Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/contemporaryportOOwestrich 
 
CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 SIR CHARLES WOOD'S 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OP 
 
 INDIA 
 MEMOIR OF SIR H. 
 
 KEPPEL, G.C.B. 
 ONE CITY AND MANY 
 
 MEN 
 
SIR ALGERNON WEST 
 
 Frontisf>itc* 
 
CONTEMPORARY 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 MEN OF MY DAY IN PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RT HON. SIR ALGERNON WEST 
 G.GB. 
 
 9 i > • a i • • 
 
 With 24 Illustratíons 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. 
 LONDON i s ADELPHI TERRACE 
 
X 
 
 > 4 4 The.eyxe^ent LoréVerulam has noted it as one of 
 wí .''".' "<ttegreáideficieíities<)f biographical history that it is 
 formost part confined to theactions of Kings, Princes, 
 and great personages, who are necessarily few ; while 
 the memory of less conspicuous though good men 
 have been no better preserved than by vague reports 
 and barren eulogies. 
 
 ISAAC WALTON. 
 
 First published in 1920 
 {A II Righis Reserved) 
 
CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ....... 3 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE WORK OF THE CIVIL SERVICE . . .15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 MY ENTRY INTO THE SERVICE .... 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S APPRECIATION OF THE SER- 
 VICE 37 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 SIR HENRY MAINE AND LORD HAMMOND . . 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 57 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 SIR THOMAS FARRER AND SIR HENRY TAYLOR 67 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SIR RALPH LINGEN, SIR T. E. MAY, SIR SPENCER 
 
 WALPOLE, SIR LOUIS MALLET ... 75 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " TOM » TAYLOR, SIR ARTHUR HELPS, R. HER- 
 
 BERT, SIR C. TREVELYAN . . . ,89 
 
 v 
 
 447068 
 
vi Contents 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PAG* 
 
 SIR E. RYAN, SIR T. FREMANTLE, LORD BLACH- 
 FORD, SIR E. BRADFORD, SIR G. DASENT, 
 W. R. GREG X03 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LORD THRING, SIR H. OWEN, SIR R. MEADE, SIR 
 A. BLACKWOOD, SIR ROBERT HAMILTON, 
 LORD CARDWELL, SIR R. THOMPSON, LORD 
 HALIBURTON, SIR R. KNOX .... 119 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 H. CALCRAFT, SIR A. PANIZZI, SIR C. R. WILSON, 
 
 A. TROLLOPE, SIR J. LAMBERT . .133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SIR E. DUCANE, SIR E. HAMILTON, LORD SAND- 
 FORD, SIR R. PALGRAVE, F. T. PALGRAVE, SIR 
 K. DIGBY, A. LIDDELL, SIR G. LUSHINGTON, 
 LORD ROWTON, SIR H. COLÉ, F. SCUDAMORE 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 LORD WELBY 159 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SIR S. PONSONBY, SIR F. MOWATT, SIR A. WOODS, 
 
 SIR A. SCOTT GATTY x8x 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 SIR ROBERT MORANT 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 NO. 10 DOWNING STREET axx 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SIR ALGERNON WEST . . . Frontispiece 
 
 FAONG PAGE 
 
 SIR LOUIS MALLET 8 
 
 SIR ARTHUR HELPS 24 
 
 THE HON. ADOLPHUS LIDDELL ... 32 
 
 LORD HAMMOND 44 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 60 
 
 LORD FARRER 68 
 
 SIR THOMAS ERSKINE MAY .... 77 
 
 SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 80 
 
 «• TOM" TAYLOR 90 
 
 SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN .... 98 
 
 LORD BLACHFORD 104 
 
 SIR EDWARD BRADFORD . . . .110 
 
 SIR ROBERT MEADE 120 
 
 SIR ARTHUR BLACKWOOD . . . .124 
 
 ANTHONY TROLLOPE 139 
 
 SIR EDWARD HAMILTON 146 
 
 LORD ROWTON 152 
 
 SIR HENRY COLÉ 154 
 
 LORD WELBY 166 
 
 SIR SPENCER PONSONBY 182 
 
 SIR FRANCIS MOWATT 187 
 
 SIR ROBERT MORANT 2Q2 
 
 NO. 10 DOWNING STREET 2x4 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IHAVE ventured, by the kind permission 
 of Mr. Murray, to reproduce an article 
 on Lord Welby which appeared in the " Corn- 
 hill Magazine," and a slight history of No. 10 
 Downing Street, which as the Mecca of the 
 Civil Service appears to me to be a fitting 
 conclusión to these sketches. 
 
 Shortly after Sir Robert Morante death 
 appeared in the "Times" an obituary notice 
 which described better than I could his 
 services to the State, and this I have been 
 allowed to reproduce. 
 
 ALGERNON WEST. 
 
 viü 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 " Let us now sing the praises of good men." 
 
 THE brains and hands that have put 
 before us from time to time the 
 lives and actions of distinguished men of 
 this century are now at rest, and an attempt 
 to supply some omissions in the memoirs 
 of Justin McCarthy and of George Russell 
 and others must be made by feebler brains 
 and feebler hands. 
 
 In these days of somewhat exaggerated 
 appreciations and biographical notices, from 
 which even the living are not exempt, there 
 are many histories of those who have played 
 parts of more or less interest in the 
 world. 
 
 Politicians, poets and authors, men of 
 science, sailors and soldiers, painters and 
 actors, have not found any lack of writers 
 ready to proclaim their merits from the 
 housetops and in the Press ; but I have 
 
 3 
 
4 Coniemporary Portraits 
 
 come across little, if any, mention of those 
 who have served the State in the unosten- 
 tátious duties of the Civil Service. Many 
 of these in my long career I have had the 
 honour of knowing. It has been well said 
 that " the permanent heads of departments 
 never think of going into Parliament. They 
 regard the parliamentary statesmen who 
 are set to rule over them much as the Ben- 
 galese regard the English, as persons who 
 are less intelligent and less instructed than 
 themselves, but who are nevertheless to be 
 obeyed." I imagine that if anybody, how- 
 ever well read, were to cast his eyes over 
 these pages, he would be surprised to find 
 a number of men of whom the world knows 
 little, who, at salaries which would be 
 considered small for a chief clerk in a 
 fashionable drapery establishment, abandon- 
 ing the highest prizes of political life, have 
 worked in the service of the State — " having 
 learnt to prize the quiet lightning deed more 
 than the applauding thunder at its heels 
 which men cali fame." These men are 
 those who have not sought what Tennyson 
 calis " the blaze and blare of fame." These 
 whom their enemies cali bureaucrats have 
 
Introductor y 
 
 obtained from their work and administrative 
 capacities a reputation envied by all civilised 
 nations in the world. 
 
 Mr. R. H. Hutton, the famous editor of 
 the " Spectator," once said : " Surely there 
 is no bureaucracy in Europe so pleasant 
 and so far from the domineering manner as 
 the English." 
 
 Herbert Paul, in his " History of England," 
 well describes the position of the Civil 
 Service in this country. He says : " The 
 country is governed in ordinary times and 
 for everyday purposes by these permanent 
 members of the Civil Service, who work 
 for both parties with equal loyalty, and in 
 some cases with equal contempt. The 
 principie of continuity is identical, and it is 
 that which enables a statesman to preside 
 at once over an office of which he knows 
 nothing. He is taught and assisted, though 
 of course he cannot be directly controlled, 
 by the most efficient profession ever or- 
 ganised since the business of government 
 began." 
 
 In giving a few sketches of distinguished 
 Civil Servants I have not been unmindful 
 of Walter Bagehot's advice, that " brevity 
 
6 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 is as necessary in a memorial as on an 
 epitaph." * 
 
 Lord Tennyson, admiring Edward Grey's 
 fine perorations, asked him if he wrote 
 them beforehand, and he said " No," but 
 when the time carne for their delivery, he 
 always f ound that the arms carne where the 
 legs ought to be. To compare small things 
 with great- it exemplifies my difñculty in 
 putting in anything like chronological order 
 the sketches I have tried to make. 
 
 Carlyle has written so much and so often 
 in his own peculiar language of what a 
 biography should be, or should not be, that 
 I hope nothing I have written will come 
 under the head of a biography. What I 
 have said is meant only as a slight record 
 of a few of those whom I have for the most 
 part met in ofncial life, and many of whom 
 were my intimate friends. 
 
 There is an oíd proverb, and most of oíd 
 proverbs are true, that there are as good 
 
 1 A recent utterance of Mr. Asquith's which is already 
 classical makes me feel that I have shown too great temerity 
 in attempting to draw these sketches, for he says that " to 
 have a bad memory is a misfortune, not a crime ; but people 
 who have bad memories should not attempt to write their own 
 or other people*s lives." 
 
Introductory 
 
 fish in the sea as ever carne out of it, and 
 anybody trying to write a chronicle of the 
 good work done by the Civil Service would 
 find it impossible to do justice to his theme. 
 
 It may be well, before alluding to those 
 whom I have known since the time when 
 I entered, as a temporary clerk, the Inland 
 Revenue Department in 1852, until my 
 retirement from its chairmanship in 1889, 
 that I should very shortly speak of the 
 changes that have taken place in that 
 period. A deduction was then made for 
 pensions from all salaries, however small, 
 and if a clerk were to die in harness, and 
 could claim no pensión, all he had contri- 
 buted during his years of service — it might 
 be forty years — reverted to the Exchequer. 
 This was clearly unjust, as was shown by 
 Lord Mayo, who brought the matter before 
 the House of Commons. Sir George Corne- 
 wall Lewis, who at that time was Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, instead of remedying the 
 in justice of the existing plan, dispensed with 
 any deductions whatever, but I did not get 
 back the small contribution I had made ! 
 
 Previously to 1853 there was no examina- 
 ron necessary for entry into the Service, 
 
8 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 but in that year there was instituted a 
 qualifying examination ; and I was, I think, 
 the last who entered without any examina- 
 tion whatever. Sir Charles Wood on one 
 occasion kindly gave to me a nomination 
 for a cousin of mine, who was hopelessly 
 plucked in writing and spelling. My aunt 
 wrote to me a grateful letter for what I had 
 done for her son, adding how lucky I had 
 been to have got in before those horrid 
 examinations, which I did not take alto- 
 gether as a compliment, though I agreed 
 with her ! 
 
 Bernal Osborne, who was at that time 
 Secretary to the Admiralty, congratulated 
 me also on my luck, and soon after this 
 there carne a vacancy in the office, and the 
 son of a great friend of his, the famous Jack 
 Spalding, was nominated. He, as we all 
 knew, had not had the advantage of a too 
 liberal education. We juniors all trembled 
 for the result of the examination he would 
 have to undergo, but Bernal Osborne said 
 that the first examination under the new 
 system was so important that he should 
 conduct it himself, which he did to the 
 utmost satisfaction of the candidate, who 
 
SIR LOUIS MALLET 
 
 B] 
 
Introductor^ 9 
 
 was reported to have passed with flying 
 colours, especially in theology. It is only 
 just to say that a better ofñcial than Augus- 
 tas Spalding never existed. This state of 
 things was too good to last, and examinations 
 were hereafter to be held before Civil Ser- 
 vice Commissioners. Three candidates were 
 nominated to compete for one vacancy. 
 
 Sir William Hayter, then the clever and 
 astute Secretary to the Treasury, was not 
 to be so easily done, so he kept in reserve 
 two very dull boys who he felt sure could 
 never succeed, to run in competition with 
 his friend, whom he wished to be appointed ; 
 and this ruse went on till at last one of his 
 pet idiots was finally successful, but in 1870 
 the great change, which I have spoken of 
 elsewhere, carne when all situations, with 
 some few exceptions, were opened to public 
 competition ; but other changes had come. 
 At the time of the Crimean War, the ad- 
 ministraron of war affairs, for which at 
 that time the Colonial Office was responsible, 
 was transferred from that department to 
 a new Secretaryship of State, and in 1885 
 Sir Henry Campbell -Bannerman, then 
 occupying that office, effected a radical 
 
10 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 change by the abolition of the autocratic 
 rule of the Commander-in-Chief, then the 
 Duke of Cambridge, and the substitution 
 of the authority of various heads of depart- 
 ments under the Secretary of State. The 
 Excise Board, as Dr. Johnson described its 
 members - " wretches hired by those to 
 whom excise is paid " — with sundry boards 
 such as Hackney Carriage Boards, etc., 
 were transferred from the City to Somerset 
 House and united under the Board of 
 Inland Revenue. The oíd Court of Directors 
 of the East India Company ceased to exist 
 as a public department when the Govern- 
 ment of India was taken over by the Crown, 
 and the new India Council, after a temporary 
 residence in Cannon Row and the West- 
 minster Palace Hotel, was established in 
 the new offices in St. James's Park. 
 
 The oíd War Office in Pall Malí, where 
 the Automobile Club now exists, has been 
 transferred to Whitehall, and the statue of 
 Sidney Herbert has been moved and now 
 stands as a pendant to the statue of Florence 
 Nightingale in front of the Guards Memorial, 
 surmounted by the emblem of Victory with 
 laurel wreaths in her hands, which a cruel 
 
Introductor y 11 
 
 critic at the time of its erection likened to a 
 woman playing quoits which she was trying 
 to pitch on the head of the Duke of York. 
 The office in Cannon Row when vacated 
 by the India Office became the headquarters 
 of the Civil Service Commissioners until 
 their duties so increased that they were 
 moved to Burlington House, and the new 
 buildings in St. James's Park have absorbed 
 many outlying offices. The history of their 
 erection is curious. Barry was the archi- 
 tect of the Treasury in Whitehall, which is 
 essentially classic in treatment. He cer- 
 tainly designed Bridgewater House, which 
 in its frontage is one of the finest in London, 
 and the Travellers' Club, the treatment of 
 which, especially on its southern aspect, is 
 excellent. But he was overlooked, and 
 Gilbert Scott, the prominent architect in 
 the Gothic style, was selected to build the 
 new offices. With this view and intention 
 he prepared his plans, which were accepted, 
 but Lord Palmerston coming into office 
 wished for a building more suitable for the 
 purpose for which it was intended, and in- 
 sisted on a structure after the Italian School. 
 Gilbert Scott thereupon set himself to prepare 
 
12 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 plans which were a mixture of Byzantine 
 and Renaissance after the model of a Vene- 
 tian palace, but Lord Palmerston was firm 
 and insistent on having none of what he 
 called a " mongrel affair," and determined 
 on having a building essentially Italian. 
 When Barry designed the new Houses of 
 Parliament, he, with his Renaissance pre- 
 dilections, made the river front too regular 
 and formal, so Pugin was called in to col- 
 laborate with him in order to break it up 
 more in accordance with Gothic tradition. 
 Henee it was that the fine Victoria Tower 
 was conceived, and the beautiful octagon 
 lantern and the Clock Tower were the 
 result of Pugin's collaboration. 
 
 The Admiralty with its beautiful screen 
 was the work of Robert Adam in 1760, and 
 its Board-room adorned with the sculptures 
 of Grinling Gibbons still remains; but the 
 hideous additions to it when wireless teleg- 
 raphy supplanted the oíd semaphores have 
 made the facade towards the Park a terrible 
 example of the architecture of the Victorian 
 era. 
 
THE WORK OF THE CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE WORK OF THE CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 LECKY, in his delightful (< Map of 
 Ufe," lays great stress on the ad- 
 vantages of Tact. No doubt it is a splendid 
 asset in a man's character, smoothing his 
 passage through life and leading to success, 
 but I still maintain that work and the love of 
 it is the noblest gift that can be granted 
 and that best repays itself. 
 
 In the slight sketches I have made of 
 those who have achieved the reward of 
 well-spent lives, there is not one who has 
 not worked. The common phrase used to 
 all those ending their official career is the 
 hope that they may live for many years to 
 enjoy their well-earned rest. There is no 
 such thing as rest in this world, or in the 
 next, I fancy — if rest means idleness. The 
 man who has worked through his life 
 exclaims, as Macbeth did : " Blow wind, 
 come wrack, at least we'll die with harness 
 on our back ! M 
 
16 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Burne-Jones, whom I met a few days 
 before his death, ridiculed the idea of a man 
 dying of overwork; quoting Mr. Gladstone, 
 he said, " ' Change of labour is to a great 
 extent the healthiest f orm of recreation ' : 
 unsuccessful work might kill, not successful 
 work." That morning he had become tired 
 of painting his big picture — now, alas ! never 
 to be finished — and rested himself by having 
 recourse to a small one. 
 
