness of logic, he scarcely yielded to Fox. In 
 felicity of language he approached Pitt. In true 
 wit and ingenuity he more than rivalled Sheridan. 
 Testimony of this kind from a man who had 
 heard Windham is worth a ton of criticism from 
 the student who can only read him. 
 
 What a reader would say of his recorded efforts 
 is that they are characterised by closely-knit and 
 even philosophical argument, couched in the lofty 
 style of those days. But their distinctive charm 
 was originality, a felicitous agility and un- 
 expectedness of mind, a raciness of expression 
 and sudden bursts of pleasantry which probably 
 drew to him fully as great a House as even Pitt 
 or Fox could command. Of his quaint humour 
 the best sustained example is the speech on the 
 Repeal of the Additional Force Act in May 1806 ; 
 its fun is still brisk and vivid. His most famous 
 flash of fun was on the intention to take Antwerp 
 by a coup de main. " Good God, Sir, talk of a 
 coup de main with forty thousand men and thirty- 
 three sail of the line 1 Gentlemen might as well 
 talk of a coup de main in the Court of Chancery." 
 This drollery convulsed the House, and made, 
 it is said, that grave and illustrious judge, Sir 
 William Grant, roll from his seat with laughter. 
 So happy a jest survives superior arguments on 
 forgotten bills. Another sally, still more memor- 
 able, was that with which he slew a Reform
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 151 
 
 Bill, as with a smooth stone from the brook, vn. 
 " No one," he said, " would select the hurricane 
 season in which to begin repairing his house " : a 
 happy metaphor containing sound political truth. 
 There is no doubt that Windham at his death 
 was the finest speaker in Parliament ; the other 
 giants had gone ; Sheridan was extinct, and 
 Canning had not reached his full development. 
 
 What is most remarkable is the rapidity with 
 which he reached a high parliamentary position. 
 He delivered his maiden speech in the House of 
 Commons in February 1785, and in 1787 he was 
 considered of sufficient weight to be entrusted 
 with one of the charges, and nominated one of 
 the managers of the impeachment of Warren 
 Hastings. Nine years after his first speech he 
 was admitted to the Cabinet, a far greater and 
 more limited distinction then than now, besides 
 being in virtue of a minor office which had never 
 before been associated with Cabinet rank. He 
 was, moreover, the only Cabinet Minister in the 
 Commons with Pitt and Dundas. So rapid a 
 rise is seldom recorded, and proves a command 
 of Parliament by eloquence and character such 
 as few men of his standing can have achieved. 
 
 As a minister there is less to be said. He was 
 always connected with the War Office, a territory 
 which it is perilous for a civilian even in narrative 
 to tread. It must be admitted that the few 
 pebbles which he left on the shore of military 
 history scarcely constitute a memorial cairn. 
 But it must be remembered that during the first 
 seven years of his administration he was not the 
 Secretary of State, but a nominally subordinate
 
 152 MISCELLANIES 
 
 VIL minister, though with all the influence of Cabinet 
 office ; and that he was only Secretary of State 
 for a year. Still it was notorious that, though 
 ardent and vigorous, he was a bad man of business. 
 In his first office he was responsible for the dis- 
 aster of Quiberon, which represented his personal 
 policy of carrying on the war by supporting the 
 French Royalists on the soil of France. During 
 his second short tenure he countenanced the 
 amazing scheme of despatching an inadequate 
 army for vague purposes of conquest in South 
 America, when we needed every man and every 
 musket in Europe to grapple with Napoleon. 
 This is no captivating record. On the other hand, 
 it stands to his credit that he shortened the term 
 of service in spite of the formidable resistance of 
 George III. To the volunteers he was stoutly 
 opposed, though he had a private but eccentric 
 corps at Felbrigg in which he was the only officer. 
 But few and rare are the British Ministers of War 
 who have earned distinction, for the conditions 
 of their office render success hardly possible. The 
 nation which furnishes superb military material 
 is absorbed in the primary interest of the fleet, 
 and though it passively votes vast sums for its 
 army never gives that active interest and support 
 which strengthens the arm of the minister. The 
 one great exception is Chatham. But Chatham, 
 like. Napoleon, wielded the whole strength of the 
 Empire, political, financial, naval and military, 
 and was backed by the confident enthusiasm of 
 his country. 
 
 The real reputation of Windham, apart from 
 his oratory, lay in the charm of his conversation.
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 153 
 
 In that vanished realm he was a prince. Testi- vn. 
 mony on the point is unanimous. It is safe to 
 say that no one has recorded a meeting with 
 Windham who is not a witness to his fascination. 
 Miss Burney gives a lively account of her talks 
 with him during the Hastings trial which enables 
 us to realise in a measure how it was that he won, 
 if not all hearts, at least sympathetic admiration. 
 His expression was various and vivid. He was 
 earnest, playful, and eloquent. He had the 
 faculty, which is perhaps the most attractive of 
 all, of appearing to give his very best to the 
 person with whom he was conversing. Talk 
 may be recorded, but its spell cannot. And so, 
 though we rejoice in Miss Burney 's record, we 
 feel that we must rely on tradition, which, in so 
 controversial a matter, must be held, when 
 unanimous, to be an authority beyond dispute. 
 The supreme judgement, from which there is no 
 appeal, is that of Johnson. Windham had been 
 elected to the famous Club when he was a country 
 gentleman of twenty-eight, a sufficient tribute 
 to his precocious repute. But in 1784, when the 
 great man was near his end, Windham went far 
 out of his way to spend a day and a half with 
 him at Ashbourne. " Such conversation," writes 
 the dying sage, " I shall not have again till I 
 come back to the regions of literature ; and 
 there Windham is inter Stellas Luna minor es" 
 Such a testimony from such a man is almost 
 unique, but it is in truth confirmed by every 
 witness. 
 
 Conversational fascination is apt to be a snare, 
 and we are bound to hazard an opinion that
 
 154 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vii. Windham was a flirt. And yet there was no 
 character that he condemned so strongly. Before 
 going up in a balloon he addressed a testamentary 
 letter to Cholmondeley, his closest friend, re- 
 monstrating strongly against Cholmondeley's 
 conduct towards a certain Miss Cecilia Forrest. 
 Cholmondeley, he declared, had ruined the girl's 
 life, by inspiring her with a fatal affection of which 
 he was unworthy. Thirteen years afterwards, with 
 singular secrecy, Windham married the lady him- 
 self. He was then forty-eight and she past forty. 
 And he completed this unusual transaction by 
 making Cholmondeley one of his reversionary heirs. 
 This is Windham all over. And we also learn that 
 he had fallen, perhaps unconsciously, into the same 
 error with which he had reproached his friend. 
 He had engaged the affections of a daughter of 
 Sir Philip Francis, and a lady endeavouring to 
 console the unhappy girl told her that Windham 
 had long hesitated between Miss Forrest and a 
 devoted widow. In this one letter, therefore, we 
 are confronted with three ladies whose hearts 
 were captured by Windham. He had, moreover, 
 come under the magic charm of Mrs. Crewe. To 
 Mrs. Crewe, and Mrs. Crewe alone, he confided 
 the secret of his marriage, and he records his 
 agitation at meeting her immediately after the 
 event. But perhaps the most authentic basis for 
 conviction as regards Windham's attraction for 
 the other sex is Lady Minto's remark on his 
 resignation in 1801 : "I suppose he will return 
 to his old line of gallantry." There let us leave 
 the matter. It is worthy of observation as an 
 essential part of a whimsical character. We may
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 155 
 
 be sure that Windham's flirtations were uncon- vn. 
 scious, honourable, and innocent. 
 
 Unhappily, he was fated to be something of a 
 suicide, for he dealt an almost mortal blow to his 
 own reputation. For we cannot doubt that it 
 would have stood much higher but for his Diary. 
 And yet he himself set store by it, as if, one would 
 think, he regarded it as a sure base for his future 
 fame. He left the fourteen quarto volumes of 
 which it was composed as an heirloom to pass 
 with the entailed estates, and yet any judicious 
 friend would have put it without hesitation 
 behind the fire. Extracts of this strange record 
 were published by Mrs. Baring in 1866, after the 
 estates and entail had all disappeared in the hands 
 of a hapless and irresponsible spendthrift. As 
 so much has been afforded, it is regrettable that 
 more should not be given. Lord Holland and 
 Charles Greville intimate that parts could not be 
 made public. But it seems clear that we have 
 not all the decorous portions of the fourteen 
 quarto volumes, and these we should possess to 
 complete a veracious and candid, though damag- 
 ing, autobiography. 
 
 In the Diary, which is almost valueless as a 
 record of historical fact from the extreme vague- 
 ness of date and expression, we have an exact, 
 though painful, picture of Windham's character, 
 and an explanation of why it was that he did not 
 achieve more in public life. It is full of vacilla- 
 tion on the smallest points of conduct, full of 
 morbid self-reproach on every subject, and in a 
 minor degree disfigured by a lavish use of the 
 distressing substantive " feel," almost if not
 
 156 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vn. quite peculiar to himself. Windham, indeed, 
 though in public life he held firmly to his main 
 convictions, in private life and in smaller matters 
 was singularly variable. On the all-important 
 question of marriage, as we have seen, he seems 
 to have hesitated long. That may have been 
 wise, but he records endless agitations about a 
 ride, a walk, or a speech. Conscientious diaries 
 are apt to make men morbid, and this one is 
 certainly an instance in point. He seemed to 
 worry himself with his pen. One passage, indeed, 
 redeems the whole book : it is the pathetic 
 description of his last interview with Dr. Johnson. 
 That is classic. But it is counter-balanced by a 
 denunciation of a literary " gem of purest ray 
 serene," the delightful Vicar of Wdkefield. We 
 may surmise that this outburst may have been 
 elicited by Windham's having heard it excessively 
 praised, which would certainly drive him into 
 extravagant reaction. Countless are the caprices 
 of these strange journals. It had been better for 
 his fame had this heirloom disappeared with the 
 others. 
 
 Still, with all deductions, he remains a noble 
 figure. The influence of Johnson and Burke, 
 grafted on to the stock of a fine and cultivated 
 nature, could not but produce goodly fruit. His 
 prime quality was independence, at once the 
 choicest and the least serviceable of all qualities 
 in political life. He was, on the other hand, 
 excessive, like his great master, Burke : excessive 
 in enthusiasm, excessive in resentment. To him, 
 for example, when a manager of the great im- 
 peachment, Warren Hastings was the vilest of
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 157 
 
 criminals. But to him also, though their relations vn. 
 were not always easy, Burke was among the gods. 
 There was, in truth, a want of balance in this 
 rare character which marred its great qualities. 
 It was this, from a fanciful fear of deterioration 
 in the British character, that made him preach 
 bull-baiting. It was this which made him deem 
 it necessary, in the midst of the national grief for 
 Pitt, to stand up and oppose the funeral honours 
 proposed a course which brought him many 
 enemies and which seemed in execrable taste. 
 But the mere fact of isolation was the same 
 temptation to him that the company of an over- 
 whelming majority is to meaner minds. His 
 argument, weak enough at best, for " 'tis not in 
 mortals to command success," was that Pitt's 
 policy had not triumphed, and that distinctions 
 denied to Burke should not be given to failure. 
 Most men who felt the same would at that 
 tragic moment have held their peace. But 
 such a decent compliance seemed cowardice 
 to Windham ; so he wound his melancholy 
 horn. 
 
 This same irritable conscience made him an 
 uncomfortable colleague, and it is noteworthy to 
 observe how strenuously the idea of relegating him 
 to the House of Lords was pressed by Grenville, as 
 it had occurred to Pitt. It was strange, as Wind- 
 ham himself remarked, that Grenville should be 
 so anxious to move the best speaker that his 
 ministry possessed in the House of Commons 
 out of that chamber into the House of Lords. 
 Promotion for another Grenville was no doubt 
 the urgent cause, but, as that could be managed,
 
 158 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vn. and was managed in other ways, there were 
 probably reasons connected with Windham him- 
 self. Independence in a public man is, we think, 
 a quality as splendid as it is rare. But it is apt 
 to produce and develop acute angles. Now a 
 colleague with angles is a superfluous discomfort. 
 And independence in a great orator on the 
 Treasury bench is a rocket of which one cannot 
 predict the course. 
 
 His independence, then, admirable in itself, 
 was a conspicuous bar to his success in politics. 
 He was not, indeed, formed by nature for a 
 politician in a country where party rules the 
 roast. We will go a step farther, and hazard 
 the opinion that his heart was never really in 
 politics at all. He loved mathematics, he loved 
 the classics, he loved reading, he loved country 
 life ; but for parliament he had no natural pro- 
 pensity. From his first contact with politics in 
 Ireland he instinctively shrank. His self-con- 
 scious, self-tormenting nature was indeed wholly 
 unsuited for public life. But he loved oratory. 
 From the moment when he found that he wielded 
 that rare power over his fellow-men he delighted 
 in exercising it. And he was imbued with 
 one burning enthusiasm, the crusade against 
 Jacobinism. He conceived himself to be the 
 bearer of the sacred torch handed to him by 
 Burke. This was his single purpose ; oratory 
 and the French Revolution kept him in political 
 life. Fox said cynically that Windham owed 
 his fame to having been much frightened. But 
 those who were apprehensive in that dark period 
 were wiser than those children of light who, like
 
 WILLIAM WINDHAM 159 
 
 Fox, were content to watch the Revolution with vn. 
 blind and heedless favour. 
 
 Such, then, was Windham. A noble gentleman 
 in the highest sense of the word, full of light, 
 intellect, and dignity, loved and lamented. His 
 best qualities, no doubt, as is often the case, he 
 carried almost to excess ; for his cherished inde- 
 pendence led to a morbid craving for isolation. 
 But to the charge of vacillation in public affairs 
 he was not obnoxious ; he was always true to his 
 faith. He was, indeed, vitally influenced by two 
 men. But he chose his masters well, Johnson 
 and Burke ; the one gave him his religious, the 
 other his political creed. In life he was brilliant 
 and successful. In oratory, in parliament, in 
 society, he was almost supreme. But he can 
 scarcely be said to survive. He left no stamp, 
 no school, no work. To those, however, who care 
 to disinter his memory he displays character and 
 qualities of excellence, rare at all times, rarest in 
 these.
 
 VIII 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE l 
 
 VIIL M. VANDAL has done me the signal honour of 
 inviting me to write a few words, inadequate and 
 superfluous though they be, to the English, or 
 rather Scottish edition of his admirable book, 
 UAvenement de Bonaparte. It is a high dis- 
 tinction, for, so far as my limited range enables 
 me to judge, he is the first of living historians. 
 With great exactitude of detail he unites the 
 large grasp, the power of spacious narrative, 
 the gift of vivid portraiture, the sympathetic 
 imagination which groups and illumines facts, 
 the magnetic touch which gives light and life to 
 every page ; in fine, the inborn qualities which 
 distinguish the great historian from the arid 
 chroniclers of dates and details. 
 
 His noblest book, to my mind, is the history of 
 the contest between Napoleon and Alexander of 
 Russia, because it represents a gigantic drama 
 on a gigantic stage ; embodying as it does the 
 secular antagonism between Europe and Asia; 
 the conflict of duplicity between the Corsican and 
 
 1 This chapter appeared in English in the Fortnightly Review, July 
 1912, and in French as a preface to the edition of Vandal's L 1 Avenement 
 de Bonaparte in the Collection Nelson. 
 
 160
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 161 
 
 the Greek of the Lower Empire, not unequally vm. 
 matched ; the silent marshalling of races, from 
 Spain to Siberia, for a superhuman struggle 
 inspired by vast ambitions, nothing less than the 
 planned partition of the world ; Constantinople 
 and the " Cat's Tongue " of the Dardanelles 
 animating all. The fates seem almost visible, 
 like the witches in Macbeth, beckoning to doom. 
 Here is an ample stage for genius which would 
 dwarf a lesser writer. The present book is not 
 less consummate, but the scene is more limited, 
 though full of interest. Here we see the first 
 accession to power of Napoleon, and his first 
 appearance as a ruler. New and wider horizons 
 open before him, soon to be boundless. As the 
 narrative proceeds we see the meagre conqueror 
 disappearing and replaced by something larger. 
 There is something looming, one can scarcely say 
 what, which obliterates the craving soldier Bona- 
 parte ; it is Napoleon in the egg. 
 
 The emerging of Napoleon from his uniform, 
 and his first contact with civil government, are 
 much the most interesting period of his career 
 after his first triumphs. His success in administra- 
 tion must have seemed not more probable than 
 if Joubert had been the Caesar, as he was in- 
 tended to be ; not less doubtful than if Moreau 
 or Masse"na had been placed in such a position. 
 But from the first, in the face of obstacles of all 
 kinds, he is triumphant, and threads his way, 
 through snares and ambushes and rancours, with 
 unerring sagacity. 
 
 The difficulties were immense. No one 
 perhaps can appreciate their magnitude without 
 
 VOL. i M
 
 162 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. reading this book. The vague, popular appre- 
 hension of Napoleon's career is one of gigantic 
 triumph and catastrophe. For a long period the 
 success is so complete that it makes his achieve- 
 ments seem easy. The 18th of Brumaire seems 
 to fit into this conception and to be a facile success. 
 Bonaparte was a hero, the French Government 
 was decrepit, the French people were eager for 
 a change, and there you have the whole affair. 
 M. Vandal's narrative shows how far this is from 
 the truth. The premises are sound, but it was 
 difficult to arrive at the conclusion. It might, 
 indeed, have been easily missed. 
 
 There were no doubt in France a wretched 
 Government, administrative and financial chaos, 
 and a discontented people. Every one saw, 
 except some of the Directors themselves, that 
 this state of things could not last, and that 
 revolutionary France was about to see another 
 added to its long list of experiments in govern- 
 ment. In May 1799 a new Director was elected 
 in the person of Sieyes, a man of infinite shrewd- 
 ness and skilled intellect, but timid and un- 
 sympathetic ; who hated the aristocracy and 
 despised the people ; whose irksome fate it was 
 to work unconsciously, like a bee, for others, 
 but who promptly grasped the situation. He 
 saw that a heroic figure was required ; and, 
 when the hero was found, indisposed as a 
 soldier would probably be to the work of civil 
 administration, proposed to administer for him. 
 He would pull the wires of this noble puppet, 
 and all would be for the best. Some even had 
 further and wilder views. The puppet was in
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 163 
 
 good time to be displaced, and make way for a vm. 
 constitutional and Protestant monarchy under 
 a German Prince. 
 
 Had General Bonaparte been in Europe, the 
 choice must inevitably have fallen upon him. 
 But he was shut up in Egypt, without means of 
 escape, and with British fleets patrolling the 
 Mediterranean. So Joubert, a noble and dis- 
 tinguished figure, was selected, and accepted the 
 nomination. He was to return to France in 
 the glow of a great victory. The intended battle 
 was fought. He was to conquer Souvoroff, but 
 Souvoroff conquered him ; and Joubert was 
 killed, some say by a Jacobin bullet. 
 
 So a new candidate had to be found. Moreau 
 was thought of; Macdonald was sounded and re- 
 fused. But at this moment the spell of disaster 
 ends. Couriers bring the news of the victory 
 of Zurich. " The Russian defends himself like a 
 mastiff," writes Massena, " but I have him safe." 
 Souvoroff is indeed shattered, and retreats. 
 While the joy and relief are at their height, fresh 
 messengers arrive with tidings of Bonaparte, 
 announcing great victories in Egypt. Following 
 fast on these comes the supreme apparition: 
 Bonaparte is actually in France. His arrival 
 savours of the marvellous. He has traversed 
 and escaped hostile fleets almost by a miracle, 
 revisiting his birthplace for the last time, and he 
 has arrived safe. The Directory, with a grimace, 
 grudgingly announces the news. The nation cares 
 little for the grimace so long as the news be 
 true. There is unbounded enthusiasm ; legisla- 
 tion cannot proceed ; " suffocated with emotion,"
 
 164 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vui. the legislators adjourn. In the streets, in the 
 theatres, in the taverns, the people go mad with 
 joy. So it is in the provinces. The cities 
 through which the General passes are illuminated, 
 his inn is beleaguered with delirious crowds, the 
 peasants escort his postchaise with torches ; 
 and so the long, nervous strain ends in an ebul- 
 lition of passionate ecstasy. The information 
 reaches the conference where Sieyes is sounding 
 Moreau. The conversation breaks off, for " There 
 is the man you want," says Moreau, who had, 
 indeed, little stomach for the enterprise ; "he 
 will do your business much better than I." 
 
 Why is there this remarkable outburst ? The 
 answer is simple enough. It is not that the 
 nation craves for fresh glory at the hands of the 
 conqueror. What it demands is order at home, 
 and peace abroad. 
 
 Order in the first place. For ten years they 
 have been living on high aspirations varied by 
 massacre, believing that legislation can effect 
 everything, even transform human nature ; and 
 that taxation can be so adjusted by getting rid 
 of the wealthy as to enrich and benefit the poor 
 worshipping, in fact, the silly gods that blight a 
 nation. In five years 3400 laws had been enacted, 
 enough to make the mouths of modern legislators 
 water, enough to convert earth into heaven, were 
 earth convertible by such means. All that had 
 been produced was anarchy, poverty, and dis- 
 content. Nor had the finance of the system been 
 more successful. The graduated tax on property 
 had been a hopeless failure, and the Treasury was 
 empty. The aspect of the provinces was little
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 165 
 
 better. In Lyons, the second city of France, vm. 
 the Revolution had ravaged like an earthquake, 
 and destroyed whole quarters of the town. In 
 Marseilles, the third, we are told there seemed no- 
 thing surviving but hatreds. Brigandage reigned 
 in some departments, civil war in others. It is 
 not wonderful, then, that peace is the passion of 
 the citizens, not only for itself, but because they 
 feel that without peace the restoration of order is 
 impossible. Other generals may gain victories, 
 but the population has an ingrained faith that 
 only Bonaparte can secure peace. He alone is 
 victorious enough to terminate a war. And the 
 only way to end the Revolution is to end the war. 
 
 At last the Man of Promise arrives obscurely 
 in Paris. He appears before the Directory as 
 it were incognito, dressed in the costume of a 
 civilian, in a dark green greatcoat, with a Turkish 
 scimitar. In this grotesque attire he seems sun- 
 burnt, emaciated, dried up ; only in his eyes is 
 there life. He has returned with the determina- 
 tion to put an end to the Directory. His first 
 idea is to become a Director himself, and gently 
 rid himself of his colleagues. But a Director must 
 be forty, and he is only thirty. Moreover, the 
 simplest way seems the best : to get rid of the 
 Directors as soon as possible and substitute him- 
 self. But he must be assisted by the victims 
 themselves, who must be made to devote them- 
 selves unconsciously to their own immolation. 
 For public opinion seems hostile to violent 
 change. 
 
 He is disgusted with the fatuity of Barras, and 
 turns to Sieyes. Sieyes is ready to co-operate,
 
 166 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. and takes riding lessons so as to be on a more 
 equal footing with Bonaparte on occasions of 
 ceremony. Sieves brings with him another 
 Director. Two remain : Moulins, who does not 
 count, and Gohier, who is reputed to be in love 
 with Josephine. No time is to be lost. In three 
 weeks from Bonaparte's arrival the blow is to be 
 struck. Few are in the secret ; but the air is 
 full of rumours, and action to be successful must 
 be prompt. 
 
 The capital idea, as we have seen, was to 
 employ the existing authorities in the task of 
 their own demolition. The body with the absurd 
 name of Council of the Ancients was at the 
 disposal of the conspiracy, and had the power 
 of ordering the removal of the Legislature from 
 Paris to some calmer atmosphere. This was to 
 be done under the not unfounded plea of a Jacobin 
 conspiracy. The place chosen was St. Cloud. 
 There the Council of Five Hundred, the popular 
 body, was to be cowed or seduced into the 
 acceptance of a new Constitution. How this was 
 to be done was left in the vague. So was the 
 Constitution. Sieyes was the author of the plan 
 of campaign ; but even his brain, fertile in such 
 schemes as it was, was not ready with a Con- 
 stitution for the moment. It is so difficult to 
 bind and restrain your hero, when you get him, 
 by institutions, or saving clauses, or gilded chains ; 
 so delicate to bleed him unobtrusively to extinc- 
 tion. All that was fixed was that there were to 
 be three Consuls. To this Bonaparte listens in 
 silence. 
 
 Moreau was gained over to the project. He
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 167 
 
 hoped that, if successful, Bonaparte would become vm. 
 a civilian, and leave the field of battle to him, 
 exactly the reverse of the aspirations of Sieves. 
 Macdonald, Beurnonville, and Serurier offered 
 themselves. The Egyptian companions of the 
 young General, Leclerc and Murat, both his 
 brothers-in-law actual or future, were eager 
 and active. Bernadotte remained ambiguous, 
 anxious as ever to play his own game. The 
 army was, where not enthusiastic, not unfriendly. 
 There remained a stiff and incalculable band, 
 called the Guard of the Directory and of the 
 Councils, rather police than soldiers, with a 
 strong tinge of ruffianism, and devoted by interest 
 to the existing order of things. What they might 
 do was a subject of some anxiety. 
 
 Money, too, had to be found, and was found. 
 Where no one knows. Bonaparte had returned 
 empty from Egypt. A contractor named Collot 
 seems to have found some ; perhaps other con- 
 tractors had, under menace or persuasion, to yield 
 part of their ill-gotten gains. 
 
 At last the memorable days arrived. The 
 eve is spent by the General in giving the last 
 touches. Sebastiani, Colonel of the 9th Dragoons, 
 with the clannish spirit of a Corsican, is an enthu- 
 siastic adherent. His regiment is to play an 
 important part. A magnificent horse, a necessary 
 accessory of such occasions, even in later days, 
 but almost too fiery for the purpose, is borrowed, 
 strangely enough, from an Admiral. The night 
 before the adventure the General dines with the 
 cautious Cambaceres ; the guests are dull and 
 preoccupied. Josephine sends a note to the
 
 168 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. amorous Director Gohier to bid him to breakfast. 
 Bonaparte, at two o'clock in the morning, 
 summons Moreau and Macdonald to come to 
 him at dawn ; and invites himself to dinner with 
 Barras for that evening, to throw that important 
 Director off his guard. 
 
 In ninety burning pages M. Vandal describes 
 the two dramatic days of the 18th and the 19th 
 of Brumaire, the 8th and 9th of November. Here, 
 where the complication is great, our historian 
 is supreme. He marshals the actors, keeps the 
 groups separate, and elucidates the facts with a 
 master hand. No reader can begin this narrative 
 and willingly lay it down. We breathe the air, 
 we hear the tumult, we are led through the 
 confusion by a sure guide. We are in the scene, 
 though not of it. 
 
 Between five and six in the morning a picked 
 selection of the Ancients are roused from their 
 beds to attend an extraordinary session at seven. 
 As the shivering members thread the dark streets, 
 these are seen to be empty, though troops 
 presently are on foot, marching for a purpose of 
 which they are absolutely ignorant. The neces- 
 sary decree is promptly agreed to. Briefly, the 
 Councils are to meet next day at St. Cloud, and 
 Bonaparte is entrusted with the execution of 
 the mandate. Meanwhile, all the leading officers 
 of the army are thronging to his house, outside 
 which a squadron of dragoons forbids any one 
 to leave. But Gohier has become suspicious, and 
 has refused Josephine's invitation. Suddenly the 
 door opens, and Bonaparte appears. Followed 
 by a swelling crowd of officers, joined by Sieves,
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 169 
 
 who has profited by his equestrian lessons, and vni. 
 who is attended by two aides-de-camp, he rides 
 triumphantly to the Tuileries, where he finds 
 a joyfully expectant crowd. There he takes 
 the oath, somewhat incoherently, before the 
 Ancients, and that Council breaks up. 
 
 Then he enters the garden and faces his troops. 
 Here he is in his own atmosphere, and is coherent 
 enough. His wrath falls on a shuddering emissary 
 of Barras, come to watch events. " What have 
 you done with that France," he asks imperiously, 
 " which I left so brilliant ? I left you peace, and 
 I find war. I left you victories, I find defeats. 
 I left you millions from Italy, I find misery and 
 laws of spoliation. What have you done with 
 a hundred thousand Frenchmen whom I knew, 
 the companions of my glory ? They are dead." 
 And after this poignant exordium he proceeds, 
 in words scarcely less fervid, to proclaim that 
 a change is necessary and imminent. This short 
 speech produced a profound impression at the 
 time, and has survived to brand the Directory 
 with the opprobrium of history. It is, in fact, 
 the epitaph of that corrupt and disastrous 
 Government. 
 
 Meanwhile the work proceeds. The Five 
 Hundred assemble and are summarily relegated 
 by Lucien Bonaparte to St. Cloud. Barras 
 rolls away in a postchaise into space, with an 
 escort of dragoons, and a comfortable promise of 
 money. Gohier and Moulins, obstinate and inert, 
 are finally locked up. There is no symptom of 
 resistance. " We have never seen a more tran- 
 quil revolution," say the newspapers, which
 
 170 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vm. had recorded so many in the last ten years. The 
 Jacobins, no doubt, are seething. But their 
 formidable name has lost its terrors. Sieyes 
 proposes to arrest their chiefs, which Bonaparte 
 summarily refuses. Bernadotte, however, joins 
 them, and proposes that they shall appoint him 
 as co-generalissimo with Bonaparte. Even this 
 unselfish proposal fails to attract. 
 
 The second day was far more critical, for 
 everything had been left to the inspiration of 
 the moment, and the result was nearly disastrous. 
 Paris hurried to St. Cloud as to a great steeple- 
 chase ; and, indeed, there were circumstances in 
 that day not wholly unworthy of that sport. In 
 the midst is Bonaparte, apparently cool and 
 confident, escorted by dragoons, but followed 
 by uneasy subordinates who feel that they are 
 playing for their lives. 
 
 When he arrives at St. Cloud he retires to a 
 room, where, in a fever of impatience and agita- 
 tion, he receives bulletins from the legislative 
 field of battle, while Sieyes shivers by the fire. 
 In the anteroom people murmur to each other in 
 obvious anxiety. Some disappear. There are, 
 indeed, vacillations and apprehensions. Sinister 
 rumours begin to circulate. Emissaries, it is said, 
 have been sent by the Jacobins in the galleries 
 to Paris, in order to rouse the faubourgs to 
 insurrection. At any moment there may be 
 a Jacobin inundation, another 6th of October. 
 Deputies are seen anxiously watching for some- 
 thing or somebody. Sinister women are beginning 
 to arrive, the knitters of the Revolution. Jourdan 
 and Augereau, birds of ill-omen, are visible.
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 171 
 
 The Five Hundred are being sworn in : a vm. 
 process which takes the first four hours of the 
 afternoon. But Bonaparte feels that he cannot 
 wait, he cannot leave these vague and mobile 
 Assemblies any longer without personal control. 
 There is danger in the air. So at half-past 
 three, followed by his aides-de-camp, he marches 
 straight to the Ancients, who hurry into their 
 hall when the General is announced. His in- 
 tention was to rally his friends and secure the 
 Council. But his appearance is a failure. Before 
 a civic assembly, in which are rude opponents, 
 his inexperienced oratorical nerve not unnaturally 
 fails. He hesitates and is lost. Disjointed frag- 
 ments are heard, repetitions, incoherent accusa- 
 tions. The Ancients cease to listen, but in the 
 tumult he continues speaking. At last he retires. 
 It is almost a catastrophe. 
 
 But he calmly bids Bourrienne send an express 
 to Josephine to say that all is going well, and then 
 proceeds straight to the Five Hundred. The 
 question may well be asked M. Vandal asks it 
 why after one such failure did he hurry to a 
 hostile assembly for a sure repetition of his 
 oratorical disaster ? The answer would seem 
 to be that his military instinct made him throw 
 himself on the point of danger. It is clear, 
 however, that he knew little what to do or say. 
 Perhaps he only wished to excite the violence 
 which should justify military intervention. And 
 on this occasion he took a handful of grenadiers 
 with him. He enters amid a throng of deputies 
 and spectators, howling, " Down with the Dic- 
 tator ; down with the tyrant." A free fight
 
 172 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. ensues ; he is hustled and cursed. Stout Jacobins 
 seize the little fellow and shake him like a rat. 
 This violence unnerves him ; he has to be rescued 
 by friendly force from rough hands. There are 
 probably no daggers, as was afterwards alleged, 
 for then there would have been an end of him. 
 The soldiers outside, hearing the tumult, burst 
 into the Chamber, frantic at the outrage to their 
 General. The contest around him becomes fast 
 and furious. A huge deputy strikes him. At 
 last he is extricated by his grenadiers, pale, 
 fainting, almost suffocated ; the gigantic legislator 
 pummels the soldiers in the attempt to buffet 
 the General himself. He has to retire amid 
 general shouts of " Outlaw him, outlaw him." 
 He has not been able to utter a word. 
 
 The situation seems compromised, if not lost. 
 Pacific means have failed. The hero has failed 
 to overawe. A providential man is required, and 
 is found in Lucien. It is the supreme day of 
 Lucien's life, and he had himself painted by 
 Gerard at full length as he appeared on this 
 critical occasion. His colleagues insist on pro- 
 scribing his brother; they attempt to storm his 
 presidential tribune. Lucien resists, insists on 
 haranguing them to gain time ; first he claims 
 his right as President, then as Deputy ; it matters 
 little, no one listens to him or could hear him in 
 the tumult. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon soon recovers ; his phy- 
 sical faintness disappears in a burst of passion. 
 He mounts his horse, but presents a ghastly 
 figure. The skin of his face has become violently 
 irritated, and he had scratched it to blood. His
 
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 173 
 
 ensanguined countenance, however, was an assist- vui. 
 ance and a stimulant. For the rumour spread 
 at once that violence, even assassination, had 
 been attempted. His wounded appearance corro- 
 borates the statement ; his furious words lash 
 his soldiery to rage. But the Guards of the 
 Assembly remain dumb and ambiguous, even 
 hostile. Sieyes, watching from a window, thinks 
 that he perceives a movement among them to 
 surround and seize him. The tumult of the 
 Five Hundred is audible outside. Some of the 
 members appear at the windows with frenzied 
 gestures, appealing to their Guards. The short 
 November day is drawing to a close, and yet there 
 is no end. There is wavering around the General. 
 The face of Talleyrand, pale but undismayed, 
 is visible, watching with anxiety the outcome 
 of this revolution as it had to watch so many. 
 Inside, Lucien is still vainly struggling with his 
 colleagues. 
 
 At last he sends in whispers a message 
 to his brother that the Assembly must be 
 broken up in ten minutes, or he can answer for 
 nothing. Bonaparte sees that this is the critical 
 moment, and that he must make use of the 
 presidential authority by capturing the President. 
 Grenadiers enter and remove Lucien ; the arrest 
 of the President involves the dispersal of the 
 Council. Outside he joins the General, and, 
 with the authority of President of the Five 
 Hundred, improvises in a passionate speech the 
 famous legend of the poniards with which an 
 attempt had been made to murder his brother. 
 The brother with bleeding face is by his side.
 
 174 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. The time for action has come. Murat enters the 
 Orangery where the Five Hundred are assembled, 
 with drums beating and his soldiers. " Kick 
 these people out of doors," is his brief order, 
 quickly accomplished. " The petticoat crowd " 
 of futile senators in imitation togas is hustled 
 out to the relentless beating of the drums. The 
 soldiers lift the more obstinate from their seats 
 and carry them out like naughty children. These 
 lamentable and discredited tribunes are helpless 
 and become ridiculous. They scuffle out amid 
 the scoffs and scorn of the crowd. Scattered, 
 outraged, humiliated, they fly wildly in different 
 directions, traceable by the rags of their robes on 
 the bushes and the trees, and so are lost in the 
 mist of the evening. 
 
 This stormful drama, as set forth by M. Vandal, 
 in phrases which give the idea of actual presence, 
 is hot with the fumes, the emotions, the vicissi- 
 tudes of that eventful day. But it leaves the 
 impression of a victory akin to a defeat. A cool 
 Jacobin or a concealed dagger might easily have 
 changed the history of France ; and, at the last, 
 it was only brute force that secured success. 
 
 The conquerors camped on the field of battle. 
 Through the long hours of the night they planned 
 and discussed. It was determined that the 
 violent dispersal of the Five Hundred scarcely 
 offered a sufficient constitutional basis for future 
 proceedings, and that some form of legality was 
 required. So ushers were sent forth to collect 
 what scattered members might be found. By 
 active and vigilant search in the wineshops and 
 in the inns, in private houses and in carriages
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 175 
 
 flying to Paris, a certain number of the fugitives vm. 
 was collected ; Paris, with a laugh, said thirty, 
 calling them in mockery the Council of Thirty ; 
 M. Vandal thinks not far short of a hundred. 
 In any case, they passed the requisite formulas, 
 as well as votes of thanks to the generals who had 
 ejected them. The Ancients, too, collected. At 
 two o'clock in the morning, before the Rump of 
 the two assemblies, the provisional Consuls Bona- 
 parte, Sieves, and Ducos took the oaths. And 
 then all, Consuls, Deputies, troops, and spectators, 
 hurried back to Paris through the dark November 
 morning, all but the initiated believing that 
 they had saved the Republic. The troops, too, 
 tramped back to the familiar, yet no longer 
 appropriate, " fa ira." 
 
 Next morning at ten o'clock the General took 
 possession. Paris is calm and even satisfied, a 
 rare condition in that turbulent city at moments 
 of crisis. But the tranquillity was easy to explain. 
 It was felt that insecurity, the curse of revolu- 
 tionary agitations, had disappeared ; there was 
 now some guarantee for the future ; men could 
 buy and sell and work in peace. Still, the work 
 of reorganisation required infinite tact and 
 patience, and here Bonaparte reveals himself 
 in a new character. He is eminently tactful 
 and imperturbable. He has to keep vigilant 
 watch in three directions where there is danger : 
 he has to watch the Royalists, the Jacobins, 
 and the army, which is Republican. He has to 
 balance, to conciliate, to inspire confidence on 
 the one hand, without exciting jealousy and 
 distrust on the other.
 
 176 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vni. The first difficulty, as always, is money ; the 
 Treasury is empty, and everything is in arrear. 
 At the War Office things are little better. The 
 outgoing Minister is questioned. " You pay the 
 army, give us the pay-sheets." " We don't pay 
 the army." " Well, then, you feed the army ; 
 tell us what you pay for food." " We don't 
 feed the army." " Well, at least you clothe the 
 army ; what is the cost of that ? " " We don't 
 clothe the army." All is chaos. 
 
 Sieyes, who had dreamed that Bonaparte would 
 leave civil administration to him, is quickly un- 
 deceived. The young General for he is only 
 thirty years old, how incredible that seems I 
 haggard and emaciated, toils feverishly for 
 eighteen hours a day, sees every one of every 
 party, works to bring order out of confusion. 
 Of this prodigious operation no epitome is 
 possible ; the reader must have the pleasure of 
 studying it in the vivid and entrancing pages of 
 the historian. 
 
 Then there is the Constitution, no light task. 
 Sieyes now has one ready, ingeniously contrived 
 so as to reduce Bonaparte to a pompous nullity. 
 It is not safe as yet to dispense with Sieyes, 
 so a compromise has to be found between the 
 plan of the ex-Director, who wants Bonaparte 
 to be a " pig for fattening," and that of Bona- 
 parte who means to be everything. The work is 
 at high pressure, the committee breaks down. 
 He himself survives, indefatigable, vigorous, 
 feverish with anxiety to get the Constitution 
 settled. Sometimes he has moments of fierce 
 impatience. He gnaws his nails, stamps his feet,
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 177 
 
 yields to an irrepressible outburst. But he soon vm. 
 recovers himself. At last it is settled that there 
 are to be three Consuls, two with a deliberative 
 voice, but that the decision of the First Consul 
 is to be final. This, of course, settles the question 
 of who is to be master. Sieves is consoled by 
 the presidential chair of the new Senate, and by 
 a rich estate. He also by a touch of Corsican 
 finesse is made tb nominate the three Consuls, 
 who should have been elected. The process is 
 comically unscrupulous, in Bonaparte's latest 
 style. On this occasion the illegality signifies 
 little. The man or woman in the street, as so 
 often happens, says the last word on the Constitu- 
 tion. It is being proclaimed in the streets. " I 
 have not heard a word," says one. " I have not 
 lost a word," says the other. " What is in the 
 Constitution, then ? " asks the first. " There is 
 Bonaparte," replies the second. A Constitution, 
 said the First Consul later, should be short and 
 obscure ; this one was apparently short and clear. 
 The living and admirable part of the Constitu- 
 tion, besides the First Consul himself, is the 
 Council of State, the ideal helpmate of the ideal 
 Dictator. It is composed of men of all parties. 
 " I use those who have the will and capacity to 
 work with me," says the First Consul. The 
 Council is his laboratory, his palace of truth ; 
 there he tests, experiments, consults, discusses 
 vigilantly and precisely all projects, and produces 
 his own for criticism. Such a department, 
 severely and conscientiously worked, is a priceless 
 critic and assistant for a strong ruler. Moreover, 
 
 as auditors of this body, he trains the choicest 
 VOL. i N
 
 178 MISCELLANIES 
 
 viii. young men for the service of the State. Fortunate 
 is the country which is privileged to possess such 
 an institution, worked and developed as it was by 
 Napoleon. 
 
 His main determination is to restore order, 
 to put an end to violence, uncertainty, and civil 
 war. He puts out feelers of conciliation in every 
 direction. He has long talks with the Royalists ; 
 he buries the Pope with dignity, and Turenne with 
 splendour ; he allows priests, and opens the 
 churches ; he shuts his eyes, or gives open toler- 
 ation, when emigrants return ; " Nous autres 
 nobles," once escapes his lips. But all this 
 has to be done with extreme caution before the 
 closing but suspicious eyes of the Revolution. 
 
 His eyes are beginning to pierce clearly into 
 the future. He must have a church to conciliate 
 France, even though it displease a loud minority. 
 France in its depths, M. Vandal tells us, was still 
 Catholic, and the movement towards the recogni- 
 tion of Christian faith proceeds of its own accord. 
 Decadi gives place unofficially to Sunday. In 
 churches where there are no priests, peasants 
 assemble spontaneously for common prayer, 
 " pour faire le geste religieux." France is nearly 
 ripe for the Concordat. And, as the churches 
 open, the emigrants creep back. They wander 
 sadly about trying to localise the Paris they 
 remember. " Vous souvenez-vous ? C'etait la. 
 C'etait ici," are murmured everywhere. All this, 
 with a wealth of fascinating detail, gleaned from 
 an entire literature, M. Vandal sets before us. 
 
 In the centre of all there is the Ruler, watchful, 
 prudent, far-seeing. He is seldom seen, except
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 179 
 
 once every ten days, when he holds an inspection vm. 
 of troops in the Carrousel. His only relaxations 
 are the austere sittings of the Institute, and the 
 week-end parties for the Decadi holiday at 
 Malmaison, where he plays prisoners' base like a 
 boy. When seen he is scandalously ill-dressed; 
 Royalists say ugly ; all say short, save when he 
 raises his head and glances with his eye, then 
 he seems suddenly to tower up. He is always 
 learning and absorbing. All France seems to 
 flow into that self-contained vessel. What is 
 fermenting inside ? 
 
 Then he sees that the success of his work 
 depends too much on his own life a life so 
 precarious and exposed. Thus he is led to 
 dynastic ideas, perhaps not unwillingly, for " il 
 avait 1'imagination republicaine, et 1'instinct 
 monarchique," shrewdly remarks our author. 
 He has no child, so he must adopt an heir. There 
 are his brothers. Joseph and Lucien he discards ; 
 one is too easy, the other too personal and 
 ambitious. At last his choice rests on Louis ! 
 Louis at this time is sweet-tempered, affectionate, 
 docile. But how the First Consul could dream 
 that this gentle being could ever be the Aeolus 
 to control the winds and storms of tumultuous 
 France remains a mystery. It is less surprising 
 that Josephine should favour the project. She 
 pushes it with the idea that Louis shall marry 
 Hortense, unite the two families, and eradicate 
 the idea of divorce. She succeeds with disastrous 
 success. She produces the most unhappy of 
 marriages. The chosen heir, ill, hypochondriac, 
 impossible, irritates every one connected with
 
 180 MISCELLANIES 
 
 viu. him by obstinacy, suspicion, and conceit ; and 
 at last outlaws himself, as it were, so as to escape 
 from his brother, his wife, and his throne. But 
 we are looking too far ahead. 
 
 The dynasty for the present must take care of 
 itself, there is too much to do. What will not 
 wait is a Code of Laws. There is a noble monu- 
 ment to put one's name to ; and the General sets 
 to work. He has in his Second Consul Camba- 
 ceres a skilled and efficient jurist. With him 
 and other experts he labours. He animates, 
 superintends, and moulds the operations ; fervet 
 opus. It is a work of fusion and compromise 
 between the old and the new, between the philo- 
 sophical and juridical spirit, between tradition 
 and written law. Its effect is to codify the 
 Revolution. " H ne cre"e pas le progr^s, il 
 1'enregistre et le fixe, le stabilise. En lui 1'ardente 
 matire se concrete sous forme solide, indestruc- 
 tible ; par lui en cette partie la Revolution se fait 
 bronze et granit." 
 
 The work is not set about in earnest until after 
 Marengo, so that it scarcely comes within the 
 limits of the book. But we cannot be too grate- 
 ful to M. Vandal for including it, and for the 
 eloquent pages he gives to it, summing up with 
 the just phrase : " Napoleon, comme Rome, 
 en perdant 1'Empire sur les peuples, leur laissa 
 ses lois." 
 
 From this vast work of reorganisation the First 
 Consul is suddenly called by an irresistible 
 summons. He sniffs war, and cannot resist the 
 call of the battlefield. Austria is stubbornly 
 in arms, contained, indeed, by Moreau on the
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 181 
 
 eastern frontier, but far too strong for Massena vm. 
 in Italy. There are two great difficulties. One 
 is to take part of Moreau's army from that frigid 
 and jealous chief. He will not let Bonaparte 
 come to his army ; with difficulty he cedes 
 thirty thousand men. The other obstacle is 
 this : the Constitution appears to forbid the 
 First Consul to command in the field. That, too, 
 is surmounted ; he will only inspect and review. 
 Then, with the army of reserve, he crosses the 
 Alps and throws himself into Italy. At his 
 departure conspiracies once more raise their 
 head ; indeed, his own friends have to consider 
 his successor in case of his death ; for his enemies 
 his defeat will be enough. He leaves all this 
 scornfully behind. As they plot or prepare, they 
 are electrified by the news that he has entered 
 Milan. This eclipses the announcement that 
 Masse*na has had to evacuate Genoa with all the 
 honours, and more than all the honours of war. 
 But still this reverse swells the hostile army by 
 freeing the besieging force. 
 
 On the very day that the news of the capitula- 
 tion of Genoa reaches Paris the decisive battle 
 is raging. After a day of desperate fighting the 
 French are everywhere repulsed. Melas, the 
 Austrian General, sends a courier to Vienna to 
 announce his victory. If the hundred expectant 
 heads of faction in France only knew 1 But 
 Desaix, one of Napoleon's few friends, perhaps his 
 dearest, arrives with fresh troops ; Kellermann 
 with his cavalry completes what the charge of 
 Desaix had begun ; the fortune of battle turns, 
 and Marengo is won.
 
 182 MISCELLANIES 
 
 vin. Six days afterwards Paris is waiting in trepida- 
 tion. A rumour had reached the Government of 
 a great battle fought first lost and then gained. 
 But there is no official news. Are, then, the 
 tidings true ? Does the absence of a despatch 
 mean that Bonaparte is dead ? If so, Carnot 
 must be presented as the official candidate for 
 his place. But the Second Consul keeps Joseph 
 in reserve. The night passes in feverish suspense ; 
 then about eleven o'clock three couriers suc- 
 cessively arrive, and the great news is circulating 
 on every lip. Bonaparte, who, as Vandal says, 
 was a born journalist, sends home a masterpiece 
 of his art. He admits his defeats, but describes 
 the recovery of the battle and the charge of 
 Desaix in language full of colour and heat. Then 
 he comes to the tragedy : Desaix is dead, in the 
 flush of victory. In the style of the ancients, he 
 composes the dying speech of the hero and his 
 own reply. 
 
 Paris goes mad with joy. The Tuileries, 
 palace court, and garden are open and thronged. 
 The workmen are roused to enthusiasm. It is 
 the first spontaneous rejoicing that has taken 
 place for nine years. Marengo is, says Vandal, 
 one of the rare events in history which has 
 vibrated through all the various masses of the 
 French nation. Marengo to them spells peace. 
 
 His friend is dead, but the conqueror may not 
 tarry ; Patroclus is killed, but there is no rest for 
 this Achilles ; he cannot remain with his army ; 
 he must return to the volcanic soil of Paris. 
 Thither he returns, unexpectedly and quietly 
 as from Egypt, and, hereafter, from Russia and
 
 THE COMING OF BONAPARTE 183 
 
 Elba. But all the capital illuminates as soon as vm. 
 it learns his presence. The sinister source of 
 revolutions, the Faubourg St. Antoine itself, is 
 a blaze of light ; it pours its turbulent artisans in 
 throngs to the Tuileries ; but the General will 
 not show himself. 
 
 Marengo has changed him; he has become 
 master, his tone is curt and imperious. He knows 
 that whether the fatal battle has brought peace 
 or not, it has given him supreme power. Even 
 on his way home he has done what he could not 
 have done before, he has opened negotiations for 
 a Concordat. He is now master of France, ready 
 to be master of Europe. What he said long 
 afterwards of his earlier victories is true at least 
 now: " Des lors j'ai prevu ce que je pourrais 
 devenir ! Je voyais deja le monde fuir sous moi 
 comme si j'etais emporte dans les airs ! " Yes, 
 France has found the man she sought, to rid her 
 for the time at least of Revolution. But she has 
 also found a master. And on Europe his hand 
 will be not less heavy. It will take the Continent 
 fourteen years and a generation of mankind to 
 get rid of him. 
 
 M. Vandal in his early pages finds Bonaparte 
 an aspirant to absolute power; he leaves him in 
 possession of it. He shows us in gross and in 
 detail what the difficulties have been, how nearly 
 the enterprise failed, or became ridiculous which 
 is much the same thing. And when it succeeded 
 the complications were scarcely less, only to be 
 surmounted by a patience, tact, and prudence 
 which seem alien to the hero. 
 
 If any doubting student shall be led by these
 
 184 MISCELLANIES 
 
 VIH. words to this history I shall be well rewarded, 
 and so will he. I have already been repaid by 
 running through the book again in order to write 
 this notice ; he will be led through a succession 
 of stirring and momentous scenes by a keen and 
 fascinating spirit.
 
 IX 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 1 
 
 THE historical monument to Sir Robert Peel 2 rx. 
 is now almost complete, and three massive 
 volumes set forth fully, but not redundantly, 
 the career of a statesman who ended or com- 
 menced an epoch. 
 
 Almost, but not quite. In the first place, 
 the present work does not pretend to be a com- 
 plete biography, for it scarcely notices what has 
 appeared elsewhere such as the correspondence 
 with Croker ; the speeches ; the appeal from 
 Cobden on Peel's resignation and the reply to it, 
 which is the most striking, passionate, and vivid 
 letter of Peel's that we possess. This last we 
 regret, though the editor has, on the whole, 
 exercised a wise discretion ; for to have taken 
 any other course would have swollen the volumes 
 to an intolerable bulk. What is here attempted 
 and achieved is the selection of all that is charac- 
 teristic and interesting from the Peel papers, 
 
 1 This chapter, which originally appeared in the Anglo-Saxon 
 Review, was published by Messrs. Cassell & Company as a booklet in 
 1809. 
 
 1 Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Papers, edited for his Trustees by 
 Charles Stuart Parker. 3 vols. 1891-99. John Murray. 
 
 185
 
 186 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. and so the delineation of Peel's career by himself 
 and his correspondents. 
 
 Again, the monument to Peel will never be 
 complete without a new edition of his speeches. 
 The published collection in four volumes is, we 
 believe, the least common of such publications. 
 It contains much of permanent interest, and 
 some models of parliamentary speaking. But 
 it is vilely printed, and cannot be said to be 
 edited at all. Two or three volumes of fair type 
 and respectable paper would contain all that it 
 is necessary to preserve. It is not much of a 
 tribute to pay to the man who gave his fellow- 
 countrymen " abundant and untaxed food, the 
 sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a 
 sense of injustice " ; and without it the record 
 of his career is still inadequate and unfair. 
 
 The course of the present biography has 
 been strange. Six or seven years after Peel's 
 death there appeared two volumes, prepared 
 for publication by himself, which embraced the 
 three capital crises of his life. Then we wait 
 for forty years. The chests of his papers, be- 
 queathed in solemn trust, slumber in silence : 
 there are rumours of documents which affect 
 living statesmen and which impose reserve : the 
 statesmen die, and yet there is no sign : the 
 trustees themselves die, and are replaced by 
 others : an eminent author dips into them, and 
 brings up a magazine article : the appetite of 
 posterity remains whetted and unappeased : the 
 documents remain, an unexplored treasure of 
 political history. 
 
 There is a story that Sir Robert, in the last
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 187 
 
 year of his last administration, appeared late ix. 
 at night in the bedroom of Cardwell, and paced 
 up and down without saying a word, Cardwell 
 watching with amazed perplexity from his bed. 
 At last he broke silence. " Never destroy a 
 letter," he oracularly said. " No public man who 
 respects himself should ever destroy a letter." 
 He then turned on his heel and left the room. 
 It was understood that he was referring to the 
 solace which might be derived, under the philippics 
 of an alienated supporter, from the possession of 
 the orator's applications for office. Be that as it 
 may, we may be sure that as Sir Robert preached, 
 so did he practise. He preserved his papers, and 
 so the most exact revelation of himself. 
 
 But now at last we have the papers, or a 
 careful selection of them, and we feel that we 
 have only gained by having to wait for them, 
 as the editor may be cited as a chief among the 
 rare masters of that fastidious calling. Laborious, 
 conscientious, and fair, Mr. Parker is anxious 
 never to obtrude himself on the reader's attention. 
 We might, indeed, wish that he had given us 
 more illustrations derived from his close intimacy 
 with Lord Cardwell, one of the original trustees. 
 But with one exception the essay at the end 
 of the volumes Peel is allowed to speak for 
 himself. It must, therefore, be felt that that 
 essay, clever and interesting as it is, is out of 
 place. Without it, the direct and majestic de- 
 lineation of the statesman is consummate and 
 complete. The piety and enthusiasm of his 
 descendant jar with the austere self-revelation 
 of the man.
 
 188 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. A portrait such as this can only be produced 
 
 of one of the princes of mankind. They gain 
 by that scrutiny which would kill and damn 
 lesser beings. Nothing personal to them can 
 be spared or omitted not the wart of Cromwell, 
 or the burlesque mask of Gibbon, or the deformed 
 foot of Byron. It is at once their glory and 
 their penalty, for it is only the great in spirit 
 and in truth that must and can endure the glare 
 of minute biography. 
 
 How does Peel bear this test ? To that ques- 
 tion there can be, we think, but one answer that 
 few can endure it so well, that we have here the 
 picture of a public career, happily not unique, 
 but illustrious and unalloyed. It is little deroga- 
 tion to add that he had lived in the searchlight 
 of the world, or prepared for it, from the beginning 
 of things. The tradition goes that on his birth 
 his father, in a transport of pious gratitude, 
 had on his knees vowed the baby to the service 
 of his country, and had expressed the hope 
 that his child might tread in the steps of his 
 political idol, William Pitt. From his childhood, 
 then, when he repeated to his father critical 
 abstracts of the sermons he had heard in church, 
 in order to strengthen his memory in view of 
 a political career, the little Robert lived, as it 
 were, devoted to the public, in the very eye, so 
 to speak, of the Muse of History. 
 
 So far back as we can discern him at all, we 
 find him from the outset the same able, con- 
 scientious, laborious, sensitive being that we 
 leave him at his death. But this preparation 
 for politics was not wholly an advantage. It was
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 189 
 
 carried on under the auspices of his father, who ix. 
 called himself a Pittite, when that name was 
 monopolised by High Tories and High Pro- 
 tectionists. Peel, then, found his creed prepared 
 for him without an option. He was sworn to 
 Toryism before he understood the meaning of 
 the oath. This was unfortunate, for Toryism 
 was by no means congenial to the character of 
 his mind. He was a representative of the great 
 middle class, commercially a Liberal, with no 
 aristocratic prejudice or tradition to hamper 
 his examination of any question on its merits. 
 His habit of mind would thus, had he been left 
 untrammelled, have made him a Whig, but a 
 Whig who would have developed in the popular 
 direction. At one time, indeed, it seemed possible 
 that a Whig he might actually become. Arbuth- 
 not told the Duke of Bedford that the old Sir 
 Robert Peel had once uttered a significant 
 warning that, if Robert were not secured by 
 high office, he would go over to the Whigs, and 
 be for ever lost to the party. This story, on the 
 face of it, does not seem improbable, and derives 
 a shadowy support from a letter which the 
 father wrote to Mr. Perceval. It is likely enough 
 that young Peel, had he remained a free-lance, 
 would have broken loose from the Toryism of 
 that day. Greville, as he relates the anecdote, 
 makes his own characteristically acid comments : 
 " Never," he says, " did any father do a greater 
 injury to a son, for if Peel had joined a more 
 congenial party, he might have followed the bent 
 of his political inclination, and would have escaped 
 all the false positions in which he has been placed.
 
 190 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rx. ... As it is, his whole life has been spent in doing 
 enormous mischief, and in attempts to repair that 
 mischief." But it was otherwise fated, not perhaps 
 for his own welfare or happiness. He was in 1829 
 to deal High Toryism an almost mortal blow ; to 
 reconstitute a new Toryism by patience and 
 labour ; and to shatter all in 1846. 
 
 But throughout life there was in him a streak 
 of what we call Liberalism. The inner habit 
 of his mind, though essentially cautious, was 
 indeed essentially Liberal. Even in opposing 
 the Reform Bill of 1832 he urged, as one great 
 objection to it, that it confined the franchise to 
 the higher and middle classes and excluded the 
 labourers, disfranchising those possessed from 
 time immemorial of the privilege. This was 
 not the objection of his party, or even akin to 
 their objections. It is, indeed, safe to say that 
 these volumes do not present the portrait of a 
 Tory, as Toryism was then understood. They 
 contain the constant protests and struggles of 
 a candid mind against class prejudice and class 
 jobbery. What he had in common with the old 
 Toryism was the historical apprehension of a 
 man born before the French Revolution ; and 
 obvious traces of this feeling may be found in a 
 letter he wrote to Goulburn in August 1836. It 
 is probable that he clung to this abstract and 
 negative principle as a base of support for the 
 reactionary attitudes which he was sometimes 
 compelled to assume. But it may safely be 
 said that in the everyday business of life, in the 
 distribution of patronage, in the dealing with 
 abuses, Peel worked in a spirit of severe public
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 191 
 
 duty, and of constant protest against privilege, ix. 
 or bigotry, or jobs a spirit alien to the older 
 Toryism. It must, indeed, be admitted that in 
 1825 he wrote to Liverpool asking for preferment 
 in the Church for one brother, and for secular 
 promotion for his brother-in-law, so that another 
 brother might occupy the post held by the 
 brother-in-law. This letter in the light of these 
 days reads oddly enough, but then it must be 
 read by the light of those. Peel's general stand 
 against High Tory ideas of patronage is none 
 the less clear and strong. And there is further 
 to be noted, in the words of Mr. Gladstone, 
 that, as there were two Pitts, so there were two 
 Peels : the Peel before and the Peel after the 
 Reform Bill. To put it otherwise, before the 
 Reform Bill Peel was a Tory ; after it he was a 
 Conservative. He recognised the new conditions 
 resulting from that Bill ; he endeavoured to 
 shape his policy and adapt his party to them. 
 In this attempt he bent his party to the breaking- 
 point ; but for a time, by his parliamentary skill 
 and the loyalty of Wellington, the catastrophe was 
 averted. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, appears more clearly in these 
 volumes than the fact that it was only the climax 
 of the disruption of the Tory party that was 
 reached in 1846. Since the death of Lord Liver- 
 pool there had been an increasing fissure. In 
 1834-35 there was a momentary closing of the 
 ranks against further reform, and in support 
 of the spirited stand made by Peel. The old 
 Duke of Newcastle the very pontiff of High 
 Toryism mindful, perhaps, that Peel had
 
 192 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. defended him in the House of Commons, had 
 tendered to Peel an elaborate support, and had 
 offered, with superfluous ardour, to accompany 
 him to the scaffold. At the same time, being 
 against every description of reform, wholesale 
 and retail, his " satisfaction at seeing Peel at 
 the head of affairs was not pure and unmixed." 
 When, however, a Newcastle could affect even 
 a moderate contentment with Peel, High Toryism 
 could support him with apparent cordiality. 
 But, between the fall of Peel's Government in 
 1835 and his return to office in 1841, the difficulty 
 of combining the extreme and moderate sections 
 of his party taxed all his resources. Peel himself 
 in his later years, after his final resignation, 
 wrote as follows : " On reflecting on all that 
 passed, I am much more surprised that the 
 union was so long maintained than that it was 
 ultimately severed." And in July 1845, Prince 
 Albert, a shrewd and close observer, writes to 
 Stockmar : "In politics we are drawing near 
 the close of one of the most remarkable sittings 
 of parliament. Peel has carried through every- 
 thing with immense majorities, but it is certain 
 that he has no longer any stable parliamentary 
 support. His party is quite broken up, and 
 the Opposition has as many different opinions 
 and principles as heads." He had to experience, 
 as Pitt had before him, the difficulties that attend 
 a Liberal Minister governing by a majority of 
 old Tories ; while his strength lay, negatively, 
 in a Liberal opposition, distracted by multi- 
 farious principles and conflicting chiefs. 
 
 By the word " Tory " no reference is, of
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 193 
 
 course, here intended to the party now existing, rx. 
 which is sometimes called by that name. The 
 old Tory party can scarcely be said to have 
 survived, even in a languishing condition, the 
 cataclysm of 1846, and it finally disappeared 
 in 1867. Since then there have been Tories in 
 name, or Tories of a different kind. Lord 
 Beaconsfield loved to call himself a Tory, so 
 did Lord Randolph Churchill. But the followers 
 of this last were commonly identified as Tory- 
 Democrats, a conjunction of terms which suffi- 
 ciently explains the change. What would Sid- 
 mouth, or Eldon, or Sir Robert Harry Inglis 
 have said to such a combination ? An imaginary 
 conversation between one of them and a Tory- 
 Democrat would transcend the imagination of 
 a Landor, unless indeed he resorted to the 
 compendious forms of the Commination Service. 
 No : what is meant by Tories, relatively to Sir 
 Robert Peel's career, is a party opposed to the 
 Whigs ; and the Whigs of 1840 would be con- 
 sidered by many Tories of to-day to be retrograde 
 and fossil politicians. The Tories of Sir Robert's 
 time cherished the names of Eldon, Sidmouth, 
 and Inglis. He himself acknowledged the dis- 
 crepancy between himself and them by adopting 
 the term " Conservative." 
 
 From the time of Roman Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion, if not earlier, there had reigned an atmo- 
 sphere of distrust round Peel. His reserve, 
 his awkwardness, a certain slyness of eye, which 
 appears in some of his portraits, may account 
 for this as much as the suspicion of Liberal 
 tendencies, though this also prevailed. That 
 
 VOL. i o 

 
 194 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. expression of the eye is noticed by Disraeli in 
 the study of Peel which he wrote for his Life of 
 Lord George Bentinck. " The eye," he says, 
 " was not good : it was sly, and had an awkward 
 habit of looking askance." It does not appear 
 that anything in Peel's public or private career 
 justifies the imputation of slyness. His shyness 
 may have given him occasionally the " awkward 
 habit of looking askance." The sly expression 
 of the eye was probably the indication, not of 
 cunning, but of humour. For even on public 
 and solemn occasions Sir Robert was known not 
 to be deficient in that saving salt, though its 
 full abundance has only been revealed in these 
 last years. His reputation in that respect rested 
 on the famous passage in the speech of May 18, 
 1841. often quoted, but too good to leave un- 
 quoted as we pass : 
 
 " Great as is my commiseration, I cannot 
 assist you. I view with unaffected sympathy 
 the position of the right honourable gentleman 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has been 
 remarked that a good man struggling with 
 adversity is a sight worthy of the gods. And 
 certainly the right honourable gentleman, both 
 with respect to the goodness of the man and the 
 extent of his adversity, presents at the present 
 moment that spectacle. Can there be a more 
 lamentable picture than that of a Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer seated on an empty chest, by 
 the pool of bottomless deficiency, fishing for a 
 budget ? I won't bite : the right honourable 
 gentleman shall return home with his pannier 
 as empty as his chest."
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 195 
 
 That passage is classical. But during the EX. 
 last decade there has been Abundant proof that 
 the humour lurking in Peel's eye represented a 
 strong but severely repressed characteristic of 
 the man. Carlyle, who was, at any rate, an 
 admirable portrait-painter, had noticed this. " A 
 warm sense of fun, really of genuine broad 
 drollery, looks through him : the hopefullest 
 feature I could clearly see." Rogers, too, who 
 had seen everybody and noticed everything, 
 was alive to the occasional flashes of Peel's 
 humour. Once, he tells us, at a meeting of the 
 Trustees of the British Museum, some one men- 
 tioned young Tomline's costly purchases of 
 pictures, adding, " What would the Bishop say, 
 if he could now look up ? " "I observe," 
 remarked Peel, " you don't say ' look down ' ! " 
 But perhaps it finds its most frequent vent in 
 his letters to Croker, written at the time when 
 he trusted Croker. Mr. Parker too, especially 
 in his first volume, gives several letters with that 
 same happy note ; nor is it even absent during 
 Peel's last desperate session as Prime Minister, 
 when, in the House of Commons, he bantered 
 the Recorder of Dublin with regard to the 
 housemaid : " Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori." 
 Sir William Gregory, who saw him often at this 
 period, has told of his fun, sometimes broad, 
 his ready stories, his robust fits of laughter, and 
 quotes Lord Strangford to a similar effect. Even 
 in the solemn moment between his resignation 
 and resumption of power in December 1845, 
 Greville tells us that Peel was full of jokes and 
 stories, enlivening a hilarious Cabinet. All this
 
 196 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. seems worth notice, for it does not represent the 
 ordinary view of Peel. 
 
 With regard to another force of Peel's nature, 
 equally strong and almost equally suppressed 
 his fiery temper Mr. Parker adds something 
 to what was already known. He records how 
 Peel called out Townshend, his opponent at 
 Tamworth in the 1837 election. He tells us 
 what is to be told of the abortive duel with 
 O'Connell. He gives us the correspondence in 
 which Peel called Hume to account for " expres- 
 sions not consistent with the usages of Parlia- 
 ment " ; and that in which he exacts an apology 
 from Hobhouse. He narrates the painful scene 
 in the House of Commons when Peel lost his 
 self-control under an attack by Cobden, ill-timed 
 and ill-expressed; but not that when, with in- 
 explicable fury, he repelled a contemptible cannon- 
 ade from Cobbett. There is, moreover, we have 
 always understood, but little doubt that at one 
 time he had it in contemplation to challenge Mr. 
 Disraeli ; though on this point the papers are 
 silent. But scarcely in the Irish Parliament, 
 or in Lever's novels, is there any memory of so 
 peppery a politician with so constant an inclina- 
 tion to the " saw -handles." There is, indeed, 
 ample documentary proof, besides the tradition 
 of those who knew him, that the cold, cautious 
 exterior of Peel concealed a highly-strung, nervous 
 temperament, and a prompt pugnacity which we 
 can scarcely realise in these days. 
 
 But, except in regard to these two points, 
 there is nothing in these volumes to vary materi- 
 ally the popular conception of Peel's habit of
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 197 
 
 mind. To work hard had always been his ix. 
 practice. " Work," Dean Cyril Jackson had 
 early exhorted him, " work like a tiger, or like 
 a dragon, if dragons work more and harder than 
 tigers." And in his last tenure of office Peel 
 speaks of himself more than once as working 
 seventeen hours a day. Even with that desperate 
 diet of labour it seems difficult to understand 
 how Peel accomplished all that he did at that 
 time. 
 
 For he was the model of all Prime Ministers. 
 It is more than doubtful, indeed, if it be possible 
 in this generation, when the burdens of empire 
 and of office have so incalculably grown, for any 
 Prime Minister to discharge the duties of his 
 high post with the same thoroughness or in the 
 same spirit as Peel. To do so would demand 
 more time and strength than any man has at 
 his command. For Peel kept a strict supervision 
 over every department : he seems to have been 
 master of the business of each and all of them. 
 He was conversant with all departmental ques- 
 tions, and formed and enforced opinions on 
 them. And, though he had an able Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, in whom he had full confidence, 
 he himself introduced his great Budget of 1842 
 and that of 1845. The War Office, the Admiralty, 
 the Foreign Office, the administrations of India 
 and of Ireland felt his personal influence as 
 much as the Treasury or the Board of Trade. 
 
 In the House of Commons he, with Graham, 
 mainly bore the burden, so much to the exclusion 
 of even so brilliant a colleague as Stanley that 
 we find this last demanding his removal to the
 
 198 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. House of Lords, on the ground that business in 
 the House of Commons was done entirely by 
 Peel, Goulburn, Graham, and Gladstone, and 
 that he had therefore become a cypher : an 
 extraordinary testimony, when we reflect that 
 this Stanley, for whom no use could be found, 
 was incomparably the first debater in Parliament. 
 Charles Villiers, an opponent, but even then a 
 practised parliamentarian, offered evidence of 
 equal weight : " See how those two men (Peel 
 and Graham) do their business and understand 
 it." It is probable, then, that no Prime Minister 
 ever fulfilled so completely and thoroughly the 
 functions of his office, parliamentary, administra- 
 tive, and general, as Sir Robert Peel ; though it 
 may perhaps be found that Peel's greatest pupil 
 followed in his footsteps during the famous 
 administration which began in 1868. But in 
 these days of instant, continuous, and unrelenting 
 pressure, the very tradition of such a minister 
 has almost departed ; indeed, it would be im- 
 possible to be so paternal and ubiquitous. A 
 minister of these days would be preparing or 
 delivering a speech in the country, when Peel 
 would be writing minutes of policy for the 
 various departments. Which occupation is the 
 better or more fruitful is not now in question : 
 it is sufficient for our purpose that the difference 
 exists. 
 
 Nor, perhaps, would such a minister be now 
 altogether welcome to his colleagues. For Peel 
 was in name and in deed that functionary so 
 abhorred and repudiated by the statesmen of 
 the eighteenth century a Prime Minister. With
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 199 
 
 a collection of colleagues perhaps unparalleled ix. 
 for ability and brilliancy, he stood among them 
 like Alexander among his Parmenios and Ptole- 
 mies. In these days we have returned, perhaps 
 necessarily, to the views of the last century. A 
 Prime Minister who is the senior partner in every 
 department as well as president of the whole, 
 who deals with all the business of government, 
 who inspires and vibrates through every part, 
 is almost, if not quite, an impossibility. A first 
 minister is the most that can be hoped for, the 
 chairman and on most occasions the spokesman 
 of that board of directors which is called the 
 Cabinet, who has the initiation and guidance of 
 large courses of public policy, but who does 
 not, unless specially invoked, interfere depart- 
 mentally. 
 
 Peel, himself, in 1845 more than half a 
 century ago had arrived at the conclusion that 
 the task of a Prime Minister in the House of 
 Commons, as he understood the office, had 
 become almost impossible. In August 1845 he 
 writes : 
 
 " I defy the minister of this country to per- 
 form properly the duties of his office to read 
 all that he ought to read, including the whole 
 foreign correspondence ; to keep up the constant 
 communication with the Queen, and the Prince ; 
 to see all whom he ought to see ; to superintend 
 the grant of honours and the disposal of civil 
 and ecclesiastical patronage ; to write with his 
 own hand to every person of note who chooses 
 to write to him ; to be prepared for every debate, 
 including the most trumpery concerns ; to do
 
 200 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. all these indispensable things, and also sit in 
 the House of Commons eight hours a day for 
 one hundred and eighteen days. 
 
 "It is impossible for me not to feel that the 
 duties are incompatible and above all human 
 strength at least, above mine. 
 
 " The worst of it is that the really important 
 duties to the country those out of the House 
 of Commons are apt to be neglected. 
 
 " I never mean to solve the difficulty in one 
 way namely, by going to the House of Lords. 
 But it must be solved in one way or another. 
 The failure of the mind is the usual way, as we 
 know from sad experience." 
 
 This is surely a striking pronouncement. His 
 detail of his duties, his speaking of himself as 
 " the minister of this country," which defines 
 in a phrase his view of his position, his indication 
 of the real danger, long since realised, that 
 administrative must necessarily be neglected for 
 parliamentary duties, his allusion in the last 
 sentence to Liverpool and Castlereagh are all 
 noteworthy. So is his declaration that he would 
 never take refuge in the House of Lords. In 
 Martin's Life of the Prince Consort (i. 266) it is 
 stated, on the authority of Mr. Anson and Lord 
 Aberdeen, that Peel had come to the conclusion 
 that the Prime Minister should be in that House. 
 The question has scarcely more than an historic 
 interest, since the conditions are no longer the 
 same. But it is impossible, even as a matter of 
 historic interest, altogether to ignore any definite 
 opinion on such a subject, pronounced by so 
 consummate a master of his craft.
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 201 
 
 What is a Prime Minister ? That is a question ix. 
 which it would require a pamphlet to answer, 
 but in a few sentences it may be possible to 
 remove a few hallucinations. For the title 
 expresses much to the British mind. To the 
 ordinary apprehension it implies a dictator, the 
 duration of whose power finds its only limit in 
 the House of Commons. So long as he can 
 weather that stormful and deceptive ocean he 
 is elsewhere supreme. But the reality is very 
 different. The Prime Minister, as he is now 
 called, is technically and practically the Chair- 
 man of an Executive Committee of the Privy 
 Council, or rather perhaps of Privy Councillors, 
 the influential foreman of an executive jury. His 
 power is mainly personal, the power of individual 
 influence. That influence, whatever it may be, 
 he has to exert in many directions before he can 
 have his way. He has to deal with the Sovereign, 
 with the Cabinet, with Parliament, and with 
 public opinion, all of them potent factors in their 
 various kinds and degrees. To the popular eye, 
 however, heedless of these restrictions, he repre- 
 sents universal power ; he is spoken of as if he 
 had only to lay down his views of policy and to 
 adhere to them. That is very far from the case. 
 A first minister has only the influence with the 
 Cabinet which is given him by his personal 
 arguments, his personal qualities, and his per- 
 sonal weight. But this is not all. All his 
 colleagues he must convince, some he may have 
 to humour, some even to cajole : a harassing, 
 laborious, and ungracious task. Nor is it only 
 his colleagues that he has to deal with : he has
 
 202 MISCELLANIES 
 
 rx. to masticate their pledges, given before they 
 joined him ; he has to blend their public utterances, 
 to fuse as well as may be all this into the policy 
 of the Government ; for these various records 
 must be reconciled, or glossed, or obliterated. 
 A machinery liable to so many grains of sand 
 requires obviously all the skill and vigilance of 
 the best conceivable engineer. And yet without 
 the external support of his Cabinet he is disarmed. 
 The resignation of a colleague, however relatively 
 insignificant, is a storm signal. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable than the 
 cohesion of Cabinets, except that strange in- 
 stitution itself. To the Briton, who found it 
 existing at his birth, it seems the natural if 
 not the inevitable form of government. To the 
 inquiring foreigner, however, nothing can seem 
 more extraordinary, in a country with so much 
 of democracy about it, than the spectacle of a 
 secret council, on the Venetian model, and sworn 
 to absolute silence, conducting the business of a 
 nation which insists on publicity for everything 
 less important. The secrecy of the Cabinet in 
 such a condition of things would resemble, one 
 would surmise, the secrecy of the ostrich the 
 material fact would be visible to all while a 
 shallow head was embedded in the sand. But 
 it is not so. The secrets of the Cabinet are, as 
 a rule, preserved. After the sharpest internal 
 discords the members will present a united, 
 even if a silent and sullen, front. Whether the 
 system of Cabinet government be an efficient 
 one or not is not now the question : whether the 
 collection of the heads of departments at sparse
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 203 
 
 intervals to discuss hurriedly topics, for which ix. 
 they are often unprepared, be a good arrangement 
 for business is not the point : but what may 
 confidently be asserted is that of all anomalous 
 arrangements for executive government in an 
 Anglo - Saxon community, during the present 
 epoch and under the present conditions, the 
 strangest is the government of the British Empire 
 by a secret committee. That it works well, on 
 the whole, is a tribute less to the institution itself 
 than to the capacity of our race to make any 
 conceivable institution succeed. 
 
 Of course, it may be said that the public and 
 the Press are excluded from the counsels of all 
 executives. But it will be found not infrequently 
 elsewhere that the conclusions at which execu- 
 tives have arrived are announced to the public. 
 In Britain it may safely be said that this is 
 never, or scarcely ever, the case. Nor is even 
 the subject of discussion ever known, though 
 enterprising editors make spirited conjectures 
 on the subject, which sometimes take the form 
 of authoritative paragraphs. Practically, then, 
 during the whole of the parliamentary recess at 
 least, we have not the faintest idea of what our 
 rulers are doing, or planning, or negotiating, 
 except in so far as light is afforded by the in- 
 dependent investigations of the Press. This is 
 said in a spirit, not of criticism or deprecation, 
 but rather of meditation which, however, must 
 not be allowed to allure us too far from our subject. 
 
 Of this secret committee, such as it is, the 
 Prime Minister is the chairman. He is also the 
 channel by which its decisions reach the Sove-
 
 204 MISCELLANIES 
 
 EX. reign. We do not know how Peel acquitted 
 himself in the first capacity, though we think 
 it probable that he left something to be desired ; 
 but in the second he acquitted himself admirably. 
 He had, in 1841, to surmount perhaps some 
 memories of the difficulties which had prevented 
 his accepting office in 1839 ; though between 1839 
 and 1841 these had been removed by the tact 
 and wisdom of the Prince Consort, acting on 
 behalf of the Sovereign. But nothing is more 
 delightful than the account of his relations with 
 the Queen and her young husband. There is 
 a paternal, tender note which seems infinitely 
 graceful in a man of his cold and awkward 
 reserve. Had he been more genial, more tactful, 
 more a man of the world, the difficulty of the 
 Household in 1839 would have easily been 
 overcome. But as the relations of the Sovereign 
 and the minister became more constant and 
 definite, when the one was able to see how warm 
 a heart, how wise and generous a nature was 
 concealed under a formal exterior, when the 
 other realised that no natural prepossessions 
 would prevent fair play to the new Government, 
 mutual appreciation was easy and complete ; 
 until it culminated in the scene of December 20, 
 1845, when the Queen required the minister to 
 remain in her service, and the minister replied, 
 as he records himself, " I want no consultations, 
 no time for reflection. I will be your minister, 
 happen what may. I will do without a colleague 
 rather than leave you in this extremity." Com- 
 ment or addition would only mar so chivalrous 
 a picture.
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 205 
 
 The relations with the Sovereign are, however, ix. 
 only a part, though they may be the pleasantest 
 part, of the Prime Minister's personal relations. 
 He has, as has already been pointed out, to keep 
 in such touch with his Cabinet that they may act 
 cordially with him. 
 