 Take those of whom I speak and see 
 how they have worked till the night 
 carne. We have noticed this, moreover, 
 that, if we except a few great men of 
 power and genius, it will be found that the 
 world is governed by those who keep them- 
 selves in the background. 
 
 I recollect a great reform in the Post 
 Office which was concluded just as a new 
 political Postmaster-General had come into 
 office — a reform which had taken perhaps 
 years of hard work to elabórate — and one of 
 the party newspapers proclaimed to the 
 world that it was the result of the new 
 Government ! Well had it been if the 
 Government had been left to organise and 
 direct affairs which from knowledge and 
 
The Work of the Civil Service 17 
 
 experience they knew how to deal with, 
 instead of their being handed over to out- 
 siders gathered from the four quarters of 
 the world who were ignorant of the principies 
 of finance and the rudiments of administra- 
 ron. Had this been so the daily occurrence 
 of extravagance and discreditable scandals 
 might have been avoided. 
 
 Mr. Asquith told us the other day that 
 " there has never been a more extravagant 
 or less successful experiment in administra- 
 ron than the attempt to supersede our oíd 
 Civil Service by the importation of all sorts 
 and kinds from what is called ' the business 
 world/ " A writer of great ability and vast 
 experience writes : 
 
 " The oíd Civil Service and its great 
 traditions have been nearly swamped by 
 the influx of new departments and politicians 
 holding office f or a f ew months, during which 
 they can gain no knowledge of their business, 
 but follow the example of others, their 
 grandiose plans, their vast expenditure and 
 their army of new men commending them 
 for promotion. The civil servants, both 
 new and oíd, find themselves at the mercy 
 of transitory leaders." 
 2 
 
18 Contemporary Portrails 
 
 Yet our permanent Civil Service contains 
 some of the best brains in the country ; and 
 I wish I could solve the following enigma 
 that meets and confounds me in glancing 
 over these pages : 
 
 How does it come to pass that so many 
 men, poets, scholars and authors, added 
 to reputations in the Colonial Office — Sir 
 James Stephen, Sir Henry Taylor, Hermán 
 Merivale, Sir Frederick Rogers, Sir Robert 
 Herbert and Sir Robert Meade ? We all 
 recollect how Rawdon Crawley was ap- 
 pointed to a Colonial governorship through 
 the interest of Lord Steyne, and what a 
 servile Press said of it ; but such things do 
 not happen now, and so the mystery remains 
 — a coincidence I suppose, and nothing more. 
 
 This volume does not pretend to be in any 
 way a history of the Civil Service or even 
 of the distinguished men who have adorned 
 it. It consists of only a few and scanty 
 records of what I have seen or heard 
 during the forty years in which I had the 
 honour of being myself a humble civil 
 servant. The sketches do not profess to be 
 accurate in chronology, or indeed in any 
 detail. 
 
The Work of the Civil Service 19 
 
 Lord Rosebery, in his splendid " Life of 
 Chatham," treating of biography, says he 
 would like to know " how a man talked 
 and possibly what he thought, what was 
 his standpoint in regard to the grave issues 
 of life, what he was in his hours of ease and 
 what he enjoyed, how he unbent : in a word 
 what he was without his wig and bag and 
 sword, in his dressing-gown and slippers, 
 with a friend, a novel or a pipe " ; but I 
 have not ventured to touch on the private 
 lives of any of the men I have spoken of, 
 but class them all as gentlemen, and New- 
 man's definition of a gentleman is what 
 I mean. And now all these whose work 
 I have so sketchingly touched have passed 
 into the silent world, leaving behind them 
 an imperishable record of splendid and un- 
 selfish work, which the coming generations 
 will do well to follow; and none of us 
 need despair when we read the ñames of 
 those still alive who will afford flashlights 
 to guide us over the dark seas and dangerous 
 shallows that are to come. 
 
MY ENTRY INTO THE SERVICE 
 
 21 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MY ENTRY INTO THE SERVICE 
 
 AM not sure that I did not enter the 
 Civil Service at one of its worst 
 periods, when many of the clerks really 
 deserved the jokes that were levelled at 
 their heads. Rumour gives óne of them, 
 probably unfairly, to the credit of Sir 
 Thomas Farrer : u Why are Government 
 clerks like the fountains in Trafalgar Square? 
 Because they play all day from 10 to 4." 
 Or take Charles Lamb's description of his 
 day's work at the East India House, where 
 the clerks who presented themselves before 
 ten were given their breakfasts : 
 
 " From ten to eleven 
 Eat breakfast for seven, 
 From eleven to noon 
 Think I'd come too soon ; 
 From noon till one 
 Think what's to be done ; 
 From one to two 
 Find nothing to do. 
 From two to three 
 Think it'll be 
 A very great bore 
 To stay till four." 
 23 
 
24 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 " Punch " also was se veré : 
 
 " Clerk in Government Office, being offered 
 a cup of coffee after lunch, declines with 
 horror — ' My dear fellow, it would keep me 
 awake all the afternoon.' N 
 
 " What are your holidays ? " N Oh, 
 ah, every day from 10 to 4 and all day 
 Sunday." 
 
 " The Owl," a paper brought out about 
 this time, edited by Evelyn Ashley, who was 
 Lord Palmerston's secretary, Drummond 
 Wolñ, Lord Wharncliffe and others, gave 
 " advice to a young clerk by an oíd one." 
 "Avoid," it said, " the reputation of writing 
 quickly, otherwise the longest thing will be 
 given you to copy, and you will be left 
 working while your colleagues go to dinner. 
 Establish on your first arrival the reputation 
 of coming late ; if punctual at first you will 
 find it difficult to correct so pernicious a 
 habit. Recollect that a clerk worthy of the 
 ñame obtains tKree leaves annually : regu- 
 lar leave, extra leave, sick leave, and so on. 
 Remember how Dickens talked of the young 
 man's office day, in which he stepped out 
 a good deal and stepped back very little. 
 Cali your chief by his Christian ñame — or 
 
"cí' 
 
 SIR ARTHUR HELPS 
 
 24] 
 
My Entry into the Service 25 
 
 nickname — if shortsighted cali him Buz ; 
 if lame, Hoppy is not inappropriate." 
 
 But even then the work was done some- 
 how. Things were, I hope, improving 
 when in the year 1852 Sir James Graham, 
 then First Lord of the Admiralty, gave me 
 a clerkship in his office, and I was put under 
 the care of John Heneage Jesse, subsequently 
 the historian of the Georges. He was a 
 hardworking, capable head of a department, 
 and an excellent example for a young man 
 to follow. At that time it was difficult to 
 believe that in his earlier days he had passed 
 a " vie orageuse " in company of Lord Water- 
 ford and the brothers Frank and Charles 
 Sheridan. It was of one of these brothers 
 that Lady Dufferin, their sister, paraphrased 
 the song of the " Fine oíd English Gentle- 
 man," treating on his irregularity in his 
 habits and hours of attendance : 
 
 " And when asked where he'd been all night — 
 
 For he scorned to tell a lie — 
 He'd been sitting up with a poor sick friend 
 
 To the best of his memory ; 
 This fine young English gentleman all of the modern time." 
 
 Jesse was fond of telling us of the doings 
 of his early days. On one occasion a niece 
 
26 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 of his had been hurt at Vauxhall by a rocket- 
 stick falling on her, and was taken by Jesse 
 to a well-known Doctor Macan, in Parlia- 
 ment Street, who was sceptical as to the 
 relationship and made very light of the 
 affair. This annoyed Jesse, and he was 
 determined to have his revenge. So, as 
 he and some friends were coming back in 
 an ómnibus from a dinner at Greenwich on 
 a bright summer morning, they drew up 
 at the doctor's door and, knocking violently, 
 implored him not to waste a moment, as 
 one of their friends was lying in a fit on 
 the floor of the ómnibus. Down carne the 
 doctor in his dressing-gown and slippers, 
 and was shoved into the carriage, which was 
 driven to the top of the Haymarket, where 
 they turned him out amid the jeers of the 
 drunken revellers, to run home as best he 
 could. 
 
 When in the Admiralty I made friends 
 with Frederick Locker, who in those youth- 
 ful days was very original and entertaining. 
 He always wore gloves while performing his 
 clerical duties, for fear, as he said, he should 
 soil his hands and have to ring the bell and 
 send for the chief clerk if he wanted a clean 
 
My Entry into the Service 27 
 
 towel or a fresh piece of soap. In later life 
 he delighted the world with his brilliant 
 verses and cheery " confidences." After 
 his second marriage his muse became more 
 silent, and in the visitors' book at Newhaven 
 Court appear these lines : 
 
 " As Delilah was to Samson, 
 So is Jane to Locker Lampson." 
 
 In those early days when I was a júnior 
 clerk in the Admiralty my duties were 
 confined to index-writing and copying letters, 
 and I never saw anybody of so exalted a 
 rank as an Under-Secretary, though the 
 chief clerk used sometimes to tell me that 
 the First Lord was waiting for the document 
 I was copying to take to the Cabinet, and 
 warning me that H.M. the Queen was very 
 particular about the writing on a non-com- 
 missioned ofñcer's warrant ! 
 
 It was not long, however, after the 
 Crimean War broke out that I was put 
 into the First Lord's private office as assistant 
 to Lord Northbrook, afterwards Viceroy of 
 India, and remained with him until I was 
 appointed Private Secretary to Sir Charles 
 Wood. Lord Northbrook put Sir Charles 
 
28 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Wood much above anyone whom he had 
 seen at work as an administrator, and he 
 had filled more offices than any living man. 
 His wisdom and patience, his unbounded 
 belief in humane and just principies of 
 government, his boldness of initiative and 
 persistence in execution, carried India safely 
 through the critical transition from the rule 
 of the Company to the rule of the Crown. 
 Wood became Secretary of State for India 
 in Council, and had the difficult task of 
 organising the new Indian Department. He 
 was admirably adapted for the task in 
 health, quickness and ability. He was sup- 
 ported by a council of the greatest Indian 
 soldiers and administrators, whom he man- 
 aged with singular tact and judgment, and 
 the staff was recruited by the ablest men 
 chosen from the oíd East India Office. Mr. — 
 afterwards Sir Thomas — Seccombe was the 
 Financial Secretary, and Kaye the Political 
 Secretary of the Foreign Department. The 
 latter was author of " The Sepoy War," 
 a record which Augustine Birrell described 
 as being crammed full of activities and 
 heroism, and which forced upon the mind 
 the healthy conviction " that, after all, it is 
 
My Entry into the Service 29 
 
 bravery, truth, honour, loyalty and hard 
 work, each man at his post, which make 
 this planet habitable.' ' 
 
 The Permanent Under-Secretary was Her- 
 mán Merivale. He had been a boy of 
 extraordinary precocity, and unlike the usual 
 precocious boys, who are generally failures 
 and disappointments in later life, his abilities 
 continued to shine, for he won all the highest 
 honours at the University, and was the first 
 holder of the Ireland Scholarship. When 
 still at the Bar he had delivered a series of 
 lectures on the Colonies by which his great 
 valué became known, and in 1847 he was 
 appointed Assistant Under-Secretary for the 
 Colonies, and so remained until the retire- 
 ment of Sir James Stephen, when he became 
 the Permanent Under-Secretary. When 
 holding that office it was said of him, in 
 Herbert Paul's " History of England," that 
 he was one of the most remarkable men the 
 writer had ever met. " He was a distin- 
 guished economist, an historian and a man 
 of letters, but he belonged in all Colonial 
 matters to the oíd school : the school of 
 leading strings and giving advice. ,, Lord 
 Lytton described him when he was at the 
 
30 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Colonial Office as a man of great promptitude 
 of judgment, and vigorous, if not combative, 
 in defending his views. His intellectual 
 characteristic was " massiveness." This 
 description, however, must be applied to his 
 physical appearance only, for he was square- 
 built and thick-set — a complete contrast 
 to Sir Charles Wood, who was a thin, spare 
 man — the very ideal of activity, as if he 
 were built on steel springs ; for how could 
 a man be intellectually " massive " who 
 had a sense of humour so keen as to make 
 him the author of the delightful article, 
 " On the Malignity of Inanimate Things " ? 
 The transfer of the Government of India 
 to the Crown had recently been effected. 
 The office was located at the Westminster 
 Palace Hotel, and though the Secretary of 
 State still had rooms in Cannon Row, they 
 were seldom used. The Under- Secretary 
 had no defined place in the Council, but 
 Merivale was always consulted and his 
 advice taken by all the members of Council, 
 and by the Secretary of State. Among the 
 members of Council were the famous Sir 
 John Lawrence, afterwards Governor-Gen- 
 eral of India, Sir Robert Montgomery, the 
 
My Entry into the Service 31 
 
 successful Governor of the Punjab, whose 
 kindliness of manner and good-natured 
 face gave little indication of the man of iron 
 nerve whose foresight and cool courage, 
 when first the news of the capture of Delhi 
 reached Lahore, had disarmed an over- 
 whelming forcé of native troops, and pre- 
 vented the revolt getting hold on the Punjab. 
 It was at a ball at Lahore, as important in 
 the annals of India as the famous ball before 
 Waterloo in Brussels, amid the dancing and 
 the music, that Sir Robert had conceived 
 the idea of disarmament of the Sepoys and 
 saving the Punjab. Sir Charles Mills acted 
 as a liaison omcer between the India Ornee 
 and the City. 
 
 The changes among the Parliamentary 
 Under-Secretaries were frequent. There 
 were Lord De Grey and Lord Dufferin and 
 Lord Northbrook, who subsequently became 
 Governor-Generals of India; all of these 
 naturally I knew as great friends. 
 
 I was lucky in my early entrance into 
 London society to make the acquaintance 
 of Charles Greville, who lived in the good 
 oíd days of sinecures and enjoyed the sine- 
 cure office of Secretary of Jamaica, an island 
 
32 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 which he never visited. In 1821 he also 
 obtained the reversión of the Clerkship to 
 the Privy Council, where during forty years 
 he kept diaries which made him famous and 
 gained him a reputation as the greatest 
 diarist of his day. 
 
 Being closely connected with the " Times" 
 added greatly to his position, which became 
 remarkable. He lived in rooms over Lord 
 Granville's house in Bruton Street, where 
 Lady Granville used to cali him her " lodger." 
 Lord Granville told me that he considered 
 the early volumes of his diaries superior 
 to those written at a later period, and ac- 
 counted for this because he thought the 
 first volumes were written without any 
 fixed intention of publication, whereas the 
 later volumes were so intended. The 
 diaries were very distasteful to Queen Vic- 
 toria, who, remonstrating to Mr. Reeve, 
 the Editor, was told by him that any attacks 
 on Royal personages were made, not on 
 Her Majesty, but only on her predecessors. 
 Those who have read his memoirs (and 
 who has not ?) will have been struck by 
 his constantly pathetic lamentations over 
 his wasted opportunities, short-comings and 
 
THE HON. ADOLPHUS LIDDELL 
 
 32] 
 
My Entry into the Service 33 
 
 determination of amendment ; but Lord de 
 Mauley said that, notwithstanding, he 
 would never miss a chance of a good bet 
 on coming turf events. 
 
 I used to meet him at Lord Sydney 's 
 house at Frognall, and was terrified at his 
 grumpiness, particularly on one or two 
 occasions when I had to make a fourth hand 
 at whist. 
 
 In those days the división between oíd and 
 young was greater than it is now, and their 
 relations were not so happy. 
 
 Lord Winchilsea unkindly described the 
 diarist thus : 
 
 " For fifty years he listened at the door, 
 He heard some secrets and invented more, 
 These he wrote down, and women, statesmen, kings, 
 Became degraded into common things ; 
 They hide the smart and say, ' Tis only Greville,' 
 But wish him and his journal at the devil." 
 
 Sir Francis Doyle's claim to be in the role 
 of Civil Servants hangs on his appointment 
 to a Receiver-Generalship, and then to a 
 Commissionership of Customs in 1869, but 
 his fame was established elsewhere than in 
 Thames Street. When at the University 
 he took a First Class in Classics, became a 
 3 
 
34 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Fellow of All Souls and went to the Bar, 
 but attained little success in that profession, 
 devoting his great talents to poetry. Among 
 his writings on the going down of the 
 " Birkenhead " he wrote a touching stanza : 
 
 " There rose no murmuring from the ranks, 
 
 By shameful strength unhonoured life to seek ; 
 Our post to quit we were not trained, nor taught 
 To trample down the weak." 
 