 Here Peel in one great instance may be said 
 to have been less successful. He did not, indeed, 
 owe everything, but he owed much, to the Duke 
 of Wellington. Without Wellington, Catholic 
 Emancipation could not have been carried in 
 1829. Wellington consented to act as warming- 
 pan for Peel in 1834. He helped Peel loyally, 
 sometimes against his own convictions, in con- 
 ducting Opposition from 1835 to 1841. Without 
 Wellington it is safe to say that Peel could 
 not have maintained himself in 1845-46. The 
 loyal old soldier acted not from any particular 
 sympathy for Peel, but from a stern resolve 
 that the Queen's Government should be carried 
 on. This is not to say that he was an altogether 
 easy colleague, but it is to establish that Peel 
 was bound to him by every tie of gratitude and 
 interest. These volumes, however, teem with 
 proofs that Peel took little pains to keep the 
 Duke in a good humour, that he communicated 
 with him as little as possible, that their relations 
 were sometimes strained, and that Arbuthnot, 
 the Duke's bosom friend, was instant at all 
 seasons to try and bring about more intimate 
 consultation. Over and over again he intimates 
 in various forms, as if the statement were a 
 startling novelty, that the Duke, "if he has a 
 weakness," has the weakness of liking to be
 
 206 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. consulted. Peel on one occasion answers that 
 he knows of no pleasure comparable to that of 
 consulting the Duke. But he showed a singular 
 self-denial in availing himself of this gratification. 
 Sometimes common friends intervene. On one 
 occasion, in answer to such expostulation, Peel 
 confesses himself aggrieved, and states with his 
 usual moderation the causes of offence. But in 
 any case the result is always the same : renewed 
 want of intercourse, renewed complaints, and, 
 at most, communication through the channel of 
 Arbuthnot. 
 
 One short correspondence is, however, so 
 fascinating that it deserves to be noticed. Sir 
 Robert's second son, William, then a midshipman 
 afterwards, in the Crimea and in India, so 
 famous and beloved writes home to his father 
 an account of the naval operations on the coast 
 of Syria in 1840. Peel, breaking through his 
 habitual reserve, sends the letter to the Duke, 
 who returns it with rare commendation. The 
 delight of the father is as irrepressible as it is 
 charming, and forms a grateful oasis in his 
 relations with his illustrious colleague. 
 
 Strangely enough, if one turns to Greville, 
 one finds almost the same complaint of the 
 Duke. In 1841 Wellington had, it seems, fallen 
 into strange and morbid ways. Once so access- 
 ible, he would see no one. Once so fond of being 
 consulted, he avoided everything of the kind 
 indeed, all communications with his fellow- 
 creatures. He retired for a time into a gloomy 
 and silent solitude, denying access to every one 
 with passionate and almost brutal vehemence.
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 207 
 
 It is not probable that this fit lasted long. But ix. 
 it is only fair to note the fact in the controversy 
 as between Peel and the Duke. 
 
 That there were faults on both sides is prob- 
 able. It is impossible, however, not to feel that 
 Peel was the more to blame. The position and 
 qualities and age of Wellington were such as 
 demanded an attention little short of homage. 
 When Peel was still a Harrow schoolboy, Well- 
 ington had won Assaye. When Peel entered 
 Parliament, Wellington had stemmed the uni- 
 versal dominion of France, and before Peel was 
 eight - and - twenty, had put an end to it. He 
 was incomparably the first, the most illustrious, 
 the most venerable of living Englishmen. What 
 his political services had been to Peel has already 
 been stated. He had, moreover, for many years 
 endeavoured to bring a hostile House of Lords 
 into harmony with Peel's views, and by his 
 matchless authority had succeeded. Peel, it is 
 clear, should have taken endless pains to gratify 
 and conciliate the supreme old man. If he took 
 any, or any but the slightest, it does not appear 
 in the present biography. 
 
 With others of his colleagues he laboured 
 more effectually. For example, Ellenborough 
 had proceeded to India as Governor - General. 
 Even before his arrival at Calcutta, the restless 
 and exuberant vanity of the new Viceroy had dis- 
 played itself in an ominous manner. After he 
 had landed a few weeks it developed a thousand- 
 fold. His predecessor he offended by the care- 
 less candour of his egotism. He outraged two 
 successive Presidents of the Board of Control.
 
 208 MISCELLANIES 
 
 He flouted the Court of Directors. His generals, 
 Nott and Pollock, he openly denounced as in- 
 competent ; but afterwards arrogated, or seemed 
 to arrogate, to himself the merit of their achieve- 
 ments. He wished to have a commission that 
 would enable him to command the army himself. 
 Without it, he followed the army with the pomp 
 and parade of a Xerxes. He undertook daring, 
 and in Peel's judgement unjustifiable, measures 
 of policy without consultation with any home 
 authority. In one part of a letter to Hardinge 
 he hints at a march to the Dardanelles, in another 
 at the conquest of Egypt. In fine, there never 
 was, it would appear, with all his ability, so 
 impossible a Governor-General. 
 
 But to read Peel's correspondence with him, 
 and with Fitzgerald and Ripon, his official chiefs, 
 is a lesson in itself. The tact, the sagacity, the 
 patience, are as rare as they are admirable. 
 Swollen with arrogant importance, Ellenborough 
 disdained the post in the Cabinet offered to him 
 by Peel when he returned from India, intimating 
 that Cabinet office was beneath the notice of 
 one whose mind was devoted to sublimer subjects. 
 Peel turns away with a smile. 
 
 With Stanley, if we may judge from this 
 biography, he was never cordial. Nor is this 
 wonderful, for perhaps no two men were ever 
 endowed with more opposite natures than these 
 two Lancashire leaders ; though it seems probable, 
 fiery as was Stanley, that Peel's was the more 
 fiery nature of the two. So, too, they both had 
 humour. But Lord Dalling reports a tradition 
 that Peel suffered much under the irrepressible
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 209 
 
 banter of Stanley to such an extent, indeed, as ix. 
 to have resolved to be rid of him. It has been 
 remarked by an eminent writer that a difference 
 of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. 
 But we doubt if it has ever seriously strained 
 those of a Cabinet ; we feel sure that it never 
 produced a schism in Peel's. Indeed, the tradi- 
 tion is in itself a joke. Nor do we find any 
 trace of intimacy between the not less brilliant 
 Lyndhurst and the Prime Minister. Ripon and 
 Fitzgerald have to be soothed under the irritating 
 vagaries of Ellenborough, and are dexterously 
 appeased. Of Mr. Gladstone we catch only 
 glimpses, mainly at the time of his resignation 
 in 1845. Then he perplexed his chief, who 
 complains of sometimes finding great difficulty 
 in exactly comprehending what he means. But 
 that was not wholly surprising. Mr. Gladstone's 
 resignation was based on a high and honourable 
 refinement, arrived at during a period of stress, 
 if not of transition. It was consequently not easy 
 to explain. Moreover, first ministers usually find 
 a difficulty in understanding the intellectual pro- 
 cesses of colleagues who wish to resign. 
 
 Yet Gladstone writes of Peel in 1853 as " my 
 great master and teacher in public affairs." 
 The younger Newcastle, too, declares : " He is 
 my leader still, though invisible. I never take 
 a step in public life without reflecting, how 
 would he have thought of it." But with three 
 exceptions we only see the ministers dimly. 
 With these three, however, Peel's relations were 
 warm and intimate. 
 
 Lady Peel, in the exquisite letter which she 
 VOL. i p
 
 210 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. addressed to Lord Aberdeen a month after her 
 bereavement, says : " My beloved one always 
 talked of you as the friend whom he most valued, 
 for whom he had the sincerest affection, whom 
 he esteemed higher than any." From this testi- 
 mony there can be no appeal (though it may be 
 contrasted with Peel's letter to Graham of July 
 3, 1846), but it finds little support in the present 
 biography. Aberdeen inspired the warmest re- 
 gard in those who penetrated beneath a some- 
 what cold and taciturn exterior. Both the Queen 
 and Mr. Gladstone seem to have felt for him an 
 affection which it is rare for statesmen to attract. 
 But in the correspondence with Peel this is not 
 so apparent. Indeed, there was once a crisis. 
 For Aberdeen felt so complete a trust in France 
 and the government of Louis Philippe that he 
 and Guizot were, it is complacently stated, on 
 the footing rather of colleagues than ministers 
 of different countries ; they showed each other 
 their despatches, and exchanged their secret 
 letters. This anticipation of a political millen- 
 nium seemed to the British Cabinet premature. 
 At any rate, they declined to allow it to extinguish 
 a modest scheme of national defence. Thereupon 
 Aberdeen tendered his resignation : " a policy 
 of friendship and confidence " had, he thought, 
 " been converted into a policy of hostility and 
 distrust." On the other hand, the Cabinet agreed 
 with the Duke of Wellington in thinking that 
 nothing would so much contribute to friendly 
 relations with France as the placing ourselves 
 in a position of efficient security. Guizot pro- 
 tested, and declared that " the ancient maxim,
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 211 
 
 4 si vis pacem, para bellum,' had become danger- 
 ous and absurd." Peel summed up the con- 
 troversy with tact and judgement. The ancient 
 maxim might be unwise, but he certainly doubted 
 if the converse were true. "I do not believe 
 that there would be security for peace by our 
 being in a state which would unfit us to repel 
 attack without several months' preparation." 
 The controversy is worthy of attentive study, 
 for it relates to a subject of capital and permanent 
 interest. But the point on which it touches our 
 present purpose is that the note of the corre- 
 spondence does not seem very close or cordial, 
 though Peel declares that he should consider 
 the loss of Aberdeen as irreparable. 
 
 That lack of expansiveness would not, perhaps, 
 be so noticeable did we not read the correspond- 
 ence with Aberdeen beside that with Graham 
 and with Hardinge. Had it not been for the 
 letter of Lady Peel quoted above, it would appear 
 to the impartial reader that the colleague whom 
 Peel most trusted was Graham, and most loved 
 was Hardinge. 
 
 Constant consultation on all points of policy 
 and administration point to Graham as Peel's 
 right-hand man. So, too, does their close con- 
 currence of view. In 1842, for example, they 
 seem to have been agreed that the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws was only a question of time, and of 
 a short time. But on all questions, day by 
 day, Peel and Graham keep in touch. " I have 
 never doubted for a moment," wrote Graham 
 in 1845, " your kind support in every difficulty. 
 It has never failed me, and happily the most
 
 212 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. cordial agreement in feelings and in opinions 
 prevails between us." And, when the battle 
 was over, and the minister had gloriously fallen, 
 Peel writes to Graham : " With what pleasure 
 shall we talk over the stirring events of the 
 last five years. Your cordial support and entire 
 and unreserved confidence have been my chief 
 stay." And Graham replied : " I shall remember 
 our past union with pride, and I hope that till 
 the end of our lives we may never be divided." 
 
 But the correspondence of Peel and Hardinge 
 touches a still more exquisite note. There had 
 always been a peculiar closeness of friendship 
 between the two men. On at least two occasions 
 Hardinge had been named as Peel's second in 
 his projected duels. One would, indeed, infer 
 from Hardinge 's letters that there is no service 
 that he would have refused to one for whom 
 he felt the most generous form of hero-worship. 
 When Hardinge goes to India as Viceroy, the 
 Prime Minister finds time to write to him con- 
 stantly in terms of confidence and affection, 
 which distinguish these from all his other letters, 
 and which, as the recipient declares, " give me 
 energy to work." One ends " most affectionately 
 yours," a rare form with Peel ; another, in the 
 heat of the Corn Law struggle, written from 
 the Cabinet, " God bless you, my dear Hardinge. 
 Excuse my hurried letter. I am fighting a 
 desperate battle here ; shall probably drive my 
 opponents over the Sutlej : but what is to come 
 afterwards I know not." One almost, as one 
 reads, hears the beating of the writer's heart. 
 And the correspondence as between Viceroy and
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 213 
 
 minister closes with an almost impassioned testi- ix. 
 mony of sympathy and devotion from Hardinge. 
 
 If any letters more noble in themselves, or 
 more creditable to the writers and their school, 
 have passed between two public men, we cannot 
 call them to mind. Nor is it difficult to under- 
 stand why such letters should be rare. There is 
 never a calm on the political ocean : its most 
 serene temper is the ground swell which follows, 
 or the grim stillness which precedes, the storm, 
 often more awful than the storm itself. The 
 unresting waves seldom permit politicians to 
 remain in close cordiality for any length of time. 
 The billow that bears one friend buoyantly on 
 its bosom lands the other high and dry, sometimes 
 among strangers, sometimes among enemies. Con- 
 stant changes of atmosphere produce constantly 
 new combinations. And so the correspondence 
 of statesmen who have survived their first in- 
 genuous enthusiasm is apt, in view of possible 
 contingencies, to be clouded with a forbidding 
 wariness. 
 
 With politicians at large Peel was not exuber- 
 ant. He was beset by the busy attentions of 
 Croker; and his letters to Croker before 1827 
 are the happiest specimens of his youthful period. 
 He was tormented in his later years by the 
 irrepressible amity of Brougham, from which 
 he disengaged himself with tact and skill. Of 
 his relations with Disraeli it is only necessary to 
 say this much apart from the famous corre- 
 spondence itself that Disraeli was, probably, 
 in every way, in appearance, in style, in manner, 
 profoundly antipathetic to Peel ; and that Peel
 
 214 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. not improbably was wholly wanting in that 
 cordiality or attention which might have appeased 
 a pique which became implacable. Peel can 
 scarcely be blamed for not perceiving, as Lynd- 
 hurst did, the wild and strange genius which 
 was concealed under the rings and the ringlets, 
 the velvets and the waistcoats, of the young 
 Jewish coxcomb. There was something in all 
 this too Bohemian and garish for Sir Robert. 
 But, at any rate, he must have understood that 
 the pen of Disraeli was a power, that he was 
 a member of the House of Commons having 
 influence with other young members, and that, 
 even if unwilling to try him in political harness, 
 it was worth the while of the leader of the House 
 to attempt to keep him in good humour. Such 
 an effort seems to have been repugnant, or im- 
 possible, to Peel. And the complaint of Disraeli 
 is not without dignity and even pathos : 
 " Pardon me if I now observe, with frankness 
 but with great respect, that you might have found 
 some reason for this [deficiency in hearty good- 
 will] if you had cared to do so, in the want of 
 courtesy in debate which I have had the frequent 
 mortification of experiencing from you, since 
 your accession to power." The applications for 
 office and the subsequent denial of them are 
 happily outside our scope. But, as to the 
 philippics arising from Peel's refusal, it may 
 perhaps be felt by politicians that it would be 
 a churlish and mawkish morality which would 
 deny to baffled ambition the natural outlet of 
 invective and lampoon. 
 
 There is another aspect of a Prime Minister's
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 215 
 
 relations with mankind scarcely less difficult EX. 
 than his communications with colleagues, political 
 writers, and members of Parliament. Patronage 
 Peel always detested, or believed himself to 
 detest. " The odious power which patronage 
 confers," he calls it in his famous letter to Cobden. 
 But the Prime Minister is the guardian of the 
 honours of the Crown, and he discharged this 
 duty with a fidelity, a wise caution, a pervading 
 sense of responsibility, of which the very tradi- 
 tions have almost faded away. What is perhaps 
 most important of all, he remembered that each 
 case was capable of becoming a precedent of 
 the largest and most distorted application. And 
 so the chapter on patronage reads to us like a 
 dream, like a chapter dropped from the annals 
 of some Utopia or Atlantis. In five years Peel 
 only recommended the creation of five peerages 
 all for marked public service. His last great 
 Government of 1841 has not left a single name 
 on the British baronage. We can scarcely, as 
 we read, believe that this period occurred only 
 fifty years ago. Peel had adopted this super- 
 human strictness owing to the " immense addi- 
 tions recently made to the House of Lords." 
 What would he have said had he lived in the 
 last quarter of the century ? 
 
 And yet, even as it was, he felt that the 
 whole world was bursting prematurely into 
 blossom. " The distinction of being without 
 an honour is becoming," he writes with sardonic 
 gravity, " a rare and valuable one, and should 
 not become extinct." And again : " There would 
 not be a simple squire in the land, if the fever for
 
 216 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. honours were not checked. I never yet met with 
 a man in Ireland," he adds, " who had not him- 
 self either refused honours from the Crown or was 
 not the son of a man, or had not married the 
 daughter of a man, who had been hard-hearted 
 enough to refuse the solicitations of the Govern- 
 ment. In general it is a peerage that has been 
 refused." 
 
 To Monckton Milnes he writes : " You will 
 quite understand me that it is from the unfeigned 
 respect I have for the talents of your father that 
 I advise him to retain the distinction of not being 
 a baronet." This is cynical enough, but it is the 
 cynicism of a purpose to maintain a principle, 
 which is perhaps better than the cynicism which 
 neither investigates nor refuses. 
 
 To Hallam, to the father of Mr. Gladstone, 
 and to Sir Moses Montefiore he offered baronet- 
 cies. To Wordsworth and Tennyson and Owen 
 he gave pensions. Death interposed to prevent 
 a similar favour to Hood. " Dear Sir," wrote 
 Hood, " we are not to meet in the flesh " ; and 
 adds with pathetic pleasantry, " it is death that 
 stops my pen, you see, not a pension." The 
 care and delicacy and conscience with which 
 he treated his patronage seem to us not the 
 least of Peel's claims to our admiration as a 
 minister. 
 
 We have endeavoured thus briefly and hastily 
 to consider him from his administrative and 
 personal aspects as Prime Minister, but even 
 thus we have left ourselves little space to con- 
 sider him from the aspects which mainly appeal 
 to the public policy and Parliament. Still an
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 217 
 
 attempt must at least be made to consider Peel ix. 
 as a parliamentary and political leader. 
 
 In a country like ours, great and, indeed, 
 disproportionate importance attaches to a 
 minister's faculty of public speaking. The 
 greatest of statesmen, the most consummate 
 administrators, the most sound and fertile pro- 
 jectors of public measures, avail little in a parlia- 
 mentary nation without the power of explaining 
 and, so to speak, advertising themselves. This 
 in itself is not a subject for complacency. Nations 
 are built up in silence. Their addiction to oratory 
 is usually a sign of decadence. But in any case 
 the fact remains, and makes it necessary to 
 examine for a moment this part of Peel's equip- 
 ment. 
 
 It is almost sufficient to say, in a sentence, 
 that his speeches represent the best and most 
 potent style of speaking for the days in which 
 he lived and the parliaments in which he sat : 
 grave, dignified, weighty, with the roll of phrase 
 which veils so many defects, and which in an 
 argument acts as a permanent saving clause. 
 There are no alarming nights, and no shivering 
 falls ; no torrents or cascades, but an ample 
 flow, clear and strong and abiding. Speeches, 
 as a rule, even the best, are as evanescent as 
 fireworks or thistle-down ; they are explored 
 for untimely quotation during the speaker's life, 
 and when that useful purpose ceases at his death, 
 they cease to be opened at all ; they are even 
 less read than old sermons, which possess an 
 elect public of their own. There are, however, 
 a few of Peel's speeches which are still classical,
 
 218 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. still consulted by experts, such as the speech on 
 Repeal of the Irish Union in 1834, or on the 
 Currency in 1844, or on Free Trade in 1849. 
 There are, too, such speeches as that in 1817 on 
 Roman Catholic Emancipation, the subjects of 
 which have lost something of their savour, but 
 which are read by those who desire to study 
 great parliamentary arguments. A great parlia- 
 mentary argument is a noble work of art, and 
 one that Peel could always achieve. But beyond 
 that limit he could not pass. It is not possible 
 to conceive his arousing enthusiasm, or rising 
 to the tender or the sublime. An acute and 
 experienced journalist used to say that it was 
 always possible to tell when Peel was beginning 
 the peroration which he had written or prepared 
 there was a mechanical change. To a genera- 
 tion which has glowed with the gradually swelling 
 perorations of Gladstone and of Bright this 
 suggests a shortcoming, and, indeed, these efforts 
 of Peel's do not much impress the reader not 
 even the most famous of all, that on his resigna- 
 tion in 1846. But, when all is said and done, 
 any wise leader of the House of Commons would 
 gladly surrender all chance of an occasional 
 inspiration of the highest eloquence for so con- 
 summate a parliamentary instrument as the 
 speaking faculty of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 Of his voice Disraeli says that it was admir- 
 able ; on the whole, the finest heard in his day, 
 except, perhaps, the thrilling tones of O'Connell. 
 But with all its excellence it may be doubted 
 if it attained the rich and melodious tones of his 
 son, the late Sir Robert, which have been ex-
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 219 
 
 tolled as supreme by both Mr. Gladstone and ix. 
 Lord Beaconsfield. " With such an organ," said 
 the last, " he might have achieved anything." 
 " I have only known two perfect things," the 
 former is reputed to have said, " the handwriting 
 of Lord Palmerston, and the voice of (this) Sir 
 Robert Peel." 
 
 As a leader in the House of Commons, on 
 either side of the House, he had great excellences. 
 His knowledge of that gregarious, wayward 
 assembly was complete, and his tact when dealing 
 with it, except on the rare occasions when his 
 passion mastered him, unerring. But his manner 
 with his followers was, it is said, shy, ungraceful, 
 and ungenial. This is the commonest charge 
 brought against leaders, and it is easy to under- 
 stand how often, when oppressed with cares 
 known only to themselves, they find it difficult 
 to assume a genial briskness in the lobby. There 
 can, however, be little doubt that Peel, reserved 
 with his closest colleagues, was not expansive 
 to his followers, and that the twin curses of 
 shyness and self-consciousness condemned him 
 to that awkward manner, " haughtily stiff, or 
 exuberantly bland," to which his party never 
 accustomed itself. 
 
 One or two lights on the more important side 
 of his parliamentary tactics are, however, obtain- 
 able partly from himself. He was in the first 
 place extremely careful as to the perfection of 
 the measures which he proposed to Parliament. 
 He made it, we are told, a point of honour to 
 prepare his bills so that they should pass with 
 little amendment. And consequently he was able,
 
 220 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. just after he had finally left office, to write : 
 " I pique myself on never having proposed 
 anything that I have not carried." A proud 
 and perhaps unrivalled boast, founded on elabora- 
 tion and foresight, never likely to be repeated 
 in these more listless and slatternly times. 
 
 Disraeli, whose brilliant sketch of Peel seems 
 to us, with some reserves, neither ill-natured nor 
 unfair, thinks that he carried this pride in his 
 measures too far. He tells us that, even after 
 the election of 1834, Peel, though in a minority, 
 did not despair. " I have," he said, " confidence 
 in my measures." His commentator justly in- 
 sinuates that the bills proposed by an archangel 
 in office would not conciliate an opposition in a 
 majority. This is true enough, and pity 'tis 
 'tis true. But there is a spirit in Peel's remark, 
 unworldly though it be, which is not ungrateful 
 to that great controlling mass of the nation 
 which eventually puts measures before majorities : 
 though it may be admitted that the Tadpoles 
 and the Tapers, wriggling under their exhausted 
 receivers, can never understand it. 
 
 Another light on Peel's qualities as a leader 
 is afforded by himself. " I would not," he writes 
 in March 1845, " admit any alteration in any of 
 those bills. This was thought very obstinate and 
 very presumptuous ; but the fact is, people like a 
 certain degree of obstinacy and presumption in 
 a minister. They abuse him for dictation and 
 arrogance, but they like being governed." There 
 is probably much truth in this, but it indicates 
 a sort of veiled autocracy in Peel, which is also 
 perceptible in his readiness to stand alone in 1828
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 221 
 
 and 1846 : the result of an honest self-confidence, ix. 
 but significant also of his aloofness from his party. 
 Aloof from his party he certainly was. In 
 the Tom, Dick, and Harry business, as it may 
 be called, he was certainly deficient : it is the 
 charge brought against all great ministers. But 
 he had one crowning merit, which finds its place 
 in any view of him as a parliamentary leader. 
 He had disciples : he made men : he formed a 
 school. Of no other minister since Pitt can this 
 be said, and even of Pitt only in a lesser degree. 
 What men he shaped ! What a creed of honest 
 work he left with them ! What a tradition of 
 public duty ! Graham, Gladstone, Hardinge, Dal- 
 housie, Canning, Cardwell, Sidney Herbert, and 
 Newcastle. These men stood together after his 
 death like the last square of a broken army, firm 
 in their faith, in their leader, in their cause. 
 To be a Peelite was a distinction in itself : it de- 
 noted statesmanship, industry, conscience. In the 
 course of years the froward currents of politics 
 tumbled them hither and thither ; death dealt 
 hardly with them, for only two of those we have 
 named were in public life a decade after Peel's 
 death ; but to the end they bore the marks of 
 Peelism, the high sense of public duty, the un- 
 limited estimate of labour and devotion. Such 
 men and their principles were a precious national 
 possession : nothing of the kind, so far as we 
 know, has ever taken their place. Our wolves 
 are not, it is to be supposed, of the breed that 
 suckled them. 
 
 So much for Peel in Parliament and as regards 
 the stamp he left on part at least of Parliament.
 
 222 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. With regard to Peel as a statesman there is one 
 preliminary remark which must be made. He 
 was at his greatest, not in power, but in a minority. 
 This, so far as we know, is peculiar to him : it 
 can be said of no other Prime Minister. Yet no 
 one who examines Peel's life can doubt that, of 
 the two epochs in his life when he stood supreme, 
 the first was the period in 1834-35 when England 
 waited breathlessly for his return from Rome, 
 when he formed a Government, and, after a 
 hopeless struggle against a party overwhelming 
 in numbers, elated by enfranchisement, and 
 drunk with victory, he retired from office the 
 foremost statesman of his country. The second 
 was the period of four years that elapsed between 
 his resignation and his death, when, although 
 he had nothing left of his former army but the 
 staff, although he was detested by the mass of 
 his former followers, although he was aloof from 
 and indeed above party connection, his voice 
 was the most potent and trusted in the country. 
 But when he was in office with a majority behind 
 him, though he achieved great things, he was 
 always in a false position, always marching 
 with confident utterance and intrepid bearing to 
 an inevitable abyss. There were in consequence 
 two great catastrophes. In 1828 he had been 
 the principal opponent, as he had been for many 
 years, of the Roman Catholic claims, and in 1829 
 he was the minister who passed through Parlia- 
 ment a measure for the satisfaction of those 
 claims. In 1841 he commenced his term of 
 office as the champion and leader of the Pro- 
 tectionist party, and concluded his term of
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 223 
 
 office in 1846 by putting an end to Protection rx. 
 and the party. 
 
 With regard to these two salient points there 
 will always be a controversy as eternal as the 
 Junian or the bimetallic, that of the Iron Mask 
 or the candlesticks of Hugo's saintly bishop. It 
 is not denied that on both occasions the policy 
 was right, though, strangely enough, seventy 
 years after the interment of one of these questions, 
 and fifty years after the funeral of the other, 
 there appear to the attentive observer more 
 symptoms of anti-Romanist and anti-Free Trade 
 fanaticism than at almost any period in the 
 interval. But though it is not denied that the 
 policy was right, it is, and always will be, stoutly 
 contested whether Peel was the minister to carry 
 it out. It is not our intention to examine this 
 discussion in detail. Neither party to it will 
 ever convince the other, so in itself it is fruitless 
 and endless. Moreover, before engaging in it, 
 it is necessary to examine not merely the history 
 of each question in detail, but also the nicest 
 issues of political conscience, and even political 
 casuistry. Still, it is impossible to pass it by 
 altogether, as it is capital in any survey of Peel's 
 career. One point at any rate is clear, that a 
 favourable verdict on the first transaction does 
 not necessarily imply a favourable issue on the 
 second, and, to some apprehensions, makes it 
 more difficult. Granted that he was right in 
 the first transition, he should not have repeated 
 it : the character of public men cannot stand 
 two such shocks : we incline, as it were, to the 
 old verdict of " Not guilty, but don't do it again."
 
 224 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. The briefest recital of the familiar facts will 
 
 suffice. Wellington, with the concurrence of 
 Peel, had in January 1828 formed a ministry 
 on the plan of Liverpool's, leaving open the 
 question of Catholic Emancipation. Three 
 months afterwards, the section favourable to 
 Emancipation resigned a resignation, it should 
 be noted, which could easily have been averted 
 by Wellington, who, in his military fashion, 
 treated the disquieted Huskisson as a deserter. 
 Peel declares that but for this resignation he 
 should himself have resigned, in consequence 
 of a narrow vote in the House of Commons 
 favourable to the Roman Catholics. The resigna- 
 tion of the " Catholic " ministers from power, 
 strangely enough, resulted obliquely in Emanci- 
 pation. For one of the offices they had re- 
 signed was accepted by Vesey Fitzgerald, who 
 had in consequence to vacate his seat and 
 seek re-election for Clare. He polled all the 
 forces of ascendency, the gentry to a man, and 
 the fifty-pound freeholders : the constituency 
 was held by an overwhelming military force. 
 But O'Connell, though incapable of a seat 
 in Parliament, was returned, on a wave of 
 national uprising, at the head of the poll. 
 This one election let the ocean through the 
 Protestant dykes, and made further resistance, 
 in the opinion of Peel and Wellington, im- 
 possible. 
 
 The philosophical observer cannot help here 
 turning his gaze for a moment fifty-eight years 
 forward. In 1828 one Irish election was held 
 to warrant Peel in a great change of policy : in
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 225 
 
 1886 eighty-five were declared insufficient to ix. 
 justify Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 To return to Peel. He came at once to the 
 conclusion that the election opened up the whole 
 Irish question. He considered it, to use the 
 words in which Cornewall Lewis concisely sum- 
 marises his views, "as a national and not a 
 religious question. Not merely the removal of 
 disabilities from a body of religionists, but the 
 pacification of Ireland was at issue." At the 
 same time he determined to resign. These views 
 he communicated to the Duke of Wellington in 
 August 1828. The Duke answered briefly, and 
 did not combat Peel's desire to resign ; indeed, 
 he expressly acquiesced in it. And so matters 
 went on through that dark and distracted autumn, 
 varied only by the removal of the Lord High 
 Admiral and the Viceroy of Ireland ; for the Duke, 
 from high notions of discipline, had in those 
 days a passion for removals. But the dismissal 
 of Anglesey in no degree affected the resolution 
 of Peel and Wellington that the Roman Catholic 
 question must be settled, nor the apparent 
 agreement that Peel himself must go. A strange 
 incident now made Peel waver as to his resigna- 
 tion. In January 1829 the Duke endeavoured, 
 at an interview, to persuade the Primate and 
 the Bishops of London and Durham to acquiesce 
 in a measure for Catholic Emancipation. The 
 prelates refused. Thereupon Peel, in an evil 
 hour, as we think, for his own fame, fearing that 
 the King was behind the Bishops, or might base 
 a veto on the Bishops, wrote to Wellington to 
 offer to continue in office should his retirement, 
 
 VOL. I Q
 
 226 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. in the Duke's opinion, be an insuperable obstacle 
 to the prosecution of his policy. The Duke, of 
 course, eagerly replied that it would be, and 
 Peel remained. 
 
 We are here compelled to part company for 
 a moment from Mr. Parker. He thinks that the 
 Duke's letter left Peel no option. But it was, in 
 truth, Peel's own letter that had this effect. He 
 made the offer to remain when the Duke had 
 long agreed that it was necessary that they should 
 part. Conscious as he was of enormous difficul- 
 ties, Wellington eagerly clutched at Peel's sug- 
 gestion ; it is not too much to say that in common 
 politeness he could scarcely have done otherwise. 
 It was not the Duke who bound Peel, but Peel 
 who bound himself. To us, anxious as we are 
 to concur with so real an honesty of character 
 and purpose, it seems that the reasons adduced 
 by Peel are inadequate to explain or condone his 
 course. In May 1828 he had been the champion 
 in Parliament against the Roman Catholic claims ; 
 somewhere between May and August 1828 he 
 had been convinced that those claims must be 
 admitted ; in August 1828 he was not less 
 convinced that he could not decently be the 
 minister to settle them, and remained in that 
 conviction till January 1829. Then the attitude 
 of the Bishops made him fear a declaration of 
 non possumus from the King, and so he agreed 
 to remain. In the letter itself it may be noticed 
 that there is no mention of such an apprehension. 
 That does not appear to have transpired till 
 1831, when Peel alluded to it in the House of 
 Commons. And he proceeded to ask what,
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 227 
 
 had he resigned, and the King had said to him, ix. 
 " You advise this course, and ask me to sacrifice 
 my opinion and consistency, why will you not 
 make the same sacrifice ? " he could have replied. 
 As the speech is reported his point is not clear, 
 for the sacrifice of opinion and consistency would 
 be made by Peel whether in or out of office. 
 But it is obvious that the King was supposed to 
 intimate that, as he was compelled to sacrifice 
 his convictions and remain King, Peel, in making 
 the same sacrifice, should remain minister. 
 
 All this seems to us shallow reasoning, and to 
 indicate some self-delusion on the part of Peel. 
 It is, in the first place, obviously irrational to 
 confuse the positions of a constitutional Sovereign 
 and a constitutional minister. Constitutional 
 Sovereigns are often compelled to agree both to 
 measures and to men of whom they disapprove ; 
 but there is no question of their retirement. 
 But a minister who considers a measure in- 
 evitable, which he has always opposed, has no 
 other course honourably open to him. This 
 Peel himself felt both in 1828 and 1845, though 
 on neither occasion did he definitely withdraw. 
 
 But Peel urges, or seems to urge, that, had he 
 retired, the King would have found the courage 
 to declare publicly that he would never consent 
 to Emancipation. We see, we confess, but little 
 grounds for such an apprehension. Unnerved 
 as he was, with the fear of rebellion in Ireland, 
 with the army open to doubt, with the great 
 captain of his country and the Protestant cham- 
 pion both against him, with no one, indeed, to 
 rely upon but the forces of fanaticism, not more
 
 228 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. violent than feeble, we do not believe that the 
 
 King would have done anything of the kind. 
 
 The Duke of York had, indeed, made such a 
 
 declaration, printed on silk, stamped on pottery 
 
 and pocket-handkerchiefs, applauded at the 
 
 banquets of bigots. But the Duke of York was 
 
 both less responsible and more intrepid than 
 
 the King. The only reason, in fact, which Peel 
 
 seems to give for his belief is that the King would 
 
 have founded such a veto on the hostility of the 
 
 Bishops, and, of course, the House of Lords. 
 
 For this hypothesis we can find no foundation 
 
 whatever. Nor in any case can we see how the 
 
 question whether Peel was in or out of office 
 
 when supporting the Bill could have made any 
 
 material difference in the King's attitude. It is 
 
 rather our firm conviction that Peel out of office 
 
 could have given the Bill a much more potent 
 
 advocacy than as a minister : his arguments 
 
 would have been as efficacious ; his conviction 
 
 more manifestly pure ; he would have prevented 
 
 the cancer of personal suspicion, and he would 
 
 have maintained beyond all question his character 
 
 as a public man. In fine, we agree with Peel 
 
 in August 1828 and disagree with his recantation 
 
 of January 1829. 
 
 In point of fact we can scarcely doubt that 
 Peel deluded himself. He sincerely believed, 
 as all men do at times, and as some, like Althorp, 
 do really and always, that he disliked office. In 
 December 1845 he speaks of his loathing of office. 
 But we believe, on the contrary, that he was 
 unconsciously attached to office, and for the 
 highest motives ; that he enjoyed official work,
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 229 
 
 knowing how well he did it ; that he liked leading ix. 
 the House of Commons, because he knew how 
 well he did it ; that he greatly preferred the 
 fruitful task of administration to the spent 
 candour of criticism ; that, to sum all, he was 
 convinced that as a minister he could render 
 excellent service to his country. He did not go 
 so far as Chatham and believe that he alone 
 could save the country, but he felt that his 
 rectitude and capacity would always tide his 
 country over a difficult crisis. 
 
 Then, as the session drew near, he began to 
 realise that the great measure would have to be 
 framed by another, and carried through the 
 Commons by another, certainly inferior, hand. 
 Under the mastery of these feelings he wrote to 
 Wellington, and offered to remain. It does not 
 seem to have occurred to him that out of office 
 he could have taken as great a share as he chose 
 in constructing the Bill, and that out of office 
 he could have taken a much more weighty part 
 in carrying it than he could as a minister. He 
 could, in fact, as a private member have sheltered 
 and assisted the Duke's Government, just as 
 from 1846 to 1850 he sheltered and assisted the 
 Government of Lord John Russell. 
 
 All this, it may be said, is pure hypothesis. 
 But in a discussion of this kind, where hidden 
 motives and inconsistent action have to be 
 considered and reconciled, it is necessary to 
 have recourse to conjecture ; we cannot, indeed, 
 when the documents are exhausted, employ any 
 other guide. 
 
 In 1845-46 the circumstances were somewhat
 
 230 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. different. Peel resigned, not because of the 
 inconsistency of his proposing the abolition of 
 the Corn Laws, which his party was sworn to 
 defend, but because he thought that he required 
 a unanimous Cabinet to help him to carry his 
 measure. In 1828 he had written : " I have 
 been too deeply committed on the question 
 have expressed too strong opinions in respect 
 of it ... to make it advantageous for the King's 
 service that I should be the individual to originate 
 the measure." In 1845-46 he does not seem to 
 have felt this difficulty. And having resigned, 
 and the Whigs having failed to form a Govern- 
 ment, he may have felt that he was on stronger 
 ground. In any case, he resumed office with 
 buoyancy, and, as we have been told on high 
 authority, confidently reckoned on carrying his 
 party with him. So far, it may be said that 
 the Whigs had had their chance, and that it 
 therefore became a matter of absolute necessity 
 that Peel should return and carry the measure to 
 avert a famine. It is difficult to resist this 
 view. Nor is it necessary to weigh whether 
 Peel might not have given larger promises of 
 support to Russell, for Russell ; nexplicably re- 
 nounced his task, because he could neither 
 satisfy Grey nor proceed without him. Russell 
 seems, if we may judge from his explanation at 
 the opening of the session, to have required two 
 conditions to enable him to form a Government : 
 stronger assurances of support from Peel, and 
 complete unanimity among his own colleagues. 
 Both requirements denoted a sanguine nature. 
 But, so far as Peel was concerned, it must be
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 231 
 
 felt that, in view of the crisis and of the fact ix. 
 that Russell was in a considerable minority, his 
 assurances of support should have been as ample 
 as possible. Russell, however, failed, and Peel 
 returned. 
 
 There seems, then, a clear case of necessity. 
 But it is impossible to avoid the feeling that 
 there is something extremely unfortunate, if 
 not sinister, in the fate which drove Peel a second 
 time to carry, as minister, a measure of which 
 he had been the principal opponent. And it is 
 obvious from the remarkable letter which Graham 
 addressed to Peel in December 1842 that Peel 
 and his closest intimates had foreseen for three 
 years the inevitable change, and had viewed it 
 calmly. " The next change," wrote Graham, 
 " in the Corn Laws must be to an open trade " : 
 this seventeen months after Peel had entered 
 office as the last hope of the Protectionists. 
 " But," he adds, " the next change must be the 
 last ; it is not prudent to hurry it ; next session 
 is too soon ; and, as you cannot make a decisive 
 alteration, it is far better to make none." We 
 have not the answer to this, or the letter which 
 elicited it. But it is impossible to doubt that 
 it represents the views of Peel. 
 
 Peel, therefore, amid every outward semblance 
 of political prosperity, was doomed. The leader 
 of a party pledged to Protection, with the clear 
 consciousness that his next step, which might at 
 any moment be taken, must be to Free Trade, he 
 was, in 1842 and for three years onwards, standing 
 on gunpowder ready to explode. He was pontiff 
 of a church with the conviction of being in truth
 
 232 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. a heretic. It is possible, or even probable, that 
 he felt confident that the course of events would 
 soon convince his followers as well as himself 
 that he was only anticipating that conviction. 
 If so, we can only say that he little understood 
 the temper of the agrarian knights behind him. 
 They, at any rate, knew what they wanted and 
 what, so long as was possible, they intended 
 to maintain. They did, indeed, suspect their 
 leader's hesitation. But they were determined 
 that their force should not merely intimidate 
 the enemy, but keep that leader, whether willingly 
 or not, in his place. Should he falter, their 
 weapons should prick him forward, or, if neces- 
 sary, hew him as a traitor. So when he suddenly 
 appeared before them, not in their uniform, 
 but in the clothes he had a second time appro- 
 priated from the bathing Whigs, they had no 
 thought but revenge. We can hardly, then, be 
 surprised at the attacks which were made on him 
 in 1846. Lord John Russell summed it all up 
 in his dry, drawling way : 
 
 " I cannot express surprise or wonder at any 
 warmth or vindictive feeling being directed 
 against the right honourable gentleman, because 
 in his political career he has done that which per- 
 haps has never happened to so eminent a man 
 before. He has twice changed his opinion on the 
 greatest political question of his day. Once when 
 the Protestant Church was to be defended and 
 the Protestant Constitution rescued from the 
 attacks of the Roman Catholics, which it was 
 said would ruin it, the right honourable gentle- 
 man undertook to lead the defence. Again, the
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 233 
 
 Corn Laws were powerfully attacked in this ix. 
 House and out of it. He took the lead of his 
 party to resist a change and to defend Protection. 
 I think, on both occasions, he has come to a wise 
 conclusion, and to a decision most beneficial to 
 his country ; first, when he repealed the Roman 
 Catholic disabilities, and secondly, when he 
 abolished Protection. But that those who fol- 
 lowed him men that had committed them- 
 selves to these questions, on the faith of his 
 political wisdom, on the faith of his sagacity, led 
 by the great eloquence and ability he displayed 
 in debate that when they found he had changed 
 his opinions and proposed measures different 
 from those on the faith of which they had followed 
 him that they should exhibit warmth and resent- 
 ment was not only natural, but I should have 
 been surprised if they had not displayed it." 
 
 Peel, in the memoir which he himself prepared, 
 has left us his defence. It amounts simply to 
 this : that his duty to the nation was greater 
 than his duty to the party. As regards the 
 grave but minor charge, that he did not try and 
 take his party into his confidence, his defence 
 seems to us to be words, and merely words, a 
 fog through which there flashes the one clear 
 sentence, " I should have failed in carrying the 
 repeal of the Corn Laws." It was obviously, 
 then, as a question of strategy that he refused 
 his confidence to his followers. He had no right 
 to be surprised that they withheld theirs from 
 him. Nor is it pleasant, bearing in mind our 
 conviction that Peel's unconscious attachment to 
 office was greater than he knew, to remember
 
 234 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. the remark inferred or recorded by the Prince 
 Consort : " Peel . . . says to himself, ' the 
 minister who settles the Corn Laws is not so 
 easily turned out.' ' We would rather he had 
 said, " History will wish to forgive anything to 
 the minister who settles the Corn Laws." 
 
 But we return to the larger issue. Peel held 
 that his duty to the nation was greater than his 
 duty to his party. So stated, the proposition 
 is a meritorious platitude, and one of which party 
 men cannot be too often reminded. But all 
 depends on the application, for it may be em- 
 ployed for the basest as well as the sublimest 
 purposes. We can conceive a minister thinking 
 it his duty, in some agony of his country, to 
 sacrifice his party, his future, his fame, nay, 
 his good name, as Brutus sacrificed his sons. On 
 the other hand, such a maxim might easily be 
 utilised to cut at the very root, not of party 
 alone, but of political honour. A political knave 
 or a political mountebank might perennially 
 dwell on the same note to excuse every tergiver- 
 sation. " Pledges, my dear sir, promises, nay, 
 even principles, what are they in comparison 
 with my duty to my country ? " Peel, with a 
 high consciousness of his aims and character, 
 saw nothing of this. To himself he was saying, 
 " Perish my party, let me save my country." 
 But parties do not like perishing, and always 
 see more available and comfortable methods of 
 saving the country. 
 
 So the year 1846 was destined to be fatal to 
 high principle in politics. Peel, with the view 
 of saving his country, betrays his party. His
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 235 
 
 party revenges itself on him by a coalition as ix. 
 discreditable as that of North and Fox. And 
 the mischief does not end with the moment. 
 Twenty-one years afterwards, Peel's bitterest 
 censor, from the point of view of political con- 
 sistency, imitated his tactics with that fidelity 
 which is the sincerest form of flattery. " First 
 pass the Bill and then turn out the Ministry," 
 said Mr. Disraeli in 1867. This was Peel's attitude 
 in 1846. The year 1846 scarcely seemed perilous 
 to political principle, the retribution was so 
 swift and severe. But it produced 1867. From 
 the transactions of 1867 English public life re- 
 ceived a shock which it has scarcely recovered. 
 
 Our view is that Peel did not exhaust the 
 alternatives before returning to office. We think 
 that he should have reasoned thus : " Nothing 
 but Free Trade in bread-stuffs, promptly given, 
 can avert a famine in Ireland, but I am the last 
 person who should pass the measure ; for I 
 cannot a second time be placed in the position of 
 a minister betraying his political position. All 
 that I can do, I will do. I will co-operate with 
 any Ministry that will take the necessary steps, 
 and give it my cordial support. If I am con- 
 sulted, and I must inevitably be consulted, I 
 will give my best counsel. I will do anything 
 and everything, except remain in office." We 
 cannot doubt that, had Peel used this language, 
 Lord John Russell would have disregarded or 
 overcome the hesitations of Grey, would have 
 formed a Government, and have passed the Bill. 
 In any case, we hold that it was Peel's duty 
 to try every conceivable and inconceivable com-
 
 236 MISCELLANIES 
 
 ix. bination to obviate the necessity of his remaining 
 minister, and so lowering the standard of English 
 public life. 
 
 Peel thought differently. He considered him- 
 self absolved and freed by a genuine resignation, 
 followed by the failure of the Opposition, and 
 the apparent impossibility of any other com- 
 bination. Nor is it possible to judge him hardly. 
 It is difficult for a minister to exercise an 
 absolutely clear and unbiassed judgement when 
 the horror of famine is upon him, and when the 
 literal rules of the political game appear to have 
 been observed. Moreover, he had hoped not to 
 break up his party but to carry it with him ; 
 he had also to remember that he was the rock 
 and pillar of essential Conservatism, not merely 
 in Britain alone, but in Europe. This was no 
 light trust and responsibility, and it made him, 
 we doubt not, reluctant to relinquish his post. 
 
 So he judged, and we will not judge him. 
 If he deceived himself, he deceived himself nobly, 
 and he wrought an immortal work. He paid, 
 moreover, the full penalty ; he redeemed his 
 reputation by his fall ; his political sins or errors, 
 if sins or errors at all, were condoned by the 
 affection and gratitude of the nation. On the 
 night of his resignation a silent multitude awaited 
 him as he left the House of Commons, and, with 
 bared heads, escorted him home. As he lay 
 dying, a sadder crowd surrounded that home 
 day and night, waiting breathlessly for the 
 tidings of the father of their country. This 
 was his reward. And his expiation became a 
 triumph. The two extremes of political party
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL 237 
 
 combined to overthrow him. Both, to use a ix. 
 familiar expression, turned their backs upon 
 themselves, in order to secure his defeat; and 
 both acquired those fruits of victory which they 
 coveted. The Protectionists obtained the desert 
 apples of revenge, the Whigs the more succulent 
 substance of office. Lord John Russell and his 
 followers, including Grey, who now sacrificed 
 his scruples, occupied Downing Street, but 
 propped and overshadowed by Sir Robert Peel. 
 For then, and now, and for all time, above and 
 beyond that Government and the perished 
 passions of the time, there looms the great figure 
 of the great minister, with feet perhaps of clay 
 as well as iron, but with a heart at least of silver, 
 and a head of fine gold.
 
 X 
 
 DR. CHALMERS 1 
 
 x. WE Scotsmen do well to take every opportunity 
 of revering and burning incense before the 
 memory of Dr. Chalmers. For he was one of the 
 greatest of our race : a commanding character, 
 a superb orator, the most illustrious Scottish 
 churchman since John Knox. His memory 
 remains green and vivid with us when statesmen, 
 writers, and philosophers are, if not forgotten, 
 languishing in the shade. It is a noble and 
 blessed life, none more enviable. 
 
 But it is specially in Glasgow that it is fitting 
 to commemorate him, for it is here that his most 
 fruitful years were spent. Here he revealed 
 himself not merely as preacher and divine, but 
 as a statesman. Here he tried that great ex- 
 periment which sought to preserve the thrift 
 and independence of the Scottish character. 
 The experiment failed in practice, because it 
 required a Chalmers to carry it out ; nay, a 
 score of Chalmerses. This in his modesty he 
 always vehemently denied. Nevertheless it was 
 the truth. We know that the plan continued in 
 
 1 An Address delivered on April 14, 1915, in commemoration of 
 the centenary of his first connection with Glasgow. 
 
 238
 
 DR. CHALMERS 239 
 
 operation to some extent after his departure, x. 
 in no slight degree probably an aftermath of his 
 harvest, but no one but himself could have con- 
 tinued his system for long in face of the over- 
 powering influences against it. Could even he ? 
 
 What was his plan ? It was in principle 
 simple enough. Division into districts and, if 
 necessary, into sub-districts, with benevolent 
 supervision by deacons, strict separation of the 
 deserving from the undeserving poor, a large 
 scope afforded for the charity and co-operation 
 of the poor themselves, which was heartily 
 given. He refused all public grants and aids, 
 yet he reduced the expenditure on the poor in 
 his parish of St. John from 1400 to 280. 
 Moreover, as a proof, though not a conclusive 
 proof, that the plan was acceptable, nearly 
 twice as many people came into the parish as 
 left it during his administration. At any rate, 
 Chalmers's successor, the Rev. Dr. Macfarlane, 
 was able to testify that the poor, excepting the 
 worthless and profligate, were in better condition, 
 more contented and more happy, than the poor 
 in the other parishes of Glasgow. 
 
 This was his scheme, combined with Christian 
 education and the multiplication of churches, 
 for both of which he made marvellous efforts ; 
 it embodied his policy. But the plan for the 
 relief of the poor which I have just described, 
 even had it been practicable without a genius 
 or a collection of geniuses to carry it out, was 
 doomed to failure. The municipal authorities, 
 who, as Chalmers quaintly put it, " flounce 
 in the robes of magistracy," did not smile on
 
 240 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. it ; in those days they seldom smiled on any- 
 thing, except perhaps the punch - bowl. But 
 that indifference might have been gradually 
 worn down by the force of public opinion. There 
 was, however, no public opinion of sufficient 
 strength behind him. Indeed, public opinion 
 has developed in exactly the opposite direction. 
 He lived to see the arrival of the Poor Law, 
 which was the end of Chalmersism. State aid, 
 which he combated, has been increasingly sought. 
 It may be from some relaxation of character ; 
 it may be from a feeling that where large sums 
 are annually exacted in taxation the community 
 should get as much out of them as possible ; it 
 may be that Socialism, Christian or un-Christian, 
 for there are both kinds, has gained strength, 
 but the fact remains. Individual independence, 
 for which Chalmers fought, and in which he 
 believed as the backbone and strength of our 
 rugged Scottish character, has almost ceased to 
 operate as a factor. That may be right or may 
 be wrong, but there will always be a faithful few 
 to adhere to the creed of Chalmers, and to range 
 themselves under his tattered but glorious banner. 
 He seems now to us to have been baling out the 
 Atlantic ; but the attempt was worth making, 
 even though the Atlantic did not run dry. 
 
 But, if he nobly failed in this enterprise, he 
 succeeded in another and perhaps a greater. 
 He warmed Glasgow. He found Glasgow cold, 
 wealthy, and material. It would not be true to 
 say that it was spiritually dead, for in the course 
 of eighteen years the stipends of the city clergy 
 had been augmented no less than four times by
 
 DR. CHALMERS 241 
 
 the Corporation, in spite of a condition of city x. 
 finance which almost approached bankruptcy. A 
 few new chapels or churches had been built, 
 notably that for Dr. Wardlaw. Nevertheless 
 the city was not spiritually alive, partly perhaps 
 from an ecclesiastical conservatism which Dr. 
 Chalmers considered as specially indigenous in 
 the West. The church organ, for example, long 
 banned by the presbyteries, was banned with 
 especial bitterness in Glasgow. Indeed, the city, 
 growing by leaps and bounds in population and 
 commerce, showed little of the same eagerness 
 in spiritual matters. Chalmers appeared, and 
 all was transformed. He breathed a new soul 
 into the community. Laymen rallied round him 
 with money and personal service. New places 
 of worship and new schools were erected. And 
 after three years at the Tron he himself gave an 
 inspiring example by leaving that historic church 
 for the new and not very attractive district of 
 St. John's, that he might work with free hands at 
 organising a parish according to his view of what 
 a parish should be. 
 
 Ah, gentlemen, when we think of Dr. 
 Chalmers's work in Glasgow we are irresistibly 
 reminded of the origin of your motto. That 
 was an ancient inscription, " Lord, let Glasgow 
 flourish through the preaching of Thy Word and 
 praising Thy Name." The next edition was, 
 " Lord, let Glasgow flourish by the preaching 
 of the Word." And the last and only authorised 
 heraldic form is " Let Glasgow flourish " a 
 sensible and wholly secular aspiration. But may 
 we not say that when Chalmers reigned in 
 
 VOL. I R
 
 242 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. Glasgow his motto at any rate was the earlier 
 form that I have quoted, and that his ambitions 
 and ideals for Glasgow were wholly spiritual and 
 exalted ? For with him those quaintly pious 
 words were a living truth. He believed in no 
 other means and no other aim. Even those 
 whose creed is weaker will pause to admire his 
 glowing and single-minded faith and to marvel 
 at all that it achieved. 
 
 His instruments for this high work were 
 twofold : his preaching and his personality. 
 
 As to the splendours of his preaching, the 
 overwhelming power of his oratory, we possess 
 conclusive proofs. One is, of course, the sermons 
 and speeches which remain to prove themselves. 
 He had a lavish gift of diction, a profusion of 
 powerful and gorgeous sentences which gathered 
 an irresistible momentum and impetus as they 
 rolled on. He began, we are told, weakly and 
 almost inaudibly, dull-eyed and lifeless, so that 
 strangers prepared themselves to be disappointed. 
 But in a few moments he warmed up, presently 
 he glowed, and soon he was hurling with stormy 
 vehemence thunderbolts of eloquence from the vol- 
 canic heights of his soul on an audience almost 
 paralysed with emotion. He would indeed pause 
 from time to time to allow human nature to 
 recover itself from the strain. Then breath 
 would be drawn, the suppressed coughs would 
 be released, and after a space the orator would 
 proceed with the same fervour until again he 
 had to allow a minute or two of relaxation. This 
 to a congregation occupying every inch of space 
 right up into the pulpit, which had waited for
 
 DR. CHALMERS 243 
 
 hours, and which remained steaming and breath- x. 
 less under the wand of the enchanter, through 
 sermons of an hour and forty minutes or more. 
 And, what makes the effect still more remarkable, 
 these sermons were read. Chalmers's ordinary 
 manuscript was almost illegible. What must 
 his peculiar shorthand have been ! Yet these 
 discourses seem to have been delivered from this 
 impenetrable script. His accent, too, was the 
 broad Doric of Fife, and his pronunciation often 
 original, yet he controlled his English audiences 
 as much as his Scottish. These mannerisms 
 indeed assisted rather than marred his effects. 
 
 His appearance must also have aided them. 
 The huge forehead, which seemed to crush down 
 by its weight the sweet and mobile mouth, must 
 have been a formidable adjunct to his eloquence. 
 His eye, however, had not the glint of oratory, 
 it was inanimate and leaden. But he had what 
 Americans call a Daniel Webster head, and 
 tradition tells how his class students whenever 
 they got the chance would try on his hat, with 
 humiliating results. One fancies that the im- 
 pression produced by his appearance was that 
 of commanding intellect and an unaffected, 
 benevolent simplicity. 
 
 I like to be told that he had not many sermons, 
 that he concentrated himself upon a compara- 
 tively few, and advised other ministers to do the 
 same. So that he preached nothing but master- 
 pieces, whether in the little church at Kilmany 
 or to the excited audiences of Glasgow and 
 London. And each time that he repeated them 
 he gave them new life. He gave, in fact, at all
 
 244 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. times of his best, and disdained to offer anything 
 less. 
 
 The other substantial proof of his immense 
 oratorical power was his audiences. When he 
 preached in London for the Missionary Society, 
 though the service began at eleven the Church 
 was packed at seven, and many thousands turned 
 away. This you may say was anticipation, 
 but it was anticipation so fully realised that 
 though he was so exhausted in the middle of his 
 sermon that he sat down while two verses of a 
 hymn were sung, one of his auditors wrote that 
 he was still under the nervousness of having 
 heard and witnessed the most astounding display 
 of human talent that perhaps ever commanded 
 sight or hearing. It was at this visit to London 
 that Canning, the most brilliant and fastidious 
 orator of his day, was moved to tears by the 
 preaching of Chalmers, and declared " the tartan 
 beats us all." Again, on this visit, but on another 
 occasion, Chalmers himself could not penetrate 
 the crowd, and had almost abandoned the idea 
 of preaching, when, as it would appear, he was 
 admitted over a plank through a window. 
 
 I take these examples from London, which 
 might be supposed to be indifferent, but it was 
 always the same pressure in Glasgow. Here, even 
 when he preached on Thursdays, the tide of 
 the whole city seemed to flow into the doors. 
 Here, too, his church was constantly taken by 
 storm, and at his last sermon in St. John's, a 
 strong force of police having failed to stem the 
 torrent, the military had to be called in. We 
 who have seen the great mass meetings, wonderful
 
 . DR. CHALMERS 245 
 
 as they were, addressed by Mr. Gladstone at the x. 
 height of his fame and popularity have nothing 
 to record like this. There can be but few parallels 
 to it in history. 
 
 Oratory must, then, have been one main secret 
 of his amazing power. Energy was another. 
 Tenderness, the tenderness of sympathy, was 
 another. Read the story of his connection with 
 young Thomas Smith and you will hear his heart 
 beating aloud. But his base was character. 
 Through all the splendours of his speech, through 
 all his activity of administration, through all his 
 powerful and voluminous writings there flamed 
 the glory of a living soul : a supreme, unquench- 
 able, fervent soul. For him Christianity was 
 everything ; his faith inspired every action of his 
 life, every moment of his day, every word that 
 he uttered, every letter that he wrote. That 
 was the real secret of his power, that drew all 
 hearts willingly or unwillingly to him, and that 
 gave a mystery of inspiration to his discourse. 
 He wrote enormously, he spoke continually, he 
 revealed his inner self in every possible way ; 
 but after his first struggles and victory every 
 word that remains on record seems instinct with 
 a pervading, undoubting, eager Christian faith. 
 There was an unconscious sanctity about him 
 which was, as it were, the breath of his nostrils ; 
 he diffused it as his breath, it was as vital to him 
 as his breath. This is what we mean by a saint, 
 and if ever a halo surrounded a saint it encom- 
 passed Chalmers. It is not breaking the tenth 
 commandment to covet his spirit, though one 
 may despair of the intellect which it animated.
 
 246 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. But this sanctity was by no means innate. It 
 
 is, indeed, a consolation to weaker mortals to 
 know that it had not always been so. Till he was 
 past thirty, as we know, the faith of Chalmers, 
 such as it was, sat lightly on him. Then he was 
 principally a mathematician, a philosopher, a 
 cordial neighbour, giving his Church and his 
 parish what remained of his time after secular 
 study had been adequately accomplished. It 
 was in these early Kilmany days that 'he enlisted 
 in the St. Andrews volunteers, became Chaplain 
 and Lieutenant ; and it is recorded that he 
 preached a war sermon with such violence of 
 gesture that he tore his gown aside and revealed 
 the uniform beneath, exclaiming in words which 
 come home to us now : " May I be the first to 
 ascend the scaffold erected to extinguish the 
 worth and spirit of the country ; may my blood 
 mingle with the blood of patriots ; and may I 
 die at the foot of that altar on which British 
 independence is to be the victim." So he said 
 with regard to the threats of Napoleon, and so 
 we say with regard to the menace of far mightier 
 hosts than Napoleon ever dreamt of. Then an 
 illness lifted him into a higher sphere, and he 
 soared aloft. There he remained to the end in 
 communion with the Divine ; from that time 
 he was what he continued till death, a unique 
 personality of prodigious powers, all devoted to 
 sole purpose of service to God. 
 
 Again, it should be said that this saintliness 
 was not that of an anchorite brooding in religious 
 solitude. Here was a man, bustling, striving, 
 organising, speaking and preaching with the dust
 
 DR. CHALMERS 24T 
 
 and fire of the world on his clothes, but carrying x. 
 his shrine with him everywhere. 
 
 He did not shrink from his fellow-men : on 
 the contrary, he sought them, for it was the 
 business of his life to permeate them with his 
 message. Yet, like the Duke of Wellington, he 
 had no small talk. Mr. Gladstone, who accom- 
 panied him on some of his pastoral visits, said 
 that he sat embarrassed and almost silent. In 
 Glasgow, too, he would perhaps only utter a 
 blessing or a short prayer on such occasions. 
 But his visits were prized, for he radiated 
 benevolence. 
 
 I have almost entirely confined myself in what 
 I have been saying to the eight years of his 
 Glasgow life. And yet do not rend me if I say 
 I am not sure if his whole heart was ever in 
 Glasgow. His energies were there, his love for 
 the people was there, the field for beneficence in 
 which he delighted was there, his fame rose 
 there. But you asked too much of your minister 
 in the way of secular business, you made too 
 many extra parochial calls on his time, you paid 
 him too many visits ; dare I say it, I am not 
 sure that he relished the climate. And though 
 he resolutely shook off the shackles to which I 
 have alluded, he imposed on himself others not 
 less heavy until he found the burden too much 
 for him to bear. Nor do I think that his heart 
 was in Edinburgh, or St. Andrews. I believe 
 that he was always faithful to his early love, 
 and that his true affections were centred in 
 Anstruther or Kilmany. 
 
 Was he able to keep clear of politics by
 
 248 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. which I mean party politics ? Yes, I think that 
 that may be claimed for him, though there are 
 occasional signs that he knew something about 
 parties, at least their names. In writing to Peel, 
 for instance, in 1832, he says, " I am a thorough 
 Conservative," and in 1835 we are told that at 
 this period Dr. Chalmers " was in the habit of 
 expressing in no measured terms his distrust of 
 the Whigs." When he was greatly disappointed 
 with Lord Melbourne's Government for refusing 
 money to build churches in Scotland, he met a 
 young friend and said in an accent which my 
 friend Lord Guthrie has endeavoured to com- 
 municate to me, " I have a moral Ibthing of these 
 Whugs and especially Fox Ma~al." 
 
 But whatever party name he may have given 
 himself, he could not descend enough from his 
 altitudes to understand the forces which neces- 
 sarily sway and impel politicians, and so it may 
 safely be said that he never was in any real sense 
 a party politician himself. 
 
 This seems the proper place to ask what, 
 outside Church questions, were this great man's 
 aims and policy. I do not pretend to have 
 read the manifold volumes of his works, but 
 that is not necessary to form a conclusion. It 
 is sufficiently clear that the ideal was to raise 
 the nation by Christianity, by Christian co-opera- 
 tion, Christian education, Christian worship. He 
 thought that by these means he would be able 
 to rear a character and race which would disdain 
 State aid or State patronage, and be independent 
 of all but the faith. It was a sublime vision, and 
 though he could not accomplish it, it animated
 
 DR. CHALMERS 249 
 
 him to do great things while working for it, and 
 it gave an inspiration to his smallest acts. 
 
 The rush of time and events, the torrent that 
 sweeps human effort into eternity, may have 
 effaced much of Chalmers's practical work. The 
 world creeps on in its blind course through the 
 centuries, we know not whither, but it certainly 
 does not seem to tend towards the aims of 
 Chalmers. That, however, does not obliterate 
 the glory of the effort and the enterprise. He 
 was, indeed, the Moses of his country, pointing 
 to a land of promise into which neither he nor 
 his countrymen entered or were destined to enter. 
 
 As to his oratory and its quality, what are we 
 to say ? This is not the occasion on which to 
 award the palm to the great pulpit orators of 
 the nineteenth century. That would require far 
 greater knowledge and far ampler time than I have 
 at my disposal. But I have said enough already 
 to indicate the prodigious effect of his sermons. 
 If only for his speech on Roman Catholic Eman- 
 cipation, however, he may claim a high place 
 among the secular and political speakers of his 
 time. Perhaps the chief of these were Canning 
 and Plunket, while others might rank Brougham 
 and Irving with them in spite of the terrible 
 drawback of extreme prolixity. Bright and 
 Gladstone had hardly reached their highest point 
 when Chalmers died. Mr. Gladstone, however, 
 it may be remarked in passing, though so strong 
 an Anglican and High Churchman, was a diligent 
 disciple. We rarely drove between Edinburgh 
 and Dalmeny without Mr. Gladstone pointing 
 out with affectionate interest the spot where,
 
 250 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. when they were walking together on the Queens- 
 ferry Road, Dr. Chalmers's hat had been blown 
 off across a dyke, and the future statesman 
 had had to run a considerable distance to 
 catch it. 
 
 But let us return to the orators. The great 
 fault of Chalmers's oratory was his diffuseness, 
 arising from a diction of inexhaustible opulence, 
 always affluent, and always swelling, until it 
 sometimes overflowed its banks. For this reason 
 his discourses are sometimes tedious to read. 
 But then Charles Fox said that a speech which 
 read well must be a bad speech, which implies 
 that the converse may often be true. Be that 
 as it may, we cannot judge of Chalmers's oratory 
 when divorced from his overpowering and irre- 
 sistible delivery. That, which combined action, 
 passion, and soul, with an accent which, as we 
 have seen, might in cold blood excite a smile, 
 was evidently half his secret. The interminable 
 sentences which are often irksome in print came 
 rolling on like successive billows in a storm, 
 each driving in the effect of the last. This is not 
 to underrate the rich splendour of the speech or 
 sermon itself, but to explain the unique effect 
 that was produced. The others who have been 
 mentioned may have been more terse and so 
 more pointed, but it is to be doubted if any 
 other orator in Great Britain has ever wielded 
 the sublime thunder of Chalmers. 
 
 Perhaps among all his greatest oratorical 
 effects the most powerful was that produced by 
 his speech on Roman Catholic Emancipation. Is 
 it too familiar to quote ? Surely not on an
 
 DR. CHALMERS 251 
 
 occasion like this, for it displays a sane liberality x. 
 as well as the highest eloquence. 
 
 " It is not by our fears and our false alarms 
 that we do honour to Protestantism. A far 
 more befitting honour to the great cause is the 
 homage of our confidence ; for what Sheridan 
 said of the liberty of the Press admits of most 
 emphatic application to this religion of truth and 
 liberty. ' Give,' says that great orator, ' give to 
 ministers a corrupt House of Commons ; give 
 them a pliant and a servile House of Lords ; give 
 them the keys of the Treasury and the patronage 
 of the Crown ; and give me the liberty of the 
 Press, and with this mighty engine I will over- 
 throw the fabric of corruption, and establish 
 upon its ruins the rights and privileges of the 
 people.' In like manner, give the Catholics of 
 Ireland their emancipation ; give them a seat in 
 the Parliament of their country ; give them a 
 free and equal participation in the politics of the 
 realm ; give them a place at the right ear of 
 majesty, and a voice in his counsels ; and give 
 me the circulation of the Bible, and with this 
 mighty engine I will overthrow the tyranny of 
 Antichrist, and establish the fair and original 
 form of Christianity on its ruins." Here we have 
 the striking effect produced by quoting a fine 
 passage of eloquence from Sheridan, and over- 
 topping it by his own. 
 
 Of his pathos in the pulpit the most familiar and 
 perhaps the most perfect example is that from his 
 sermon in aid of the orphan children of clergymen, 
 where he describes a minister's children obliged 
 to leave their home on their father's death :
 
 252 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. " With quietness on all the hills, and with 
 
 every field glowing in the pride and luxury of 
 vegetation when summer was throwing its rich 
 garment over this goodly scene of magnificence 
 and glory, they think, in the bitterness of their 
 souls, that this is the last summer which they 
 shall ever witness smiling on the scene which all 
 the ties of habit and affection have endeared to 
 them ; and then this thought, melancholy as it 
 is, is lost and overborne in the far darker melan- 
 choly of a father torn from their embrace, and a 
 helpless family left to find their way, unprotected 
 and alone, through the lowering futurity of this 
 earthly pilgrimage." 
 
 Dean Ramsay, who heard the sermon, says 
 that the preacher's tears dropped like raindrops 
 on the manuscript. 
 
 To illustrate the variety of his power I would 
 only allude to another sermon, where he de- 
 scribed a hunting-field, " the assemblage of gallant 
 knighthood and hearty yeomen," " the high-bred 
 coursers " and " the echoing horn," " the glee and 
 fervency of the chase," " the deafening clamour 
 of the hounds," with such vivid energy that Lord 
 Elcho's huntsman who was present had difficulty 
 in restraining himself from giving a " view holloa." 
 This is the sort of passage that might have been 
 written by Walter Scott himself. Let us here 
 recall that one of the rare occasions when the 
 great Sir Walter was touched by praise was when 
 he was told of the admiration of Chalmers. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let me leave Glasgow 
 behind, and come to what may be considered the 
 fifth act of his magnificent career.
 
 DR. CHALMERS 253 
 
 The 18th of May 1843 was one of the most x. 
 memorable days in the history of Scotland ; it still 
 thrills the nation to its core. When in the course 
 of affairs it is recalled, it moves our hearts with a 
 faint remote harmony like that which the evening 
 breeze evokes from the aeolian harp. It matters 
 not to-day who were in the right or who were 
 in the wrong on that immortal occasion. But 
 the sight of more than four hundred ministers 
 proceeding from St. Andrew's Church, leaving 
 behind them their manses, their kirks, their 
 homes ; casting on the waters the daily bread of 
 themselves and their families ; separating them- 
 selves from the Church in which they had minis- 
 tered so devoutly, from beloved traditions, from 
 precious friendships ; marching resolutely into 
 the wilderness, and all for conscience' sake, was 
 one which will never be obliterated from the 
 minds of their countrymen. They may have 
 been right, they may have been wrong ; still those 
 who made so glorious a sacrifice cannot have been 
 wholly wrong. That, thank God, matters little 
 now, for all parties at this stage can afford to 
 admire and applaud the apostolical procession, 
 in which Dr. Chalmers followed the protesting 
 Moderator, Dr. Welsh. " He had been standing," 
 we are told, " immediately to the left. He 
 looked vacant and abstracted while the protest 
 was being read. But Dr. Welsh's movement 
 awakened him from the reverie. Seizing eagerly 
 upon his hat he hurried after him with all the air 
 of one impatient to be gone." That has always 
 struck me as a living portrait. 
 
 Since then much has happened, and we have
 
 254 MISCELLANIES 
 
 x. found the law-courts discussing what were Dr. 
 Chalmers's real views and policy on that occasion. 
 To us now that is of no consequence, for we are 
 approaching, if we have not actually reached, a 
 happier time. Those controversies are dying, if 
 not dead. We meet in temples of concord to 
 bury them and to proclaim peace over their 
 graves. And may we not feel that from our 
 present brotherly discussions, too tardy and 
 elaborate though laymen may feel them to be, 
 but which perhaps require full time in order to 
 lay strong, ample, and compact the bases of a 
 restored and permanent structure, the benedic- 
 tion of Chalmers is not absent ? Nay, is it 
 presumptuous to believe that, if departed souls 
 are ever permitted to revisit the scene of their 
 activities in this life, there may be present in 
 the congress of the Fathers of the Church, striving 
 for Christian fellowship and Christian harmony, 
 the spirit of Chalmers, rejoicing with the pure 
 ecstasy of an angel in the blessed prospect of the 
 completed unity of our National Church ?
 
 XI 
 MR. GLADSTONE 1 
 
 I AM here to-day to unveil the image of one of xi. 
 the great figures of our country. It is right and 
 fitting that it should stand here. A statue of 
 Mr. Gladstone is congenial in any part of Scot- 
 land. But in this Scottish city, teeming with 
 eager workers, endowed with a great University, 
 a centre of industry, commerce, and thought, a 
 statue of William Ewart Gladstone is at home. 
 
 But you in Glasgow have more personal claims 
 to a share in the inheritance of Mr. Gladstone's 
 fame. I, at any rate, can recall one memory 
 the record of that marvellous day in December 
 1879, nearly twenty-three years ago, when the in- 
 domitable old man delivered his rectorial address 
 to the students at noon, a long political speech 
 in St. Andrew's Hall in the evening, and a sub- 
 stantial discourse on receiving an address from 
 the Corporation at ten o'clock at night. Some 
 of you may have been present at all these 
 gatherings, some only at the political meeting. 
 If they were, they may remember the little 
 incidents of the meeting the glasses which were 
 
 1 A Speech delivered at the unveiling of the statue at Glasgow, 
 October 11, 1902. 
 
 260
 
 256 MISCELLANIES 
 
 hopelessly lost and then, of course, found on the 
 orator's person the desperate candle brought in, 
 stuck in a water-bottle, to attempt sufficient light 
 to read an extract. And what a meeting it was 
 teeming, delirious, absorbed ! Do you have such 
 meetings now ? They seem to me pretty good ; 
 but the meetings of that time stand out before 
 all others in my mind. 
 
 This statue is erected, not out of the national 
 subscription, but by contributions from men of 
 all creeds in Glasgow and in the West. I must 
 then, in what I have to say, leave out altogether 
 the political aspect of Mr. Gladstone. In some 
 cases such a rule would omit all that was interest- 
 ing in a man. There are characters from which 
 if you subtracted politics there would be nothing 
 left. It was not so with Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 To the great mass of his fellow-countrymen 
 he was of course a statesman, wildly worshipped 
 by some, wildly detested by others. But, to 
 those who were privileged to know him, his politics 
 seemed but the least part of him. The predomi- 
 nant part, to which all else was subordinated, was 
 his religion ; the life which seemed to attract 
 him most was the life of the library ; the subject 
 which engrossed him most was the subject of 
 the moment, whatever it might be, and that, 
 when he was out of office, was very rarely politics. 
 Indeed, I sometimes doubt whether his natural 
 bent was towards politics at all. Had his course 
 taken him that way, as it very nearly did, he 
 would have been a great churchman, greater 
 perhaps than any that this island has known ; 
 he would have been a great professor, if you
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 257 
 
 could have found a university big enough to hold xi. 
 him ; he would have been a great historian, a 
 great bookman, he would have grappled with 
 whole libraries and wrestled with academies, had 
 the fates placed him in a cloister ; indeed it is 
 difficult to conceive the career, except perhaps 
 the military, in which his energy and intellect 
 and application would not have placed him on 
 a summit. Politics, however, took him and 
 claimed his life service, but, jealous mistress as 
 she is, could never thoroughly absorb him. 
 
 Such powers as I have indicated seem to belong 
 to a giant and a prodigy, and I can understand 
 many turning away from the contemplation of 
 such a character, feeling that it is too far removed 
 from them to interest them, and that it is too 
 unapproachable to help them that it is like 
 reading of Hercules or Hector, mythical heroes 
 whose achievements the actual living mortal 
 cannot hope to rival. Well, that is true enough ; 
 we have not received intellectual faculties equal 
 to Mr. Gladstone's, and cannot hope to vie with 
 him in their exercise. But apart from them, 
 his great force was character, and amid the vast 
 multitude that I am addressing, there is none 
 who may not be helped by him. 
 
 The three signal qualities which made him 
 what he was were courage, industry, and faith : 
 dauntless courage, unflagging industry, a faith 
 which was part of his fibre these were the levers 
 with which he moved the world. 
 
 I do not speak of his religious faith that de- 
 mands a worthier speaker and another occasion. 
 But no one who knew Mr. Gladstone could fail 
 
 VOL. I S
 
 258 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xi. to see that it was the essence, the savour, the 
 motive power of his life. Strange as it may seem, 
 I cannot doubt that while this attracted many to 
 him, it alienated others, others not themselves 
 irreligious, but who suspected the sincerity of 
 so manifest a devotion, and who, reared in the 
 moderate atmosphere of the time, disliked the 
 intrusion of religious considerations into politics. 
 These, however, though numerous enough, were the 
 exceptions, and it cannot, I think, be questioned 
 that Mr. Gladstone not merely raised the tone of 
 public discussion, but quickened and renewed the 
 religious feeling of the society in which he moved. 
 
 But that is not the faith of which I am thinking 
 to-day. What is present to me is the faith with 
 which he espoused and pursued great causes. 
 There also he had faith sufficient to move moun- 
 tains, and did sometimes move mountains. He 
 did not lightly resolve, he came to no hasty 
 conclusion, but when he had convinced himself 
 that a cause was right, it engrossed him, it in- 
 spired him, with a certainty as deep-seated and 
 as imperious as ever moved mortal man. To 
 him, then, obstacles, objections, the counsels of 
 doubters and critics, were as nought ; he pressed 
 on with the passion of a whirlwind, but also with 
 the steady persistence of some puissant machine. 
 
 He had, of course, like every statesman, often 
 to traffic with expediency; he had always, I 
 suppose, to accept something less than his ideal ; 
 but his unquenchable faith, not in himself 
 though that with experience must have waxed 
 strong not in himself but in his cause, sustained 
 him among the necessary shifts and transactions
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 259 
 
 of the moment, and kept his head high in the XL 
 heavens. 
 
 Such faith, such moral conviction, is not 
 given to all men, for the treasures of his nature 
 were in ingots, and not in dust. But there is, 
 perhaps, no man without some faith in some cause 
 or some person : if so, let him take heart, in 
 however small a minority he may be, by remem- 
 bering how mighty a strength was Gladstone's 
 power of faith. 
 
 His next great force lay in his industry. I do 
 not know if the aspersions of " ca' canny " be 
 founded, but at any rate there was no " ca' canny " 
 about him. From his earliest schooldays, if 
 tradition be true, to the bed of death, he gave 
 his full time and energy to work. No doubt his 
 capacity for labour was unusual. He would sit 
 up all night writing a pamphlet, and work next 
 day as usual. An eight-hours' day would have 
 been a holiday to him, for he preached and 
 practised the gospel of work to its fullest extent. 
 He did not, indeed, disdain pleasure ; no one 
 enjoyed physical exercise, or a good play, or a 
 pleasant dinner, more than he ; he drank in 
 deep draughts of the highest and the best that 
 life had to offer ; but even in pastime he was 
 never idle. He did not know what it was to 
 saunter, he debited himself with every minute 
 of his time ; he combined with the highest 
 intellectual powers the faculty of utilising them 
 to the fullest extent by intense application. 
 Moreover, his industry was prodigious in result, 
 for he was an extraordinarily rapid worker. 
 Dumont says of Mirabeau that till he met that
 
 260 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xi. marvellous man he had no idea of how much 
 could be achieved in a day. " Had I not lived 
 with him," he says, " I should not know what can 
 be accomplished in a day, all that can be com- 
 pressed into an interval of twelve hours. A day 
 was worth more to him than a week or a month 
 to others." Many men can be busy for hours 
 with a mighty small product, but with Mr. Glad- 
 stone every minute was fruitful. That, no doubt, 
 was largely due to his marvellous powers of 
 concentration. When he was staying at Dalmeny 
 in 1879 he kindly consented to sit for his bust. 
 The only difficulty was that there was no time for 
 sittings. So the sculptor with his clay model 
 was placed opposite Mr. Gladstone as he worked, 
 and they spent the mornings together, Mr. Glad- 
 stone writing away, and the clay figure of himself 
 less than a yard off gradually assuming shape and 
 form. Anything more distracting I cannot con- 
 ceive, but it had no effect on the busy patient. 
 
 And now let me make a short digression. I 
 saw recently in your newspapers that there was 
 some complaint of the manners of the rising 
 generation in Glasgow. If that be so, they are 
 heedless of Mr. Gladstone's example. It might 
 be thought that so impetuous a temper as his 
 might be occasionally rough or abrupt. That 
 was not so. His exquisite urbanity was one of 
 his most conspicuous graces. I do not now only 
 allude to that grave, old-world courtesy, which 
 gave so much distinction to his private life ; 
 for his sweetness of manner went far beyond 
 demeanour. His spoken words, his letters, even 
 when one differed from him most acutely, were all
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 261 
 
 marked by this special note. He did not like xi. 
 people to disagree with him few people do ; but, 
 so far as manner went, it was more pleasant to 
 disagree with Mr. Gladstone than to be in agree- 
 ment with some others. 
 