 In 1867 he was chosen for the Professor- 
 ship of Poetry at Oxford. He wrote an 
 interesting autobiography which showed his 
 many friendships — with Sir Thomas Dyke 
 Acland, Sidney Herbert and Mr. Gladstone. 
 Of Mr. Gladstone's later politics he warmly 
 disapproved, but this did not interfere in 
 any way with their personal friendship, 
 which lasted till his death in 1897. **is 
 father took him to the Derby on June 4, 
 1824, and he was ever after devoted to 
 racing, his knowledge of horses being 
 remarkable. I have heard it said that 
 though very short-sighted he wrote the best 
 accounts of race meetings ever given. 
 
MR. GLADSTONE'S APPRECIATION OF THE 
 SERVICE 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S APPRECIATION OF THE SERVICE 
 
 THE following sketches of some of 
 those with whom I was associated 
 in the Civil Service are in the form of pen 
 portraits. How I wish that I could be 
 endowed, even for a few moments, with that 
 priceless gift that George Du Maurier gives 
 to the Duchess of Towers, and could " dream 
 a true dream " that would bring to those 
 who remain some touch of the happy days, 
 long passed away, and of the times when 
 once they 
 
 " Held debate, a band 
 Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
 And labour and the changing mart, 
 And all the framework of the land." 
 
 But it cannot be, and I can only give these 
 little sketches of the distinguished men who 
 have done honour to the Civil Service of 
 their country. I had the pleasant task at 
 one time of making a collection of their 
 photographs for presentation to Mr. Glad- 
 
 37 
 
38 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 stone. He was ever an indulgent and 
 generous master, and was perhaps inclined 
 to exaggerate the merits of the instrumente 
 he so skilfully used. From a conversation 
 I once had with him, it carne into my head 
 that he would valué a series of photographs 
 of those civil servante who had come into 
 closest touch with him in his ofñcial career. 
 
 I set to work to collect them, and I do not 
 know whether he or those who sent me their 
 photographs were the more pleased, so many 
 of them writing to express their pleasure of 
 the honour of being included in the list. 
 I wrote to Mr. Gladstone, saying : " Some 
 time ago you said you would like a collection 
 of photographs of those civil servante who 
 have had the honour of being closely 
 associated with you in your ofñcial duties. 
 I have done my best to make this collection, 
 which I now beg you to accept. In looking 
 over the roll of distinguished men I feel 
 that I owe you an apology for the irresistible 
 vanity that has led me to include myself 
 among the number." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone answered me, saying: " I 
 hardly know how to thank you sufñciently 
 for your most kind and most interesting gift. 
 
Mr. Gladstone and the Service 39 
 
 It is a noble record of a Civil Service never, 
 I suppose, excelled in any age or any coun- 
 try," etc., etc.— W. E. G. 
 
 Sir John Lambert wrote thanking me for 
 sending him an extract of Mr. Gladstone's 
 letter, saying: 
 
 " I feel that it is a great privilege to have 
 my photograph associated with the days of 
 those of which he speaks in such com- 
 mendatory terms, and the knowledge that 
 I have of their high qualifications and dis- 
 tinguished merits enables me to appreciate 
 that privilege all the more. I shall place 
 your letter with the many other records 
 which I possess of Mr. Gladstone's singular 
 generosity in estimating the services of 
 those who have had the happiness of serving 
 under him." 
 
 Sir Erskine May, afterwards Lord Farn- 
 borough, also wrote to me, saying : 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone is ever ready to acknow- 
 ledge the obligations of statesmen to those 
 who labour with them silently and unob- 
 trusively in the government of the State. 
 He could even tell you of reputations which 
 have been won or sustained in great measure 
 by the vigour and capacity of advisers of 
 
40 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 whom the world has known nothing. Of 
 such services he has himself shown a 
 generous appreciation. His own gifts are 
 so transcendent that he is able to discern 
 and valué the merits of fellow workers 
 without jealousy or grudging. I shall, I 
 hope, some day be allowed to see the ' noble 
 record ' he speaks of in terms so flattering. 
 — T. Erskine May." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was always a warm and 
 even an enthusiastic admirer of the Inland 
 Revenue and its ofncials. During the difñ- 
 cult steering of the Succession Duty Act he 
 said, speaking of Mr. Trevor, the controller 
 of legacy duties, that during the passage 
 of the Bill through Committee he was 
 repeatedly aghast at the damaging criticisms 
 levelled at the measure, but visits to Mr. 
 Trevor sitting under the gallery invariably 
 succeeded in dispelling the fears which had 
 been engendered in his mind. 
 
 Of Sir Charles Pressly, then Chairman 
 of the Board of Inland Revenue, Mr. 
 Gladstone once remarked that when he 
 entered his room it was like a ray of 
 sunshine breaking through the clouds of 
 financial difnculties. 
 
SIR HENRY MAINE AND LORD HAMMOND 
 
 41 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SIR HENRY MAINE AND LORD HAMMOND 
 
 IN connection with Indian administra- 
 ron I must first speak of Sir Henry 
 Maine, who was born in 1822. In 1840 
 he won an exhibition to Pembroke College 
 at Cambridge, where he gained many dis- 
 tinctions in Classics and Poetry, and was 
 Sénior Classic, belonging to the famous 
 " Apostles Club." l Tom Taylor and H. 
 Hallam were among his contemporaries 
 and friends. In 1847 he became Regius 
 Professor of Civil Law and was called to 
 the Bar in 1850, and contributed many 
 articles to the " Saturday Review." Sir 
 
 1 A club of long standing at Cambridge, composed of under- 
 graduates and called the Cambridge University Club. It was 
 more or less secret, and no list of members was given to the 
 world, and outsiders were not supposed to know who were 
 members ; the number of them was twelve, henee its 
 ñame. They were all philosophers, and each member in turn 
 had to read a paper on some philosophical subject, which was 
 criticised and discussed. Each speaker took his place on the 
 hearthrug, whence he delivered his remarks. 
 
 43 
 
44 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Charles Wood, in 1861, offered him the post 
 of legal member of Council in India, which 
 his ill-health compelled him to refuse. The 
 post was again oñered to him in 1862, and 
 this time the improvement in his health 
 enabled him to accept it. This post he held 
 for seven years under three Governor- 
 Generals. In 1871 he was given the K.C.S.I. 
 and appointed to a seat on the India Council. 
 He had refused many honourable oñers, 
 among them the Chief Justiceship of Bengal, 
 and Under- Secretaryships of the Home and 
 Foreign Offices. His literary talent, which 
 was very great, was fully exercised in the 
 production of many valuable essays and 
 books, but in February 1888 he died at 
 Cannes. 
 
 Still to some extent and at one period 
 of his career closely connected with India, 
 there is Edmund Hammond, afterwards Lord 
 Hammond. He was the son of George 
 Hammond, a diplomatist of considerable 
 note, who held the post of British Minister 
 at Washington from 179 1 to 1795 (a some- 
 what critical period), and served as Under- 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 
 1795 to 1806. He was a friend of Canning 
 
44] 
 
 LORD HAMMOND 
 

Lord Hammond 45 
 
 and one of the editors of the " Anti-J acotan." 
 Edmund Hammond took a first-class degree 
 at Oxford before entering the Foreign Office. 
 He accompanied Sir Stratford Canning 
 (afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe) 
 to Constantinople, Madrid and Lisbon in 
 1831 and 1832, but subsequently settled 
 down in the Foreign Office until 1873, 
 working his way up through various depart- 
 ments until he became Permanent Under- 
 Secretary of State. He was one of the best 
 of public servants ; an indefatigable worker, 
 taking too much, perhaps, on his own 
 shoulders. He was the Foreign Office — he 
 kept all the strings in his own hands. It 
 was said of Gibbon that he did not know the 
 difference between himself and the Román 
 Empire ; it might be said of Hammond that 
 he did not know the difference between him- 
 self and the Foreign Office. 
 
 Seven years before his retirement his 
 services were recognised by a Privy Council- 
 lorship — a distinction rarely conferred upon 
 a subordínate officer. He probably knew 
 more about foreign affairs than was known 
 to any one man in all the chancelleries in 
 Europe. 
 
46 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 But his reputation for political prescience 
 has been ruined by the fact that on July 5, 
 1870, when Lord Granville was taking over 
 the seáis of the Foreign Office after Lord 
 Clarendon's death, he had been told by the 
 Under-Secretary of State that with the 
 exception of the trouble caused by the murder 
 in Greece of Mr. Vyner and his friends by 
 brigands, he (Mr. Hammond) had never 
 during his long experience known so great 
 a lull in foreign affairs, and that he was not 
 aware of any pressing question which Lord 
 Granville would have to deal with im- 
 mediately. The very next day carne the 
 announcement of the candidature of a 
 Prince of Hohenzollern for the crown of 
 Spain, which led to the outbreak of war 
 between France and Germany within less 
 than a fortnight. But history has shown us 
 that such errors of judgment are not in- 
 frequent. On this occasion the menace of 
 the rivalry between France and North Ger- 
 many was always in the background. Am- 
 bassadors at Paris, Berlin and other courts 
 were alike deceived, though somewhat 
 puzzled, by that treacherous calm. Bis- 
 mark probably alone fully realised the 
 
Lord Hammond 47 
 
 result of the coup which he was secretly 
 preparing. 
 
 History is apt to repeat itself, and Ham- 
 mond's unf ortunate error in prophecy was no 
 greater than that in one of Lord Dalhousie's 
 despatches to Queen Victoria in 1856, which 
 is worth recording : 
 
 11 The Marquis of Dalhousie 
 to Queen Victoria. 
 
 " Government House, February 29, 1856. 
 
 " The guns are announcing from the 
 ramparts of Fort William that Lord Canning 
 has arrived. In an hour's time he will have 
 assumed the Government of India. Lord 
 Dalhousie will transfer it to him in a state 
 of perfect tranquillity. There is peace within 
 and without — and although no prudent man 
 will ever venture to predict the certainty of 
 continued peace in India, yet Lord Dalhousie 
 is able to declare, without reservation, that 
 he knows of no quarter in which it is prob- 
 able that trouble will arise." 
 
 Up to 1860 the Foreign Office was estab- 
 lished in a building composed of three 
 rather dingy houses long swept away, the 
 
48 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 best of which, looking on to St. Jámese 
 Park, had been occupied by Mr. Canning. 
 Here you might have met ambassadors 
 seeking interviews and ministers on the 
 way to the Cabinet, and here Mr. Hammond, 
 who was the Foreign Office, sat. Lord 
 Redesdale described him as a man of an 
 imposing figure, big and burly, with rather 
 a quick and jerky incisive manner which 
 was apt to make men shy till they got to 
 know him well. As a Russian secretary 
 of embassy, whose English was more 
 fluent than correct, once said : " She is 
 very quick, Hammond, she." In early days 
 he must have winked at the doings of the 
 young spirits in what was called " the 
 Nursery," who beguiled the time when they 
 were kept waiting for expected work by var- 
 ious impromptu sports. Spencer Ponsonby, 
 Dolly Oom, John Bidwell, Dick Wellesley, 
 were the genial souls, but one of their 
 amusements was brought to a cióse on a 
 complaint being made to Lord Palmerston, 
 then Foreign Secretary, who desired to 
 know who were the young gentlemen who 
 used to dazzle the young ladies in the 
 opposite street, and who, he said, were un- 
 
Lord Hammond 49 
 
 gallant enough to cast reflections upon them 
 with a looking-glass. 
 
 Though greatly interested in all the details 
 of the new building into which the Foreign 
 Office was moved, Mr. Hammond regretted 
 the loss of the oíd room which he had loved 
 and lived in f or so many years and through 
 so many changes of administraron, which, 
 with its large windows looking on to the 
 Park, was not without its attractions. He 
 always resented the Cabinet Councils being 
 held elsewhere than in the Foreign Office, 
 but Mr. Gladstone could not bear the size 
 and magnificence of the new Foreign Office, 
 and preferred the less stately but more 
 historical room in No. 10 Downing Street. 
 
 It may be well to add to the credit of Lord 
 Hammond that four men, whose early ofncial 
 days began under his guidance, have gained 
 well-merited distinction in after life. 
 
 Philip Currie passed forty years in the 
 Foreign Office and became Permanent 
 Under- Secretary of State in 1889. He 
 served in the British Legation at St. Peters- 
 burg, and when Lord Salisbury went as 
 British Plenipotentiary to Constantinople, 
 Currie was appointed Secretary to his special 
 4 
 
50 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 mission. He also accompanied Lord Salis- 
 bury to the Congress of Berlín. He was 
 chosen to accompany Lord Northampton's 
 mission to invest King Alfonso of Spain, 
 and in 1882 was appointed Under-Secretary 
 of State, and subsequently Permanent Under- 
 Secretary of State, succeeding Lord Paunce- 
 fote. He was chosen by Lord Rosebery in 
 1893 as Ambassador to Constantinople, 
 where he remained for nearly five years. 
 
 The appointments for which he was 
 selected by succeeding Secretaries of State 
 speak to their appreciation of his services. 
 
 In 1903 he was made a peer, and died 
 three years after that time. 
 
 And now at this moment in which I write 
 I hear of the death of an oíd friend, Frank 
 Bertie, for many years our Ambassador in 
 Paris, where he won a remarkable popularity, 
 so great that it was at the request of the 
 French Government that the term of his 
 office was prolonged. 
 
 C. Vivian entered the Foreign Office in 
 1 85 1, and was attached to several special 
 missions under Lord Clarendon at Paris in 
 1856. In 1869 he became a chief clerk, 
 and in 1873 he was made Cónsul-General 
 
Lord Hammond 51 
 
 at Alexandria, and at Bucharest in the 
 following year. He became Resident Minis- 
 ter to the Swiss Confederation in 1879, and 
 two years later Minister-Plenipotentiary to 
 Brussels. He was Ambassador to Rome in 
 1892, dying there in 1893. 
 
 Algernon Mitford, afterwards Lord Redes- 
 dale, entered the Foreign Office in 1858, 
 and was appointed Second Secretary to 
 Japan in 1866. He filled the Office of 
 Works from 1874 to 1886, and has written 
 two interesting volumes of autobiography 
 dealing largely with his experiences in 
 Japan. 
 
 There were many stories told of Mr. 
 Hammond. He laid great stress on main- 
 taining the decorous appearance of the 
 Foreign Office, in despite of the temptations 
 to untidiness which were a natural result 
 of the rather shabby labyrinthine character 
 of the buildings in which it was housed. 
 In the minute books kept by the different 
 departments is recorded an ukase issued 
 one sultry summer — " Clerks are not to 
 walk about the passages in their shirt- 
 sleeves " ; and one of the earliest recollections 
 of a surviving member of the staff of those 
 
52 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 days is that of the Under-Secretary vigor- 
 ously pursuing a fugitive "en déshabillé," 
 and calling upon a distant office-keeper to 
 identify him. 
 
 Alfred Montgomery disapproved as 
 strongly as Hammond did of slovenly dress. 
 On a broiling day the chairman's prívate 
 secretary carne into the Board-room in his 
 shirt-sleeves. Montgomery, with his fas- 
 cinating little stammer, called him back 
 as he was leaving the room, saying : "Mr. 
 
 , should it be any convenience to you to 
 
 come in without your trousers, pray do not 
 let any consideration for the Board prevent 
 your doing so." 
 
 Hammond was much disgusted by the 
 growing popularity of the moustache move- 
 ment among his clerks, and it was said that 
 he gave five shillings to the lamplighter to 
 grow a moustache, thinking that this would 
 abate the movement, but it had no effect. 
 
 His whole life, his powerful physique, his 
 energies and abounding capacity for work 
 were absorbed in that Foreign Office from 
 which he was never absent. On one occa- 
 sion, however, Mr. Spring Rice called and 
 found him away. " Well, sir," said the 
 
Lord Hammond 53 
 
 loyal doorkeeper, " he has gone to a funeral, 
 and it's the only day's pleasuring he has 
 had for four years." I recollect a great 
 occasion when Mr. Gladstone desired to 
 send an important message to Queen Vic- 
 toria. It was late in the evening, and I 
 could not find a cypher at the Foreign Office, 
 and was told that Mr. Hammond never 
 parted with the one he had himself made 
 out of a dictionary which he never let out 
 of his sight. 
 
 On his leaving the Foreign Office for the 
 last time he took his watch to Dent's. The 
 man told him it was worn out and not worth 
 repairing. " Ah," he said, " that is my 
 case," and went sorrowfully away. 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 55 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD, born 1822, was 
 a son of the celebrated head master 
 of Rugby, at which school, of course, he was 
 educated after being a week at Winchester. 
 At Balliol he was a Newdigate Prizeman, 
 and became a Fellow of Oriel. In 1849 he 
 began publishing his poems and was chosen 
 Professor of Poetry. 
 