 Lastly, I come to his courage that perhaps 
 was his greatest quality, for when he gave his heart 
 and reason to a cause, he never counted the cost. 
 Most men are physically brave, and this nation 
 is reputed to be especially brave, but Mr. Glad- 
 stone was brave among the brave. He had to 
 the end the vitality of physical courage. When 
 well on in his ninth decade, well on to ninety, he 
 was knocked over by a cab, and before the by- 
 standers could rally to his assistance, he had 
 pursued the cab with a view to taking its number. 
 He had, too, notoriously, political courage in a 
 not less degree than Sir Robert Walpole. We 
 read that George II., who was little given to 
 enthusiasms, " would often cry out, with colour 
 flushing into his cheeks, and tears sometimes in 
 his eyes, and with a vehement oath : c He 
 (Walpole) is a brave fellow ; he has more spirit 
 than any man I ever knew.' ' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone did not yield to Walpole in 
 political and parliamentary courage it was a 
 quality which he closely observed in others, and 
 on which he was fond of descanting. But he had 
 the rarest and choicest courage of all I mean 
 moral courage. That was his supreme char- 
 acteristic, and it was with him, like the others, 
 from the first. A contemporary of his at Eton 
 once told me of a scene, at which my informant 
 was present, when some loose or indelicate toast
 
 262 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xi. was proposed, and all present drank it but young 
 Gladstone. In spite of the storm of objurgation 
 and ridicule that raged around him, he jammed his 
 face, as it were, down in his hands on the table 
 and would not budge. Every schoolboy knows, 
 for we may here accurately use Macaulay's well- 
 known expression, every schoolboy knows the 
 courage that this implies. And even by the heed- 
 less generation of boyhood it was appreciated, 
 for we find an Etonian writing to his parents to 
 ask that he might go to Oxford rather than 
 Cambridge, on the sole ground that at Oxford 
 he would have the priceless advantage of Glad- 
 stone's influence and example. Nor did his 
 courage ever flag. He might be right, or he might 
 be wrong that is not the question here but 
 when he was convinced that he was right, not all 
 the combined powers of Parliament or society 
 or the multitude could for an instant hinder his 
 course, whether it ended in success or in failure. 
 Success left him calm, he had had so much of it ; 
 nor did failures greatly depress him. The next 
 morning found him once more facing the world 
 with serene and undaunted brow. 
 
 There was a man. The nation has lost him, 
 but preserves his character, his manhood, as a 
 model, on which she may form, if she be fortunate, 
 coming generations of men. With his politics, 
 with his theology, with his manifold graces and 
 gifts of intellect, we are not concerned to-day, not 
 even with his warm and passionate human sym- 
 pathies. They are not dead with him, but let 
 them rest with him, for we cannot in one discourse 
 view him in all his parts. To-day it is enough
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 263 
 
 to have dwelt for a moment on three of his great xi. 
 moral characteristics, enough to have snatched 
 from the fleeting hour a few moments of com- 
 munion with the mighty dead. 
 
 History has not yet allotted him his definite 
 place, but no one would now deny that he be- 
 queathed a pure standard of life, a record of lofty 
 ambition for the public good as he understood it, 
 a monument of life-long labour. Such lives speak 
 for themselves ; they need no statues ; they face 
 the future with the confidence of high purpose 
 and endeavour. The statues are not for them 
 but for us, to bid us be conscious of our trust, 
 mindful of our duty, scornful of opposition to 
 principle and faith. They summon us to account 
 for time and opportunity ; they embody an 
 inspiring tradition ; they are milestones in the life 
 of a nation. The effigy of Pompey was bathed 
 in the blood of his great rival : let this statue 
 have the nobler destiny of constantly calling to 
 life worthy rivals of Gladstone's fame and char- 
 acter.
 
 XII 
 LORD SALISBURY 1 
 
 xii. I DO not know that I was ever in a more diffi- 
 cult position in the whole course of my life. It 
 seemed easy enough, in the leafy month of June, 
 when you invited me, some time in November, 
 to perform the duty of to-day, to say " Yes " to 
 the invitation so gracefully proffered. But now, 
 when I come face to face with the facts, I begin 
 to think I was the very last person who ought to 
 have been chosen for this duty. I am in a three- 
 fold difficulty. In the first place, it is too near 
 the time at which we lost the statesman whom 
 we commemorate to-day to be able to appreciate 
 fully and entirely his position, his historical 
 position, in the annals of his country. Secondly, 
 it seems to me that the duty should have been 
 confided to one who was more closely connected 
 with him, to one who could speak with more 
 experience of his private life, and to one who, 
 at any rate, had had the pleasure of being his 
 colleague or his follower. Perhaps it was with 
 a pleasant sense of paradox that you, Mr. 
 President, threw the handkerchief to me. But 
 
 1 A Speech delivered on unveiling the memorial bust in the Oxford 
 Union, November 14, 1904. 
 
 264
 
 LORD SALISBURY 265 
 
 my third difficulty is even more formidable, xn. 
 It is that I am now making my maiden 
 speech in this assembly. I joined the Union 
 eight - and - thirty years ago. I did think that 
 in that time I had got through all the maiden 
 speeches it was possible for me to deliver. But 
 now I find myself, deep in middle age, before an 
 audience all of whom, I presume, have delivered 
 successful maiden speeches within these hallowed 
 walls, listening to a maiden effort of my own. 
 I hoped and believed I should go to my grave 
 without delivering that maiden speech at the 
 Union, because, when one has become stiff in one's 
 joints, oratorically speaking, one has lost that 
 sense of bashfulness, that anxiety to please, that 
 tone of classical erudition which distinguishes 
 the maiden speech of any one taking part in the 
 debates of the Oxford Union. Now I have done 
 with my excuses, and will say a few words on the 
 topic to which you have invited me to-day. 
 
 One thing is most manifest about the career 
 of Lord Salisbury. It was not a career of promise 
 cut short before performance was possible ; it 
 was not prematurely severed. No. His life was 
 drained to the last drop, and drained in the 
 service of his country. Never, indeed, was a 
 life more complete. We can speak of him without 
 a feeling of regret. Happy those who have so 
 long mixed in public life of whom that may be 
 said. There are two other points, dominant 
 points, in Lord Salisbury's career which in a 
 complete study of his life could not be left un- 
 noticed, but which I must pass over to-night for 
 reasons obvious enough. There are those here,
 
 266 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xii. his sons, who can speak of them with more of the 
 truth of eloquence than I can pretend to ; and 
 when I mention his devout religious feeling, his 
 devoted churchmanship, I think you will feel I 
 am alluding to topics on which it would be almost 
 sacrilege for a mere acquaintance to intrude. 
 And again, when I speak of what I believe was 
 his dominant happiness, his family and domestic 
 life, there again I think you will feel that we 
 should be wise to leave that untrespassed. I 
 have heard that it was his custom, that it was his 
 special relaxation all through his laborious Parlia- 
 mentary life, to gather round him on Sunday 
 evenings at dinner every member of his family 
 who could be collected for the purpose, and those 
 who have assisted at these reunions have told me 
 that never was Lord Salisbury seen to such ad- 
 vantage as among those he so dearly cherished 
 and so deeply loved. Well, then, we come to 
 points on which it is more permissible to touch. 
 
 I suppose that Lord Salisbury wielded the most 
 brilliant pen of any Prime Minister of the nine- 
 teenth century with the exception of Canning, 
 and with Canning's and with Lord Beaconsfield's 
 I think that Lord Salisbury's pen may be 
 reckoned. We have constantly heard stories of 
 how in his youth he maintained himself largely 
 by his pen. I do not doubt that that was a fact. 
 To the end of his life he never wrote a despatch 
 which did not show pre-eminently the literary 
 gift. In speaking, at one time he rose to great 
 heights of eloquence. I do not think that it was 
 oratory in the highest sense of the word, but it 
 always shone, perhaps because it showed so pre-
 
 LORD SALISBURY 267 
 
 eminently the literary faculty. Lord Salisbury's xii. 
 sentences were always polished, his speeches were 
 always literary gems, and although towards the 
 end he was no longer equal to himself, those who 
 have heard him in his prime will feel that there 
 was nothing that appealed more to their intellect 
 and to their admiration than that deep, rich voice 
 rolling out brilliant sentence after brilliant sentence 
 as if the fountains of eloquence could never run 
 dry within him. 
 
 There was one other point, I think, on which 
 Lord Salisbury differed from most men his 
 absolute scorn of wealth and honours. The 
 luxuries purchased by wealth, the swell of honours 
 and titles, that mean so much to most men, 
 meant absolutely nothing to Lord Salisbury. 
 They were dross to him. I doubt if he ever took 
 the slightest count of them. I do not feel con- 
 fident, but here I speak under correction, that 
 he even appreciated as much as many men would 
 the magnificent palace which he had inherited 
 at Hatfield. Nor were his diversions those of 
 a great prince or of a wealthy man. His only 
 relaxations that I know of were science, and 
 reading, and the love of his family ; and through 
 all, above all, never failing, ardent, uncom- 
 promising work. I suspect, if the truth were 
 known, it would be found that he was one of the 
 hardest workers of his time. 
 
 There was another point of his character in 
 which he was almost unique his hatred of 
 anything like advertisement. In these days, to 
 find a statesman who dislikes advertisement is 
 to try to find a creature that rarely exists. In
 
 268 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xii. these days, a great many of us seem to spend 
 our lives in puffing, or in being puffed. Nothing 
 was so abhorrent to Lord Salisbury. All the 
 little devices, the scattered portraits, the carefully 
 announced hours of departure and arrival, all 
 the little stimulants to mechanical enthusiasm 
 so much in vogue, found their most uncompro- 
 mising opponent in Lord Salisbury. He only 
 asked to do his work and to be left alone. And, 
 I take it, no man ever disliked so much as he did 
 the pomp of public occasions, when as Prime 
 Minister he was compelled to play a conspicuous 
 part. 
 
 Of course, there are criticisms. He was 
 thought to be a proud man. Was he a proud 
 man ? If he were, he was too proud to show his 
 pride. Was he a shy man ? There I should 
 plead guilty for him. He was certainly a shy 
 man. Had you met Lord Salisbury in the streets 
 of London you would have taken him to be some 
 learned literary recluse hurrying, after a visit to 
 the British Museum, back to the study he had 
 regretted leaving. 
 
 He was charged with cynicism. What is 
 cynicism ? I have never been able to arrive at a 
 definition of cynicism. In speech it seems, at 
 any rate, to amount to this, the parching up of a 
 subject by the application to it of a wit so dry 
 as to be almost bitter. And is not that often a 
 very convenient faculty ? Is it not a priceless 
 advantage when some untimely or importunate 
 question is put, or some subject is advanced 
 which it is not desirable to discuss, to have the 
 acid, the corrosive cynicism, to apply to it, to
 
 LORD SALISBURY 269 
 
 dissolve it, at any rate for the moment ? My xn. 
 impression is that that was the character, to a 
 large extent, of Lord Salisbury's cynicism. I 
 have sat on committees with him, and I am 
 convinced that a great part of that valuable 
 faculty to which I have alluded was used for 
 the purpose which I have indicated. 
 
 But it is said he was a pessimist ; he was so 
 cynical as to be a pessimist. Well, I will admit so 
 much. I think Lord Salisbury was a pessimist 
 as regards the effects of legislation. He took too 
 broad and wide a view of human affairs and the 
 course of human history to set very much 
 emphasis on the efforts of passing legislation. 
 He viewed the progress of humanity as a whole, 
 and saw in that progress how very little direct 
 effect legislation has had. If I may say so, I 
 think he forgot in that survey that legislation 
 in a democracy is more often an effect than a 
 cause, and that men are not always able to take 
 so broad and exalted a view as he did, but are 
 anxious in their time and in their generation to 
 effect by legislation some step onward in the path 
 of progress. Well, I do not think there could be 
 much in his pessimism or much in his cynicism, 
 because no one, even one who had so little to do 
 with him as I had, would fail to be touched and 
 warmed by the essential kindness of his heart. 
 I can recall kindnesses that he did for me, though 
 I do not think I ever voted in the lobby with 
 him in my life ; and if he was so kind to me, how 
 much kinder must he have been to those who were 
 closely associated with him ? 
 
 And now, if I have not detained you too
 
 270 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xii. long, I am going to approach the thorny path 
 of politics. I am not going to perform an egg 
 dance, for the satisfaction of anybody, among 
 contemporary eggs. The eggs which I shall 
 approach are so ancient as to indicate the decay 
 which I believe characterises the eggs that are 
 used for the purpose of argument at elections. 
 I want to take three epochs in Lord Salisbury's 
 life which, in my appreciation of him, are the 
 three critical epochs of his career. 
 
 The first was in 1867, when he resigned office 
 rather than agree to a Reform Bill which he 
 thought was an outbidding by the Conservative 
 party of what had been proposed by their Liberal 
 opponents. He had no language to spare for 
 those who were guilty of what he considered to 
 be a breach of trust in the Conservative party. 
 It perhaps is a strange observation to make, 
 but I think you will find it to be true, that a man 
 of high ideal and exalted standards is apt to 
 reserve his chief bitterness of language for his 
 own party, or to use it with more satisfaction 
 than he does with regard to his opponents. And 
 the reason is simple enough. The honour, the 
 interest, the welfare of his own party are part of 
 himself, part of his being, his own life ; and when, 
 therefore, he sees his party, as he thinks, playing 
 false to him, then it is that he pours over them 
 the vials of his bitterest wrath. The party with 
 which he is not connected may have their own 
 code of honour, their own principles, their own 
 methods of action, but they do not affect him, 
 they are matters for themselves ; he may criticise 
 them with asperity, but the bitterness of his
 
 LORD SALISBURY 271 
 
 heart goes out to those who, he thinks, have xii. 
 betrayed his own honour and his own party. 
 That was the case with Lord Salisbury, and when 
 the Reform Bill of 1867 was passed, he used 
 language of absolute despair. He retired from 
 office ; it seemed as if he were to retire from 
 political life. He said in his place in Parliament 
 that the monarchical principle was dead, the 
 aristocratical principle was doomed, and the 
 democratical principle was triumphant. He lived 
 to see every one of those prophecies falsified. 
 Before he died the monarchical principle was 
 infinitely stronger than it was in 1867, the aristo- 
 cratical principle was so much stronger that it 
 seemed almost to have assumed a permanent 
 predominance, and the democratical principle, 
 which he thought would govern the country from 
 1867 onwards, has had a rather sickly time of 
 it since. In a book published recently which 
 perhaps is already in the library of the Union 
 The Life of Lord Coleridge, you will find confirma- 
 tion of this despairing attitude of Lord Salisbury. 
 The year afterwards, in 1868, he writes to Lord 
 Coleridge : " My opinions belong to the past, 
 and it is better that new principles in politics 
 should be worked by those who sympathise with 
 them heartily." That seemed like a formal 
 abdication of politics. 
 
 From 1867 to 1874 his position in politics was 
 ambiguous and difficult. He had quarrelled 
 formally with the leaders of his party, he had 
 cursed them with bell, book, and candle (and his 
 curse had a certain potency in it), and it did not 
 seem possible that the quarrel would ever be made
 
 272 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xii. up. Then came the great Conservative majority 
 of 1874, and Lord Salisbury had to make a 
 supreme choice whether he would stand on that 
 bed-rock principle on which he had placed himself 
 in 1867 and would remain isolated, almost a 
 political hermit, for the rest of his days, or 
 whether he would join the Government of Mr. 
 Disraeli, who, he considered, had in 1867 betrayed 
 his party. Now the choice was a very difficult 
 one. I am not at all sure I speak entirely from 
 surmise I am not at all sure that if Lord 
 Salisbury had consulted his own wishes he would 
 not have taken the first course, and remained 
 permanently outside the new arrangement. But 
 he had this to consider, that he was living in a 
 world, not of abstract principles, but of practical 
 work, and that if he were ever to apply his high 
 abilities to the public service it was now or never, 
 though he must in doing so, no doubt, abandon 
 something of the rigidity of his original principles. 
 Well, I have endeavoured to put the choice before 
 you as it appears to me. I myself think he chose 
 rightly. The country would have lost enormously 
 if he had remained an isolated figure, a prophet 
 of woe, in the midst of Parliament. We know 
 now by his subsequent career how much we should 
 have lost. But still, it was a difficult choice to 
 make, and it appeared bifurcated before him. 
 He chose the path of work, the path of party 
 action, and he became for the rest of his life a 
 strong, effective, and successful party man. 
 
 That was the second epoch to which I said 
 I would call your attention. The third will only 
 demand a sentence. I think that he reached the
 
 LORD SALISBURY 273 
 
 greatest moment of his life in 1878. It was not xn. 
 that he returned from the Congress at Berlin 
 in that year with flowers, acclaiming of crowds, 
 illuminations, and " peace with honour." The 
 great moment of Lord Salisbury's life, to my 
 mind, the moment in which he set his stamp on 
 his country and on his own fame, and achieved 
 for himself a European reputation, was when he 
 went to the Foreign Office, succeeding Lord 
 Derby, shut himself up in a room, and then and 
 there, without, as far as I know, any assistance 
 whatever from the staff of the Foreign Office or 
 any external source, wrote that famous despatch 
 on the provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano 
 which, whatever may be thought of its substance 
 and policy, will, I believe, remain for long genera- 
 tions to come one of the historic State papers 
 of the English language. From that time, the 
 time when he joined the Government of 1874, 
 and still more from the time when he established 
 himself by that despatch as a European states- 
 man, Lord Salisbury's career ran on greased 
 wheels. He was to see a Government succeed 
 his in 1880 by no means happy in its performances 
 or in its results. He was to see, the year after 
 that Government ended in 1886, the party of 
 his opponents deprived of all power for at least 
 eighteen years, and during all that time, from 
 1885 up to the moment of his death, or retirement, 
 Lord Salisbury remained the predominant factor 
 in English politics. 
 
 There let us leave him. It is not for a con- 
 temporary hand to probe any deeper than that 
 into a career so lately ended. It is not to-day 
 
 VOL. i T
 
 274 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xii. or to-morrow that we can ascertain the place 
 and the niche in which his honoured memory 
 will repose. He loomed large in the history of 
 his country. He exercised a singular and pro- 
 longed influence over her destinies. He held the 
 highest position in the State for a longer time, I 
 think, than any statesman since Lord Liverpool. 
 Whether he was one of those whom history for 
 one reason or another stamps as great, history 
 alone can say. This much is certain, that he was 
 an able, loyal, untiring servant of his Sovereign 
 and his country. He was a public servant, 
 if I may so express myself, of the Elizabethan 
 type, a fit representative of his great Elizabethan 
 ancestor. And he was a man of pure, exalted, 
 and laborious life. May there be many in this 
 assembly inspired by his example who will 
 endeavour to emulate his career. They cannot 
 all be Prime Ministers, they cannot all be 
 Chancellors of this ancient University, but they 
 can at any rate give themselves as loyally and 
 entirely as he did to the work that lies to their 
 hand to do for the service of their King and their 
 country.
 
 XIII 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 
 
 SHORTLY after Lord Randolph Churchill's death, xin. 
 his mother asked me to write something about 
 him. I excused myself as it was then too near 
 his tune. It may be still too near, at least to 
 arrive at a cool and impartial estimate : that in 
 any case can scarcely be done by a personal 
 friend. But now that his Life has appeared I 
 may perhaps venture to acquit myself of what 
 I feel to be in some sort a debt. In any case it 
 is a melancholy satisfaction to set down what I 
 can properly publish of one of the most remark- 
 able men, with perhaps the most remarkable 
 career, of my time. 
 
 This much in preface. But it may be urged, 
 Why write at all, when so much has been written 
 so recently and so well ? My answer would be 
 that I knew my friend as a contemporary ; and 
 the knowledge of a contemporary and that of a 
 son are essentially different. I do not in any 
 sense compete with what his son has produced. 
 His book is a careful and authoritative life. 
 Mine at most is only a reminiscence and a study. 
 
 1 First published by Mr. Arthur L. Humphreys, 1906. 
 275
 
 276 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. Little indeed can be added to the Life. Lord 
 Randolph Churchill is fortunate in his son and 
 his biographer ; for the Life is a remarkable book, 
 and, considering the difficulties that beset the 
 author, it is little less than marvellous. 
 
 To no one could the task of narrating Lord 
 Randolph's career be easy ; to write it ten years 
 after his death required no common courage. 
 But to a son bound by all the ties and truth of 
 filial devotion, yet who may be said not to have 
 known his father, politically speaking, at all ; 
 who was determined to write as impartially as 
 possible ; who has himself taken the step from 
 which his father shrank, and has exchanged 
 Toryism for Liberalism ; and who has therefore 
 to face some hostility on both sides, Liberal 
 antagonism to his father and Tory resentment 
 towards himself, the work presented obstacles 
 that might well have been insuperable. But 
 Mr. Winston Churchill has overcome them all. 
 Tactfulness has not perhaps been considered the 
 strongest element in his Corinthian composition ; 
 but tact was the first requisite of his enterprise, 
 and it has not failed him. It was not easy to be 
 fair, yet he has held the balance surely. He may 
 have unwittingly trodden on some secret corns, 
 but he was threading a living crowd. He has 
 not probably been able to unveil every trans- 
 action ; he has assuredly not been able to 
 delineate nakedly every character on his scene. 
 But he has been bold and candid, as bold and 
 candid as it was possible to be. He has, more- 
 over, not drowned his subject's personality in 
 contemporary history ; of that he tells enough
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 277 
 
 and not too much. The story of those times has xin. 
 yet to be written in its entirety, but few will 
 quarrel with Mr. Churchill's presentation of its 
 dominant features. 
 
 That the book would be brilliantly written, 
 readers of Mr. Churchill's books and speeches 
 would expect with confidence, and they have 
 not been disappointed. There is a pleasant 
 flavour of irony, there are passages of high 
 eloquence. As an example of the first quality, 
 I would cite the description of the Aston 
 riots ; l and of the second, the metaphor of the 
 old battlefield. 2 If there be a flaw, if there be 
 a want unsatisfied, it is perhaps that we are not 
 treated to more of Randolph's crisp, pointed, and 
 delightful letters. The reason is, no doubt, that 
 they were too crisp, pointed, and delightful for 
 present publication. What a fascinating volume 
 could be provided by his voluminous correspond- 
 ence with Lord Salisbury, himself so skilful with 
 his pen! But this, for the present generation 
 at any rate, is, I presume, forbidden fruit. The 
 intimate interchange of thought between high 
 Ministers of State should not be lightly or pre- 
 maturely published. Here Mr. Churchill is wise, 
 though we are the sufferers. Those who are 
 young to-day may lick their intellectual chops 
 in joyful anticipation ; for their elders there is, 
 very properly, no hope. 
 
 But we cannot help wishing for more letters 
 of the earlier period, for he was an admirable 
 
 1 Life, i. 362. [In these references I propose, for brevity, to mention 
 the biography as the Life, which, though not the actual title, is suffi- 
 ciently descriptive.] 
 
 1 Life. ii. 49.
 
 278 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. writer even in his school days. How excellent 
 is the description, given in the Life, which he 
 wrote from Eton of the marriage of the Prince 
 and Princess of Wales : one runs and shouts 
 with him, and is left with him breathless and 
 hatless in the road. 1 When he grew up, his 
 letters to his friends were usually couched in a 
 style of ironical or pungent banter, which would 
 require marginal notes of explanation. Mr. 
 Churchill has had the bold wisdom to narrate 
 his father's matrimonial negotiations, and to 
 this we owe some excellent letters. Occasion- 
 ally, however, Randolph could mount the high 
 epistolary horse and write with all the pomposity 
 of the eighteenth century. Of this, a good 
 example is given in the biography : a letter to 
 Mr. Tabor, the eminent schoolmaster of Cheam, 
 asking for "a holiday for those young gentlemen 
 who are now deriving from you similar advantages 
 to those which befell me." 2 It would seem that 
 these paroxysms of solemnity usually seized him 
 on his accession to office, for this letter was 
 written when he went to the India Office, and 
 I remember another written when he became 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was pitched 
 even higher. The truth perhaps is, that the 
 constant exercise of irony made sometimes a 
 confusion as to whether he was writing seriously 
 or not. I well remember a letter in his under- 
 graduate days couched in terms of some severity 
 which I believed to be ironical, but which I after- 
 wards found to be seriously meant. As Ran- 
 dolph's disease grew upon him his letters grew 
 
 1 Life, i. 9. > Life, i. 426.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 279 
 
 longer and longer, and yet the tremulous writing xm. 
 betrays what an effort they must have cost him ; 
 but in substance and language they were still 
 excellent, though the few I have left seem still 
 too personal for publication. 
 
 There is, however, one letter published in the 
 Life which is of supreme interest to Randolph's 
 friends and admirers : a letter the pathos of 
 which, to those who knew him, it is not possible 
 to exaggerate ; it is almost an epitaph. " So 
 Arthur Balfour is really leader," he writes to 
 his wife from Mafeking in November 1891, " and 
 Tory Democracy, the genuine article, is at an 
 end. Well, I have had quite enough of it all. 
 I have waited with great patience for the tide 
 to turn, but it has not turned, and will not now 
 turn in time. In truth, I am now altogether 
 deconsidere. . . . No power will make me lift 
 hand, or foot, or voice for the Tories, just as no 
 power would make me join the other side. All 
 confirms me in my decision to have done with 
 politics, and try to make a little money for the 
 boys and ourselves. . . . More than two-thirds 
 in all probability of my life is over, and I will 
 not spend the remainder of my years in beating 
 my head against a stone wall. I expect I have 
 made great mistakes ; but there has been no 
 consideration, no indulgence, no memory or 
 gratitude nothing but spite, malice, and abuse. 
 I am quite tired and dead-sick of it all, and will 
 not continue political life any longer. I have 
 not Parnell's dogged, but at the same time 
 sinister resolution ; and have many things and 
 many friends to make me happy without that
 
 280 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. horrid House of Commons' work and strife." l 
 Surely a tragic letter, the revelation of a sore and 
 stricken soul. He was sick of heart and body 
 when he uttered this burst of melancholy candour. 
 And yet, had he thought a moment when he 
 confessed to the mortal conviction that the tide 
 would not turn in time, he must have seen that 
 he hardly gave the tide a chance when he refused 
 all contact with either party. In all that may 
 be written about the tragedy of Randolph's life 
 there will be nothing so sad as this letter of his. 
 About the same time he copied out for himself 
 that passage of Dryden which ends with 
 
 Not Heaven itself over the past hath power ; 
 
 But what has been has been, and I have had my hour. 2 
 
 Strong lines, with a pang of solace. 
 
 On the other hand, while regretting the 
 paucity of letters, a different regret may be 
 expressed with regard to speeches. Two personal 
 attacks are quoted at length which Randolph 
 deliberately omitted from the revised collection. 
 It is not a matter of great moment ; it must be 
 a subject of supreme indifference to the objects ; 
 but these extracts are by no means the best 
 instances of his humour and invective. Under 
 these circumstances the discretion of the orator 
 himself might have been imitated with advan- 
 tage. But this, after all, is a small blot, if blot 
 it be ; and, in fine, the author is to be congratu- 
 lated on a consummate achievement. He has 
 under great difficulties produced a fascinating 
 book, one to be marked among the first dozen, 
 
 1 Life, ii. 452. Life, ii. 213.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 281 
 
 perhaps the first half-dozen, biographies in our xin. 
 language. 
 
 ii 
 
 Sincere and honest as it is, Mr. Churchill's 
 Memoir cannot be a complete disclosure. It is 
 quite possible, for example, that it will not, as 
 the biographer seems to desire, eradicate the 
 impression that the relations between Randolph 
 and the Irish party up to June 1885 were in the 
 nature of a close understanding little short of 
 an alliance. For in the Life itself we find 
 adequate evidence of an agreement amply suffi- 
 cient for its purpose, although not drawn up on 
 paper ; as nobody, indeed, supposed that it was. 
 Mr. Churchill draws too large an inference from 
 the fact that no document " directly or indirectly 
 referring to the subject has been preserved." A 
 suspicious man of the world would perhaps draw 
 from this very circumstance a directly opposite 
 conclusion. Neither Parnell nor Randolph was 
 likely to commit his negotiations to writing ; 
 political negotiations rarely or never are so 
 recorded. It is, however, " certain," says Mr. 
 Churchill, " that he (Randolph) had more than 
 one conversation with the Irish leader ; that he 
 stated to him his opinion of what a Conservative 
 Government would do should it be formed ; and 
 that he declared that he considered himself 
 precluded by public utterances from joining a 
 Government which would at once renew the 
 Crimes Act." l Randolph's own statement was 
 that " there was no compact or bargain of any 
 
 1 Life, i. 894.
 
 282 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xui. kind : but I told Parnell when he sat on that 
 sofa that if the Tories took office and I was a 
 member of their Government, I could not consent 
 to renew the Crimes Act. Parnell replied, l In 
 that case, you will have the Irish vote at the 
 elections.' " 1 
 
 Mr. Churchill's view of all this is that it was 
 not in any sense a bargain, as it was not certain 
 that his father would form part of the next Tory 
 Government. This reasoning does not seem very 
 conclusive, and it certainly did not weigh with 
 Mr. Parnell. That shrewd politician knew well 
 not only that Randolph must inevitably form 
 part of any substantial Tory Government, but 
 that within or without the Government he was 
 incomparably the most formidable Tory in the 
 House of Commons, and probably in the country. 
 A promise by such a man was of inestimable 
 value. Parnell did not hesitate a moment, and 
 in return for the pledge given at once promised 
 the Irish vote at the General Election. " I will 
 do so-and-so," said one party. " In that case I 
 will do so-and-so," said the other. This may not 
 be called a compact, but it is remarkably like one. 
 To the principals, at any rate, this exchange of 
 engagements was quite sufficient, and did not 
 need the compromising accessories of parchment, 
 paper, or seal. 
 
 It is the easier and pleasanter to believe in 
 this compact, as both parties were perfectly 
 honest and sincere. There was nothing, in truth, 
 of which either party as individuals need be 
 ashamed. Randolph really believed that any 
 
 1 Life, i. 395.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 283 
 
 form of what is technically known as " coercion " xm. 
 was at that time unnecessary, and Parnell 
 naturally gave his support to a view which was 
 entirely his own. 
 
 Randolph, moreover, from his official ex- 
 perience in Ireland, had imbibed a serious distrust 
 and dislike of " coercion." " People sometimes 
 talk too lightly of coercion," he said in one of his 
 earliest speeches ; l "it means that hundreds of 
 Irishmen who, if laws had been maintained 
 unaltered, and had been firmly enforced, would 
 now have been leading peaceful, industrious, and 
 honest lives, will soon be torn off to prison without 
 trial ; that others will have to fly the country 
 into hopeless exile ; that others, driven to 
 desperation through such cruel alternatives, will 
 perhaps shed their blood and sacrifice their lives 
 in vain resistance to the forces of the Crown ; 
 that many Irish homes, which would have been 
 happy if evil courses had been firmly checked at 
 the outset, will soon be bereaved of their most 
 promising ornaments and support, disgraced by 
 a felon's cell and a convict's garb ; and if you 
 look back over the brief period which has been 
 necessary to bring about such terrible results, 
 the mind recoils in horror from the ghastly 
 spectacle of murdered landlords, tenant-farmers 
 tortured, mutilated dumb animals, which every- 
 where disfigures the green and fertile pastures of 
 Ireland." 2 These, I doubt not, were his inner- 
 most and sincerest views. Has any orator even 
 of Irish race protested more strongly against ex- 
 ceptional administration for his people ? That 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 19. * Speeches, i. 18.
 
 284 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. being so, Randolph can scarcely be blamed as an 
 individual for his compact with Parnell. 
 
 Randolph's official account of all this gives to 
 the renunciation of coercion a much more de- 
 liberate and concerted character. In a speech 
 delivered at Sheffield in September 1885, he 
 stated that some weeks before the fall of Mr. 
 Gladstone's Government in the previous June, 
 Lord Salisbury and his immediate political friends 
 took counsel together as to what they should 
 do in the event of Mr. Gladstone's defeat. The 
 gravest question, he said, that they then had 
 to consider was " whether Ireland could or could 
 not be governed by the ordinary law. That 
 subject was considered with great deliberation. 
 We had many facilities for gaining information." 
 These facilities, put briefly, were the advice of 
 Lord Ashbourne and " many other sources of 
 accurate information." And the result was that 
 some weeks before Mr. Gladstone's defeat "Lord 
 Salisbury and his friends came to the conclusion 
 that in the absence of official information that 
 was the important saving clause there was 
 nothing which would warrant a Government in 
 applying to Parliament for exceptional laws for 
 the administration of Ireland " ; and he pro- 
 ceeded to say that when they did have access 
 to official information there was none that 
 warranted their departing from their previous 
 view. 1 The " we " that has been italicised seems 
 to prove that Randolph formed part of this 
 council. In a memorandum drawn up during 
 later years, he says that the " question had been 
 
 1 Speecfiet, i. 258.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 285 
 
 more than once discussed in small conciliabules xm. 
 before the fall of Mr. Gladstone's Government, 
 and a sort of decision arrived at. ... But the 
 former semi-decision did not help Lord Salisbury 
 much when the actual crisis came. . . . Mr. 
 Gibson in this difficulty was the real arbiter." l 
 We must all regret that the minute is too con- 
 fidential to be given in its entirety, for there is an 
 alluring suspicion of withheld piquancy about 
 the printed extracts. 
 
 It is easy to believe that he urged his view, 
 but that he did not mention his momentous 
 conversation with Parnell. As to the facts, it 
 is only necessary to observe that the " official 
 information," which made Lord Spencer, with his 
 matchless experience and knowledge and his 
 liberal Irish views, insist on some coercion, did 
 not produce the same effect on the new ministers. 
 Whether they took any great pains to examine 
 the " official information " is doubtful. Randolph 
 certainly gave me to understand that the abandon- 
 ment of coercion was one of the two conditions 
 he made for his joining the Government. 
 
 There can be, I think, no question in any 
 impartial mind that there was a valid, though 
 unwritten, understanding with the Irish leader, 
 of which many in high position among the 
 Tories may have been unconscious, and of which 
 Randolph was the medium and the channel. The 
 result was apparent in a memorable scene, when, 
 in the House of Lords, the new Prime Minister, 
 after setting forth his political programme, 
 handed over, against all precedent, to Lord 
 
 1 Life, i. 409.
 
 286 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. Carnarvon, the new Viceroy, the task of announ- 
 cing the Irish policy of the Government. No 
 one who was present on that occasion will ever 
 forget it, or can have carried away the belief that 
 this Irish policy was congenial to the head of the 
 administration. Nor indeed did Lord Carnarvon 
 perform his task with any peculiar relish. The 
 two ministers seemed rather to resemble penitents 
 in a public act of contrition than advisers of the 
 Crown commencing with hope and confidence a 
 new departure. The last may have been the 
 truth, I can only record the impression. 
 
 It may perhaps be held, without doing him any 
 injustice, that Randolph was prepared to concede 
 almost all Irish demands, except that which is 
 popularly and sentimentally known as " Home 
 Rule." But on that issue he was immovable. 
 I never heard him use but one language with 
 regard to it that it was impossible. In 1891 he 
 stated this with great emphasis in a public letter. 
 " I have always been of opinion that however 
 attractive Home Rule for Ireland might be in 
 theory, it was an absolute impossibility to put 
 Home Rule into a bill. You might as well try 
 to square the circle." * He never varied in this 
 opinion, and was insistent on this point from the 
 beginning. " Now mind," he said in September 
 1885, " none of us must have anything to do 
 with Home Rule in any shape or form." 2 Yet, 
 strangely enough, and unknown to him, his own 
 Viceroy had for two months past been handling 
 the accursed thing with some familiarity. Before 
 this Government of eight months had ended, 
 
 1 Life, ii. 508. Life, i. 461.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 287 
 
 Lord Carnarvon was indeed to intimate that xni. 
 unless the Government could move in the direc- 
 tion of Home Rule he could not continue to hold 
 office. 1 The answer was the promise of a strict 
 Coercion Bill. 
 
 In later years Randolph drew up a memoran- 
 dum in which he blamed himself for his compact 
 with Parnell. " I believe," he says, almost 
 innocently, " that the decision not to attempt 
 to renew the Crimes Act, more than any other 
 event, finally determined Mr. Gladstone no longer 
 to resist Repeal." This can scarcely be called 
 a new light, for it is obvious that this decision 
 was the starting-point of the new Liberal de- 
 parture. But it is not necessary here to enter 
 into the polemics of that critical and stormy 
 period. Randolph ends by saying that " looking 
 back on those events after January 1886, and 
 after the resolution arrived at by Mr. Gladstone 
 to introduce a measure for the Repeal of the 
 Union, I came to the conclusion that in June 
 1885 we had been most unfortunately inspired. 
 I can trace a clear connection of cause and 
 effect between Lord Salisbury's accession to office 
 in 1885 and Mr. Gladstone's new departure in 
 1886." 2 
 
 Two comments may be made on this somewhat 
 belated discovery. 
 
 The first is that Lord Carnarvon was more 
 clear-sighted than his colleagues, and perceived 
 at once that if, rightly or wrongly, coercion was 
 at that time to be discarded, the only alternative 
 was to make concessions to the Irish demand 
 
 1 Life, ii. 21. Life, 1. 409, 411.
 
 288 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiu. for self-government. So immediately after the 
 Government was formed and the abandonment 
 of coercion announced, he obtained an interview 
 with the Irish leader. This was no doubt an 
 imprudent step ; but its purpose in itself was 
 quite legitimate, and, though absolutely unknown 
 to the Cabinet, it was expressly sanctioned by 
 Lord Salisbury. Lord Carnarvon sought to ascer- 
 tain whether the essential demands of Mr. Parnell 
 were impossible of concession. The result was 
 reported to Lord Salisbury. Lord Salisbury 
 remained hostile to Home Rule, and had to 
 return to the other alternative of coercion. Lord 
 Carnarvon remained averse to coercion, and pro- 
 ceeded onwards towards Home Rule. 
 
 The second comment that may be made is this : 
 Had Randolph and his colleagues made, in June 
 1885, the discovery that the abandonment of 
 coercion would drive Mr. Gladstone to a Home 
 Rule policy, would that necessarily have changed 
 their policy ? From his memorandum you would 
 think so, but I greatly doubt the fact. What 
 is there in party warfare so exalted and so refined 
 as to make party leaders recoil from driving 
 their opponents to a course at once perilous and 
 open to the most sensible of all reproaches ? x 
 Such a proceeding is not in the least inconsistent 
 with the tactics and devices which are inevitable 
 under the conditions of British political life. 
 Even had the Tory leaders foreseen that the 
 Home Rule policy would break up the Liberal 
 party, and keep the legitimate remnant out of 
 power for a score of years, would that painful 
 
 * Cf. Life, ii. 21, 28.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 289 
 
 prospect have deterred them ? The question xm. 
 answers itself. The rules of warfare do not 
 proscribe, they rather prescribe, the forcing an 
 adversary to take up an exposed and untenable 
 position. 
 
 And Randolph, when he wrote his penitent 
 memorandum, must have forgotten that he had 
 been in 1885 a fierce and zealous party chief, by 
 no means careful to discriminate between legiti- 
 mate and illegitimate methods of warfare. He 
 fought with any weapon that came to hand, 
 intent on the end rather than on the means of 
 the contest. It is difficult to believe that he did 
 not realise to some extent that he was forcing 
 Mr. Gladstone on to the horn of fresh concessions 
 in the Irish dilemma. But it is quite within the 
 bounds of probability that in afterwards writing 
 this minute, when his judgement had cooled, this 
 fact was no longer present to his mind. 
 
 ni 
 
 No such attempt to write a biography of a 
 fiercely controversial politician soon after his 
 death has been made since Disraeli published 
 his Life of Lord George Bentinck. But there is 
 an essential difference between the two cases. 
 Disraeli had to justify the part that he himself 
 had taken by the side of Lord George Bentinck 
 in violent polemics, and had determined to flo 
 this without mentioning his own name or the 
 personal pronoun with regard to himself. This 
 he thought he could do without affectation, and, 
 it may be said, he succeeded. Moreover, the 
 
 VOL. i u
 
 290 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. issue between the followers of Peel and Bentinck 
 was still burning at the time he wrote. The book 
 therefore was something of a party pamphlet. 
 Here there are no such bias and no such difficulty. 
 From another point of view, also, Mr. Churchill's 
 task is easier. Lord George Bentinck was, from 
 the political point of view, a difficult figure 
 to drape with picturesque effect. No one was 
 better aware of this than his biographer ; so, to 
 lighten the scene, he made his book a political 
 treatise in which Lord George plays but a minor 
 part, and introduces a glittering chapter on the 
 Jewish faith to illuminate the whole. Bentinck 
 indeed, when living, was a notable and almost 
 dramatic figure, for he was a man of splendid 
 presence, marvellous industry, and a tragic vin- 
 dictiveness. Vindictiveness was his sombre motive 
 power ; he could neither forgive nor forget. For 
 the man who once injured him or any whom he 
 loved, there was no possibility of pardon or 
 even of mitigation. The fierce impression upon 
 him of a wrong remained as vivid to the last 
 moment as it was at the first ; and he could 
 not rest until he had wreaked a remorseless 
 revenge on the offender. His bitter attacks on 
 Sir Robert Peel were inspired not by any personal 
 injury, but by the conviction that Peel had 
 deserted Canning, his relative, near a score of 
 years before. As to the rest, he was the dreariest 
 of speakers a fact which troubled him little, 
 if at all, for he only sought to lay before his 
 audience the bare and bony appeal of statistics. 
 But had he had tact, and some power of blandish- 
 ment, or at least of reticence in rancour, he would
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 291 
 
 have been more valuable to his party than many xin. 
 orators. His stately person, his lineage, his 
 application, his ability, his unstinted devotion 
 to the cause in hand, even though that cause 
 seemed to be personal animosity, would have 
 made him a leader of the highest value to 
 any party, more especially to the Tories. But, 
 strangely enough for one who had spent his best 
 years on the turf, he seems to have had no know- 
 ledge of men, no consideration for their feelings, 
 no power of give and take. And so, after a 
 few months of leadership, he disappeared in a 
 huff. 
 