 In 1 85 1 Lord Lansdowne, then President 
 of the Council, offered him an inspector- 
 ship of schools. He was then a friend of 
 Clough, who was the subject of two of his 
 finest poems, "The Scholar Gypsy " and 
 " Thespis," and of John Duke Coleridge, 
 the future Lord Justice, and became a poet, 
 producing " The Strayed Reveller " in 1849 ; 
 but it was not until 1852 that he was appre- 
 ciated as a poet of high rank, and in 1857 
 he wrote the beautiful and touching poem 
 
 on his father's death, " Rugby Chapel." 
 
 57 
 
58 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 But his literary efforts did not prevent his 
 devotion to his school work, which intensely 
 interested him. If " Laudari a laudato 
 viro M can give pleasure in the further world, 
 Matthew Arnold will rejoice to hear what 
 Augustine Birrell says of him : 
 
 11 He conspired and continued to make 
 things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. 
 He was a man of this life and this world. 
 A severe critic of the world indeed he was, 
 but finding himself in it and not precisely 
 knowing what is beyond it, he like a brave 
 and true-hearted man set himself to make 
 the best of it. Its sights and sounds were 
 dear to him. The uncrumpling fern, the 
 eternal moonlit snow, Sweet William with 
 its homely cottage smell, the tinkling of 
 the bells of the height-pasturing kine, the 
 vagaries of men and women and dogs, 
 their odd ways and tricks, whether of mind 
 or manner, all delighted him." 
 
 Mr. Paul mentions that his most distin- 
 guishing characteristic was his uniform 
 urbanity, which he often preached and 
 always practised. 
 
 He was a welcome guest at every house 
 which lay within his scholastic jurisdiction, 
 
Matthew Arnold 59 
 
 but chiefly did he delight in visits to Aston 
 Clinton, where his hostess was Lady de 
 Rothschild, who fully appreciated conver- 
 sations on intellectual literature, in which 
 she was fully capable of holding her own. 
 In " Pendennis " Thackeray spoke of her 
 in a beautiful and touching passage : " There 
 I saw a Jewish lady only yesterday with a 
 child at her knee and from whose face there 
 shone a sweetness so angelical that it seemed 
 to form a sort of glory round both and 
 protection. I could have knelt before her 
 too, and adored in her the divine beneficence 
 in endowing us with the maternal ' Storge ' 
 which began with our race and sanctifies 
 the history of mankind." 
 
 Is it strange that Arnold loved his visits 
 to Aston Clinton, where he met at various 
 times Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, Robert 
 Browning, Wilberforce (Bishop of Oxford), 
 Haldane, H. Asquith, Augustine Birrell, and 
 others, less gifted perhaps, but who were 
 yet under the fascination of their surround- 
 ings ? On one occasion Arnold might have 
 met Disraeli and the Bishop of Oxford 
 together, and we can but admire the courage 
 which enabled him to resist a temptation 
 
 ,v 
 
60 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 which he said would interfere with his 
 " absorbing devotion to his school work." 
 
 Alfred Montgomery said there was only 
 one thing that he could not resist, and 
 that was temptation. Montgomery himself, 
 though perhaps not a distinguished ofñcial, 
 had charm, beauty, wit, kindness and know- 
 ledge of the world, which were useful 
 qualities to smooth the working of ofíicial 
 life. 
 
 A contemporary of Matthew Arnold spoke 
 of him asa" young, active and singularly 
 graceful man, interested in all games and 
 sports, a splendid swimmer and fisherman, 
 wholly free from pomposity and stiffness ; 
 overflowing with humour and pleasantly 
 unguarded in speech." 
 
 When Arnold was an inspector of schools 
 under the Education Department he was 
 sent on one occasion to France to make an 
 ofñcial report upon the system of education. 
 Lord Granville was then President of the 
 Council. 
 
 Arnold had just written to the depart- 
 ment complaining that the amount allowed 
 him by the Treasury for his subsistence 
 allowance whilst abroad was insufñcient, 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 6o] 
 
Matthew Arnold 61 
 
 and asking that it might be raised. But, 
 as usual on these occasions, his request was 
 refused. 
 
 Mr. Frederick Leveson-Gower happened 
 to be in Paris at the same time, and was 
 dining at one of the more expensive res- 
 taurants, where he saw Arnold at a table 
 not far off enjoying a very sumptuous and 
 expensive repast. He of course knew 
 nothing about his request for an increased 
 subsistence allowance, but as he knew 
 Arnold, although only slightly at that time, 
 he went up and spoke to him, and thought 
 he seemed rather embarrassed. Arnold, as 
 he wrote home afterwards, mistook Mr. 
 Gower for his President, as at that time 
 they were very much alike, and described 
 his concern at seeing his chief, as he sup- 
 posed, watch him consuming a very expen- 
 sive dinner, and said : " What can he have 
 thought of my request for a larger allowance 
 if he supposed that this was the scale upon 
 which I habitually lived in Paris ? As a 
 matter of fact, I have been living most 
 frugally, and had determined to have one tip- 
 top dinner the last night before I left, and 
 it was this night on which Lord Granville 
 
62 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 must needs meet me. I felt that I was 
 embarrassed, and was in two minds as to 
 whether I should tell him the whole story, 
 or leave it alone." 
 
 Arnold was once having luncheon with 
 the late Mr. Haweis, the well-known and 
 rather eccentric London clergyman, who 
 had recently had a little daughter born to 
 him. Mr. Haweis had an álbum in which 
 he was collecting autographs and sentiments 
 from well-known people for the baby's 
 future benefit, and asked his guest to write 
 something in it. Arnold was rather at a 
 loss, and said he did not know what to 
 write, to which Haweis replied, " Oh ! 
 anything suitable and topical." Where- 
 upon Arnold wrote the following verse : 
 
 " Little baby Haweis 
 Playing with your coráis ; 
 Papa will teach you music, 
 But who will teach you moráis ? " 
 
 Mr. Haweis was a great authority upon 
 music, and had recently written a book 
 called " Music and Moráis." 
 
 There was a Treasury law which said 
 that when an inspectoras work at any place 
 occupied more than one day, he must stay 
 
Matthew Arnold 63 
 
 there and not charge his fare there and back. 
 Arnold did this on an occasion when he was 
 engaged more than two days at Edmonton. 
 The Treasury queried the amount. " Why 
 did you not stop at Edmonton ? " Arnold's 
 answer was: " How could you expect me 
 to stay at Edmonton when John Gilpin 
 couldn't ? " 
 
 He had a fine head of black hair, and 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward told me that one day 
 her husband found him standing outside a 
 hairdresser's shop in Bond Street, and, 
 being asked what he was doing, he said 
 he was waiting for the artist who looked 
 after " this perpetual miracle " — putting 
 his hand to his head. 
 
 He died suddenly April 15, 1888 — a happy 
 death and after his own wish. 
 
 " Spare me the whispering crowded room, 
 The friends who come and gape and go, 
 The ceremonious air of gloom, 
 All which makes death a hideous show. 
 Ñor bring, to see me crave to live, 
 Some doctor full of phrase and fame 
 To shake his sapient head and give 
 The ill he cannot cure a ñame." 
 
 a t 
 
 I do love bullfinches/ said Matthew 
 Arnold one day at Murthly, as we stopped 
 
64 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 to admire two chaffinches that settled on 
 the roadway in front of us. Now Matthew 
 Arnold was an Oxford man and a scholar, 
 but he did not know the commonest birds, 
 plants or trees, and with all his learning he 
 missed the best in life." l 
 
 1 " Wanderings and Memories," J. G. Muíais, p. 105. 
 
SIR THOMAS FARRER AND SIR HENRY 
 TAYLOR 
 
 65 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIR THOMAS FARRER AND SIR HENRY TAYLOR 
 
 SIR THOMAS FARRER began his career 
 as a pupil of Sir Roundell Palmer, 
 afterwards Lord Selborne. He was called 
 to the Bar and was employed by the Board 
 of Trade in the preparation of the Merchant 
 Shipping Bill, which passed in 1849. His 
 services in the preparation of that measure 
 and its passage through Parliament were 
 very great and led to his appointment to 
 the Board of Trade as Permanent Secretary. 
 He was a man of great activity, shrewd and 
 quick in manner, keen about reform and 
 anxious to serve the public. In the matter 
 of gas legislation he found the companies in 
 possession of virtual monopolies in each of 
 their respective districts in London, the 
 only protection possessed by the public being 
 the máximum price that they might charge. 
 This was coupled with a máximum dividend 
 beyond which they might not go. As the 
 companies earned easily enough to pay their 
 
 67 
 
68 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 máximum dividend they had no incentive 
 to do anything for the good of the public, 
 either by reducing prices or improving the 
 supply. Farrer was largely instrumental 
 in introducing the reform by which, in 
 return for reduction of prices to the public, 
 the gas companies were allowed to pay 
 higher dividends. It might be said that he 
 carried his anxiety to protect the public too 
 far, for, imitating the zeal of the Board, 
 Parliament imposed such restrictions and 
 conditions on the promoters of new under- 
 takings requiring parliamentary powers, 
 that enterprise was considerably curtailed. 
 
 When Bright became President of the 
 Board of Trade, Farrer thought that a 
 brilliant era of reform was opening. He 
 was rather damped when after listening to 
 his exposition Bright remarked : " Well, 
 Mr. Farrer, don't you think we could hang 
 on a little as we are ? M 
 
 All the reforms in commercial law were 
 due to his influence. When Mr. Chamber- 
 lain became its President, Farrer was sur- 
 prised to find how ignorant he, Chamberlain, 
 was of all economic questions. At the same 
 time he was struck by his adroitness in 
 
LORD FARRER 
 
Sir Thomas Farrer 69 
 
 assimilating and reproducing arguments 
 which he did not understand. " Dogmatic 
 in his views and of a controversial tempera- 
 mento" said the writer in the " Dictionary 
 of National Biography," " especially dis- 
 trustful of the extensión of State interfer- 
 ence, and a Free Trader of unyielding 
 temper, he yet maintained cordial relations 
 with successive ministers." He maintained 
 his strong views after his retirement, and 
 effectively combated the heresies of bounties 
 and bimetallism, and became President of 
 the Cobden Club. In Paul's " History of 
 England " it is said that among the bene- 
 factors of the working classes a high place 
 should be given to Sir Thomas Farrer. 
 
 Mr. George Leveson-Gower gives me a 
 good instance of the keenness Farrer felt 
 on subjects in which he was interested. 
 
 He lived at Abinger Hall, a few miles from 
 Holmbury, Surrey. 
 
 " One day my father asked him to come 
 over to lunch to meet Lord Courtney, who 
 was staying with us, but he beat about the 
 bush and finally declined. On my father 
 continuing to press him to come, and asking 
 why he could not do so, he at last confessed 
 
70 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 that it would not be pleasant to him at that 
 moment to meet Lord Courtney because he 
 was a bimetallist." 
 
 Farrer was inclined to recruit his office 
 from outside, which did not make for his 
 popularity therein, but he introduced Robert 
 Herbert for the head of the railway, and 
 Hamilton, who subsequently was Secretary 
 for Ireland, as Chief of the Statistical De- 
 partment, and both these appointments 
 were admirable and justified his selection. 
 
 He set an example, happily not required 
 in the Civil Service, of pecuniary scrupulosity. 
 He found soon after being appointed to the 
 Board of Trade that the interests of that 
 department touched so many sides of life 
 that it was almost impossible not to be 
 charged with favouritism to " the interests.' ■ 
 Consequently he sold all British investments 
 of every character, and did not hold any 
 during his period of office. 
 
 On his retirement he did loyal service as 
 an alderman of the London County Council, 
 and I had the honour of being his successor. 
 
 Among those whom I personally knew, 
 I wish that I could include Sir Henry Taylor, 
 the author of " Philip Van Artevelde," a 
 
Sir Henry Taylor 71 
 
 play much thought of at the time. In 
 early lif e he had been appointed to a clerkship 
 in the Colonial Office : later on he refused 
 an offer to become an Under-Secretary — 
 stating " that the choice of a Permanent 
 Under-Secretary of State was in his opinión 
 by far the most important function that can 
 devolve upon a Secretary of State to exer- 
 cise." Rejoicing o ver the appointment of 
 Sir Frederick Rogers as Under-Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies, he described him as 
 having practical abilities of the highest 
 order, a just and penetrating judgment, and 
 a habit of searching out every question that 
 was before him in its whole breadth and 
 length and yet dealing with it. 
 
 Sir Henry for many years was absorbed in 
 the slavery question, and exercised a large in- 
 fluence on all Colonial questions with succes- 
 sive Secretaries of State. As Charles Greville 
 said, he ruled half the West Indies in the 
 Colonial Office with an invisible sceptre. 
 He pleaded ill-health as preventing him 
 from attendance at his office, and was 
 allowed to have all despatches and papers 
 sent to him in the country. Mr. Gladstone 
 used to cali him " the glory and the shame 
 
72 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 of the Civil Service." It was a curious fact 
 that, although when in office the asthma 
 prevented his living in London, on his retire- 
 ment he chose that place for his home, until 
 he migrated to Bournemouth, where he died. 
 Great as was his influence in Colonial affairs, 
 his reputation was as great in the world of 
 letters ; but he has written two volumes of 
 autobiography, which perhaps is enough. 
 He was a vain man, and was so pleased by 
 the scarlet robes of his D.C.L., which had 
 been bestowed on him by the University of 
 Oxford, that he used to wear them at his 
 own dinner-table, whereby hangs a tale. 
 Years after his death a resident at Bourne- 
 mouth, going to her room, saw in the passage 
 a man in a scarlet robe disappear through a 
 door. Of course she had no explanation of 
 this coincidence, but afterwards heard that 
 Sir Henry had lived and died in the house 
 she was occupying. 
 
SIR RALPH UNGEN, SIR T. E. MAY, SIR 
 SPENCER WALPOLE, SIR LOUIS MALLET 
 
 73 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SIR RALPH LINGEN, SIR T. E. MAY, SIR SPENCER 
 WALPOLE, SIR LOUIS MALLET 
 
 SIR RALPH LINGEN was a friend of the 
 Master of Balliol, and gained the 
 Ireland Scholarship in 1838. Soon after 
 leaving the University he entered the Educa- 
 tion Office, and was the author, under Lowe, 
 of the revised code which brought down on 
 them both the most violent attacks. He 
 became Secretary to the Treasury in 1869, 
 where he showed a rare combination of 
 scholarship and business capacity. In an 
 office where it was his principal duty to say 
 " No " to most of the ill-considered demands 
 upon the public purse, he was ever ready 
 to give his sanction to those who put before 
 him wise and reasonable proposals for 
 schemes which appealed to his views of 
 true economy, and his remarkable modesty 
 helped him through all his difficulties. Mr. 
 Gladstone as Chancellor of the Excheque r 
 
 75 
 
76 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 eulogised him as one of the greatest living 
 benefactors of the country, as a ferocious 
 economist, parsimonious with public money, 
 looking upon the chief of each spending 
 department as an enemy against whom he 
 defended the public treasury. Speaking 
 from many years of ofñcial intercourse, I 
 can saf ely say that I never had one moment 
 of unnecessary interference or unreasonable 
 exercise of authority. 
 
 Sir Ralph was very fond of rlding, and 
 might be seen every morning after his pre- 
 liminary canter in Rotten Row arriving 
 punctually at the garden gate of the Treas- 
 ury, followed by a groom with a heavy 
 portfolio containing the results of his over- 
 night work. 
 
 On his retirement he became a peer, but 
 so far as I know he took no part in debate 
 in the House of Lords. 
 
 Sir Ralph Lingen was old-fashioned and 
 precise. When the Order of the Bath is 
 conferred by the Sovereign the recipient 
 has the medal placed over his shoulder 
 suspended by a long riband which reaches 
 down below the waistcoat, but it is the 
 custom for ordinary use to cut the riband 
 
«P1UMI 
 
 SIR THOMAS 
 
 [77 
 
Sir Ralph Lingen 77 
 
 so as to bring the order cióse to the neck ; 
 Sir Ralph, however, always wore his decora- 
 tion at the full length, as he considered 
 that it should be worn as having been so 
 placed by the Sovereign. 
 