 On the other hand, Randolph's personality was 
 one full of charm, both in public and in private 
 life. His demeanour, his unexpectedness, his fits 
 of caressing humility, his impulsiveness, his tinge 
 of violent eccentricity, his apparent dare-devilry, 
 made him a fascinating companion ; while his 
 wit, his sarcasm, his piercing personalities, his 
 elaborate irony, and his effective delivery, gave 
 astonishing popularity to his speeches. Nor were 
 his physical attributes without their attraction. 
 His slim and boyish figure, his moustache which 
 had an emotion of its own, his round protruding 
 eye, gave a compound interest to his speeches 
 and his conversation. His laugh, which has been 
 described as " jaylike," was indeed not melodious, 
 but in its very weirdness and discordance it was 
 merriment itself. All this comes back to a friend 
 as he reads this book the boyhood, the manhood, 
 the mournful and gradual decay. He may be 
 pardoned if he draws for a little on his memory 
 with regard to this brilliant being.
 
 292 MISCELLANIES 
 
 IV 
 
 xiii. I first saw Randolph Churchill at Eton a 
 small boy in an extremely disreputable hat. 
 Now, the hat was at Eton in those days almost 
 as notable a sign of condition as among the 
 Spanish nobility. Moreover, his appearance was 
 reckless his companions seemed much the same ; 
 he was, in a word, but a pregnant word at Eton, 
 a Scug. His elder brother had left Eton before 
 I came, because, I think, of some difference with 
 the authorities as to the use of a catapult. Ran- 
 dolph looked as if he too might differ with the 
 authorities on any similar issue. 
 
 I was some two years senior to him, and I 
 scarcely knew him till he went to Oxford, little 
 perhaps beyond saying " good-night " at " lock- 
 up " the equivalent of an adult nod. I re- 
 member only one story of him : probably a myth 
 founded on fact. He boarded at Frewer's, an 
 obscure house, where, it was said, the inmates 
 consisted of some sixteen lower boys. And it 
 was rumoured that as soon as Randolph got into 
 fifth form, he, without waiting, for the higher 
 refinement of " fagging division," assumed the 
 whole remaining fifteen as his personal fags. 
 
 At Oxford he was a member of Merton and I 
 of Christ Church. There we saw a great deal of 
 each other and became close friends ; for, largely 
 owing to the unifying quality of the Bullingdon 
 Club, he lived much with the Christ Church set, 
 which at that time saw regrettably little of the 
 rest of the University. 
 
 He was now quite unlike his Etonian self :
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 293 
 
 he was spruce, polished, but full of fun. He was xm. 
 the idol of his parents and sisters, for he was the 
 son that lived with them and loved his home 
 better than any place on earth. Through him 
 I came to be much at Blenheim, and to see him 
 in his family as well as in his Oxford life. 
 
 At this time he did not read much in the 
 regular way, though he took a degree in the then 
 undivided school of Law and Modern History. 
 He bought books, and read outside the course of 
 recognised study. But his main literary passion 
 was Gibbon. To Gibbon's immortal work he 
 gave what leisure of reading he had to give, 
 and this literary devotion lasted to the end. 
 One story I remember, and believe to be true. 
 There was pending an election at Woodstock, 
 then practically a close borough of the Dukes of 
 Marlborough, and his Merton tutor took an active 
 part in opposition to the Blenheim candidate. 
 In the course of one of his speeches he told an 
 anecdote which appeared to reflect severely on 
 the Duke. After this Randolph ceased to attend 
 his lectures, and this systematic neglect was laid 
 before the Warden. Randolph's excuse was 
 absolute and overwhelming. " How, Sir, could 
 I attend the lectures of one who had called my 
 father a scoundrel ? How could I reconcile 
 attendance at his teaching with my duty towards 
 my parents ? " Tradition said that he got the 
 best of it. 
 
 It is perhaps enough to say that at Oxford 
 he did not differ much in his habits from those 
 of other young men of his class, save in his 
 affection for the Decline and Fall of the Roman
 
 294 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. Empire, and, of course, in his frequent visits to 
 Blenheim. 
 
 After we left Oxford we drifted in different 
 directions : he, I suppose, much at home with 
 his pack of harriers, when he directed that famous 
 sarcasm against a Master of Hounds who had 
 offended him, which still echoes in admiring 
 chuckles among the sportsmen of Oxford and 
 Berkshire. Then, still very young, he almost 
 simultaneously entered Parliament and married 
 his beautiful wife : two great events in his life, 
 of which one, however, seemed then almost 
 insignificant to him, for his happiness in his 
 marriage completely eclipsed his election for 
 Woodstock. Not long afterwards he became 
 involved in a question of severe social stress, in 
 which, so far as I remember, he took the part of 
 a near relative with more zeal than justice or 
 discretion. This for a time almost isolated him. 
 Friends fell off ; acquaintances disappeared ; he 
 was left naked, but not ashamed. That he felt 
 this ostracism deeply cannot be doubted. And 
 yet he seemed to me as gay and cheerful as ever 
 when he met an old friend ; sobered perhaps, 
 and apt to be a little absent, but essentially 
 unchanged. 
 
 This, however, was the turning-point of his 
 life. The saeva indignatio, excited in him by 
 this social conflict, turned to politics. That was 
 the vent for his suppressed wrath. Had it not 
 been for this exacerbating crisis he might have 
 subsided into a family trustee for a family 
 borough, or found employment for his energies 
 elsewhere. It was at this time, I suppose, that
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 295 
 
 he was living much with his father, then Viceroy xm. 
 of Ireland, and studying that Irish question which 
 afterwards had so great a fascination for him. 
 Even at this early period he evoked a domestic 
 storm by a speech about Ireland in " the quiet 
 rural locality of Woodstock," for which the 
 Viceroy had to apologise to the Chief Secretary 
 by declaring that his Benjamin must have been 
 mad or tipsy to make it. 1 I do not doubt that 
 Randolph mischievously enjoyed the splash caused 
 by his outbreak. On Foreign Policy he was 
 also at issue with his party. But the General 
 Election of 1880 placed him in the more congenial 
 attitude of opposition. It was then that he 
 sallied forth to attack the gigantic personality 
 of Mr. Gladstone, and, as if that were not employ- 
 ment enough, to take his own leaders in flank. 
 With these objects he formed, or co-operated 
 in forming, that small group of politicians, 
 popularly called the Fourth Party, which became 
 so famous and so effective. Public attention 
 became instantly fixed on the attractive figure 
 of the intrepid young assailant. He leaped 
 into renown. He soon became the principal 
 platform speaker in the country. It is no dis- 
 paragement of others to assert that, in my 
 judgement at any rate, Randolph would at his 
 best have attracted a larger audience to a political 
 meeting than any one, not excepting Mr. Glad- 
 stone himself. And in the House of Commons 
 it is not too much to say that his corner seat 
 below the gangway divided attention with the 
 centre seat on the Government bench where 
 
 Life, i. 92.
 
 296 MISCELLANIES 
 
 throned the pale, eager form of the great Liberal 
 leader. 
 
 Then came the crisis, for which he had so 
 effectively worked. The quarry which he had 
 pursued with such ardour was hunted down at 
 last, and Mr. Gladstone's Government fell. As 
 the result was announced, Randolph, waving 
 his hat, almost gave the who-whoop of the 
 fox-hunter at the death. But he soon found 
 that he had only changed his battlefield, and 
 that he was at once locked in a fierce and silent 
 conflict with his own leaders. To the victors 
 fall the spoil, and the nominal victors were the 
 front Opposition bench. But the most gleaming 
 and popular personality in the party, the one to 
 whose tactics and vigour the victory was perhaps 
 in the main due, did not sit on the seat of the 
 chosen. What part was he to play in this division 
 of offices ? His was no docile character, ready 
 to receive passively whatever the gods might 
 allot, and to subside satisfied into any great 
 office of State. He was determined that the 
 leadership which he had so mercilessly criticised 
 should pass to more vigorous hands; and he 
 stipulated as one condition of his joining the 
 ministry that Sir Stafford Northcote should 
 leave the House of Commons. This demand, for 
 obvious reasons, placed the new Prime Minister 
 in a cruel position, and it was doubtful what 
 he could or would do. Sir Stafford Northcote, 
 indeed, had strong claims to the first post him- 
 self, and had, in default of it, already undertaken 
 the lead in the House of Commons with the 
 Chancellorship of the Exchequer; so that Ran-
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 297 
 
 dolph at one time believed that his conditions xm. 
 would be refused. It is the nature of tense 
 spirits to be unduly elated and unduly depressed, 
 and he came to me one night at the Turf Club 
 in a mood very different from that in which he 
 had shouted and waved his hat after the division. 
 His talk was both striking and desponding. 
 The main point was that he believed that Lord 
 Salisbury would not concede his demands, and 
 that he was almost disposed to leave the Tory 
 party. As to this, I advised him to take counsel 
 with an older man. There would have been no 
 great change involved, for only Ireland and its 
 issues, at that time not so prominent as in the 
 succeeding year, stood between Randolph and 
 the Liberal party ; though then he scarcely realised 
 the fact. But no such sacrifice was now needed. 
 The Prime Minister yielded, and Sir Stafford 
 Northcote was persuaded to retire to the House 
 of Lords. This was an outward demonstration 
 of Randolph's power, much more notable than 
 his simultaneous appointment to the India Office. 
 The two leaders, however, were wise to make 
 the concession, for it would have been impossible 
 to form a real government without his participa- 
 tion or approval ; and though Sir Stafford was 
 reluctant to leave the House of Commons, it is 
 more than doubtful if he was then physically 
 fit for the leadership. 
 
 I did not see Randolph again, except at 
 dinners and the like, till the night in January 
 1885 when the Conservative Government was 
 being turned out on the Address. I was listening 
 to the debate in the gallery, whither he ascended
 
 298 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. to ask me to come to his room. I readily con- 
 sented, as the debate was neither real nor interest- 
 ing ; for it dealt nominally with small tenures 
 in England, while in the midst of all there loomed 
 the stark form of the Irish question, which had 
 come to deal death to the Tory Government and 
 paralysis to the Liberal party. That w r as the 
 issue on which every mind was silently fixed, 
 while the audible talk was of the area necessary 
 to support a cow. Of this talk with Randolph 
 I recollect scarcely anything. But, as we passed 
 along the lobby, he said, I remember, " Well, 
 it is over, but it has not been bad fun." " Just 
 what Fleury said of the Second Empire." 
 
 One incident in that lobby, however, impressed 
 me more than our subsequent conversation. He 
 offered me a cigarette as we were walking to his 
 room, and I stipulated for a cigar. He had not 
 got one, he said, but would soon get me one. At 
 this moment there appeared in the passage a 
 portly baronet of great wealth. " Here's a man 
 who will have a good cigar," said Randolph. 
 
 " Oh, , I want a cigar to give my friend here ; 
 
 have you got your case ? J: I never shall forget 
 the precipitate veneration with which the baronet 
 produced his case and offered his best and choicest. 
 It was an object-lesson in Randolph's position. 
 
 During the short Liberal Government of 1886 
 he was predominant in his party ; unweariedly 
 active in combining the strange and various 
 elements of the Opposition, as this memoir 
 sufficiently shows. And on the dissolution, he 
 issued an address, which, his biographer truly 
 says, as a specimen of political invective is not
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 299 
 
 likely soon to be outdone. It was justly cen- xin. 
 sured for violence and extravagance. But com- 
 ing from Randolph, whose seasoning was always 
 high, and issued at a moment of fierce and seeth- 
 ing political excitement, it was, I thought, not 
 ill-calculated for its purpose. At any rate, by 
 that or some other means, its purpose was 
 accomplished, and Mr. Gladstone's Government 
 was overthrown by a great majority. 
 
 Now we arrive at the culminating point of 
 Randolph's extraordinary career. Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach, who had been the Tory leader in 
 the House of Commons since Sir Stafford North- 
 cote's acceptance of a peerage, insisted on ceding 
 the place to his younger colleague. Sir Michael's 
 own great ability, the confidence of his party, and 
 his past services, did not blind his penetration to 
 the fact that the popular personality of the party 
 was Randolph's, and he wisely decided that with 
 the power should go the name. 
 
 Randolph devoted himself with his usual 
 energy to his high task. Never was the House 
 of Commons led more acceptably than in that 
 short summer session. The secret of his success 
 lay apparently in personal example, discipline, 
 and courtesy ; but he was, besides, a favourite of 
 the House. I remember some one asking him 
 how long his leadership would last. " Oh, about 
 six months ! " " And then ? " " And then ? 
 Why, Westminster Abbey." I can hear him 
 saying it. 
 
 Nor were his triumphs parliamentary alone. 
 The officials of his new department were delighted 
 with him. He at once placed himself under their
 
 300 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xni. tutelage so as to master those financial problems 
 which were new and strange to him, and delighted 
 every one with his powers of will and work. In 
 the Cabinet, too, he was at first not less successful. 
 It is only necessary to quote one evidence of 
 this. Northcote notes in his diary that Randolph 
 was " certainly the shrewdest member of the 
 Cabinet," l testimony which may well be un- 
 suspected, and is characteristically generous. 
 The young Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed 
 to tread on air ; he had only to fear the perils 
 that beset him of whom all men speak well. 
 
 Then, exuberant in his unbroken triumph, 
 he began to try his hand at " Tory Democracy," 
 and delivered a famous speech at Dartford. I 
 may, perhaps, be forgiven for remembering that 
 the day I read it I said to a friend, " Randolph 
 will be out or the Government broken up before 
 Christmas." My friend gibed. But the following 
 December, as I was dozing at midnight in a 
 railway carriage on the North- West of India, 
 he burst in with a newspaper. " By Jove, you're 
 right after all." " What about ? " " Randolph 
 has resigned." 
 
 Before that event took place he had given a 
 public proof of that eccentricity of judgement 
 from which he was never wholly free, by going on 
 a foreign tour under an assumed name with his 
 friend, Mr. Trafford. Randolph called himself, 
 I think, " Mr. Spencer." By no conceivable 
 method could he have attracted more attention 
 to his incognito trip. No face was then better 
 known. He had been seen by tens of thousands 
 
 1 Lang's Sir S. Northcote, ii. 215.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 301 
 
 of his fellow-countrymen, his photograph was xin. 
 everywhere, he was in every caricature. When, 
 then, the leader of the House of Commons went 
 suddenly abroad, to Vienna and elsewhere, and 
 was instantly recognised under this transparent 
 disguise, English newspapers were perplexed, 
 while the foreign press not unnaturally saw an 
 international intrigue, which they endeavoured 
 to emphasise by saddling his companion with 
 the historic title of Strafford. Had Randolph 
 gone in his own name he would have achieved his 
 object of being undisturbed : as it was, his holiday 
 consisted of a passage from one hornet's nest to 
 another. But the incident illustrates a certain 
 perversity of character, not unlike that popularly 
 attributed to the ostrich. He was determined 
 to be incognito, therefore he persuaded himself 
 that he would be incognito. 
 
 His resignation was a striking catastrophe, 
 and cannot be passed over in silence. It is 
 largely to be explained by physical causes. Ran- 
 dolph's nervous system was always tense and 
 highly strung : a condition which largely contri- 
 buted to his oratorical success, but which was 
 the principal cause of his political undoing. He 
 would descend from the highest summit to a 
 bottomless pit and up again, at the shortest 
 notice ; that is the liability of the temperament 
 of genius. Several passages from his biography, 
 and, what is more, several of his acts, could be 
 cited in support of this description. When he
 
 302 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. took office he worked unsparingly, which increased 
 the strain on his nerves. He had, moreover, a 
 morbid suspicion of intrigue, not unusual among 
 those who are themselves not averse to a little 
 wire-pulling. That suspicion would enhance the 
 stress, for he would be watching others and 
 tormenting himself. Always impatient of oppo- 
 sition ; surrounded by people who told him, 
 sincerely and justifiably, that he was the one 
 indispensable person, the one man who counted 
 and mattered ; convinced that he and they were 
 in the right, he was irritated by the doubting and 
 silent reluctance of his colleagues into an act of 
 violence. One exception must be made : Lord 
 Salisbury's reluctance was neither doubting nor 
 silent. Northcote suspected that the resignation 
 arose " from a little temper on both sides." l 
 " Temper " does not probably describe Lord 
 Salisbury's mood, though there may have been 
 the irritability of the over-driven. 
 
 It is, however, to my mind more than doubtful 
 if Randolph intended his resignation to be definite. 
 But even if it were accepted he felt certain that 
 he would be soon restored to office and to greater 
 power on the shoulders of the party. As it was, 
 he lingered on at the Treasury, in a fever of 
 agitation. " I can't bear to leave this room," 
 he writes thence to his mother, a week after his 
 resignation, " where I can sit and think and hear 
 everything quickly. The matter is very critical, 
 but by no means desperate." 2 The sentence which 
 I have italicised supports the view that he hoped 
 to be retained. It is strange, too, that he should 
 
 1 Lang's Sir S. Northcote, ii. 279. Life, ii. 263.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 303 
 
 have clung so closely to his official room, as if with xm. 
 a presentiment ; for it is the spot least agreeable 
 to a retiring minister. I told him once, not long 
 after the event, that after reading his letter to 
 Lord Salisbury I had come to the conclusion 
 that it was not intended as a resignation. He 
 answered that I was right, and that he only meant 
 it as the beginning of a correspondence, but that 
 Lord Salisbury clinched it at once. Of course, 
 he added, he intended eventually to send an ulti- 
 matum. It is not necessary to take this as his 
 deliberate view, for, offhand, he might readily ex- 
 press the mood of the moment; but I think it 
 represents the truth, and is confirmed by his son. 
 44 Lord Randolph Churchill had so little expected 
 to fail in his conflict with the Cabinet that he had 
 not clearly thought out how he would stand in 
 that event." * And again : " Of course," says 
 Mr. Churchill, " he hoped the others would give 
 way would at any rate make some considerable 
 concession which would leave him proportionately 
 strengthened." 2 The real fact is, I think, that, 
 nervous, impulsive, overstrained, and impatient 
 of opposition as he was, he discharged this menace 
 of resignation at Lord Salisbury, as he had flung 
 the same threat in the previous year, without 
 calculation, as a warning rather than an act. 
 The precipitate way of carrying it out, his inability 
 to postpone the writing it out for a few hours 
 until he had left the palace of the Sovereign, all 
 show this. By the bye, he certainly told me that 
 he wrote it on arriving at Windsor, not after 
 dinner, as is stated in the Life. It is, however, 
 
 1 Life, ii. 261. Life, ii. 248.
 
 304 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiu. quite possible that he wrote one draft on arriving 
 and the other late at night. 
 
 No one who knew him would have expected 
 him to have acted otherwise, for the patient task 
 of persuasion, or, to use a modern cant phrase, of 
 " peaceful penetration," was wholly alien to his 
 nature. That nature required a relief for its high- 
 strung irritability in some sort of violence, and 
 resignation was the only form that that violence 
 could take. It cannot be seriously doubted that 
 he expected to receive next day from Lord 
 Salisbury a soothing letter like those of August 
 1885, and that at the next Cabinet his alarmed 
 colleagues would make considerable concessions. 
 But Lord Salisbury evidently felt that his stock 
 of patience and of sedatives was exhausted. Had 
 the Prime Minister been in the habit of personally 
 seeing his colleagues, there might have been a 
 blowing-off of steam, and the situation might for 
 the moment have been saved. But that was not 
 Lord Salisbury's way. Mr. Churchill seems to 
 feel some surprise that Lord Salisbury's reply 
 did not suggest an interview. It would have 
 been much more surprising if it had, as it is 
 doubtful if Lord Salisbury ever suggested an 
 interview in his life. But on this occasion words 
 were popularly attributed to the Prime Minister 
 which indicated that though he must have felt 
 some uneasiness at disconnecting himself with 
 so popular a colleague, yet that a sensation of 
 relief was predominant. It is probable that he 
 was not a jealous man ; yet to his friends and 
 surroundings, if not to himself, it must have been 
 annoying to see the fierce light of public interest
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 305 
 
 turned entirely on Randolph, while the Prime xm. 
 Minister, in reality a greater force, remained 
 unobtrusive in the shade. Lord Salisbury had 
 realised the more poignant fact that he himself 
 was a Tory, and that his young partner was a 
 Radical, constantly urging Radical measures. 
 The Prime Minister at every Cabinet meeting was 
 being pushed in directions that he detested. 
 " Salisbury," wrote Lord George Hamilton on 
 the 25th of November, " is getting to the position 
 where he will be pressed no more." x This from 
 the peacemaker of the Government was suffi- 
 ciently ominous. 
 
 There were portents and warnings enough 
 on the path which Randolph had marked out 
 for himself, but he walked on heedless or blind. 
 Inevitable jealousy, sincere misgiving, accumu- 
 lated resentment and distrust were all around 
 him ; not Daniel himself was more uncom- 
 fortably encompassed. He alone, elated, over- 
 strained, and perhaps already afflicted, saw it 
 not ; or rather, while possibly observing signs 
 of conflict, never doubted that the victory would 
 be his. He had triumphed over the opposing 
 forces before, and felt sure of doing so again. 
 Yet all the time there was closing round him a 
 pressure of circumstance that was to drive him 
 from office. After each Cabinet, colleagues, we 
 may be sure, exchanged their impressions of 
 dismay, and asked each other, " How long ? " 
 or " What next ? " 
 
 Of the communications between ministers to 
 which Mr. Churchill alludes, nothing has been 
 
 1 Life, ii. 228. 
 VOL. I X
 
 306 MISCELLANIES 
 
 XIIL published, and the whole history of this dramatic 
 transaction is, therefore, not in our possession. 
 But their view is easily guessed. There had been 
 frequent signals of alarm. " From the very 
 outset," says Mr. Churchill, who, from the perusal 
 of secret documents, probably knows more than 
 it is discreet to disclose, " the new administra- 
 tion was uneasy. Discord stirred restlessly be- 
 hind the curtains of Cabinet secrecy. . . . The 
 autumn councils were not harmonious, whether 
 upon foreign or domestic affairs." l 
 
 Foreign affairs were no doubt one difficulty, 
 for Randolph distrusted Lord Salisbury's policy. 
 " A wise foreign policy," he wrote to his chief 
 at the time of his resignation, " will extricate 
 England from Continental struggles and keep 
 her outside of German, Russian, French, or 
 Austrian disputes. I have for some time observed 
 a tendency in the Government attitude to pursue 
 a different line of action which I have not been 
 able to modify or check." 2 Smith, strangely 
 enough, was also a critic. " Our diplomacy 
 is no doubt very weak," he writes on October 
 24, " but this does not entirely explain our 
 powerlessness in Europe." 3 
 
 Then there was the question of Local Govern- 
 ment, there was the question of the closure, and 
 there was an Allotment Bill. On all these points 
 the orthodox ministers differed, no doubt, from 
 Randolph. It was, moreover, rumoured that he 
 was a difficult colleague, with much of the temper 
 of the spoilt child ; and these stories were, I 
 think, not unfounded. 
 
 1 Life, ii. 219. Life, ii. 239. Life, ii. 26.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 307 
 
 The stress came apparently to a climax in the xiu. 
 early part of December, when the budget was 
 produced. When he expounded this measure 
 to the Cabinet they remained silent, " but," he 
 said, " you should have seen their faces." l It 
 is strange that, after so ominous a warning, he 
 should have staked his all on a resignation with 
 any idea that it would not be cordially but 
 tremulously accepted. The significant silence 
 of the Cabinet was soon broken by not less 
 significant notes. Hamilton wrote for returns 
 of the incidence of taxation. Smith wanted a 
 printed memorandum. Salisbury had examined 
 the figures for three counties, as they would stand 
 under the new plan of Local Government, and 
 found them far from reassuring. It is probable, 
 then, that communications had been going on 
 between the members of the Cabinet for some 
 three weeks before the resignation ; and that 
 Lord Salisbury, though he sent round to his 
 colleagues copies (characteristically made in his 
 own handwriting) of Randolph's letter of resigna- 
 tion, was well aware of what their feelings would 
 be. Smith, four days before, had intimated his 
 intention of resigning if his estimates were cut 
 down. The Cabinet had then to choose between 
 Churchill and Smith. It cannot be doubted that 
 they had long made their choice. Smith at least 
 belonged to them, heart and soul. Rumour had 
 it that his earlier tendencies had been Liberal, 
 but all through his public life he had been a loyal 
 and consistent Tory. Randolph, on the other hand, 
 though brought up in the bosom of Toryism, and 
 
 1 Life, ii. 212.
 
 308 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xni. a priceless ally in attack, in all positive policy 
 had shown signs of the most detestable heresy. 
 He seemed a political changeling. Smith they 
 could understand and trust ; with Smith they 
 could live comfortably ; Smith had about him no 
 angles and no surprises ; there was in Smith none 
 of that brilliancy which is the object of so much 
 instinctive distrust. Randolph, on the other hand, 
 was restless, overbearing, and, as regards policy, 
 capable of anything. Why should this confident 
 youth for, politically speaking, he was only a strip- 
 ling tell thegrey beards of the party that they were 
 out of date, and that the faith they had professed 
 all their lives was superannuated and futile ? 
 
 The choice of the ministers was made, we 
 may be sure, without hesitation, though not 
 without misgiving. That it was a deliberate 
 and personal choice, not based on a question of 
 public policy, is demonstrated by one simple 
 fact : " Lord Randolph Churchill procured by his 
 resignation almost every point of detail for which 
 he had struggled in the Cabinet." x Had the 
 Cabinet wished to keep him, it is obvious that 
 they would have conceded his demands before 
 and not after his resignation. If this view be 
 correct it would seem that it was his personality, 
 and not his policy, which had alienated his 
 colleagues. They did not feel confidence in him, 
 they were weary of his restless predominance, 
 they did not know whither he was going. Lord 
 Salisbury " had been," wrote Randolph, " for 
 weeks prepared for it, and possibly courted the 
 crash." 2 We may believe that Lord Salisbury 
 
 1 Life, ii. 297. Life, ii. 262.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 309 
 
 was not unprepared though he had obviously xm. 
 made no preparation to replace his Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer but not that he courted the 
 crash. Nevertheless, the crash was in all prob- 
 ability neither unexpected nor unwelcome to the 
 main body of the Cabinet. On the other hand, 
 his Radical friends congratulated him (and the 
 fact has its bearing on the nature of Tory Demo- 
 cracy) not perhaps quite unselfishly, and not 
 without the bitter herb of truth. " The party 
 tie," as one reminded him, " is the strongest 
 sentiment in this country stronger than patriot- 
 ism or even self-interest." 1 " You ignore the 
 power of the machine," wrote one who knew it 
 well. 2 The " machine " crushed him as easily 
 as a parched pea. Had he chosen to fight for his 
 hand and raise the standard of revolt, it would 
 not have been so easy to suppress him. But he 
 behaved with perfect loyalty and decorum. 
 
 He had made another mistake, he sincerely 
 believed in the necessity for rigid economy ; so 
 did Mr. Gladstone ; so did no one else. It is the 
 great disappointment in connection with our new 
 or renewed democratic bodies, parliamentaiy and 
 municipal, that economy has no friends. So his 
 resignation based on this issue fell flat and 
 appealed to no one, except as regarded his own 
 personality and power. So much for his political 
 fall. He was never the same man again. 
 
 There was to be for him one more crisis and 
 only one. The facts of it are related with great 
 impartiality in Mr. Churchill's book, and cannot 
 be repeated here. It is enough to say that in 
 
 1 Life, ii. 252. Life, ii. 254.
 
 310 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. 1889 Mr. Bright 's death had caused a vacancy 
 in the representation of Birmingham, where 
 Randolph, owing to a previous contest, had a 
 strong hold, and where a powerful body of sup- 
 porters urged him to stand. This candidature 
 was strongly resisted by Mr. Chamberlain on the 
 ground of a previous agreement between the 
 Tories and the Liberal Unionists. Strangely 
 enough, under these circumstances, Randolph 
 left the decision as to whether he should stand 
 or not to the two Liberal Unionist leaders and 
 a member of the Government. The result, as 
 Randolph must have known, was a foregone 
 conclusion, and it was decided that he should not 
 stand. The Randolph of 1884 would not have 
 hesitated, or left the decision to a committee. 
 But the Randolph of 1889 had no longer the 
 nerve of his prime. He submitted, but with the 
 shadow of death on his face. With a ghastly 
 expression he faced the wrath of his devoted 
 followers at what seemed to them a betrayal. 
 There was no betrayal, there was only the failure 
 of nerve power due to his malady. But it was 
 in effect a second resignation and a final abdica- 
 tion. He had missed the last opportunity, which 
 neither forgives nor returns. 
 
 VI 
 
 After this disaster he again went abroad ; 
 this time with another common friend, Harry 
 Tyrwhitt. I was in India, but we met, on our 
 return journey, in Rome. He had just escaped 
 from Sicily, then under rigid quarantine, to the
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 311 
 
 mainland in an open boat, at the imminent risk xm. 
 of bullets : a thoroughly congenial adventure. 
 In Rome we saw a great deal of each other, and 
 had long talks. But as I have in the main 
 forgotten these, my recollections of that time 
 would be little superior in interest to those of 
 Captain Sumph. I recollect, though, that his 
 companion told me that Randolph would sit in 
 silence for hours together, smoking cigarettes and 
 pondering. But now he was in tearing spirits, 
 perhaps at meeting old friends, and in his best 
 vein ; full of audacious paradox, irony, and 
 candour. He talked much of his resignation and 
 his career, and declared that he would not live 
 the last four years over again for a million a year. 
 He had been successful enough, but he would not 
 face them for all that. He reminded me, too, of 
 our talk at the Turf Club. " Do you know, 
 
 Lady , that but for Rosebery being not at 
 
 home when I called I should have been a Liberal ? 
 I went to his house to settle it all with him. But 
 he had gone out ; and, as affairs could not wait, 
 I remained where I was." Of course this was 
 banter, he did not mean to be taken seriously. 
 The fact was that he had gone to consult with 
 some one Lord Goschen, I think and had 
 come to tell me the result. But the determin- 
 ing factor was, it need scarcely be said, Lord 
 Salisbury's concession. He declared that he 
 had often mentioned that conversation, even to 
 Lord Salisbury, who, he incidentally remarked, I 
 
 remember, was " never happy out of that d d 
 
 laboratory at Hat field." 
 
 I think that this was almost the last entirely
 
 312 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. cheerful view that I had of Randolph. He was 
 well in health, not devoid of hope, and he had 
 shaken off the strain of his resignation. He was 
 in many respects the Randolph of old times. 
 
 He returned to England soon afterwards, 
 made a few parliamentary speeches not very 
 successful, I think, perhaps because of the 
 difficulty of his ambiguous position and went on 
 the turf. This was a new passion with him ; 
 inferior, indeed, in excitement, as Lord Palmer- 
 ston once remarked, to politics, but new and ab- 
 sorbing. He embraced it with his usual ardour, 
 won the Oaks (though he was in Norway at 
 the time), and had his fair measure of success. 
 He used to come to Durdans for the Epsom 
 meetings until the end of his life, and was as gay 
 and debonair as when he was an Oxford under- 
 graduate. Racing remained a passion with him 
 to the end. Almost every letter that I had from 
 him in his last years of life was about that sport. 
 Let not ambition mock these homely joys. 
 
 Then he went to South Africa. Already, 
 I think, the cruel disease which was to paralyse 
 and kill him had begun to affect him. There 
 were soon symptoms of an irritability which, so 
 far as I know, was rare with him. In old days he 
 was often petulant, had something of the spoilt 
 child about him ; but even his petulance was 
 winning, and he was never really irritable, at 
 least within my knowledge. 
 
 The beginning of the end was the end. The 
 progress of the disease was slow at first, but its 
 signs were obvious, and when it began his career 
 was closed.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 313 
 
 Why recall those last days, except to recall xin. 
 the pity of them ? his devoted mother hoping 
 against hope for his future, his own feverish 
 energy, the brilliant light fluttering out in the full 
 glare of day. There was no curtain, no retire- 
 ment ; he died by inches in public. 
 
 The last time that I saw him I dined with him 
 at his mother's house in Grosvenor Square ; his 
 brother-in-law, Lord Tweedmouth, was the only 
 other guest. The next day he gave a farewell 
 dinner to his friends, and the next he set out with 
 his wife on a voyage round the world in a desperate 
 hunt for health. I cannot even now make up 
 my mind whether I wish that I had dined or 
 stayed away. It was all pain, and yet one would 
 not like to have missed his good-bye. I still 
 cannot think of it without distress. 
 
 I saw him off at the station, and he wrote me 
 one immensely long letter from Japan, contain- 
 ing great plans of travel, never to be realised. 
 That, so far as I was concerned, was the end. 
 The letter was written in September 1894. In 
 January 1895 he died. 
 
 VII 
 
 It was a strange, fitful career, one of the most 
 singular and interesting of that century, only 
 less dramatic than that of Disraeli. He had all 
 or almost all the qualities that go to make up 
 success in politics. He was a born party leader, 
 reminding one of Bolingbroke in the dashing 
 days of Harry St. John. He was brilliant, 
 courageous, resourceful, and unembarrassed by
 
 314 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. scruple ; he had fascination, audacity, tact ; 
 great and solid ability welded with the priceless 
 gift of concentration ; marvellous readiness in 
 debate, and an almost unrivalled skill and attrac- 
 tion on the platform ; for he united in an eminent 
 degree both the parliamentary and the popular 
 gifts, a combination which is rarer than is usually 
 supposed. 
 
 He had also the vital mainspring of zest. To 
 whatever he applied himself he gave for the 
 time his whole eager heart. He was strenuous 
 at politics, but he was also at times devoted to 
 hunting, racing, and chess, and he took gas- 
 tronomy as seriously as Macaulay. But what- 
 ever it might be, politics or pleasure, it possessed 
 him entirely ; he did it with gusto, with every 
 nerve and every fibre. He had, moreover, the 
 fascination of manner an invaluable endowment 
 for a politician. Thus, when he chose, which 
 was perhaps too rarely, he could deal successfully 
 with men. He had also at his disposal the charm 
 of conversation, and this was as various as his 
 moods. When he felt himself completely at ease, 
 in congenial society, it was wholly delightful. 
 He would then display his mastery of pleasant 
 irony and banter ; for with those playthings he 
 was at his best. Nor would he hesitate to air his 
 most intimate views of persons and characters ; 
 he did not shrink from admissions which were 
 candid to the verge of cynicism ; he revelled 
 in paradox. A stranger or a prig happening 
 upon him in such moods would be puzzled, and 
 perhaps scandalised ; for his lighter and more in- 
 timate conversation was not to be taken literally.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 315 
 
 He would hate this and that, embrace the xui. 
 most preposterous propositions, and defend any 
 extravagance that might happen to enter his 
 head ; if he were opposed, he would carry it 
 much farther. I remember once saying that a 
 certain statesman had not shone at the Foreign 
 Office ; he at once declared that he deliberately 
 regarded him as the greatest Foreign Secretary 
 that had ever lived. This was not conviction, 
 nor even opinion ; it was only returning the ball 
 over the net. When in this vein he produced 
 table-talk which would have strained a Bos well 
 to bursting ; it was all gaiety, the delightful whim 
 of the moment. He was, moreover, absolutely 
 unaffected himself, and ruthlessly pricked the 
 bubbles of affectation or cant in others. In 
 graver discussion he had, when he chose, a subtle 
 and engaging deference ; his ideas were luminous 
 and original. This deference must, however, 
 not be taken to imply veneration, for from that 
 bump his skull was singularly free. The only 
 person who inspired him with anything like awe 
 or respect was the great statesman, when he came 
 to know him, against whom his bitterest philippics 
 had been directed. Without veneration, if that 
 be a charm, as to most of us it is when not ex- 
 cessive or misplaced, Randolph's conversation, 
 whether light or serious, was all admirable of its 
 kind. His son says truly that " he had a wonder- 
 ful manner, courtly, frank, and merry, which he 
 did not by any means always display." 1 The 
 saving clause is not less true than the description ; 
 for at all periods of his life he would at times 
 
 1 Life, ii. 77.
 
 316 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. suddenly as it were shut himself up and become 
 morose. 
 
 He had a faithful and warm heart ; from 
 childhood he had been the best of sons ; and the 
 whole soul of his mother was with him to the end. 
 Nothing could exceed the pathos of her devotion 
 to him in political adversity, or to his memory 
 when he had passed away. While still a lad, he 
 ruled his family with autocratic affection, and the 
 affection was unstintedly returned. 
 
 His friendships were singularly staunch. 
 There might be tiffs, but they would, as a rule, 
 be passing. While they lasted, the horizon 
 would be entirely black, and the human race 
 engaged in a vast combination with the powers 
 of evil against him. In these moods he some- 
 times tried his political friends severely, as both 
 Gorst and Jennings could have testified ; for 
 storms would arise in a clear sky, and the un- 
 expected would happen. His political friends 
 might almost have addressed him in the words of 
 Martial's epigram : 
 
 Difficilis, facilis, iucundus, acerbus es idem : 
 nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te. 
 
 But if he seemed sometimes to enjoy a quarrel, 
 he enjoyed a reconciliation still more ; indeed, 
 at times I thought that he half enjoyed the 
 quarrel for the sake of the prospective reconcilia- 
 tion. He had few if any permanent animosities, 
 and these mainly under the pressure of his strenu- 
 ous politics ; nor as a rule did he nourish them ; 
 his biography affords many proofs of an irritable 
 but placable nature. At all times of his life he
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 317 
 
 attracted warm and lasting friendship, and out- xin. 
 side friendship he had the faculty of attract- 
 ing devoted affection and service. His private 
 secretary, Mr. Moore, was conspicuous even in 
 that remarkable collection of ministerial assistants 
 that the last half-century has witnessed : of men 
 not unfrequently much more fit for high office 
 than their temporary chiefs. Moore was Ran- 
 dolph's right-hand man, and Randolph's resigna- 
 tion literally broke Moore's heart, for he died 
 within six weeks of the fatal announcement. 
 The officials of the Treasury and India Office, 
 who openly dreaded Randolph's advent, became 
 almost instantly his loyal and zealous vassals. 
 But this is not wonderful, for he gave himself no 
 airs of superiority, was frank about any ignorance 
 
 (" those d d dots," 1 for example), grateful 
 
 for help, and ready to show his gratitude. 
 
 Nor had he, what might have been expected 
 in so ardent a nature, any jealousy of others ; 
 none, at least, that I could discover. This is a 
 merit of the rarest water a real mark of superi- 
 ority. The ambitious man who can watch with- 
 out soreness the rise or success of a contemporary 
 is much rarer than a black swan. But Randolph's 
 was a generous nature in the largest and strictest 
 sense of the word : generous and profuse both 
 with money and praise. His lack of jealousy and 
 his personal charm arose from the same quality 
 that there was no perfection or claim of per- 
 fection about him. He was human, eminently 
 human ; full of faults, as he himself well knew, 
 but not base or unpardonable faults ; pugnacious, 
 
 1 Life, i. 184.
 
 318 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. outrageous, fitful, petulant, but eminently lovable 
 and winning. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And here perhaps it is fitting to say something 
 of his speeches. No one reads old speeches any 
 more than old sermons. The industrious historian 
 is compelled to explore them for the purposes 
 of political history, but it is a dreary and reluctant 
 pilgrimage. The more brilliant and telling they 
 were at the time, the more dolorous the quest. 
 The lights are extinguished ; the flowers are 
 faded ; the voice seems cracked across the empty 
 space of years, it sounds like a message from a 
 remote telephone. One wonders if that can really 
 be the scene that fascinated and inspired. Was 
 this the passage we thought so thrilling, this the 
 epigram that seemed to tingle, this the peroration 
 that provoked such a storm of cheers ? It all 
 seems as flat as decanted champagne. Of course, 
 in the case of speeches that are treatises, like those 
 of Burke, treatises clothed in a literary form and 
 carefully prepared for publication as pamphlets, 
 the remark does not apply. But then these were 
 not speeches at all, or at any rate not successful 
 speeches. Their triumph was literary and philo- 
 sophical, not that of the arena and the moment. 
 Genuine political speeches that win the instant 
 laurels of debate soon lose their savour. All the 
 accompaniments have disappeared the heat, the 
 audience, the interruptions, and the applause ; 
 and what remains seems cold and flabby. 
 
 In turning over Randolph's republished 
 speeches, one is chiefly struck by their audacity
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 319 
 
 and their extravagance, as if he deemed that xin. 
 anything were good enough for the voracious 
 enthusiasm of mass meetings. There is often 
 the same profusion of diction as in Mr. Gladstone, 
 but with how great a difference. Mr. Gladstone 
 uses his words to guard carefully his every step 
 of advance from possible attack on flank or in 
 the rear ; Randolph dashes forward like Prince 
 Rupert, without heeding liability or peril or the 
 cold criticism of fact. Yet these dead speeches 
 of his, though they now lack the vivid quality 
 which made them, when delivered, so interesting 
 and diverting, have a lingering charm of their 
 own, if only from a delectable acidity which 
 keeps them cool and fresh. And after looking 
 through them again, it seems impossible to refrain 
 from some citations of his brilliant, audacious 
 banter ; so reckless in spirit, but so studied in 
 form. Take his repartee to Mr. W. H. Smith on 
 the question of equal treatment of Ireland in the 
 Reform Bill of 1884 : "I have heard a great deal 
 of the mud-cabin argument. For that we are 
 indebted to the brilliant, ingenious, and fertile 
 mind of the right honourable member for West- 
 minster. I suppose that in the minds of the lords 
 of suburban villas, of the owners of vineries and 
 pineries, the mud cabin represents the climax 
 of physical and social degradation. But the 
 franchise in England has never been determined 
 by Parliament with respect to the character of 
 the dwellings. The difference between the cabin 
 of the Irish peasant and the cottage of the English 
 agricultural labourer is not so great as that which 
 exists between the abode of the right honourable
 
 320 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. member for Westminster and the humble roof 
 which shelters from the storm the individual 
 who now has the honour to address this Com- 
 mittee. . . . 
 
 " Non ebur neque aureum 
 
 mea renidet in domo lacunar, 
 non trabes Hymettiae 
 
 premunt columnas ultima recisas 
 Africa." i 
 
 I dare say that Mr. Smith laughed as much as 
 any of the audience. But there is in the comical 
 comparison something of the old hostility of the 
 patrician to the moneyed and mercantile classes : 
 the same feeling which found expression in the 
 sneer against " Marshall and Snelgrove." I admit 
 that this passage was not reprinted in the collected 
 speeches, and should not, perhaps, be recalled ; 
 the excuse must be that it is a gem, and an 
 innocuous gem, of Randolph's humour. 
 
 But of course his principal shafts were reserved 
 for the great chief of the opposite party. And 
 impudent (there is no other word) and personal 
 as were these attacks, their humour and their 
 very extravagance permit the most devoted 
 admirer of Mr. Gladstone to chuckle for a moment. 
 Take this for example from the most brilliant 
 of his platform speeches, that at Blackpool in 
 January 1884 : " For the purpose of religious 
 devotion the advertisements grow larger. The 
 parish church at Hawarden is insufficient to 
 contain the thronging multitudes of fly-catchers 
 who flock to hear Mr. Gladstone read the lessons 
 of the day ; and the humble parishioners (of 
 
 1 Life, i. 845.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 321 
 
 Hawarden) are banished to hospitable Noncon- xm. 
 formist tabernacles in order that mankind may 
 be present at the Prime Minister's rendering of 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, or the Book of Job." * Then 
 the famous tree-cutting scene : " For the purposes 
 of recreation he has selected the felling of trees, 
 and we may usefully remark that his amusements, 
 like his politics, are constantly destructive. The 
 forest laments in order that Mr. Gladstone may 
 perspire. . . . The working men were guided 
 through the ornamental grounds into the wide- 
 spreading park, strewn with the wreckage and the 
 ruins of the Prime Minister's sport. All around 
 them, we may suppose, lay the rotting trunks of 
 once umbrageous trees ; all around them, tossed 
 by the winds, were boughs and bark and withered 
 shoots. . . . They come suddenly on the Prime 
 Minister and Master Herbert in scanty attire and 
 profuse perspiration, engaged in the destruction 
 of a gigantic oak, just giving its dying groan. 
 They are permitted to gaze and worship and 
 adore, and having conducted themselves with 
 exemplary propriety, are each of them presented 
 with a few chips as a memorial of that memorable 
 scene." 2 This leads to a somewhat strained 
 comparison of Mr. Gladstone's policy to chips. 
 
 Again : " Was it for this that Mr. Gladstone 
 pranced down into Midlothian, blocked up all 
 the railway stations in the North of England, 
 and placed the lives of countless thousands of 
 passengers and tourists in the utmost possible 
 peril ? " 3 And on the same Midlothian theme, 
 of which he seemed never to weary : " Well, the 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 112. a Speeches, i. 118. ' Speeches, i. 191. 
 
 VOL. I Y
 
 322 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. journey to Midlothian has taken place, and there 
 have been all the usual concomitants. The old 
 stage properties have been brought out at every 
 station : all the old scenery, all the old decora- 
 tions, the old troupe, they have all been brought 
 forward in a sadly tarnished and bedraggled 
 condition, and the usual amount of seed has been 
 sown by the wayside, and I imagine that the 
 fowls of the air have devoured it." * A possibly 
 bedraggled member of the old troupe may perhaps 
 be allowed a tribute to the rollicking fun of the 
 touch about the fowls. 
 
 Again : " We remember . . . when Mr. Glad- 
 stone flying with impetuous haste from one 
 corner of the country to another, was hurled 
 down by your southern division. Down through 
 electoral space he fell, nor was his fall arrested till 
 he had reached the distant borough of Greenwich. 
 Down, too, at that time fell Lord Hartington, his 
 colleague, whom an obscure group of villages in 
 Wales received and nourished." 2 
 
 It is needless to multiply examples of this 
 style, of which the last is perhaps the most 
 striking example. The Miltonic ring of " Down 
 through electoral space he fell," ending with the 
 farcical idea of Lord Hartington's being nourished 
 by Welsh villages, is grotesque humour of no 
 ordinary kind. If there be such a thing as good 
 taste in political warfare, nothing could offend 
 more glaringly against its canons than some 
 of these quotations. All, again, is strikingly 
 picturesque, but it is a picture wholly unlike the 
 original. And so, as men can smile at caricatures 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 384. * Speeches, i. 98.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 323 
 
 of themselves or those dear to them, the warmest xin. 
 admirers of Mr. Gladstone may be amused by 
 these. 
 
 Randolph's humour may be fairly defined as 
 burlesque conception, set off by an artificial pomp 
 of style ; a sort of bombastic irony, such as we 
 occasionally taste with relish in an after-dinner 
 speech. Sometimes it is what one could imagine 
 that Gibbon might have uttered had he gone 
 on the stump. Sometimes its exuberance over- 
 reaches itself, and it can scarcely have seemed 
 other than a cynical experiment on the political 
 digestion of his audience. Take, for example, this 
 passage on the Whig party : " I can see the 
 viscous slimy trail of that political reptile which 
 calls itself the Whig Party gleaming and glisten- 
 ing on every line of it. I see that most malignant 
 monster endeavouring, as it did in 1832, to coil 
 itself round the constituencies of England and to 
 suppress the free action and to smother the 
 natural voice of the English people." l 
 
 Poor old Whig Party ! Already moribund, 
 if not dead ; never, at its best or worst, malignant 
 or monstrous, though no doubt a little hungry, 
 a little selfish, and a trifle narrow. It might 
 possibly have been compared by a flatterer to a 
 slow- worm ; but an analogy to a crushing, in- 
 sidious, overpowering serpent was beyond the 
 bounds of a jest. Not long afterwards he was to 
 get to closer quarters, and compare the states- 
 man who was then considered the representative 
 Whig to a boa constrictor with this difference : 
 that the boa constrictor enjoyed his food, while 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 194.
 
 324 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. the Whig loathed and sickened upon it. Later 
 again, in a mood of grace, he was to expunge this 
 passage from his collected speeches ; and, in- 
 deed, the care is notable with which he omitted 
 from those volumes many passages which might 
 cause personal annoyance, or which did not seem 
 to stand the test of time and reflection. 
 
 Take, again, this description of Mr. Gladstone 
 and the Liberal party : " The Prime Minister, his 
 colleagues and his party these children of revolu- 
 tion, these robbers of churches, these plunderers 
 of classes, these destroyers of property, these 
 friends of the lawless, these foes of the loyal." * 
 It seems strange that this sort of thing did not 
 overreach itself, but I think it went down very 
 well. 
 
 There are, of course, many passages quite as 
 wild ; notably those in which, under the guid- 
 ance, apparently, of an eminent Arabist, he 
 described the Khedive Tewfik in terms not 
 inadequate to the greatest villain in history or 
 fiction : " the conspirator against his father, the 
 robber of his family, the banisher of his brother, 
 the dealer in human flesh and blood, the betrayer 
 of his allies, of his ministers, and of his country ; 
 the man of magic and of sorcery," 2 this was the 
 condensation of charges set forth at length and 
 leisure. Of course his popular audiences delighted 
 in the pungent flavour and aroma of these per- 
 sonal attacks without troubling their heads as to 
 accuracy or appropriateness. 
 
 But even at this period of irresponsible in- 
 vective he could rise to higher and graver levels. 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 46. * Speeches, i. 79.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 325 
 
 Note, for example, his solemn rebuke to those xm. 
 who would govern Ireland as a Crown Colony : 
 " There are some foolish people who talk about 
 disfranchising Ireland, and treating it as a Crown 
 Colony. Do not listen to them. They are as 
 bad in their way as the Radicals and Parnellites. 
 The world would not tolerate such a spectacle ; 
 the genius of nations would not suffer it." l 
 
 And in the same speech there is an analogy 
 drawn between the contention of the Southern 
 States in the American Civil War and the pro- 
 motion of Irish Home Rule, which, however 
 misleading it may be deemed, is a nervous and 
 powerful specimen of political eloquence. 2 
 
 Can there, again, be anything finer in its way 
 than the description of British government in 
 India ? " Our rule in India is, as it were, a sheet 
 of oil spread out over a surface of, and keeping 
 calm and quiet and unruffled by storms, an 
 immense and profound ocean of humanity." 3 
 The diction is by no means perfect, but the idea 
 is little less than sublime. 
 
 After his accession to office his oratorical 
 style perceptibly and decorously changed ; it 
 became more sober and more responsible. There 
 were still excursions and alarms, notably a 
 denunciation of Lord Ripon ; but this, though 
 unmeasured and unjust, was not undignified in 
 tone. There are also the utterances about 
 Ulster : strong meat to be dealt out by a minister. 
 Then in 1886, when he is out of office, there is his 
 extravagant election address. 
 
 When he is in office again, he resumes a style 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 93. Speeches, i. 91. 8 Speeches, i. 212.
 
 326 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. adequate to his responsibility. His speech at 
 Dartford was indeed a remarkable declaration of 
 broad and enlightened policy couched in adequate 
 language. It stands as by far his greatest effort 
 in his serious vein. Then came his separation 
 from the ministry, and with that his speeches 
 declined. He was now speaking not as the 
 spokesman of a great party or as the daring 
 leader of attack on a political stronghold, but as 
 a lonely individual conscious of isolation and of an 
 irreparable mistake, regarded with suspicion by 
 his own side and some remnant of smarting ani- 
 mosity on the other. 
 
 Then again the shadows began to darken 
 around him : it was obvious that he was stricken 
 by some mysterious and disabling malady. In 
 1890, for example, he delivered a speech on the 
 Parnell Commission, in which he employed a 
 shocking and loathsome metaphor which, although 
 it had been already used by Burke * in his un- 
 discriminating greed for simile, would never 
 have been handled by Randolph when in health. 
 Then there was a long silence, in which his 
 malady steadily increased. At last, in 1893, he 
 reappeared to deliver a speech on the Home Rule 
 Bill. He was a prey to a nervousness that he 
 could neither repress nor disguise, but the House 
 of Commons, which had always had a lurking 
 tenderness for its once spoilt child, listened with 
 pathetic attention to this " bald and bearded 
 man with shaking hands, and a white face drawn 
 with pain and deeply marked with the lines of 
 care and illness, and with a voice whose tremulous 
 
 1 Posthumous Memoirs of Wraxall, i. 72.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 327 
 
 tones already betrayed the fatal difficulty of xin. 
 articulation," as his biographer describes him. 
 Mr. Churchill goes on to say that " the quality 
 of his speech showed no signs of intellectual 
 failing." l Each must speak for himself. It 
 may have been so, but I am sure the audience 
 did not realise the fact. To them and to the 
 orator it was one long pain pain of watching and 
 listening, pain of thick and almost unintelligible 
 delivery, pain of memory and contrast, pain for 
 the visible imminence of death. What the speech 
 may have been none who heard it knew ; for it 
 was a waking nightmare. He went on making 
 speeches ; addressing audiences in the country 
 with restless courage ; and returned to London 
 declaring that he had never held such meetings. 
 This was the hallucination of disease. Great 
 audiences came, indeed, to hear him once more, 
 but they could no longer catch his half-articulated 
 words, and soon went away in sorrow and astonish- 
 ment. But this, happily, he did not realise. 
 
 He had, I think, modelled his oratory on 
 Disraeli's : perhaps unconsciously, for in private 
 life he did not abound in admiration for that 
 remarkable man. This attitude arose, it may be, 
 from a dislike to being supposed to have imitated 
 Lord Beaconsfield ; and, indeed, at other times 
 he may have taken a different view, for his con- 
 versational opinions varied from day to day, and 
 were often the outcome of a passing whim. But 
 when, for example, he described the Church of 
 England as "an institution which elevates the 
 life of the nation and consecrates the acts of the 
 
 1 Life, i. 465.
 
 328 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. State," 1 he not merely said an eloquent thing, 
 but said it in the words that Lord Beaconsfield 
 would have used. 
 
 If, however, Disraeli was his model, he certainly 
 in some respects exceeded the original. It is not 
 too much to say that, with the exception of the 
 famous philippics of 1846, Disraeli did not always 
 hold his audience very closely, and that his 
 speeches were better to read than to hear. More- 
 over, he did not test his powers on the platform, 
 so that comparison is not very easy. For Ran- 
 dolph was, I suppose, at his best on the plat- 
 form before a great audience. I infer this from 
 the vast popularity that his platform speeches 
 obtained for him, from their immense vogue, 
 and the extraordinary anxiety to hear him. In 
 liveliness, in vigour, in sureness of touch, in the 
 power of holding an audience, he transcended, I 
 suspect, not merely Disraeli, but every one in 
 living memory except Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, 
 and Mr. Chamberlain. His secret would have 
 been worth knowing, but I never had the good 
 fortune to hear him on the platform. In these 
 days when the front rows at a public meeting 
 are bought by impartial spectators, who come 
 to enjoy the principal speech as they would an 
 Adelphi drama, it might have been possible for a 
 political opponent to hear him. But then it was 
 not so, and a political opponent at a meeting 
 would not have been appreciated or welcome. 
 My own surmise would be that the attraction of 
 Randolph's speaking was due as much to the 
 speaker as to the speech. The speech in itself 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 138.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 329 
 
 was always excellent of its kind, sometimes xm. 
 fantastic, often exaggerated, with passages of 
 admirable humour, irony, and rhetorical power. 
 But had these speeches been delivered by any 
 middle-aged gentleman on the front bench, they 
 would have been much less successful. It was 
 Randolph's personality that was so winning : 
 his audacity, his extravagance, his reckless party 
 spirit ; his physical qualities, his slight form, 
 his modulated but penetrating voice, even his 
 perpetually twisted moustache ; and above all, 
 perhaps, the fact that this stripling had come to 
 stir the dry bones of party and to divert the 
 jaded attention of the audience from actors, how- 
 ever eminent, of whom they were rather tired, to 
 a fresh young character. He was, in a word, 
 supremely interesting. 
 
 What makes his faculty the more surprising 
 is that for a long time indeed, I believe always 
 he wrote out his speeches before delivering 
 them. When he had read the manuscript twice 
 over he had learned it by heart. Armed with 
 copious notes, without which, he once told me, 
 he could not approach a platform, he was then 
 ready for his audience. With great dramatic 
 art of delivery he repeated the speech in a way 
 that made it seem absolutely fresh and spontane- 
 ous. The manuscript was, I believe, sent to 
 the press. Indeed, when he delivered his three 
 speeches in Edinburgh what he sportively called 
 his trilogy he left the manuscripts of all three 
 speeches, with the dates on which they were to 
 be delivered, in charge of a London editor. He 
 consequently enjoyed another triple sequence
 
 330 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. of sleepless nights, in agony lest the wrong 
 speech should be published on the wrong day. 
 This painful experience made him determine to 
 abandon the practice ; but I am not sure that 
 he did. 
 
 In another point, I suspect, he resembled 
 Mirabeau, whose speeches were also written, not 
 always by himself in the faculty, I mean, for 
 utilising the brains of others. 1 I do not doubt 
 that the Fourth Party and other friends often co- 
 operated in the production of his more elaborate 
 speeches. This does not in any way detract 
 from their merits. The faculty of borrowing 
 intellectually from others is a subtle one : it is 
 an art in itself, that few can employ successfully. 
 Sheridan would take the arm of a friend down 
 to the House of Commons in friendly chat, and 
 presently the friend would hear with admiring 
 surprise his own ideas translated by Sheridan 
 into a glowing and eloquent speech. The friend 
 could not have done it, Sheridan could ; had it 
 not been for Sheridan, the friend's ideas would 
 have been altogether lost ; so that all parties 
 gained by the process. It may then be taken for 
 granted that Randolph's friends perceived with 
 satisfaction their ideas appearing in Randolph's 
 popular and ingenious language amid the rattling 
 applause of his teeming audiences. And after 
 all, no speeches are wholly original. No one can 
 tell what unconscious forces of reading, conversa- 
 tion, and memory go to produce a great speech. 
 An original speech one in which all the argu- 
 ments and illustrations were absolutely novel and 
 
 1 Life, ii. 855 ; Gorst's Fourth Party, p. 245.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 331 
 
 wholly beyond previous conception would in all xiu. 
 probability be a failure. Its originality would be 
 fatal to it ; it would be regarded as an eccentric 
 intellectual trick and nothing more. There are, 
 of course, in most great speeches novel arguments 
 and still more novel illustrations, but a speech 
 of which all the arguments and illustrations are 
 new has yet to be heard. 
 
 Randolph's method of preparation was, I 
 think, to shut himself up absolutely for two days 
 before the speech had to be delivered. During 
 those forty-eight hours he was unapproachable, 
 and then he issued forth with the speech red-hot. 
 From his biography I infer that he sometimes 
 took less time, but the former statement comes 
 from himself. 
 
 What, then, is the last word to be said about 
 his speeches ? Firstly, it is necessary, in reading 
 them and in trying to appreciate their effect, to 
 picture the dramatic delivery, the face and figure 
 and youth of the orator. Secondly, it must be 
 remembered that these speeches are not essays, 
 not speeches to be read rather than heard, like 
 Burke's and Disraeli's. Neither are they master- 
 pieces of sustained and restrained oratory like 
 those of Mr. Bright. Neither are they rolling 
 rivers of majestic diction, the outlet of intellectual 
 resources long - accumulated and constantly re- 
 freshed, as in the case of Mr. Gladstone. But 
 for the modern purposes of Parliament and the 
 platform they were perhaps as available as any 
 that have been mentioned. They did not as a 
 rule raise the audience to a higher level, as was 
 often the case with the others ; but they tickled
 
 332 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. the popular palate and gave it a constant wish for 
 more. In this way he was able to bring home 
 serious argument to the people, who took it 
 enveloped in rhetorical jam. His earlier speeches, 
 except those on Irish affairs, had scarcely the 
 adequate weight of knowledge and experience, 
 for his political education had only begun with 
 his political career. So he had to pick up know- 
 ledge as he went along, enough for the purposes 
 of attack, but not sufficient for the purposes of 
 policy and office. This is apparent even in the 
 carefully edited collection of his speeches. For 
 example, he dallied for a moment with what was 
 called Fair Trade, but dropped and repudiated it 
 without compromise as soon as he had studied 
 the question. When he became connected with 
 a great department, he readily assimilated the 
 facts presented to him by the officials, so readily 
 that had his official career been prolonged it is 
 not to be doubted that his speeches would have 
 become the instructive and responsible utterances 
 of a great statesman. As it is, we have little more 
 than the Dartford deliverance to show what he 
 might have done had he remained a minister, 
 and lived. 
 
 So, oratorically speaking, he will live princi- 
 pally by the wit and humour and sarcasm of his 
 youthful philippics. These will perhaps never 
 be rivalled or, indeed, imitated. Their success 
 consisted, I think, apart from their raciness and 
 insolence, in the striking combination of the 
 picturesque and the burlesque. People, as has 
 been said, never read old speeches. But without 
 reading or studying, there may be many for a
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 333 
 
 generation yet to come who will turn over the xni. 
 pages of these startling discourses to pick out the 
 plums, and they will not be without their reward. 
 
 IX 
 
 What, with such splendid qualities and his 
 illustrious name, might he not have accomplished ? 
 Why, with all these dazzling attributes to his 
 credit, did he not achieve a complete success ? 
 And then he was so young ! 
 
 His career was not a complete success, and yet it 
 was far from a failure. While it lasted it eclipsed 
 the fame of almost all who were then engaged in 
 politics. Many, no doubt, severely censured his 
 methods and the violence of his attacks. A Whig 
 statesman, for example, ordinarily urbane, refused 
 after Randolph's letter about Lord Granville to 
 meet him in conference. And the antipathy was 
 almost as great as the enthusiasm which he excited. 
 Not a few good men thought him absolutely 
 wicked, and beyond the pale of political salva- 
 tion. But, while he was a figure, he enlisted 
 public interest and public admiration as no one 
 did but Mr. Gladstone : his popularity, indeed, 
 was at one time almost unbounded. It was 
 made up of various elements, for on his head 
 rested the hopes and affections, as well as the 
 indignant censures, of many different sections of 
 the community. There was something of the 
 adoration with which famous pugilists were 
 regarded in the palmy days of the Ring : the 
 people loved to see the young David hurling his 
 stones far from smooth though they were at
 
 334 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. the giant whom they also loved. They delighted 
 in the shrewd epigrams and the reckless but 
 telling personalities of his speeches. To others 
 he was welcome as seeming to diminish and impair 
 the overpowering domination of Mr. Gladstone. 
 But above all, the nation is always on the look- 
 out for a man, a seer, a guide ; and such an one 
 many thought they had discovered in this youthful 
 combatant, or at least a leader with new ideas 
 who would regild or rejuvenate the somewhat 
 negative doctrines of orthodox Toryism. He 
 had, at any rate, let some fresh air into the party 
 system, so much, indeed, that it sometimes seemed 
 a hurricane. Randolph appeared a very son of 
 the morning. Nevertheless, because of this very 
 splendour of promise, his achievement came in- 
 finitely short of anticipation. He was in office 
 but a few months, and then, like the son of the 
 morning, he fell, not to rise again. Such a career, 
 politically speaking, cannot be considered full or 
 triumphant. Why was it not something more ? 
 The answer is twofold. In the first place it is 
 to be found in the word " wayward," which is 
 always associated with him in my mind. But it 
 is also necessary to remark that we do not know 
 when his fatal illness first began to affect him. 
 I have been told that it was influencing him so 
 far back as 1885 ; I cannot, of course, vouch for 
 the fact, but I confess I think it probable. It is 
 not that his intellect deteriorated, but that the 
 malady would from time to time quicken certain 
 tendencies into extreme violence. Take, for 
 example, his attack on Mr. Gladstone as a second 
 Reschid Pasha, and on Lord Granville, who had
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 335 
 
 answered this attack : caricatures wholly un- xm. 
 worthy of him, neither wise, nor witty, nor 
 effective, produced within two days of each 
 other, and denoting a mind unbalanced and 
 almost unhinged. 
 
 His waywardness, however, is not altogether 
 to be attributed to disease. He was always so 
 from boyhood, but amiably and controllably so. 
 From the first moment that I can remember 
 him there was a tinge in him of the eccentric, 
 the petulant, and the unexpected. The stealthy 
 poison of his illness probably accentuated this 
 defect, in combination with the natural exhilara- 
 tion of prodigious triumph. Nothing, for example, 
 could be more extravagant than his first resig- 
 nation in 1885, as told in his biography. He 
 might conceivably and even justly have pro- 
 tested against the communications carried on 
 by the Sovereign through Lord Salisbury with 
 India without his being a party to them, though 
 Lord Salisbury informed him of them. But his 
 resignation, and the terms of the correspondence 
 in which it was conveyed, are almost childish 
 when it is remembered that they came from a 
 young minister who had just achieved a great 
 position in his party and in the country by un- 
 sparing effort, who had forced himself into office 
 over the bodies of his leaders, but who now, 
 on a point scarcely, if at all, more substantial 
 than one of etiquette, suddenly discovered that 
 he " had always had great doubts as to whether 
 his being in the Government would be of any 
 advantage to the Government or to the party." 
 " All doubts," he adds, " on the point are now
 
 336 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. removed from my mind." And so he insists on 
 his resignation. Then the fit wears off, and he 
 consents to remain in office, appealing finally 
 to the cool sagacity of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. 
 " Please forgive me," replies Sir Michael, " for 
 saying that I think you looked at this matter 
 rather too seriously last Friday. I think I should 
 have been more inclined to laugh at the story of 
 the telegram than to treat it as a proof of want of 
 confidence on the part of the Queen and Prime 
 Minister. If you had not been ill you would 
 never have said of yourself in your letter to me 
 that ' I have no longer any energy or ideas, and 
 am no more good except to make disturbance.' " l 
 The delicacy and importance of the point 
 involved are not to be underrated. There need 
 be no discussion here of these. But it is abun- 
 dantly clear that the issue could easily have been 
 settled satisfactorily by explanation, as indeed it 
 was. But no ! that was not Randolph's way at 
 that time of semi-supremacy. The matter must 
 be settled by a resignation, portentously offered 
 and portentously withdrawn. It was burning 
 the house down in order to roast the pig. The 
 method in one so rational almost indicates the 
 early shadows of the final malady, and it is to be 
 noted that he admits that he was ill at the time. 
 I have already indicated more than once the 
 second reason why his career was not a complete 
 success he was in the wrong party. He was, it 
 is true, eminently patrician both by instinct and 
 by birth. This he never concealed, nor could he 
 have concealed it if he would. But his opinions, 
 
 1 Life, i. 516.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 337 
 
 his instincts, his aims, were all not merely Liberal, xm. 
 but Radical. Nor was he in the least Imperialist. 
 This his son sets forth in terms : " Lord Randolph 
 Churchill was never what is nowadays called an 
 Imperialist." 1 This was no secret to his friends. 
 His sympathies were not with the growth and 
 development of empire, though he was proud of 
 his part in the annexation of Burmah ; his views 
 on foreign policy were not merely not those of 
 Lord Salisbury, but were in truth rather those 
 of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. He might be 
 described without exaggeration as a thorough and 
 convinced Radical of the old type. He had 
 studied the Irish question on the spot, and always 
 maintained that Home Rule was impracticable. 
 But otherwise his views were those of advanced 
 Liberals. 
 
 This anomaly in a Tory leader must eventually 
 have complicated the party system, but when 
 the impetuosity of his nature is taken into 
 account it was sure to precipitate a crisis and 
 to make his position in the party impossible. 
 Had his character been different he might have 
 trained himself to the orthodox pace. Disraeli, 
 who had begun with views not wholly dissimilar, 
 had done so, with excellent results. But this 
 for Randolph's temperament was at that time 
 impossible. Moreover, he was intoxicated with 
 a success and popularity which Disraeli, as a 
 young or middle-aged man, had never achieved. 
 He thought then that he could take the party 
 with him. Here lay his fatal mistake. His 
 party was delighted to follow, so long as he gave 
 
 1 Life, ii. 117. 
 VOL. I Z
 
 338 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. popularity to the name of .Tory and to the policy 
 say, of Lord Salisbury. But when he began to 
 launch a daring programme of his own, the party 
 shuddered ; when he began to insist, it rebelled. 
 Randolph stated this with unpleasant candour in 
 1888 : " Though honourable members do not in the 
 least object to my winning applause at great mass 
 meetings in the country, there seems to be a con- 
 siderable difference of opinion when I attempt to 
 carry these opinions to a practical conclusion." 1 
 
 Besides these individual and not unnatural 
 prejudices of his party, he had to combat 
 something more impalpable and more formid- 
 able the party "machine." That he had 
 once captured but had now lost ; and that 
 organisation, however futile in other directions, 
 is now so developed that no individual, how- 
 ever gifted, can fight against it. Peel twice 
 and Disraeli once did, no doubt, when the 
 party " machine " was comparatively feeble, 
 pass measures against the will or conscience of 
 their party. But Peel fell as his Bill passed ; 
 and Disraeli was too wary to repeat his own ex- 
 periment. It is more than doubtful if either Peel 
 or Disraeli ever attained the personal popularity 
 of Randolph in 1885. But that popularity was 
 not a sufficient base for a revolution in policy, 
 or for marching the Tory party over to Liberal- 
 ism. Had Randolph returned to office he would, 
 I think, have learned his lesson and fallen into 
 line. Mr. Disraeli once boasted that he had 
 educated his party. But did not his party in 
 truth educate Mr. Disraeli ? 
 
 1 Speeches, ii. 336.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 339 
 
 Strange is the fate that has bound the Tory xm. 
 party to leaders of uncongenial faith or suspicious 
 antecedents ; but so it has been from the end 
 of the Liverpool dynasty till the epoch of Lord 
 Salisbury. The short Canning ministry, of what- 
 ever complexion Canning may be deemed, was 
 repudiated by the Tory party. The Duke of 
 Wellington, though undoubtedly a Tory himself, 
 was so dominated by his favourite doctrine that 
 the King's Government must be carried on at any 
 cost, and by his view of his relation as a paid 
 servant to the Crown, that he was willing to pass 
 any measure of any character that might be 
 considered necessary in the public interest, with- 
 out reference to his own opinions. He emanci- 
 pated Roman Catholics in the teeth of his former 
 professions ; he was accessory to the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws, a repeal to which he was extremely 
 averse ; he was ready to pass a Reform Bill which 
 he regarded as the ruin of the country. He 
 cannot, therefore, it would seem, be reckoned as 
 a party politician at all. Then comes Peel, who 
 will live by the two great Liberal measures that 
 he passed ; who was, indeed, a staid and thought- 
 ful Liberal, the bulwark of the Liberal Govern- 
 ment till he died, and who was excommunicated 
 by his party. Then there succeeds Derby, who 
 was a leading member of the Grey Government 
 and who harangued from the table of Brooks's 
 on behalf of the Reform Bill. He is followed by 
 Disraeli, the Radical candidate for Wycombe, 
 who, in an imagination of Oriental glow, blended
 
 340 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. his Radical recollections with the professions 
 required of a Tory, and so produced " Young 
 England," or, as some think, Tory Democracy. 
 What the old Tories, like the King of Hanover 
 and his crony the Duke of Rutland, thought of 
 the future leader may be read in the lamentations 
 they poured forth over " the influence which Mr. 
 Disraeli has acquired over several of the young 
 British Senators." * They knew his past, they 
 did not foresee his future. Then there is the 
 figure of Randolph, a convinced Radical : him, 
 too, the Tory party cast forth. There was for 
 the party no absolute confidence, no unquestion- 
 ing loyalty, from the time of Lord Liverpool's 
 paralytic attack till it found itself in the comfort- 
 ing embrace of Lord Salisbury. 
 
 But let not the dwellers in glass-houses throw 
 stones : the Liberal party has undergone much 
 the same fate. Grey was a lifelong Liberal ; but 
 he had shaken himself almost free from party 
 ties before he became the Liberal Prime Minister. 
 Melbourne was a languid and unconvinced Whig ; 
 still, he cannot be counted as having ever been 
 anything else, though he served for a time under 
 Wellington. Russell was the golden exception, 
 for he was a Whig from the cradle to the grave. 
 But when we come to Palmerston we perceive 
 one who was a minister during the entire period 
 of the Liverpool administration, and who never 
 shook off the traces of that connection. Then 
 comes Gladstone, " the hope " of " stern and 
 unbending Tories," who led the Liberal party 
 with so much renown, but who was proud to own 
 
 1 Lives of the Lords Strangford, p. 224.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 341 
 
 to the Conservative temperament to the end of xin. 
 his life. 
 
 At first sight it must appear remarkable that 
 parties and leaders should be so ill-mated, but 
 on reflection there seems no reason for surprise. 
 When it is considered how hereditary is the 
 transmission of politics in this country, it seems 
 rather wonderful that, after reading, travel, and 
 thought, the family dogmas are not more often 
 questioned. Men are netted early into political 
 clubs ; or fall, when callow, under the influence of 
 some statesman ; or stand as youths for some 
 constituency before they have considered the 
 problems of life. Many never consider them at 
 all ; but those who do must often find themselves 
 in disagreement with the politics which they 
 have prematurely professed. Some, too, must 
 find that, while they remain staunch to what 
 seem the fundamental tenets, the party itself, 
 under erratic guidance, or lured by the prospect 
 of momentary advantage, is wandering far from 
 its fold ; and so, while they themselves remain 
 orthodox, they are isolated by the unorthodoxy 
 of their friends. Add to which the politician sees 
 the seamy side or comfortless interior of his own 
 party alone ; he is not admitted to the draw- 
 backs of the opposite faction ; so that the one in 
 some respects seems more alluring than the other. 
 If all these things be considered, it will seem 
 marvellous that there are not more political 
 conversions or perversions than there are.
 
 342 MISCELLANIES 
 
 XI 
 
 xin. Let us go a little more into detail. Had 
 Randolph's party no reason to shudder ? What 
 is Toryism and what is Tory Democracy ? The 
 Toryism associated with the names of Eldon and 
 Sidmouth has long been dead. The Toryism 
 of Lord Derby died under him in 1867 like an 
 overtaxed horse ; and it then became recognised 
 by the most stern and unbending partisans that 
 the old Tory non possumus was impracticable. 
 Since then Toryism has become more flexible ; 
 it has, indeed, under the occasional pressure of 
 men or of public opinion been a singularly 
 adaptable creed. This is not said by way of 
 reproach, for politics are the sport of circum- 
 stance, and principle the slave of opportunity. 
 The Tory creed, so far as it implies maintenance 
 of historical continuity and calculated, practical, 
 well-meditated reform without unnecessary risk 
 to precious institutions, is a respectable and 
 healthy faith. But there have been startling 
 variations. Disraeli had long thrown out hints 
 about Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Shelburne, and 
 a Venetian constitution. What it all meant no 
 one quite knew ; and the world at large, espe- 
 cially the Tories, treated it with unseemly and 
 unjust ridicule. No one who lived and mixed 
 with politicians before 1874, or who has read the 
 memoirs of that time, can forget the despair and 
 distrust with which Disraeli inspired his followers. 
 Might not salvation be found by shelving or dis- 
 carding him ? by such a combination, for example, 
 as making the Duke of Somerset Prime Minister,
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 343 
 
 and relegating Disraeli to the serene duties of xm. 
 Chancellor of the Duchy, or even to complete 
 repose ? J This was the project of Cairns, Dis- 
 raeli's closest political ally, who nevertheless 
 seems at that time to have had an imperfect con- 
 ception of the character and aims of his friend. 
 To such straits was the party driven. Anything, 
 they declared, but Disraeli ; under him victory 
 was impossible. What a mere adventurer he 
 was ! What a fantastic alien ! What nonsense 
 he wrote ! But what if the nonsense should 
 mean a majority ? That, of course, would be a 
 different thing. This majority came in 1874 ; 
 and as at the sound of the sackbut, psaltery, and 
 dulcimer, the whole party fell down and wor- 
 shipped. It seemed now clear that the gospel 
 of Toryism was to be found in some spirited novels. 
 As it turned out, the Toryism of 1874 had no 
 trace of " Young Englandism," and not the 
 least savour of the popular sympathies of Sybil. 
 Still less was it even remotely tainted with the 
 Radical " education " of 1867. That was well 
 enough for a season of dexterous impotence : 
 power involved or required more, as, for example, 
 a spirited foreign policy. But, to the last, sages 
 who had studied the romances of the young 
 Hebrew would wag their heads in corners and 
 predict that the edifice would be crowned by 
 something with regard to Palestine which was to 
 be found, if anywhere, in Tancred. 
 
 Then came Mr. Gladstone and the travels of 
 political triumph associated with Midlothian, and 
 all faded into mist. Disraeli died ; and the 
 
 1 Lang's Life of Lord Iddesleigh, i. 246.
 
 344 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. Tadpoles and the Tapers were left wondering 
 what Toryism was next to be. The prophet had 
 vanished and had left not a shred of his mantle 
 behind. With Lord Salisbury, a real Tory, who 
 was something of a cynic and a pessimist as well, 
 the policy assumed a new, or perhaps resumed an 
 old, shape. It defended the Church and property, 
 or property and the Church ; and was, if ab- 
 solutely necessary, prepared to make some little 
 advance under severe pressure. There was to be 
 nothing spontaneous ; the watchword was to 
 be " Needs must when the devil drives." The 
 pressure came with more or less severity, firstly 
 from Randolph Churchill, and secondly from 
 Mr. Chamberlain. 
 
 Lord Randolph Churchill was half aristocrat 
 and half Bohemian : the aristocratic part was in 
 his blood ; his Bohemianism came from the fact 
 that he was, inexplicably enough, if his home and 
 early associations be considered, born and bred 
 a rebel, as much as any Bohemian a rebel against 
 the accepted and conventional standards of life. 
 He loved as much as any Bohemian to shock and 
 even outrage the commonplace. He respected 
 as little as any Bohemian the ties of circumstance 
 and tradition. It was this Bohemianism that 
 found its vent and field in the Fourth Party ; it 
 was this which seems to have enlisted the secret 
 sympathy of Lord Beaconsfield. " I fully appre- 
 ciate your feelings," said Lord Beaconsfield in 
 1880 to Sir Henry Wolff, "and those of your 
 friends ; but you must stick to Northcote, he 
 represents the respectability of the party. I 
 wholly sympathise with you all, because I never
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 345 
 
 was respectable myself. In my time the respect- xin. 
 
 ability of the party was represented by , a 
 
 horrid man ; but I had to do as well as I could ; 
 you must do the same." l None the less was 
 Randolph an aristocrat, and he would display 
 from time to time strange vestiges of the tradi- 
 tions in which he was reared. The aristocratic 
 part of his nature made him dislike the opulent 
 middle class ; his Bohemian instinct turned him 
 to Radicalism ; the only subject that he had really 
 studied was the Irish question, as to which his 
 conclusions were those of neither party, but which 
 kept him in the Tory ranks. As to his respect- 
 able leaders in the Commons, they made him 
 gnash his teeth, both as an aristocrat and as a 
 Bohemian. 
 