 It was told of him that one night he heard 
 a noise in the pantry of his house, and going 
 down he encountered a burglar and asked 
 him most civilly what he was doing there. 
 The man said that he had never done a job 
 like that before, whereupon Sir Ralph said, 
 " Will you come upstairs with me into the 
 hall ? " where he begged the intruder to 
 take a seat while he went to summon a 
 policeman. The man was so overeóme by 
 Sir Ralph's civility that he waited till the 
 arrival of the constable, who took him into 
 custody. 
 
 In 1886 Sir Thomas Erskine May, who 
 had for many years been Clerk of the House 
 of Commons, became Lord Farnborough. 
 He was the embodiment of parliamentary 
 procedure, having begun his career as 
 Assistant Librarian in the House of Com- 
 mons and written books which have been 
 ever since recognised and accepted as 
 authoritative, not only in England, but in 
 
78 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 foreign countries. Amongst them his " Con- 
 stitutional History of England since George 
 III " will always remain the text-book on 
 all matters connected with the laws of 
 Parliament. Sir Thomas Erskine May 
 remembered the Speaker leaving the chair, 
 followed by the great majority of members, 
 and proceeding in haste to the riverside to 
 watch the race f or Doggett's Coat and Badge. 
 History repeats itself, for in 19 19 the House 
 adjourned for an hour to witness the poor 
 show called the River Pageant. 
 
 No man was ever fitted more adequately 
 than Sir Thomas for the post he held, for, 
 with all his knowledge, he was ever ready to 
 help those who carne to him for advice. 
 Sir William Fraser gives an instance of Sir 
 Erskine May's readiness in surmounting a 
 dimculty. In Speaker Denison's time a 
 difficult question on order aróse, and leaning 
 o ver to Sir Erskine, he asked what on earth 
 he was to say. Sir Erskine whispered : 
 " I recommend you, Sir, to be very cautious," 
 and slipped away behind the chair. 
 
 On the walls of St. Margaret's, West- 
 minster, is a memorial erected by friends 
 who record his eminent services to the 
 
Sir Tilomas Erskine May 79 
 
 State. " He was," it relates, " fifty-four 
 years in the service of the House of Com- 
 mons, during fifteen years of which he held 
 the office of ' Clerk of the House. J He was 
 the author of historical works of standard 
 merit, and above all of ' The Treatise on the 
 Law and Usage of ParliamenV and by this 
 work alone he conferred lasting benefit on 
 the Parliament of the United Kingdom as 
 well as on every State where Parliamentary 
 Government prevails. His friends have 
 raised this Memorial in token of affection 
 and of their admiration of a life devoted to 
 the Public Service/ ' 
 
 Spencer Walpole at the age of nineteen 
 became a clerk in the War Office, having 
 won the first place in the preliminary exami- 
 naron in 1857. He was his father's secre- 
 tary and then private secretary at the Home 
 Office to Sotheran Estcourt in 1859. In 
 those positions he gained a good experience 
 in official work and fitted himself for the 
 position his father gave him in 1867 as 
 a fishery inspector, while in his leisure time 
 he worked for Frederick Greenwood on the 
 " Pall Malí Gazette," and wrote the life of 
 his grandfather, Spencer Perceval. In 1878 
 
80 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 he produced the beginning of his " History 
 of England from 1815." In 1882 he was 
 appointed by Mr. Gladstone to the Governor- 
 ship of the Isle of Man, where he performed 
 good service for twelve years. Having a 
 considerable time for literary work, he wrote 
 an omcial life of Lord John Russell. In 
 1890 he produced that part of his History 
 which reached down to 1856, when he was 
 appointed Secretary to the Post Office. 
 His aptitude for organisation enabled him 
 during five years to eñect many reforms in 
 his department. 
 
 In 1897 ne was the British delégate to 
 the Postal Congress at Washington. There, 
 as in London, he gained well-deserved 
 popularity. He was chosen president of the 
 Literary Society, an office which his father 
 held for thirty years. In 1899 he resigned 
 his secretaryship at the Post Office. 
 
 A good and hard-working omcial, he had 
 earned a distinct reputation, but his History 
 places him in a high order of literary merit. 
 Sir Alfred Lyall, whose testimony was very 
 valuable, pronounced him as having a style 
 clear, level and straightforward, and of 
 great merit, and considered that he has 
 
SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 
 
 8o] 
 
Sir Spencer Walpole 81 
 
 filled large vacant spaces in the history of 
 our country. 
 
 He was eagerly sought after as a director 
 by important city companies, and died only 
 too soon, leaving no son behind him. 
 
 I cannot but think that Spencer Walpole 
 was not sumciently appreciated for the 
 great work he undertook and completed 
 in his " History of England," which ex- 
 tended from the conclusión of the great 
 European War of 1 815 to 1856 ; a history 
 which has been spoken of as " possessing 
 a knowledge derived from experience of the 
 world. The spirit of detachment, a just 
 sense of proportion, an aptitude for the 
 handling of statistics, with a perception of 
 the right deductions which should be drawn 
 from them, and scrupulous accuracy, are 
 high qualifications for the history of recent 
 events ; all of which he possessed." This 
 should have led to greater fame than has 
 yet been accorded him. 
 
 Sir Louis Mallet (1823- 1890), who held 
 a place of his own among the civil servants 
 of the last century, passed through the usual 
 stages of a young clerk in the Board of 
 Trade, including private secretaryships to 
 6 
 
82 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 two Presidents, before he found his oppor- 
 tunity as an Assistant Commissioner and 
 Cobden's right-hand man in carrying into 
 effect the Commercial Treaty with France 
 in 1860. He was thus launched on a period 
 of diplomatic work in connection with the 
 Treaty policy which lasted for some ten 
 years, until its abandonment by Mr. Lowe 
 in the first Gladstone Ministry, owing to 
 what he held to be a narrow and pedantic 
 preference for a policy of commercial isola- 
 tion. But his association with Cobden, for 
 whom he had an enthusiastic admiration, 
 had a decisive effect on Mallet's own outlook 
 and career ; he had become, in Lord Morley's 
 words, " one of the most eminent advocates 
 of Cobden's principies to be found among 
 English statesmen." His later ofticial life 
 was sharply distinguished by his severance, 
 for the above-mentioned reason, from the 
 Board of Trade, where Sir Thomas (after- 
 wards Lord) Farrer, a very able ofncial of 
 a different type, succeeded him. The Duke 
 of Argyll, wishing to secure more adequate 
 representaron at the India Office of British 
 commercial policy and finance, nominated 
 him in 1872 to a seat on the India Council, 
 
Sir Louis Mallet 83 
 
 and two years later appointed him to succeed 
 his cousin, Hermán Merivale, as Permanent 
 Under-Secretary of State, a post which he 
 held for nearly ten years during the strongly 
 contrasted viceroyalties of Lords North- 
 brook, Lytton, and Ripon. His son, in a 
 short biography published in 1905, gives an 
 account of the part he played in the Indian 
 controversies of the day, particularly in 
 connection with economic and financial 
 problems, including bimetallism, his ad- 
 vocacy of which brought him into conflict 
 with some more orthodox friends. But the 
 bigger questions underlying our presence 
 in India, which succeeding years have 
 brought ever more urgently to the front, 
 continually exercised his thoughts, and his 
 correspondence is often occupied with specu- 
 lations as to the ultimate fate of our rule, 
 and whether it would long be possible to 
 reconcile the claims of the two seemingly 
 incompatible ideáis — those of democracy 
 and empire — which the destiny of Great 
 Britain had forced upon her. 
 
 But it was Mallet's personality rather 
 than his experience in government, varied 
 as that was, which gave him the authority 
 
84 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 which he undoubtedly exercised among 
 leading men of his generation. Lord 
 Cromer, for instance, spoke of his death 
 as " to me an irreparable calamity. . . . 
 Besides the intímate knowledge he possessed 
 of economic science, of which he had made 
 a special study, his high-minded attachment 
 to principie, and his keen insight into the 
 forces in motion in the political world, 
 rendered his advice of the utmost valué.* ' 
 Much of this influence was due to his natural 
 gift of expression both in writing and in 
 conversation. Sir Arthur Godley (now 
 Lord Kilbracken), who succeeded him at 
 the India Office, observed on one occasion : 
 " He had an extraordinary gift of lucid 
 exposition both on paper and (what is still 
 more uncommon) viva voce M ; and he had 
 a charm of manner which the late Mr. R. H. 
 Hutton, the famous editor of the u Spectator," 
 described when he said, in words which are 
 equally flattering to the Civil Service and 
 to the subject of his remar ks : " Even in 
 England, bureaucrats seldom have the ease 
 and polish of Sir Louis Mallet, and . . . 
 even among English departmental chiefs 
 Sir Louis Mallet was remarkable for the 
 
Sir Louis Mallet 85 
 
 courtesy without blandness, the confidence 
 without presumption, the knowledge of the 
 world without worldliness, the ease without 
 easiness, which made all intercourse with 
 him a pleasure and a refreshment." 
 
 Some of these characteristics were no 
 doubt traceable to his foreign extraction, 
 for he was the grandson of Mallet du Pan, 
 the well-known champion of constitutional 
 monarchy in France during the Revolution, 
 who died as an " emigré " in this country 
 at the end of the eighteenth century, and 
 whom he resembled in some physical and 
 intellectual attributes — in the prescience, 
 for instance, which often caused him to be 
 dubbed a pessimist. He was fortúnate in 
 his friendships and was a welcome member 
 of a social circle united by many common 
 ties and sympathies which I can best de- 
 scribe as that which used to gather in the 
 hospitable, though rather intellectually ex- 
 clusive, houses of Lord Arthur Russell and 
 Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff. Most of them 
 have now passed away, and if Mallet's ñame 
 is remembered at all it will perhaps be for 
 his reasoned opposition to the forces of 
 Socialism and Imperialism, which he looked 
 
86 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 upon as interdependent, and to which he 
 hoped against hope that an honest and 
 thorough application of the principies of free 
 exchange (as he expounded them in a few 
 scattered writings not so well known as they 
 might be) would prove an antidote. 
 
TOM" TAYLOR, SIR ARTHUR HELPS, 
 R. HERBERT, SIR C. TREVELYAN 
 
 87 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 h T0M i, TAYLOR, SIR ARTHUR HELPS, R. HERBERT, 
 SIR C. TREVELYAN 
 
 ^T^OM TAYLOR may be claimed as a 
 
 X civil servant, doing good work as 
 Assistant Secretary in the administration of 
 the Public Health Act in 1850, when there 
 was an outbreak of cholera ; but his farne 
 was gained as a dramatist and as editor of 
 " Punch," and a prolific playwright. He 
 told us one night at the Cosmopolitan how, 
 coming from Clapham, where he lived, he 
 had entered into conversation with the bus 
 driver. 
 
 " It seems to me, sir," he said — " it seems 
 to me, sir, as Society's well-nigh at an end 
 in París.' ' 
 
 " How so ? " said Taylor. 
 
 " Why," he continued, " I was reading 
 last night that they were making barricades 
 of omnibuses, and I thinks to myself, when 
 they does that, Society's well-nigh at a 
 hend." 
 
 89 
 
90 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Tom Taylor was a great friend of 
 Thackeray. They shared chambers when 
 " Pendennis " was written. The chambers 
 were well described : 
 
 " They were fusty, they were musty, 
 They were grimy, dull and dim, 
 The paint scaled off the panelling, 
 The stairs were all untrim." 
 
 Sir Arthur Helps, a highly cultivated 
 Clerk of the Council, succeeded Mr. William 
 Bathurst in that office. He was the author 
 of " Friends in Council " and many other 
 books, including " Essays written in the 
 Intervals of Business, " which is in my 
 opinión delightful reading. 
 
 No one could with better judgment write 
 a description of the relation between the 
 political and permanent officials of the 
 State : 
 
 " A kindred subject to administraron is 
 that of the relative position and conduct of 
 the principal legislative and administrative 
 functionaries. It is an interesting point 
 connected with government to consider 
 how permanent officers and transitory 
 political officers of a higher grade should 
 act together. It might naturally be expected 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■;%;. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 Pm?- " 
 
 t (/ 
 
 
 ^< 
 
 x-^iS! 
 
 ¡H 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^i¡¡ 
 
 
 Íwá 
 
 
 
 Hft 
 
 \i¡a 
 
 
 mmám 
 
 
 
 
 ^meam 
 
 iS» 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 1 ¿ 
 
 
 
 HIIf 
 
 m 
 
 ..-, í ,- 
 
 
 "^ 
 
 y : '; 
 
 £=r~ 
 
 
 %f 
 
 -v^^r 
 
 
 
 
 Photo] 
 
 
 
 [/- 
 
 melón 
 
 Stereoscopic Co. 
 
 
 c 
 
 TOM" TAYLOR 
 
 
 90] 
 
Sir Arthur Helps 91 
 
 that this joint action would be somewhat 
 difticult. The permanent ofñcer, a Per- 
 manent Under-Secretary for instance, is 
 generally chosen with great care. He is 
 often a person who is distinguished for 
 general knowledge and ability, and then he 
 is likely to have an amount of special know- 
 ledge which it would take many years of 
 official drudgery for the political chief to 
 attain. In fact, to use a common phrase, he 
 is the master of the situation, and he may be 
 inclined to make an ungenerous use of his 
 advantages. On the other hand, a political 
 chief, conscious that all power rests with 
 him, that he has to undertake the defence 
 of the department in Parliament, and that 
 he may be misled or overpowered by the 
 special knowledge of the permanent official, 
 would naturally, if he were a small-minded 
 man, be a little tempted to be captious and 
 overbearing. Moreover, he is tempted to 
 think that unless he makes many comments 
 and objections to the proposal of the per- 
 manent ofñcer, he may be supposed not to 
 understand the business at all. In short, 
 there are temptations on both sides to in- 
 judicious conduct. But whether, to use 
 
92 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 a word which is a great f avourite with French 
 people, there is so little that is ' sinister ' 
 in the nature of the public men of this 
 country, or whether it is that men holding 
 office become almost immediately attached 
 to their department and identified with its 
 interests, the practical result is that these 
 high permanent officers and these still 
 higher political personages as a rule get on 
 very well together. I have uniformly found 
 that these two classes of official men speak 
 well of one anothér ; and, in short, gener- 
 ally end by becoming sincere friends. There 
 is not indeed a better basis f or lasting f riend- 
 ship than that which is elicited by public 
 men working together for the same purpose 
 — namely, the public good." 
 
 Sir Arthur soon won the confidence of 
 Queen Victoria, and helped Her Majesty in 
 many literary ventures. 
 
 Robert Herbert was a brilliant classical 
 scholar who for a time was Governor of 
 Queensland. His ability, disinterestedness 
 and zeal were very remarkable. After re- 
 linquishing his governorship, his health not 
 being what it was, he went back to the 
 Colonial service to take charge of a depart- 
 
Robert Herbert 93 
 
 ment which was in need of a head. The 
 strain put upon him at that time hastened 
 his end. Like many other able men, he 
 had the not uncommon fault of trying to 
 do too much himself, which caused over- 
 work and consequent loss of power. He 
 was a genial and kind-hearted man, and 
 at the same time something of a cynic. He 
 did not like fools, but had a sneaking affec- 
 tion for a rascal, if the rascal was humor ous 
 and amused him. He would take infinite 
 pains and give himself any amount of 
 trouble to make good the mistakes of such 
 
 a one, saying : " Poor little P , he is no 
 
 worse than the others, they are all a lot 
 of duffers." There was a man who was 
 always getting into trouble and always 
 bringing anxiety and extra work to Herbert, 
 but he never refused to support him. 
 
 He genuinely loved the Colonies and 
 devoted himself entirely to their well-being. 
 Sir George Grey in referring to his services 
 says he was a man who controlled the 
 destinies of the Colonial Office, and Sir 
 Charles Dilke described him as the perfect 
 permanent official. 
 
 Charles Trevelyan, though still a boy, 
 
94 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 had attained considerable proficiency in 
 oriental languages, and having obtained a 
 nomination from the Directors of the East 
 India Company to the Bengal Civil Service, 
 he was chosen soon after his arrival in 
 Calcutta as assistant to Sir Theophilus 
 Metcalfe, the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
 Northern Provinces, who was an able and 
 sagacious administrator of unimpeachable 
 integrity and untiring industry — a splendid 
 chief for a young man to have as a master. 
 It was not long before Trevelyan had gained 
 his opportunity and become, after rapid 
 promotion, the Secretary to the Sudder 
 Board of Revenue, which he held until 1838. 
 Writing of himself, he spoke of the intellec- 
 tual prowess and capacity for prolonged 
 exertion felt by him when, having gone to 
 bed an hour or so before midnight, he woke 
 up as long after. " Never," said he, " did 
 my brain seem clearer or stronger and the 
 work of minute writing easier or better done 
 than when indisposed to sleep. I went 
 through my papers often in the quiet which 
 precedes the dawn." 
 
 This habit made possible the amount of 
 work he performed. When at home on 
 
Sir Charles Trevelyan 95 
 
 furlough he was made Permanent Secretary 
 of the Treasury in London, and thereby 
 placed at the head of the English Civil 
 Service. He was then thirty years oíd ; 
 but he had been engaged during twelve 
 years in responsible and important public 
 work in India, at Delhi, in Rajpootana and 
 at Calcutta. Entering upon his new duties 
 with the energy of a man in the spring time 
 of life, combined with the experience of a 
 practical administrator, he dealt success- 
 fully with relief works in Ireland during the 
 failure of the potato crop and consequent 
 famine of 1845-47. 
 
 Lord Macaulay, at the head of a Royal 
 Commission, had recommended that all 
 appointments to the Indian Civil Service 
 ought to be made on the basis of an open 
 competitive examination of a scholastic 
 character. This recommendation was 
 speedily acted on, and in 1853 Mr. Gladstone, 
 having great confidence in Trevelyan's 
 judgment, chose him and Sir Stafford 
 Northcote to inquire into the organisa- 
 tion of the Civil Service at home, and 
 more particularly into the mode of entry 
 into it. 
 
96 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 The report was strongly in favour of 
 throwing the Service open to free and fair 
 competition among all the citizens of the 
 country, instead of leaving it a cióse preserve 
 for prívate favouritism and electoral in- 
 fluence ; and it was mainly due to him that 
 the purchase of military commissions was 
 extinguished, and promotion in the army 
 made the reward of merit and no longer 
 an affair of money. But so great was the 
 opposition to this scheme that Lord Palmer- 
 ston, fearing difnculties in the House of 
 Commons, in 1855 created a body of three 
 Civil Service Commissioners to examine all 
 candidates for various appointments, not 
 necessarily by competition ; but on June 7, 
 1870, all the offices in the State were, in 
 spite of much opposition, thrown open to 
 public competition with the exception of 
 the Foreign Office, Lord Clarendon, then 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, going 
 so far in opposition to the proposal as to 
 say that if it was to be applied to his office 
 he would rather resign. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had always been in favour 
 of the scheme, but it had been strenuously 
 opposed by many distinguished men who, 
 
Sir Charles Trevelyan 97 
 
 like Sir Thomas Farrer at the Board of 
 Trade, disapproved of it and of Mr. Lowe's 
 división of upper and lower clerks, because 
 it introduced the military system into a 
 Service where the whole matter should be 
 " la carriére ouverte aux talents." He 
 thought the difñculty of selecting for ad- 
 ministrative posts almost insoluble, and 
 quoted the answer given by Lord Grey to 
 a member of Parliament who alluded to 
 the many places he had given his sons, in 
 justifying what he had done by saying that 
 he knew them better than anybody else, 
 and was sure they would do credit to any 
 office to which they were appointed. Had 
 the objectors lived to the present day they 
 would, I am sure, have acknowledged how 
 wrong they had been, and how successfully 
 the present scheme has brought competitors 
 of high qualifications into the ranks of the 
 Civil Service. 
 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan, as has been seen, 
 was a strong advócate of open competition 
 for all clerkships in the Civil Service ; and 
 he might have used the words of Sir Gregory 
 Hardlines in the " Three Clerks " : " What 
 if the Civil Service through his instrumen- 
 7 
 
98 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 tality should become the nucleus of the 
 best intellectual dignity in the country 
 instead of being a byword for sloth and 
 ignorance ? " 
 
 It is interesting to read of Lord Macaulay's 
 anxiety for the success of Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan's advocacy of open competition 
 for entry into the Civil Service, and his 
 difíiculties. Accustomed, he writes, accord- 
 ing to the frequent fate of permanent 
 officials, " to be pushed to the front in the 
 moment of jeopardy and thrust into the 
 rear in the moment of triumph, Sir Charles 
 had weathered more formidable storms 
 than that which was now growling and 
 blustering through all the clubs and 
 board-rooms between Piccadilly and Par- 
 liament Street." And he triumphed in 
 the end. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was amused at a story he 
 told me of a difference that Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan hadwith Mr. Wilson,the Financial 
 Secretary to the Treasury. The question at 
 dispute was to be decided by Mr. Gladstone, 
 to whom, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 the matter was referred. 
 
 On the day of the appointed meeting, Mr. 
 
SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN 
 
 98] 
 
Sir Charles Trevelyan 99 
 
 Wilson carne and said there was no necessity 
 for any intervention or Mr. Gladstone's 
 part, as he had spoken severely to Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan, who was quite determined never 
 to give offence again. On Mr. Wilson's 
 departure, Sir Charles Trevelyan arrived 
 and told Mr. Gladstone the same story, 
 saying he had spoken strongly to Mr. Wilson 
 who, with tears in his eyes, promised to 
 offend no more. 
 
 I was private secretary to Sir Charles 
 Wood when Sir Charles Trevelyan was 
 appointed Governor of Madras, and he 
 asked me to lay my hands on every Blue 
 Book I could collect for him to read on his 
 passage to India, saying that he could not 
 have too many. He was not amenable 
 to discipline, and was recalled from his 
 governorship for publicly publishing his 
 disapproval of a scheme of taxation pro- 
 posed by the Financial Member of the 
 Council of India, Lord Palmerston ; and Sir 
 Charles Wood, while justifying his recall, 
 spoke in glowing terms of his character and 
 services. In 1862 his indiscretion was 
 forgiven, and he was sent as Financial 
 Adviser to the Government of India, 
 
100 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 where he inaugurated great administrative 
 reforms. 
 
 He was a staunch Liberal, and on his 
 return to England occupied himself until his 
 death in literary pursuits. 
 
SIR E. RYAN, SIR T. FREMANTLE, LORD 
 BLACHFORD, SIR E. BRADFORD, SIR 
 G. DASENT, W. R. GREG 
 
 101 
 
• • 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SIR E. RYAN, SIR T. FREMANTLE, LORD BLACHFORD, 
 SIR E. BRADFORD, SIR G. DASENT, W. R. GREG 
 
 THE long battle of open competition 
 was by this time over, and the office 
 of Chief Commissioner was filled by the 
 appointment of Sir Edward Ryan, who had 
 been Chief Justice of Bengal and a member 
 of the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council. The office he now held was new 
 and required great knowledge, tact and 
 judgment, which were not wanting. Sir 
 Edward was Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 
 sity of London, and a member of the Dilet- 
 tanti Society, where his picture would not 
 give the onlooker an idea of a wise and sober 
 judge. 
 
 Sir Thomas Fremantle, afterwards Lord 
 Cottesloe, was Chairman of the Board of 
 Customs when Mr. Gladstone was Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, who used to say that they 
 never looked at a subject through the same 
 eye, though the Chancellor was ready to 
 
 103 
 
104 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 admit that the subordínate always loyally 
 carried out his master's measures. To him, 
 however, I owe a deep debt of gratitude, f or 
 he was the father of my dear friend Charles 
 Fremantle, secretary to Mr. Disraeli and 
 subsequently Deputy Master of the Mint 
 and Government Director of the Suez Canal. 
 He was beloved by all his friends, and a 
 story told before by me, showing his modesty, 
 was this : Corning out of the Cosmopoli- 
 tan one night, where a young member of 
 the Government was holding forth and lay- 
 ing down the law, he said, " What a bore 
 that fellow is ! He is always cocksure about 
 everything, whereas you and I go crawling 
 through the world thanking God we are not 
 found out." 
 
 As Thackeray says : " Ah, what a lucky 
 thing it is for you and me, my man, that 
 we are not found out in our pe^adilloes." 
 
 Frederic Rogers, afterwards Lord Blach- 
 ford, was born in 1811, being the eldest 
 son of Sir Frederic Leman Rogers, Bart. 
 He greatly distinguished himself as a scholar 
 both at Eton and Oxford, where among his 
 friends and contemporaries were Mr. Glad- 
 stone (a lifelong friend), Hope Scott, Hur- 
 
LORD BLACHFORD 
 
 104] 
 
Lord Blachford 105 
 
 rell Froude, and Church, afterwards Dean 
 of St. Paul's. Arthur Hallam and Selwyn, 
 afterwards Bishop of New Zealand and 
 Lichfield, were with him at Eton, but went 
 to Cambridge. In 1833, having taken his 
 degree with a double first class, he was elected 
 a Fellow of Oriel — at that time the highest 
 honour that an Oxford man could attain — 
 his performance in the examination being 
 pronounced by Keble, one of the examiners, 
 to be among the very best that he had ever 
 seen. Rogers was thus brought into the 
 very centre of the so-called Tractarian 
 movement ; he was the intimate friend of 
 Newman, Froude, Keble, Church, and the 
 other leaders of that memorable time, and the 
 influences to which he was then subjected 
 remained with him till the end of his life. 
 
 In 1837 he was called to the Bar at Lin- 
 coln's Inn, but he did not sever his connection 
 with Oxford, and, although he became a 
 good lawyer, he never practised. His high 
 reputation caused him to receive offers 
 of omcial work of a kind for which legal 
 knowledge was required, and he was thus 
 gradually attracted into the permanent Civil 
 Service. After being employed on various 
 
106 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 special missions in the West Indies and 
 elsewhere, he was finally appointed in 1860 
 to succeed Hermán Merivale as Under- 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies, to the 
 great delight of Sir Henry Taylor, then the 
 most distinguished member of the Colonial 
 Office staff. 
 
 This post he held for eleven years, during 
 which time his influence was very great, 
 and his advice and assistance were most 
 highly appreciated by successive Secretaries 
 of State. There is an amusing story which 
 illustrates the opinión that was held in the 
 Colonies as to his official ascendency. The 
 Chief Justice of Victoria once remarked, 
 when speaking in the Assembly : M It might 
 be said with perfect truth that the million 
 and a half of Englishmen who inhabit these 
 colonies, and during the last fifteen years 
 have believed that they possessed self- 
 government, have really been governed for 
 the whole of that time by a person of the 
 ñame of ' Rogers.' " 
 
 His performance of the duties of this 
 important office was recognised by the 
 bestowal of the K.C.M.G. in 1869 and the 
 G.C.M.G. in 1883 ; in 1871, on his retire- 
 
Lord Blachford 107 
 
 ment, he was raised to the peerage and was 
 subsequently sworn as a Privy Councillor. 
 It is safe to say that he was generally re- 
 garded as one of the ablest, if not the ablest, 
 of the civil servants of his time, and the 
 high honours that he received were univer- 
 sally approved as being no more than his 
 due. In 1 85 1 he had succeeded his father 
 in the baronetcy, and had inherited a 
 beautiful property in Devonshire — Blach- 
 ford — from which, on being made a peer, 
 he took his title. 
 
 His interest in ecclesiastical and theolo- 
 gical matters never left him. Among the 
 manifold duties of his post at the Colonial 
 Office, none were more congenial or more 
 sure of his attention than those which re- 
 lated to the government of the Church in 
 the Colonies, and this was one of the few 
 subjects on which, after his retirement from 
 office, he spoke in the House of Lords. In 
 1846, before he was a member of the per- 
 manent Civil Service, he had been one of 
 a small band of High Churchmen (among 
 them Montague Bernard and R. W. Church, 
 afterwards Dean) who started the " Guard- 
 ian " newspaper. The enterprise was under- 
 
108 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 taken in a spirit of propagandism, from the 
 highest motives, and with little or no hope 
 of avoiding pecuniary loss ; but in this case 
 virtue was its own reward, for the paper 
 soon had a large circulation, and for many 
 years brought in a considerable income to 
 its founders. 
 
 In private life he was one of the most 
 interesting and attractive of men, full of 
 knowledge on very many subjects, and dis- 
 tinguished by a most genuine and almost 
 excessive humility, which in a man of such 
 unusual abilities was a very noticeable 
 characteristic. It was, however, combined 
 with a very clear and decisive judgment, 
 and a firm adherence to the opinions which 
 it led him to form. 
 
 He was married, but had no children. 
 After eighteen years of retirement, spent 
 almost entirely at his home in Devonshire, 
 he died in 1889. 
 
 A few years after his death a selection 
 from his private correspondence was pub- 
 lished, and was widely recognised as a 
 volume of great interest and high literary 
 merit. In a note appended to one of the 
 letters it is recorded that Cardinal Newman, 
 
Sir Edward Bradford 109 
 
 a few days before his death, dictated a 
 message in which he said that " of all his 
 friends Lord Blachford was the most gifted, 
 the most talented, and of the most wonderful 
 grasp of mind " — a remarkable testimony 
 from one who so widely differed from him 
 on the subject which was the chief interest 
 and motive power of his life. 
 
 Sir Edward Bradford's career of military 
 success and the story of his splendid courage 
 in India are too well known to be mentioned 
 here, but as a Commissioner of the Metropo- 
 litan Pólice he maintained a reputation, 
 which has been less fully recognised, f or that 
 powerful administration, that courage and 
 that faculty for the management of men 
 which he had won so successfully in his 
 long service in India. It would be impos- 
 sible for the present generation to under- 
 stand the peculiar charm of manner which 
 endeared him to all manner of people. I 
 only wish I could describe his qualities as 
 a civil servant. 
 
 In 1890 they were brought to a severe 
 test and not found wanting. A grave 
 disaffection had sprung up in the pólice 
 forcé and a general strike was threatened, 
 
110 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 aggravated by differences between the Com- 
 missioner, Mr. Munro, and Mr. Matthews, 
 who was then Home Secretary. Thirty- 
 nine men refused to go on duty, and a strike 
 threatened. 
 
 Sir Edward acted with manly vigour, 
 at once dismissed them all and sternly en- 
 forced discipline, and then devoted himself 
 to remedial measures. Not one of the 
 pólice stations but was personally visited 
 by him, where he listened to all com- 
 plaints and paid attention to the physical 
 and moral welfare of the forcé. Many 
 a morning, when the London world was 
 taking its morning walk, Sir Edward might 
 be seen on a young four-year-old coming 
 back from a visitation of distant quarters, 
 for which he had started while others slept. 
 
 Apart from his crushing the threatened 
 strike, he was responsible for order during 
 the disgraceful rowdyism of the Mafeking 
 days, the disorderly meetings of the so-called 
 unemployed, the Diamond Jubilee of Queen 
 Victoria and the Coronation of Edward VII ; 
 and I well recollect how the crowd cheered 
 the pólice as they moved off from their 
 arduous duties on those occasions. All this 
 

 
 
 
 
 .. ..... 
 
 ■■.■::.■■■■■■.■■.■..,.■,■■,■ . ■ .,; ■ ..;..;. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^B|HH9p4^| ^BK ^^Bi v mí 
 
 
 
 Photo] 
 
 [JStffotf 6- Frj 
 
 SIR EDWARD BRADFORD 
 
 / 
 
 nc] 
 
Sir Edward Bradford 111 
 
 was accomplished by Sir Edward Bradford, 
 who was beloved not only by the forcé itself , 
 but by every man, woman and child who 
 had the happiness of his acquaintance, and, 
 still more, of knowing his kindness. It is 
 well in these days to record even feebly 
 the character and career of such a man. 
 
 Sir George Dasent was at one time assist- 
 ant editor of the " Times " under his brother- 
 in-law Delane. His connection was mainly 
 with the foreign policy of that paper, but 
 his chief pursuit was study of the Icelandic 
 Sagas. He became the great authority on 
 Scandinavian literature, and translated 
 several of the great sagas. Even more than 
 Eric Magnusson and William Morris, he 
 was the means of introducing the Saga 
 literature to English readers. Lowe, who 
 had a great opinión of his success in Ice- 
 landic history, persuaded Mr. Gladstone to 
 appoint him to a Civil Service Commis- 
 sionership, the duties of which he per- 
 formed energetically. He was a great and 
 amusing talker and a fine judge of gold 
 and silver píate. 
 
 On the occasion o! Lord Rosebery's 
 marriage with Miss Hannah Rothschild, he 
 
112 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 was complaining of the absurdity of a poor 
 man giving presents to rich brides. H What 
 I should like," he said, " would be to find 
 something very rare and of no valué." 
 Lord Granville who was present said : 
 " Have you thought of a lock of your hair, 
 Dasent ? " 
 
 Now Sir George was perfectly bald. 
 