 His advent, indeed, seemed for a time to 
 paralyse the Tory chiefs, as his popularity was 
 unbounded, casting their figures completely into 
 the shade. Moreover, while his wit, his irony, 
 and his invective delighted his audiences, scarcely 
 less did these enjoy his hints of a popular policy 
 which should strike at the root of the matter and 
 eviscerate the obsolete formulas of authoritative 
 Liberalism. Intoxicated, not unnaturally, with 
 his position, he treated his colleagues as negligible 
 quantities, gave the rein to his advanced views 
 on Ireland and domestic questions, and went 
 " full steam ahead," forgetting, or not perceiving, 
 or not caring, that he had left the party and its 
 organisation a long way behind him. So that 
 when, to clear the air and make his position 
 apparent, he staked his all on a petulant resig- 
 
 1 Life, i. 157.
 
 346 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiu. nation, petulant in method if not in spirit, he 
 found himself almost alone. The Tory priests and 
 pharisees shunned him, and there was scarce a 
 political Samaritan in sight. 
 
 In the historic biography of Lord George 
 Bentinck, to which reference has already been 
 made, there is a dramatic passage which Randolph 
 might well have considered : " When Prince 
 Metternich was informed at Dresden, with great 
 ostentation, that the Emperor had arrived 
 ' Yes, but without his army,' was the reply." 
 Disraeli goes on to describe the division which, 
 in 1846, wrecked Sir Robert Peel's Government, 
 and the announcement of the hostile majority 
 whispered to the minister. " Sir Robert did not 
 reply, or even turn his head. He looked very 
 grave, and extended his chin, as was his habit 
 when he was annoyed, and cared not to speak. 
 He began to comprehend his position, and that 
 the Emperor was without his army." Randolph 
 in 1886 had arrived ; he was a conspicuous and 
 brilliant figure ; but he had no parliamentary 
 army behind him, and his supporters in the 
 country were silenced by the action of the party 
 in the House of Commons, and of the party 
 Caucus. 
 
 Were the Tories to be blamed for this desertion 
 of their young paladin ? This cannot, I think, 
 be seriously contended. They had long been out 
 of breath in trying to follow him, and when he 
 was stripped of the glamour of office and leader- 
 ship, they saw him as he was, not a Tory but a 
 Radical, indifferent about the Church and heed- 
 less of property. Had he remained in office long
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 347 
 
 enough to produce his famous budget, the scales xin. 
 would have fallen even more completely from their 
 eyes, for they would have seen that he was pre- 
 pared to tax the very cartridges with which they 
 killed or missed their game. 
 
 This, then, was Tory Democracy ; it was the 
 wolf of Radicalism in the sheepskin of Toryism. 
 When Randolph, after his resignation, became 
 more and more emancipated from Tory tradition, 
 and more hopeless of reunion with his party, he 
 scarcely cared to conceal the fact. In November 
 1885 he had sent to Lord Salisbury a proposed 
 sketch of policy, which included local government 
 on a purely popular basis, with a large devolu- 
 tion of powers, the enfranchisement of future 
 leaseholds (whatever that may mean), similarity 
 of treatment between England and Ireland in 
 respect of local government, and concession to 
 the Roman Catholic hierarchy on educational 
 questions. At Dartford, when leader of the 
 House of Commons, he set forth a programme 
 of large legislation on land, local government, 
 temperance, elementary education, and rating ; 
 and though the language was vague, it was none 
 the less alarming to the patriarchs and pontiffs of 
 Toryism. Finally he set forth to the Cabinet and 
 prepared for immediate production a democratic 
 budget, containing graduated death duties and 
 local option as regards the drink traffic. 
 
 This, as we have seen, was the final ground of 
 his resignation. That event is noteworthy in con- 
 nection with Tory Democracy, because, though it 
 put that phrase out of fashion, and deprived it 
 of all prospect of ministerial countenance, it also
 
 348 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. removed all drag or control from its unofficial 
 development. 
 
 So three years afterwards he was making 
 speeches in the Midlands, urging drastic temper- 
 ance reform, Irish local government, and Irish 
 land purchase, in terms so elastic that his audience 
 " gasped," and a Tory member, who had besought 
 him to come and speak, now besought him to 
 stay away. 1 
 
 All this, indeed, was well enough ; but it was 
 not Toryism or anything like Toryism. Mr. 
 Chamberlain at once sounded a note of menace 
 and alarm, with that trumpet which has given 
 forth so many notes of menace or alarm. Lord 
 Randolph Churchill, he said, had " borrowed 
 from the cast-off policy of all the extreme men of 
 all the different sections. He took his Socialism 
 from Mr. Burns and Mr. Hyndman ; he took his 
 local option from Sir Wilfrid Lawson ; he took 
 his Egyptian policy from Mr. Illingworth ; he 
 took his metropolitan reform from Mr. Stuart ; 
 and he took his Irish policy from Mr. John Morley. 
 Is this Toryism ? " he asked. 
 
 There could be no doubt as to the reply. And, 
 indeed, Tory Democracy, in the person of Ran- 
 dolph, had by no means reached the limits of its 
 tether. " In these later years," says his son, 
 " Lord Randolph Churchill was drawn increas- 
 ingly towards a Collectivist view of domestic 
 politics . . . and he favoured or accepted doc- 
 trines and tendencies before which Liberals recoiled, 
 and even the most stalwart Radicals paused em- 
 barrassed." 2 When Tory Democracy is stated in 
 
 1 Life, ii. 402. Life, ii. 428.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 349 
 
 terms as Tory Collectivism, there is no further xin. 
 need to expatiate on the anomaly involved. 
 
 And so Randolph Churchill moved onward, 
 on broadening lines it may be said, but farther 
 and farther from Toryism. In his letter from 
 Maf eking of November 1891, we have seen that 
 he considered the end of Tory Democracy to have 
 come with the accession of Mr. Balfour to the 
 leadership. " So Arthur Balfour is really leader, 
 and Tory Democracy, the genuine article, is at an 
 end." x It is not easy to trace the subtle con- 
 nection between the leadership of Mr. Balfour 
 and the disappearance of the genuine article. 
 But in the following year Randolph again empha- 
 sised his policy in a striking letter to Mr. Arnold 
 White, gave his blessing to the Labour party and 
 their aims, so far as he understood them, and 
 urged in vague but eloquent terms their assimila- 
 tion by the Tory party. "It is our business," 
 he wrote, " as Tory politicians to uphold the 
 constitution. If under the constitution, as it 
 now exists and as we wish to see it preserved, 
 the Labour interest finds that it can obtain its 
 objects and secure its own advantage, then that 
 interest will be reconciled to the constitution, 
 will find faith in it, and will maintain it." 2 If 
 not so much the worse for the constitution and 
 the Tory party. His " ifs," it will be seen, were 
 capacious. 
 
 In the same year he urged on Mr. Balfour 
 the Miners' Eight Hours Bill, trusted that " Gorst 
 might have a little labour fling," and declared 
 that he himself would abandon dear delights to 
 
 1 Life, ii. 452. Life, ii. 459.
 
 350 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. vote for the measure, adding, half seriously, " I do 
 not think that I would do this for the Monarchy, 
 the Church, the House of Lords, or the Union." * 
 All this might be Democracy, but it certainly 
 was not Tory. In fine, Tory Democracy was a 
 good catch-word for reconciling Toryism and 
 Democracy, if that were possible. But Toryism 
 means something which Democracy cannot recog- 
 nise, and Democracy means something which 
 Toryism cannot supply. Toryism could not of 
 its own free will be reconciled, for then it would 
 have ceased to be Toryism, and party divisions 
 would have become a greater illusion than, in the 
 opinion of some, they are already. In the womb 
 of the future there may no doubt be embryos of 
 this description, but then it is clear that the 
 opposing faction will have also to change its 
 character. All that is beyond our compass to- 
 day. What is certain is that Tory Democracy 
 was an imposture, an honest and unconscious 
 imposture no doubt, but none the less an im- 
 posture. It was in reality a useful denomina- 
 tion or resource for any one who found himself 
 with Radical opinions inside the Tory party, and 
 who did not wish to leave it. And so the Fourth 
 Party, half at least of which was in this position, 
 and which was wholly a band of rebels, found 
 itself in sole possession of the sacred mystery. 
 
 XII 
 
 The history of the Fourth Party has been 
 written by Mr. Harold Gorst with the unwinking 
 
 1 Life, ii. 461.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 351 
 
 gravity of an augur, and with a natural desire xm. 
 to point out that it was not entirely composed of 
 Randolph. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it consisted of Sir H. 
 Wolff, who supplied diplomacy and experience ; 
 Sir John Gorst, who represented organisation, 
 law, and experience ; and Randolph, who fur- 
 nished the audacity, the voice, and the magnet- 
 ism ; all three brimful of ideas, and endowed 
 with abilities of no common order. Mr. Balfour 
 was the outrigger of this frail but daring craft ; 
 he was of it for a time, but not in it. 
 
 It was, indeed, originally an escapade, carried 
 on with high spirits and with the tongue often 
 in the cheek. As it prospered, it became formid- 
 able and therefore serious ; yet it embodied 
 nothing but a negative. Its aim was to oppose, 
 hinder, thwart, and wreck the work of the Govern- 
 ment in every possible way. This object, which 
 from the parliamentary point of view is regarded 
 as legitimate, and even laudable, was carried on 
 with zeal and ingenuity. 
 
 Nothing was sacred for them any more than 
 for the traditional French sapper. Randolph, 
 for instance, had he not been absent, would have 
 taken pride in marring the effect, so potent and 
 beneficial both at home and abroad, of the 
 unanimous vote of credit on April 27, 1885. In a 
 vehement letter to Lord Salisbury he indignantly 
 censured the silent acquiescence of the Opposi- 
 tion on this occasion. " The effect in the House 
 of Commons," he writes, " has been deplorable." 1 
 Lord Salisbury shared his regret. " I hope the 
 
 1 Life, ii. 882.
 
 352 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. papers will attribute the collapse to our patriot- 
 ism ; at least, that is the only hope with which 
 one can console oneself," * wrote the experienced 
 statesman ; and the desired consolation was 
 happily forthcoming. Had any object but injury 
 to the Government been in view, neither could 
 have ignored the European importance of the 
 vote ; as it was, neither seemed able to per- 
 ceive the interests of Britain when the interests 
 of the Ministry were involved. This confusion 
 also complicated the attitude of the Fourth 
 Party towards the Reform Bill of 1884. " Tory 
 Democracy," we are told by Mr. Churchill, 
 " wanted to pass the Bill, yet wanted to destroy 
 the Government " : 2 a strange rendering of the 
 old cry, " Measures, not men." " We want the 
 measures without their authors " was apparently 
 the view of this political group. Again, the 
 Fourth Party convinced itself that the hapless 
 Khedive Tewfik, who was so sorely bestead, was 
 a scoundrel of the deepest dye. As to Mr. 
 Bradlaugh, he was the punchball round which 
 the giddy factions played. Any issue, indeed, 
 was welcome to and utilised by the little party. 
 All was fish that came into their net. As a par- 
 liamentary exhibition it was superb. It amused 
 the House, it interested the nation, it harassed the 
 Government. But this last was its sole object, for 
 it had no positive policy, except an occasional 
 mystic allusion to Tory Democracy. 
 
 And so we are told that if we can find the 
 elusive secret of Tory Democracy it will be in the 
 custody of the Fourth Party. Sir John Gorst 
 
 1 Life, ii. 383. 2 Life, i. 327.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 353 
 
 evidently believes in it, but he does not disguise xm. 
 his doubts as to any authoritative connection 
 between his political views and those of official 
 and orthodox Toryism. " From that epoch " 
 (1886), he mournfully remarks in a prefatory note 
 to his son's history of the Fourth Party, " Tory 
 Democracy, which was the ideal on which Mr. 
 Disraeli's domestic policy was based, has been 
 by the party leaders discredited and abandoned. 
 The few members of the party who still cling to 
 the principles of Mr. Disraeli are suspected of 
 being Radicals and Socialists." 1 
 
 Why is it, may be asked in passing, that this 
 suspicion never rested on Mr. Disraeli during 
 his leadership of the party ? It appears to stig- 
 matise those who believe that they have adopted 
 his principles and ideals, but never to touch 
 himself. 
 
 The reason is twofold. In the first place, it 
 has to be demonstrated that Mr. Disraeli ever 
 became seriously responsible for any form of 
 Tory Democracy. He may have blown bubbles ; 
 he certainly wrote political romances. But a 
 romance is not a programme, and novels can 
 never be manifestoes. Strange were the recesses 
 of that interesting and complicated character ; 
 but it may be permitted to surmise that no one 
 was so much amused at the solemnity with which 
 the fanciful rodomontade of Coningsby was treated 
 as Disraeli himself. In the second place, what- 
 ever may have been his views on Tory or " Young 
 English " Democracy, he was not prepared to be 
 a martyr to them. He never carried them into 
 
 1 Gorst's Fourth Party, p. v. 
 VOL. I 2 A
 
 354 MISCELLANIES 
 
 XHI. practical effect, for the obvious reason that he 
 would have shattered his party had he done so. 
 From 1874 to 1880 he enjoyed supreme authority, 
 but without lifting a finger for Tory Democracy. 
 It is by his acts, not his words, that a minister 
 who enjoys real power is judged, and by this test 
 Disraeli's affection for Tory Democracy, if he ever 
 felt any, must be held to have been extinguished 
 by his majority, while those who suffer for clinging 
 to what they deem his principles must be held to 
 be gratuitous martyrs. But this is no disparage- 
 ment to the memory of that extraordinary man. 
 A statesman, however much he may be animated 
 by the ideal, has to deal with the real, with 
 facts and circumstances as they are. A much 
 less astute politician than he would realise, on 
 attaining power, that the reconciliation of " the 
 two nations," as they are called on the title-page 
 of Sybil, could not be achieved by the leader of a 
 Conservative party as then constituted, or likely 
 to be constituted. 
 
 We must, therefore, seek for something more 
 definite in Tory Democracy than the policy of 
 Mr. Disraeli. Randolph was fortunate enough to 
 find it in one of his epigrams. " Some of Lord 
 Beaconsfield's phrases," he says, in his article 
 on " Elijah's Mantle," " will bear any amount 
 of microscopic examination. Speaking in Man- 
 chester in 1871, by the alteration of a letter in 
 a quotation from the Vulgate, he revealed the 
 policy which ought to guide Tory leaders at the 
 present time : Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas. 
 Such was the quotation in which a careful mind 
 will discover a scheme of sound progress and
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 355 
 
 reform, of dimensions so large and widespreading xin. 
 that many volumes would not suffice to explain 
 its details." Happy the statesman whose epi- 
 grams are interpreted in so liberal a spirit by a 
 careful mind. That Sanitas sanitatum was by no 
 means an original phrase, but had been employed 
 some two centuries before Disraeli uttered it, 
 would not impair its merit were it really such a 
 fruitful germ of policy as Randolph seemed to 
 imagine. The many volumes required were, 
 however, never written ; and so, even if Tory 
 Democracy be embodied in this naked formula, 
 we are not carried much farther. 
 
 We are, therefore, still left face to face with 
 the question as to whether Tory Democracy was 
 in any sense a boon or a legacy of Disraeli's ? 
 Has Disraeli, indeed, any responsibility for it ? 
 What were the principles to which Sir John 
 Gorst alludes which have entailed ostracism on 
 those who cherish them ? They are, at any rate, 
 not those of " Young England " ; whatever else 
 it was, Tory Democracy was not identical with, 
 and bore no resemblance to, the doctrines of 
 *' Young England " as preached in Coningsby. 
 " Young England " was something feudal and 
 ecclesiastical, though benignantly popular. It 
 endeavoured to saddle the narrower Toryism on 
 the Whigs, while reserving the realm of imagina- 
 tion for itself. " A high Tory," said a leading 
 son of " Young England," "... meant a high 
 Whig of the Eldonite school." 1 This was a 
 complication, for if Eldon were not a Tory, where 
 was Toryism to be found ? " Young England," 
 
 1 Angela Pisani, by George Smythe, Viscount Strangford, iii. 210. 
 VOL. I 2 A 2
 
 356 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. at any rate, itself perceived that it was something 
 which Eldon could neither have blessed nor 
 understood, and prudently anticipated criticism 
 by dubbing him a Whig. The positive doctrines 
 were, for the nineteenth century, scarcely less 
 original ; the aristocracy was to assert its ancient 
 rights, and exert a patriarchal influence ; the 
 Established Church, paramount and supreme, 
 was to train and inspire the nation ; the large 
 bounty of the monasteries was, in some vague 
 but Anglican way, to be revived ; while a grateful 
 peasantry received copious ale and beef, as 
 formerly, at some ecclesiastical gate, and enjoyed 
 on the festivals of the Church the diversions set 
 forth in the Book of Sports. This, at least, was 
 the impression produced by the writings of the 
 new school. But there was nothing of this in 
 Tory Democracy ; that was rather Radical and 
 rather Socialist, without any peculiar tenderness 
 for the Church or the aristocracy. The fortuitous 
 discovery of Sanitas sanitatum does not bridge 
 the gulf between " Young England " and the 
 later creed. " Young England " was a poetical 
 ideal of Toryism ; Tory Democracy had nothing 
 Tory but the name. 
 
 There was, however, this point of resemblance 
 between the two groups, that in both cases the 
 leaders were carried far away from the original 
 idea. Just as Randolph found himself on the 
 verge of Collectivism, so George Smythe, the 
 original of Coningsby and the embodiment of 
 Young England, travelled nearly as far from his 
 political base and involved himself in much the 
 same contradictions. He had been won to the
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 357 
 
 new departure " by the mediaeval halo cast over xm. 
 politics as well as religion." * Like his friend, 
 John Duke of Rutland, who has just left us amid 
 manifestations of universal esteem and regret, 
 " he dreamed of an almsgiving Church protecting 
 and cultivating the affections of a dependent 
 peasantry." 2 And how did he end ? By claim- 
 ing " the sanction of Tory principle for free trade, 
 secular education for the masses, extension of the 
 franchise, the abolition of all religious disabilities, 
 concessions to Dissenters, and the disendowment 
 of all Church establishments, considering that the 
 less the minister of heaven has to do with the 
 affairs of the earth the better." 8 No wonder the 
 old King of Hanover, the last of the antediluvians, 
 on reading this speech wrote that it was, " though 
 beautiful in language, diabolical in substance. I 
 am glad if you can see conservative principles, 
 or any principles, but such as are dictated by 
 the accursed apostate and traitor Peel." And 
 he ends by speaking of " the address, so well given 
 and well coloured, but still you see the figure of 
 Satan behind it." That, in lurid form, is the 
 real feeling of real Tories (if there be any left) 
 towards these new departures. What is the 
 use of opposing Liberalism, they seem to say, if 
 doctrines such as these are proposed by Tories ? 
 
 The truth is that there are and always have 
 been men who believe that so long as they call 
 themselves Tories they may blamelessly and 
 harmlessly preach what doctrines they please : 
 just as in some religious circles a man who believes 
 
 1 Angela Pisani (Prefatory Memoir), vol. i. p. xiv. 
 * Ibid. p. xv. ' Lives of the Lords Slrangford, p. 243.
 
 358 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. himself to be numbered with the elect holds 
 that his sanctity justifies his acts, and that he 
 may do pretty much what he pleases. This is 
 the explanation of pious but fraudulent men 
 of business, who are sometimes inaccurately 
 denounced as hypocrites. But the acts of 
 the unregenerate are, in the judgement of the 
 elect, to be differently appraised and weighed 
 in different scales. A Liberal measure from 
 Liberals is something to be thwarted and de- 
 nounced : a Radical measure from Tories has a 
 halo about it. 
 
 But is there not a more general explanation ? 
 Is it not true that men often pursue their own 
 thoughts, heedless of the party bond, and that 
 they wake from their absorption to find that they 
 have strayed far from the party camp ? And 
 when they realise this, when they find that they 
 are no longer orthodox in the party sense, they 
 are apt to ask themselves if it be necessary, 
 or even possible, to join any other section ; their 
 own faith has disappeared, can they embrace a 
 new one ? In any other they find much to repel, 
 enough at any rate to make the exchange not 
 worth making. So they remain content with 
 the old label, careless if it be challenged, and 
 become a sort of political freethinkers. Does not 
 the same thing happen in religion ? Those who 
 ponder for themselves the grave problems of life 
 and eternity not unfrequently become dissatisfied 
 with their own Church without being attracted 
 by any other, so they remain nominally what 
 they were, or pass silently into agnosticism. The 
 analogy is not remote, for the ideal political party
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 359 
 
 in point of belief, aspiration, and devotion should xm. 
 be little less than a political Church. 
 
 But to return to Tory Democracy, the best 
 specimen of a Tory democratic speech that occurs 
 to me is one that Randolph delivered at Birming- 
 ham in April 1884 ; it was almost his first expres- 
 sion of the idea. It began with a benediction of 
 the Caucus, which was then an institution most 
 repugnant to his party. It went on with a 
 defence of the House of Lords, " that bulwark 
 of popular liberty and civil order " which " should 
 be preserved solely on the ground of its utility to 
 the people," and of the Established Church ; and 
 it concluded with urging social as against organic 
 reform. 1 But as regards social reform, since both 
 parties profess the same aims, it must be in their 
 methods that they differ ; so that the mere allu- 
 sion to the object does not elucidate the position. 
 The mixture, however, of high Toryism of the old 
 school with the approval of the Caucus, and the 
 democratic ending, seem a good illustration both 
 of the features and of the difficulties of Tory 
 Democracy. 
 
 In later years Randolph gave a definition which 
 is both candid and probable. " What is Tory 
 Democracy ? " he asked. " Tory Democracy is 
 a democracy which supports the Tory party." 
 That seems simple enough. He goes on to say 
 that this support must be given not from caprice 
 or disgust, but from conviction of the excellence 
 of Tory principles. " But Tory Democracy in- 
 volves, also, another idea of equal importance. 
 It involves the idea of a government who, in all 
 
 1 Speeches, i. 131-140.
 
 360 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. branches of their policy and in all features of their 
 administration, are animated by lofty and by 
 liberal ideas. That is Tory Democracy." l It is 
 a strange, vague, wordy passage until the out- 
 burst of frankness at the end. Tory Democracy 
 involves a government imbued with liberal ideas. 
 It is no doubt true that he used the adjective 
 as an epithet and not in the party sense. Here 
 the capital letter assumes importance. The bio- 
 grapher gives it, the editor of the speeches with- 
 holds it. I have no doubt myself that it should 
 be " liberal " and not " Liberal." But as it is 
 a question of ideas, the spirit of the passage 
 confirms the contention that Tory Democracy 
 was simply Liberalism under another name. Nor, 
 indeed, did Randolph in confidential intercourse 
 make any secret of the fact. " The work is 
 practically done," he wrote to Lord Justice 
 FitzGibbon in December 1886, before ever his 
 successor had been appointed ; " the Tory party 
 will be turned into a Liberal party." 2 Did he 
 really believe this ? The conversion, at any rate, 
 never took place. But the sentence sufficiently 
 reveals the inner purpose of Tory Democracy. 
 It was employed to enable Liberals by conviction 
 to remain Tories by profession. 
 
 Randolph was much too acute not to know 
 this. His difficulty must have lain, not in that 
 consciousness, but in the obvious fact that every 
 one else was fully aware of it. He had to a large 
 extent convinced others of the tenets of Toryism ; 
 what he could not convince was himself. It is, 
 of course, both easy and true to say that social 
 
 1 Life, ii. 330. 2 Life, ii. 264.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 361 
 
 questions are not the property of the Liberal xm. 
 party ; that they are not the sacred game of the 
 Liberal preserve. It is also true, I think, that 
 Liberals, when they have had the power to deal 
 effectively with them, have not always used it. 
 But neither does this make those problems the 
 property of the Tory party, for they are not mere 
 flotsam and jetsam. No party in power can afford 
 to ignore them, for they are permanent, inevitable, 
 and sometimes menacing. They present them- 
 selves to all statesmen ; and, as has just been said, 
 the difference between the two parties is rather 
 one of method than of aim. If Toryism means 
 anything, it means a cautious and limited spirit 
 in dealing with such questions. If Liberalism, 
 on the other hand, means anything, it means that 
 it has to deal with them in a large spirit, unfettered 
 by class, or interest, or privilege. If there be no 
 such difference, the parties are practically one 
 except in name. That there is such a difference, 
 and must from the very constitution of the two 
 parties be such a difference, is proved by the 
 attitude of the real and staunch Tories to Disraeli 
 in 1867, and by their repudiation of Randolph 
 in 1886, when both approached domestic ques- 
 tions, not in a cautious and limited, but in a large 
 and liberal spirit. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Randolph was indeed the fruit and blossom 
 of our parliamentary system. No more complete 
 and extreme product of that historical arrange- 
 ment has ever been seen. That system requires
 
 362 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. for its working two sets of protagonists. One 
 does the administrative and legislative work of 
 the country and defends what is done. The other 
 is anxious to do the administrative and legislative 
 work of the country and, in the meantime, 
 condemns what is done. To the one side all is 
 light, all is white ; to the other all is shade, all is 
 black : there is no twilight, and no grey. The 
 outcome of this sometimes illogical but continu- 
 ous conflict is the government and guidaneeyof 
 the British Empire. In the same way, justice, 
 pure justice, is the result of the contest between 
 two sets of advocates on two different sides. The 
 only difference is that the politicians professedly 
 speak from conviction, while the lawyers pro- 
 fessedly speak from their briefs. In effect, how- 
 ever, the result is much the same. The advocates 
 of the Government happen to find everything 
 done by the Government right, and the advocates 
 of the Opposition happen to find everything 
 done by the Government wrong. It is a strange 
 and perpetual but not fortuitous coincidence. 
 That state of things was not invented by Ran- 
 dolph, it is of immemorial tradition. He took 
 things as they were, and plunged into the fray 
 with the keen enjoyment of an undergraduate 
 on the fifth of November, giving and receiving 
 hard knocks with almost equal pleasure. He 
 fought his fight in the recognised way, according 
 to the working of our constitution. He attacked 
 savagely when out ; he did his work and defended 
 it as well as he knew when he was in. 
 
 What was considered blameworthy in him by 
 onlookers as well as by the party opposed to him
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 363 
 
 was the violence of his diatribes. Was this xm. 
 censure justified ? Extreme as these were, they 
 were certainly milder than those directed by 
 Fox against North, or those of the Opposition 
 leaders against Walpole. On reading Randolph's 
 speeches in cold blood, and looking back on the 
 circumstances through the mitigating lens of 
 time, and the juster proportion afforded by a 
 score of years, it would seem that his real offence 
 lay not so much in the method as in the object 
 of attack. He was denouncing not a minister 
 of ordinary virtues and vices, but an austere 
 and lofty statesman whose character and ability, 
 while no doubt exciting great antagonism, at 
 that time evoked, apart from politics, something 
 like general veneration. Gladstone was neither a 
 North nor a Walpole. His was a figure of supreme 
 moral dignity ; to his followers he was little less 
 than sublime ; to his opponents he was an object 
 of respect ; to the people at large, to the silent 
 judgement of those who deal little in party politics, 
 he was a national asset. Directed against him, 
 Randolph's attacks were considered as attempts 
 to hold up to ridicule and contempt a statesman 
 who should have been secure from that particular 
 form of assault by a stripling who might have 
 been his grandson. There was, therefore, some- 
 thing repellent to the taste of serious people in 
 his pugnacity ; but then this pugnacity, it must 
 be remembered, for the very same reason, tickled 
 the imagination of multitudes who do not dis- 
 criminate, but love a fight as a fight without heed- 
 ing the cause, and delight in seeing an audacious 
 light-weight sparring up to a recognised champion.
 
 364 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. Northcote also understood this consecrated 
 warfare of parties, and played the game well, 
 though under stricter and more limited rules 
 than his young critic. He was too old and too 
 sagacious to move on headlong and careless, as 
 Randolph lightly did. He could not, and would 
 not, always oppose ; he was conscious that the 
 interests of the country might conflict^ith the 
 tenets of party, and was aware that opposition 
 should have a sense of proportion. Where he 
 failed was in manner. His voice, his diction, his 
 delivery, were all inadequate. With real ability, 
 great knowledge, genial kindness, and a sym- 
 pathetic nature all the qualities, indeed, which 
 evoke regard and esteem he had not the spice of 
 devil which is necessary to rouse an Opposition 
 to zeal and elation. He went through protracted 
 campaigns in the provinces, delivering lengthy 
 speeches accurately reported, from which the 
 reader and the listener, however edified, carried 
 away no phrase or passage that struck a spark. 
 It was all excellent and irreproachable, but 
 destitute of the tart phrase which bequeaths a 
 memory, still more of the fang which leaves a 
 wound. Let exception here be made, however, 
 of his exquisite adaptation of the ballad of " Sir 
 Patrick Spens," one of the happiest rhetorical 
 allusions to be found in the whole range of Eng- 
 lish oratory. But when Northcote warmed there 
 was, or seemed to be, a note of apology in his 
 voice ; there was also what is known as the 
 academic twang, an inflection which cannot 
 be defined, but which is not agreeable to the 
 House of Commons. He lay, moreover, under
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 365 
 
 unjust suspicion from having been Gladstone's xm. 
 private secretary ; for he was held not to have 
 sufficiently shaken off the awe with which he 
 had regarded his former chief. This was neither 
 fair nor true. He stoutly and victoriously main- 
 tained his first budget against the criticisms of 
 the great financier who had preceded him in 
 office, and ever afterwards combated him with 
 spirit ; the misfortune was that it was in a 
 tone which, physically considered, seemed almost 
 deprecatory. In truth, his gentle yet chivalrous 
 nature was not aggressive, and thus he furnished 
 another example of the axiom that the party 
 man who is willing to go half-lengths will 
 be distanced by the party man who readily 
 goes all. So it was for a while with him. 
 Around him there gathered abundantly affection, 
 loyalty, and gratitude, all just and deserved. 
 But they availed him nothing ; it was Randolph 
 who, without these precious attributes, won. 
 And by a strange fate they vanished together, 
 for Randolph's resignation was simultaneous 
 with Northcote's tragic but happy death ; it 
 was, in a way, the indirect and innocent cause 
 of it. 
 
 But to return from this contrast to Randolph 
 and his methods. While he battled on party 
 lines he was a party idol. It was not till he 
 began to go counter to party ideas that every one 
 fell foul of him. Then he remained a party man 
 in form, but in substance and spirit he was far 
 away. That he should have allowed his prin- 
 ciples to conflict with his party is a proof of high 
 sincerity, for no man was ever in a sense more a
 
 366 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. party man more devoted, that is to say, to the 
 name and tradition of party. 
 
 This at least is certain, that he had the true 
 political instinct for a constitutional country ; 
 he was a born parliamentarian. He could feel 
 with singular judgement the pulse of both Parlia- 
 ment and people, when he allowed himself time to 
 do so or while he remained cool. When he lost 
 that touch, at the time of his fall, he was absorbed 
 in his own work and intoxicated with a popularity 
 which would have turned almost any head. To 
 many of us it also appears that he had the instinct 
 of a statesman, as apart from a partisan, and that 
 had he kept his health and controlled his fro ward 
 fits he would have sobered down into a great 
 minister. That surmise, for it cannot be more, 
 rests on his serious and responsible speeches, which 
 must be strictly distinguished from his Opposition 
 raids. 
 
 What is his place in history ? Only History 
 can say. That Muse has a sieve of her own ; 
 much that was reputed corn is found to be chaff, 
 and unexpected treasures of grain are found in 
 it. Private members of Parliament, like Francis 
 Horner, survive the highest officers of State. 
 Men like Newcastle wield the power of the country 
 for half a century, and are only remembered as 
 objects of scorn. Intellectual princes like Fox 
 and Canning enjoy their political supremacy but 
 for a few months, while to the honest mediocrity 
 of Liverpool after a long tenure of high office 
 there comes a fifteen years' tenure of the Prime 
 Ministership ; it all seems a chance, though there 
 is nothing perhaps less accidental. The nearest
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 367 
 
 parallel to Randolph may possibly be found in xin. 
 Charles Townshend like him a young politician ; 
 like him, for a space, the darling of the House of 
 Commons ; like him Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 for a tenure to be counted by months Randolph 
 five and Townshend twelve ; both sparkling, 
 wayward, and incalculable. Both luminaries 
 were, for their hour, to employ Burke's famous 
 sentence, lords of the ascendant. Both had to 
 acknowledge one mightier figure Townshend in 
 Chatham, and Randolph in Gladstone. Both 
 ended young. Townshend died Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer at forty-two ; Randolph's official 
 life terminated at thirty-seven. 
 
 It is scarcely worth while to pursue the analogy, 
 for such resemblances are seldom more than 
 vague and general. In the main point it con- 
 spicuously fails. Randolph had the makings of a 
 statesman, Townshend had not. To live politic- 
 ally from day to day, to allow vanity to be tickled 
 or temper irritated into any course however 
 perilous or even ruinous, to be as fitful as a 
 summer's breeze : that was Townshend. 
 
 Randolph in the blind heat of Opposition 
 might be all this, but when invested with power 
 he took grave and large views. Nothing, for 
 instance, could have tempted him to the incredible 
 fatuity of being taunted on the spur of the moment 
 into a pledge to tax the Colonies, a few months 
 after he had repealed the Act for that purpose. 
 Everything we read of Charles Townshend tends 
 to the conviction that he was a poor creature 
 with a brilliant brain. Randolph had a brilliant 
 brain, but no critic will ever call him a poor
 
 368 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiu. creature. Townshend left a sinister memory in 
 the loss of the American Colonies. Randolph, 
 on the contrary, was the instrument of adding 
 Burmah to the Empire. 
 
 But putting Townshend aside, is it possible 
 to conjecture Randolph's historical position ? 
 In one sense he cannot fill a large page, for he 
 left behind him no great measure. Nor did he 
 found a school or inaugurate a policy ; for Tory 
 Democracy is seldom mentioned in these days, 
 save in the mournful accents of some bereaved 
 devotee. But he will long be cited as a political 
 prodigy, he will encourage those who wish to play 
 a great figure in youth, he will be studied for 
 the methods of his extraordinary success. Such 
 studies and encouragements may well be falla- 
 cious, for imitations do not answer ; but they will 
 keep his name alive. And who knows but that 
 in the reorganisation of a new Conservative party 
 the phrase Tory Democracy may once more be 
 heard, and utilised with all the enthusiasm which 
 its capacious denomination is calculated to inspire. 
 Of parliamentary reputation Randolph is sure. 
 Short careers in Parliament by no means imply 
 oblivion. The name of Hamilton survives almost 
 tediously by a single speech. Charles Townshend 
 lives by another. Archbishop Magee, though he 
 delivered others that were notable, maintains 
 his renown by his famous oration on the dis- 
 establishment of the Irish Church. Hawkins was 
 long remembered for one striking effort on the 
 Reform Bill. The single session of 1866 was at 
 once the occasion and the term of Lowe's ora- 
 torical splendour.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 369 
 
 Randolph's real parliamentary life lasted six xm. 
 years from 1880 till his resignation. His son 
 indeed says that his speeches from 1887 to 1890 
 " were the best in manner and command he ever 
 made." * What this exactly means I do not 
 know, but it does not affect the view here taken 
 of his career. Whatever else these speeches may 
 have been, they cannot be called successful, 
 whereas the speeches from 1880 to 1886 were 
 an almost unbroken triumph. After his resigna- 
 tion he lost his self-confidence. Grattan once 
 observed that no one had heard Fox to advantage 
 who had not heard him before the Coalition ; 
 or Pitt, who had not heard him before his resigna- 
 tion in 1801 ; for though they both afterwards 
 spoke with surprising ability, " each felt that he 
 had done something which required defence : 
 the talent remained, the mouth still spoke great 
 things, but the swell of soul was no more." This 
 subtle and extravagant distinction for, after all, 
 the oratorical masterpieces of both Pitt and 
 Fox were delivered in two May evenings in 1803, 
 twenty years after the Coalition and two years 
 after the resignation was, in a sense, true of 
 Randolph. After his resignation he spoke with- 
 out confidence or authority or satisfaction to 
 himself. He told his friends that the reason 
 he spoke in the country was that he could no 
 longer speak in the House of Commons. There 
 he had no followers and few friends, and was 
 treated with unkindness and mistrust. There 
 is a sad instance of this given by Mr. Churchill, 
 when he asked for a glass of water in the middle 
 
 1 Life, ii. 380.
 
 370 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xin. of a speech and could find none to fetch it. 1 
 Again, there is the painful and public separation 
 from Jennings, almost his last parliamentary 
 associate and confidant, with the pathetic notes 
 which are printed in the biography. 2 In any 
 case, his definite career may be fairly limited to 
 six years. During that time he gained signal 
 victories in Parliament, in the country, in the 
 councils of his party. During that period he 
 captured the Caucus, and overthrew his leaders, 
 and gained the ear and attention of the nation. 
 But, somehow, all these victories were fruitless 
 and barren. After his victory in the Conservative 
 Union, he, in the opinion of Mr. Gorst and others, 
 suddenly surrendered to the defeated faction. 
 When he had overthrown his leader, he could 
 occupy but not retain the place. The ear and 
 the attention of the nation seem to have availed 
 him but little when he needed them most. " He 
 was a Chancellor of the Exchequer without a 
 budget, a leader of the House of Commons but 
 for a single session, a victor without the spoils," 3 
 says his son. 
 
 All this is true, but it is not the whole truth. 
 The fairy godmother had perhaps denied him 
 one necessary gift, but she had given him all, or 
 almost all, the others. Many have risen to the 
 highest place with far less of endowment. And 
 even with his unfulfilled promise he must be 
 remembered as one of the most meteoric of 
 parliamentary figures, as the shooting - star of 
 politics, and as one who, when in office, strove 
 for a broad and enlightened policy to which 
 
 1 Life, ii. 415. " Life, ii. 420. 3 Life, ii. x.
 
 LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 371 
 
 he pledged his faith and his career. He will be xin. 
 pathetically memorable, too, for the dark cloud 
 which gradually enveloped him, and in which 
 he passed away. He was the chief mourner at 
 his own protracted funeral, a public pageant of 
 gloomy years. Will he not be remembered as 
 much for the anguish as for the fleeting triumphs 
 of his life ? It is a black moment when the 
 heralds proclaim the passing of the dead, and the 
 great officers break their staves. But it is a 
 sadder still when it is the victim's own voice that 
 announces his decadence, when it is the victim's 
 own hands that break the staff in public. I 
 wonder if generations to come will understand 
 the pity of it, will comprehend the full tragedy 
 of Randolph's marred life. 
 
 There is, of course, as has been said, a different 
 view from all this, a view that must constantly 
 be kept in mind in considering Randolph's 
 position. To many excellent persons, both Tory 
 and Liberal, Randolph was little less than an 
 incarnation of evil, a reckless and insolent icono- 
 clast ; a conspirator against the fathers of his 
 own political creed, while outraging and insulting 
 the venerable chiefs of the other. He was, in 
 their judgement, unscrupulous, violent, unprin- 
 cipled ; an intriguing schemer, a ruthless plotter ; 
 one who, to serve the personal ambition which was 
 his sole motive, would stick at nothing. His son 
 has wisely not shrunk from setting down some 
 of the abuse of which he was the object, 1 and it 
 all now seems trivial enough. But much of all 
 this obloquy only proved that Randolph's shafts 
 
 1 Life, i. 275.
 
 372 MISCELLANIES 
 
 xiii. had produced wounds that rankled. There were 
 at least grains of truth in the lampoons, but only 
 with regard to his course as an unregenerate free- 
 lance, before he had assumed responsibility and 
 office, and entered on the graver, larger life of 
 administration and policy. 
 
 This may, of course, be a wholly mistaken 
 estimate of Randolph's character. Misgivings 
 may well beset the pen that traces it, for it is 
 written by one who feels for him all the affection 
 of a long friendship, but who was always his 
 political opponent. I see, as all the public saw, 
 many faults ; but I remember what the public 
 could not know, the generous, lovable nature of 
 the man. I cannot forget the pathos of the story ; 
 I mourn, as all must mourn, to whatever party they 
 belong, that he had not time to retrieve himself, 
 not time to display his highest nature ; I grieve, 
 as all must grieve, that that daring and gifted 
 spirit should have been extinguished at an age 
 when its work should only have just begun. 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Book Slip-25m-9,'60 (.8293684)4280
 
 UCLA-College Library 
 
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