 A great bore on the subject of the 
 Baconian theory, travelling down to Ascot, 
 wearied Sir George with his reiterations, 
 ending : " And now, Sir George, what do 
 you think about it ? " " I think," said Sir 
 George, without a moment's hesitation, 
 " that your bacon is all gammon." 
 
 He was much interested in numismatics, 
 and " on one occasion, when I was a boy, 
 he asked," says George Leveson, " to see a 
 small collection of oíd coins which I had, 
 in order to be able to judge whether any of 
 them were of any valué. They were sent 
 to him in a bag, but unluckily got lost owing 
 to his changing his house at that time. He 
 was much distressed about this, and in 
 return insisted on giving me a small gold 
 lion which had been one of a pair which 
 had been fixed, one at each side, at the back 
 
Sir George Dasent 113 
 
 of the throne of King Coffee, the king of 
 Ashanti, whom Sir Garnet Wolseley (as 
 he then was) had recently defeated. Sir 
 Garnet had given the other lion to the 
 Duke of Connaught. They were made of 
 puré gold, were hollow, and of course of 
 very barbarie execution." 
 
 Dasent was once staying at Walmer 
 Castle with Count Herbert Bismarck (the 
 son of the great Bismarck), at that time 
 attached to the Germán Embassy in London. 
 
 The Count, with questionable taste, 
 alluded to the bad quality of the brandy 
 which he generally got in visiting English 
 country houses, and said that as a precaution 
 he always took a bottle of brandy with him 
 on these occasions. Dasent remarked quite 
 seriously that he entirely agreed, and that 
 for his part he never went on a visit without 
 taking two bottles. Everybody else giggled, 
 but the thick-witted Germán missed the 
 point of the remark, opened his eyes and 
 his mouth, and said, " What ? No ! Two 
 bottles ! " 
 
 Dasent was once staying at Holmbury, 
 Mr. Leveson's beautiful place in Surrey, 
 at the same time as Mr. Gladstone. Mr. 
 8 
 
114 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Disraeli was at that time Prime Minister. 
 Dasent told of him the following story. 
 
 " I met Dizzy in Bond Street the other 
 day, and he told me that he had just been 
 to the private view at the Royal Academy, 
 and said that he had never seen such 
 a wretched exhibition of incompetence ; 
 nothing but tawdry daubs without a trace 
 of genius and even hardly of talent any- 
 where. ,, He added that it was pitiable that 
 English art should have fallen so low. 
 
 Dasent then alluded to the speech which 
 Disraeli made the same evening at the R.A. 
 dinner, where he said : *' It is one of the few 
 refreshments and consolations of a jaded 
 minister, harassed by innumerable cares, 
 and with the burdens of State weighing 
 heavily upon his shoulders, to be able to 
 come here and gaze around him at the 
 resplendent specimens of British art which 
 he sees glowing in all their beauty of form 
 and colour upon these walls." 
 
 " Rather comic, wasn't it ? " added 
 Dasent. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, glowering like a thunder- 
 cloud, called out " Comic ! Do you cali 
 that comic ? I cali it devilish I M 
 
W. R. Greg 115 
 
 The Civil Service was proud to welcome 
 into its ranks, as a Commissioner of Customs 
 and then Comptroller of the Stationery 
 Office, a philosopher so distinguished as 
 Mr. W. R. Greg, who was born at Manches- 
 ter in 1809, and gained a greater reputation 
 for literary and philosophical work than for 
 ofricial success. After an education at the 
 University of Edinburgh he won a prize 
 offered by the Anti-Corn Law League for 
 the best essay on " Agriculture and the 
 Corn Laws." In 1851 he became known 
 as the author of the " Creed of Christendom. ,, 
 Mr. Morley recorded the eñect in its day of 
 this contribution to " dissolving literature." ' 
 Greg's article in the " Westminster Review " 
 was considered as the finest tribute of the 
 many called forth by Sir Robert Peel's 
 death. His writings on these and political 
 subjects drew forth the admiration of Sir 
 George Cornewall Lewis, who appointed 
 
 1 " Both William Greg and his favourite brother were of 
 what is called, with doubtful fitness, the feminine tempera- 
 ment. It was much less true of William than of Samuel Greg ; 
 but it was in some degree true of him also that, though firm, 
 tenacious and infinitely patient, he rather lacked that harder 
 and tougher fibre, both of mind and frame, which makes the 
 battle of lif e so easy and so successful to many men." (" Criti- 
 cal Miscellanies," vol. üi, " W. R. Greg : a sketch," J. Morley.) 
 
116 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 him a Commissioner on the Board of 
 Customs, and he subsequently became the 
 Controller of the Stationery Office. He was 
 thoroughly distrustful of the popular element 
 in politics, was prophetically apprehensive 
 of the approaching development of democ- 
 racy, and wrote many political problems 
 under such titles as the " Enigma of Life M 
 and M Rocks Anead, or the Warnings of 
 Cassandra." He died in 1881. 
 
LORD THRING, SIR H. OWEN, SIR R. MEADE, 
 SIR A. BLACKWOOD, SIR ROBERT 
 HAMILTON, LORD CARDWELL, SIR R. 
 THOMPSON, LORD HALIBURTON, SIR 
 R. KNOX 
 
 117 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LORD THRING, SIR H. OWEN, SIR R. MEADE, SIR A. 
 BLACKWOOD, SIR ROBERT HAMILTON, LORD 
 CARDWALL, SIR R. THOMPSON, LORD HALIBUR- 
 TON, SIR R. KNOX 
 
 LORD THRING was best known as a 
 great parliamentary draftsman, draft- 
 ing Mr. Gladstone's Succession Act of 1853 
 and the great Shipping Act, which for forty 
 years was the code of British merchant 
 shipping law, and the Companies Act of 
 1862. 
 
 In 1867, after the withdrawal of what 
 was termed " the Ten Minutes Bill," a new 
 bilí prepared by Sir Philip Rose was sent to 
 him, and he expressed his disapproval of it. 
 Thring was asked to put himself into com- 
 munication with the author, and while so 
 engaged he received a message from Disraeli 
 on Thursday, March 13, through Montague 
 Corry, that the bilí was to be entirely re- 
 drafted by Saturday, the ióth. On Friday, 
 Thring took the bilí in hand, and working 
 
 119 
 
120 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 with two shorthand writers completed and 
 laid it before the Cabinet on Saturday ; 
 it was considered by Disraeli on Monday, 
 the i8th, and circulated on Tuesday, the 
 I9th. A marvel of lightning drafting ! 
 
 On Mr. Lowe coming into office, he made 
 with Sir H. Thring, as he then was, a great 
 step towards improving the machinery of 
 the Drafting Department, and decreed that 
 all Government bilis should be drafted in 
 that office instead of by diñerent depart- 
 ments. 
 
 In 1869 and 1871 the work was tre- 
 mendous, but Thring surmounted all his 
 difñculties by hard work through a long life, 
 and was considered not only a great drafts- 
 man, but a great legislator, and died after 
 having become a peer in 1907. On his 
 retirement, like many other industrious 
 civil servants, he devoted what is called 
 his " rest " to constant work on the Sur rey 
 County Council and in the management of 
 the Holloway College. He was followed 
 by Jenkins, a worthy successor. 
 
 On one occasion he was in consultation 
 with a minister who thought he had abbre- 
 viated Jenkins's clauses and showed him 
 
 

 I20] 
 
 SIR ROBERT MEADE 
 
Sir Hugh Owen 121 
 
 his suggested improvement, and asked him 
 to look at it, which he did, and said if any 
 of his juniors had given him such a clause 
 he should have dismissed him next morning. 
 
 Sir Hugh Owen was Secretary to the Local 
 Government Board and worked with Sir 
 Charles Dilke with extraordinary assiduity 
 in the preparation of the Local Government 
 Bill. A friend of mine in high office went 
 one night during the Fenian outbreak and 
 found Sir Hugh working away at n o'clock 
 at night. He noticed tears running down 
 his cheeks and asked him what was the 
 matter. " I fear," said Sir Hugh, " that 
 my little girl is dying and I shall not see her 
 again." My friend insisted on his leaving 
 the bilí and going home at once. Shortly 
 after his departure a bomb fell and smashed 
 the chair Sir Hugh had been sitting on at 
 his midnight work. This is what we cali 
 a coincidence. " Punch " described the 
 bitter cry of Bumbledom on the approach 
 of Sir Charles Dilke's bilí : " and Vé like 
 to heave bricks at that Dilke and his long- 
 winded myrmidon Owen." 
 
 Robert Meade, who retained till his death 
 the ñame of " Bobsy," a sure sign of affec- 
 
122 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 tionate intimacy, was the second son of 
 Lord Clanwilliam, whose extraordinary 
 charm he inherited. As a young man he 
 was appointed by Prince Albert to accom- 
 pany Edward Prince of Wales on his visit 
 to the Holy Land. Originally in the Foreign 
 Office, he was chosen prívate secretary to 
 Lord Granville when President of the Council 
 in 1852. In 1862 he was made a Groom 
 of the Chamber to the Prince of Wales, 
 and in the following year he accompanied 
 Lord Granville when he was abroad with 
 Queen Victoria. In 1865 he was again 
 appointed private secretary to Lord Gran- 
 ville on his becoming Secretary of State 
 to the Colonies, and in 1870, when that 
 Minister was Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs. In 1871 he returned to the Colonial 
 Office to be Assistant Under- Secretary, when 
 he earned the highest distinction in service 
 with many chiefs, including Mr. Joseph 
 Chamberlain, who knew the valué of a good 
 man. When there he was shocked at the 
 way executions were carried out at Malta, 
 and sent for the executioner, who I think 
 at the time was Marwood, to consult him 
 on how some improvement could be effected. 
 
Sir Robert Meade 123 
 
 Marwood was most enthusiastic in favour 
 of what he called the " long drop." 
 
 " Why," said he, " Mr. Peace was a little 
 man and I gave him the * long drop,' and 
 'e passed hoff like a summer's heve.'' 
 
 " Bobsy M was selected to be a Royal Com- 
 missioner for the Paris Exhibition of 1877, 
 and was a British delégate to the Conference 
 on African questions at Berlín in 1884, 
 where he had some interviews with Prince 
 Bismarck, and many more with his secretary, 
 who led him to believe that Bismarck was 
 in favour of all his views, while at the 
 same time he was doing all he could to sub- 
 vert them — a complete example of Germán 
 duplicity. 
 
 He possessed a wonderfully attractive 
 personality and a beautiful voice, which 
 gave him the power of speaking his mind, 
 yet never giving offence. On one occasion 
 when in the country he was asked to diñe by 
 a royal duke, and he said : " Oh dear no, 
 sir ! If I was to diñe with you I should be 
 asked to diñe with all my neighbours, which 
 would be terrible/ ' and this unusual answer 
 gave no offence. On another occasion, 
 when the Government had got into some 
 
124 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 scrape, he said : " If they would only refer 
 these things to a cabinet of prívate secre- 
 tarles these troubles would not occur." 
 
 Sir Robert Meade, as he had become, was 
 a man of singular calm and solid judgment, 
 and absolutely repudiated the myth which 
 spoke of him and his master as pleasure- 
 seeking men who preferred pleasure to 
 business. Never was a greater mistake. 
 They enjoyed amusements, but never neg- 
 lected business. 
 
 Arthur Blackwood was born in May 1832. 
 He was a messmate of mine at Eton in 
 Angelo's House. In 1852 he left Cambridge 
 and obtained a clerkship in the Treasury, and 
 was one of the best-looking young men of 
 London society. In the spring of 1854 war 
 broke out between Russia and Turkey, 
 England and France, and volunteers were 
 called for by the head of the Commissariat 
 Department. Blackwood immediately volun- 
 teered, and at once started with Herbert 
 Murray, another volunteer and a brother 
 clerk in the Treasury, for the Crimea, 
 giving up his London society, of which he 
 had been a keen and popular member. 
 
 It was not long before the commissariat 
 
SIR ARTHUR BLACKWOOD 
 
 124] 
 
Sir Arihur Blackwood 125 
 
 chief wrote to Sir Charles Trevelyan at 
 the Treasury, saying all his ofñcers were 
 doing well and Mr. Blackwood in particular 
 had distinguished himself, etc. etc. 
 
 In his diary he describes most accurately, 
 as I will not, the details of that unhappy 
 war. He was a strong temperance advócate. 
 Before returning to England he had become 
 what he called " religious," and what that 
 is I will not attempt to describe ; but this I 
 know, that no man ever became a braver 
 or more true and earnest Christian. The 
 Treasury welcomed his return. After his 
 work there, faithfully performed, he in- 
 augurated meetings among the poor, and 
 later on, with increasing courage, he ad- 
 dressed those who in earlier days had been 
 among his friends in society. 
 
 In 1874 he was appointed Financial 
 Secretary to the Post Office, where he started 
 many reforms, amongst which was the 
 parcel post, which involved long interviews 
 with foreign governments ; but in 1883 his 
 health gave way. 
 
 Looking back to my friend and school- 
 fellow, I can think of no finer character 
 and no more Christian gentleman. 
 
126 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Robert Hamilton was described by Lord 
 Lingen as the most all-round man he ever 
 saw, and his career would seem to justify 
 Lord Lingen's opinión. At the beginning 
 a temporary clerk in the War Office, he 
 was soon chosen during the Crimean War 
 as a clerk in the Commissariat Department, 
 and after good work he was employed in 
 the Office of Works, and from there he was 
 chosen to take charge of the finance of 
 the Education Department and the Board 
 of Trade— two difficult jobs. In the latter 
 office he became an assistant secretary 
 and acted as a member of a Civil Service 
 inquiry at Dublin. He then became Secre- 
 tary to the Admiralty, but he had by no 
 means come to the end of his varied career, 
 for after the awful tragedy of " Tom M 
 Burke's murder in the Phcenix Park, he 
 was called upon to take charge of affairs 
 in that unhappy country as Permanent 
 Secretary. He was made a C.B., and soon 
 after a K.C.B., for services he rendered. 
 
 From experiences he gained in Ireland 
 he became a convinced Home Ruler, and 
 was a strong advócate of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Bill ; and on its rejection he was appointed 
 
Sir Robert Hamilton 127 
 
 Governor of Tasmania, which office he 
 held until 1873, when he returned to this 
 country and took an active part in framing 
 Mr. Morley's schemes for the adjustment 
 of the financial relations between England 
 and Ireland. 
 
 In all the varied offices he held, and the 
 experience he gained, he was a remarkable 
 instance of what can be achieved by an 
 honest devotion to work — work so little 
 known or valued by the world at large. 
 
 Mr. (afterwards Lord) Cardwell was Secre- 
 tary of State for the War Department in 
 Mr. Gladstone's great Government of 1868, 
 when he initiated the system of short service 
 and abolished by royal warrant purchase 
 in the Army, after the bilí with that object 
 was defeated in the House of Lords. 
 
 These important reforms were the result 
 of great and unceasing labour, but for- 
 tunately for him he had at his disposal three 
 efficient and experienced men well able to 
 grapple with the difnculties before him. 
 
 Sir Ralph Thompson was not only an 
 excellent official, but he possessed many of 
 the qualities of a statesman. It must be 
 remembered that he had to deal with 
 
128 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 soldiers who were f or the most part untrained 
 in business habits. This was no easy task, 
 and required the exercise of tact, judgment, 
 and unfailing good temper. All these quali- 
 ties he possessed to a great degree. 
 
 On his retirement he left a box behind 
 him containing a great number of letters, 
 consisting mainly of violent attacks from 
 irascible soldiers on some of his subordinates. 
 These he wisely put aside, trusting to the 
 softening effects of time to mitigate the 
 asperities which would only have led, had 
 they been answered, to a vain and angry 
 correspondence. 
 
 Lord Haliburton, born in 1832 in Nova 
 Scotia, was the son of the clever and witty 
 Sam Slick, " the inventor," as Artemus 
 Ward said, " of American humour." 
 
 His earlier days were spent in organising 
 a new commissariat which the disasters 
 attending the Crimean War had shown 
 to be necessary. In looking at his work 
 at that time, it is delightful in these spend- 
 thrift days to see how Haliburton was an 
 advócate of true economy. He made for 
 himself a great reputation in his conduct 
 of the transport and travelling allowances 
 
Lord Haliburton 129 
 
 in the Army, and was able to make large 
 reductions in expenditure. He became an 
 Assistant Director of Supplies and Trans- 
 porta Mr. Cardwell's plan of bringing the 
 Horse Guards and the Commander-in-Chief 
 to the War Ornee in Pall Malí required all 
 his energies and determinaron, and in this 
 reform Haliburton was the chief actor. 
 
 In 1872 Haliburton, at Lord Northbrook's 
 request, was sent as Deputy Accountant- 
 General to India, and re-entered the War 
 Office in 1875 as Under-Secretary of State. 
 
 Sir Ralph Knox was Accountant-General 
 of the Army for fifteen years (1882- 1897) 
 before he became Permanent Under-Secre- 
 tary. He was a f aithful economist, and won 
 the respect of such men as Lord Welby and 
 Sir Francis Mowatt at the Treasury, who ap- 
 preciated and admired the financial ability 
 with which he combated the unceasing and 
 extravagant demands for unnecessary ex- 
 penditure. His intelligent and merciless 
 criticisms of ill-digested plans did not lead 
 to his popularity, but, as a soldier once said 
 to Mr. Fawcett, who was then his private 
 secretary and who went later to the War 
 Office, " Knox is always objecting to our 
 9 
 
130 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 plans, and the worst of it is he is always 
 right." 
 
 He was one of the chief advisers of Mr. 
 Cardwell in advocating the short-service 
 system which, as has been said before, 
 that statesman introduced ; an organisation 
 of the British Army which in spite of much 
 opposition has held its ground. 
 
 All good officials have their peculiarities 
 and defects, and Knox had a great dislike 
 to any alteration in what he had once 
 written, but it sometimes happened that 
 during a long discussion, if his views were 
 slightly modified, he showed a wonderful 
 ingenuity in working round to any altera- 
 tion. 
 
H. CALCRAFT, SIR A. PANIZZI, SIR C. R. 
 WILSON, A. TROLLOPE, SIR J. LAMBERT 
 
 131 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 H. CALCRAFT, SIR A. PANIZZI, SIR C. R. WILSON, 
 A. TROLLOPE, SIR J. LAMBERT 
 
 HENRY CALCRAFT, who must not 
 be omitted from any list of re- 
 markable civil servants, was a thorough 
 man of the world with a great sense of 
 humour, an excellent judge of men, and 
 conscientious and able. He was John 
 Bright's private secretary at the Board of 
 Trade, and master and man got on well 
 together. Subsequently he became Secretary 
 of the department. Before that I met him 
 one day at a levee, where he said he had 
 written on his card : " Mr. Henry Calcraft, 
 waiting for an appointment." A pushing 
 clerk in his department had, somehow or 
 another, a small Norwegian order, and 
 bothered his chief to obtain Royal leave to 
 wear it. At last Calcraft told him there was 
 no occasion for it, for he could always wear 
 it when he was dining at home with his wife. 
 
 133 
 
134 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Calcraft was the ñame of the public 
 executioner at that time, which gave his 
 friends the opportunity of making bad 
 jokes. On his entering his club somebody 
 said : " When I come to London the hang- 
 man is always the first person I see." 
 "You may be sure," said Calcraft, " he 
 will be the last." 
 
 He was a friend of Lord Beaconsfield, 
 and wrote a book on his " witty sayings," 
 which I am sorry to say is out of print. 
 
 Sir Anthony Panizzi was one of the most 
 remarkable men of his day. Beginning his 
 career at Parma, he there became in very 
 early days an Inspector of Schools, and, 
 notwithstanding his position, conspired with 
 other young men of his age in exposing the 
 horrid iniquities of those days. He was 
 arrested, but escaped, and at Lugano he 
 busied himself denouncing the cruelties and 
 injustices of the Modenese Government. He 
 was indicted in his absence and sentenced to 
 death, but, ignoring the harmless sentence, 
 carne to London, where he was welcomed by 
 Ugo Foseólo, by whom he was introduced to 
 Lord Brougham, who, as chancellor and 
 trustee of the British Museum, appointed him 
 
Sir Anthony Panizzi 135 
 
 as assistant librarían. He had established 
 his reputation as a clever literary man, but 
 his talents were not appreciated as they 
 ought to have been by his chief, who 
 employed him chiefly in cataloguing oíd 
 pamphlets. He managed, however, to write 
 an essay which endeared him to all lovers 
 of Italian literature in this country, and 
 brought him into the social life of Holland 
 House, where there is a portrait of him 
 by Mr. Watts. 
 
 Many inquiries into Museum affairs 
 gave him the opportunity of showing his 
 brilliant attainments. In 1 850 — af ter twenty 
 years — he had succeeded in presenting 
 a comprehensive catalogue of the huge 
 library. Two years after this he had con- 
 ceived his idea of the reading-room, which 
 we all know and few of us fully appreciate. 
 He laid down the principies on which a 
 national museum should be moulded — not 
 as a show only, but as an institution for 
 the diffusion of culture. It should be a 
 department of the Civil Service and managed 
 liberally. 
 
 Princess Licchtenstein says of him that 
 he " has a lasting title to gratitude as the 
 
136 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 public designer of the far-famed reading- 
 room in the Museum and as being almost 
 the founder of the national library." His 
 end was not a very happy one, for he felt 
 neglected. On Lord Granville's visiting 
 him, he on one occasion begged that he 
 would never come again, but it was im- 
 possible to lead Lord Granville into a 
 quarrel, and he paid many more visits to 
 the sick man's bedside. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone also visited him, and I 
 well recollect his saying how easily we were 
 affected by the conveniencies of locality, 
 for the visits to Hayward, who lived in 
 St. James's, were twice as many as to the 
 great man who was ill in Bloomsbury, and 
 yet there could be no comparison between 
 the two men. 
 
 Sir Charles Rivers Wilson has himself 
 written an account of a very interesting life 
 which brought him into contact with many 
 of the foremost men at home and abroad. 1 
 He was one of the first to enter the Civil 
 
 1 Rivers Wilson says when he was Disraeli's prívate secre- 
 tary that he was a farceur, having always his tongue in 
 his cheek and not pretending to be serious when he was behind 
 the scenes. He never began to be serious till at the time of 
 the Berlin Conference. 
 
Sir Charles Rivers Wilson 137 
 
 Service under the new system of competitive 
 examinations. He was successful in being 
 appointed to the Treasury, and was singularly 
 lucky in taking the place of Sir Charles 
 Fremantle, who for a time had been em- 
 ployed elsewhere, as prívate secretary to 
 Mr. Disraeli, of whom he tells many good 
 stories. Soon after, he became private 
 secretary to Mr. Lowe when he was Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, and invented the 
 admirable match tax, with the motto of 
 " Ex luce lucellum, ,, which was unfor- 
 tunately given up. 
 
 In 1867 Sir Charles was appointed to 
 act as a delégate with Dr. Graham, the 
 Master of the Mint, on the International 
 Monetary Conference at Paris, where his 
 perfect knowledge of the French language 
 was of the greatest use. 
 
 He was also one of the Commissioners 
 of the Paris Exhibition, and in 1873 was ap- 
 pointed Comptroller of the National Debt. 
 
 He tells an excellent story of a certain 
 annuitant upon whose life the insurance 
 companies had largely invested, who used 
 to present himself half-yearly at his office 
 to prove his existence. The clerks, to 
 
138 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 whom he was well known as a garrulous 
 oíd gentleman, had some doubts as to his 
 real age, so at last a trap was laid for him 
 when he presented himself at the counter. 
 Drawn into conversation by a remark as 
 to his wonderful health, considering his 
 age of ninety-five, he agreed that he was 
 well and healthy, but, he said, " I am only 
 eighty-two." " No," said the clerk, " you 
 are quite wrong, you are ninety-five, and 
 I can prove tt " J and thereupon he produced 
 from a pigeonhole the certifícate of birth 
 which was given to the office when first 
 the annuity was bought. On reading the 
 document the applicant, apparently much 
 puzzled, said, "Yes, that's my ñame sure 
 enough, and that's the place where my 
 father and mother lived and where my 
 mother was born," and then he suddenly 
 exclaimed, " I have it 1 This certifícate is 
 that of my eider brother, who died thirteen 
 years before I was born and after whom I 
 was named." He was very indignant at 
 the f raud to which he had been unconsciously 
 a party. This led to a great controversy 
 with the insurance offices, which had to 
 refund a huge sum. 
 
ANTHONY TROLLOPE 
 
 ti» 
 
Sir Charles Rivers Wilson 139 
 
 On retirement from the National Debt 
 Office Sir Charles was chosen to go out 
 to the United States as a representative 
 of the bondholders of the Central Pacific 
 Railway. He gallantly accepted the pro- 
 posal, though he had little experience of 
 railway administration or finance. On his 
 return he was unanimously selected as 
 President of the Grand Trunk, an office 
 he held to within a short time of his 
 death. 
 
 His reputation as a financier will extend 
 beyond the confines of this country, though 
 much of his life was spent in the service 
 of the Treasury. 
 
 Those who have read Anthony Trollope's 
 " Autobiography " will be struck by the 
 picture of his sad boyhood at home, but in 
 1834 he was given a clerkship in the General 
 Post Office. Great reforms were then in 
 progress. Sir Francis Freeling was re- 
 organising the entire service, and Trollope 
 was dreaming of what might be done by a 
 júnior clerk, and was little better than a 
 grumbling and insubordínate official. But 
 Sir Francis Freeling was a friend of his, 
 and in 1850 sent him to Ireland as a Post 
 
140 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Office Inspector, where he was so efficient 
 that he was transferred to London in the 
 same position, where he quarrelled with the 
 chief , Sir Rowland Hill ; but his strenuous 
 and real loyalty to the department which 
 he loved prevented the quarrel becoming 
 serious. He acknowledges in his " Auto- 
 biography " that he had an opinión of his 
 own and made himself very disagreeable 
 and often tried to be so. He could be 
 abrupt at times as well as disagreeable. 
 At a meeting of Post Office surveyors, 
 when one of them made a speech, Trollope 
 jumped up, saying : " I entirely disagree 
 with you. What is it you said ? " 
 
 His novel M The Three Clerks M and his 
 picture of Sir Gregory Hardlines made him 
 very unpopular amongst officials at that 
 time, but another generation forgave his 
 delightful and amusing satire. 
 
 He planned out for every day and for 
 every hour the minutes he would allot to 
 literary work, and numbered the lines he 
 would write in a given time, rising at five 
 o'clock. How different was this almost 
 mechanical work from that of Thackeray, 
 who on one occasion refused a jovial dinner 
 
Anthony Trollope 141 
 
 at Richmond with some pleasant friends 
 because he had not written an article over- 
 due. On their return from that dinner his 
 friends looked in on him to learn how he 
 had got on with his article. Not one line 
 had he written ! 
 
 But we must leave Trollope and his 
 writings and revert to the Post Office, where 
 he invented the system of postage stamps 
 being sold in country villages and the 
 convenience of letter-boxes, which are now 
 so common and so useful. 
 
 Sir John Lambert, who was born in 
 February 1815, was a Román Catholic and 
 received his education at St. Gregory's 
 College in Somersetshire. 
 
 In 1854 ne was elected Mayor of Salis- 
 bury, and was the first Román Catholic 
 who was mayor of a cathedral city since 
 the Reformation. 
 
 In 1847 he Was appointed a Poor Law 
 Inspector, and the fame of his good work 
 reached the ears of Mr. Charles Villiers, 
 then President of the Poor Law Board, 
 who summoned him to London to advise 
 him on the Relief Acts and Public Works 
 Act, which were passed on his recommen- 
 
142 Contemporary Por traite 
 
 dation, and of which he was called to be 
 administrator. 
 
 In 1865 and 1867 he was engaged in 
 preparation of statistics for the Reform 
 Bills of those years. He was also a member 
 of the Parliamentary Boundaries Com- 
 mission and of other commissions on Irish 
 Church lands and on landed properties 
 in Great Britain, which produced what was 
 called the Modern Domesday Book. He 
 was subsequently Secretary of the Local 
 Government Board and established his posi- 
 tion as the recognised authority on all 
 matters connected with the franchise and 
 distribution of seats. In similar work he 
 continued to advise in all parliamentary 
 matters after his retirement from ill-health 
 in 1882. 
 
SIR E. DUCANE, SIR E. HAMILTON, LORD 
 SANDFORD, SIR R. PALGRAVE, F. T. 
 PALGRAVE, SIR K. DIGBY, A. LIDDELL, 
 SIR G. LUSHINGTON, LORD ROWTON, 
 SIR H. COLÉ, F. SCUDAMORE 
 
 143 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SIR E. DUCANE, SIR E. HAMILTON, LORD SANDFORD, 
 SIR R. PALGRAVE, F. T. PALGRAVE, SIR K. DIGBY, 
 A. LIDDELL, SIR G. LUSHINGTON, LORD ROWTON, 
 SIR H. COLÉ, F. SCUDAMORE 
 
 IN June 1894 I was a member of a 
 committee appointed to inquire into 
 the whole question of prison administration. 
 I was, following the recommendation of 
 that committee, a visitor of the Woking 
 Convict Prison and subsequently chairman 
 of the committee appointed to deal with 
 the discipline of that establishment. In all 
 those positions I had ampie opportunities 
 of seeing the important duties of Sir Edmund 
 Ducane. These duties we found to be well 
 perf ormed, and they were arduous and many. 
 He was practically the head under the Home 
 Office of all the civil prisons in England — 
 an enormous responsibility ; but it was felt 
 after the report of the Committee that the 
 time had arrived for a change which should 
 be adopted by his successor with equal 
 10 14 * 
 
146 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 knowledge and perhaps with greater elasti- 
 city in the conduct of prison affairs. Those, 
 we said in our report, who have to administer 
 a system year by year are inclined to ste- 
 reotype practices which they know have 
 produced good results and to assume for 
 that reason that they must permanently 
 form the basis of management. Sir Edward 
 Ducane had held an exceptional and it 
 may be said a commanding position, but 
 the time for a change had come. We were 
 not insensible to the valué of Sir Edmund's 
 services in the past, and Mr. Asquith, then 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department, 
 told me that he looked upon him as the best 
 economist he had known in the spending 
 departments of the Government. 
 
 Edward Hamilton, born in 1847, was the 
 son of the Bishop of Salisbury. He was 
 educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, 
 and entered the Treasury in 1870. He was 
 private secretary to Lowe when Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and to Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 In 1885 he became a principal clerk in 
 the financial branch of the Treasury, and 
 subsequently assistant secretary and joint 
 permanent secretary with Sir George Murray. 
 
SIR EDWARD HAMILTON 
 
 146] 
 
Sir Edward Hamilton 147 
 
 He was painstaking and industrious and 
 very popular, but the glory of his life was 
 the magnificent courage with which he 
 faced a protracted and painful illness, in 
 which he had the sympathy of a large 
 number of friends. 
 
 I was present at an ofñcial dinner in 
 honour of the King's birthday given by Mr. 
 Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 when he said that, departing from the 
 hitherto unbroken rule of no speeches, he 
 had the King's permission to announce His 
 Majesty's bestowal on Edward Hamilton of 
 the honour of the Grand Cross of the Bath. 
 
 Lord Sandford obtained a first class at 
 Balliol. In 1848 he entered the Education 
 Office and became secretary and permanent 
 head of that department, and was a powerful 
 worker in the organisation of the National 
 System of Education created by W. E. 
 Forster's Act of 1870, which mainly oc- 
 cupied the business of that session. He 
 also acted as Secretary to the Education 
 Department and to the Science and Art 
 Department, but it was impossible, although 
 he was an indefatigable worker, that he 
 could perform all these various duties, and 
 
148 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 in 1885 he became the first Under-Secretary 
 for Scotland. 
 
 Sir Reginald Palgrave was the fourth son 
 of Sir Francis Palgrave, and commenced his 
 career in a solicitor's office, but in 1853 
 he obtained a clerkship in the House of 
 Commons, where he became second clerk 
 assistant in 1868 and succeeded Sir Erskine 
 May as Clerk at the Table in 1886, which 
 office he held until his retirement in 
 1900. 
 
 He carried out to completion much of 
 his predecessor's work relating to the rules, 
 orders, and forms of procedure of the House 
 and the practical Treatise of the Law 
 of Parliament. He died in 1904. 
 
 Francis Turner Palgrave, eldest son of 
 Sir Francis Palgrave, was born in 1824. 
 In 1846 he was assistant private secretary 
 to Mr. Gladstone, who was then Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies and for War. He 
 then accepted an appointment in the Educa- 
 tion Department, where he became Examiner 
 and Assistant Secretary. He was a great 
 friend of Tennyson, and in 1854 published 
 a volume of poems, and was a prolific art 
 critic in the M Saturday M and " Quarterly " 
 
Francis Turner Palgrave 149 
 
 reviews. He was the author anonymously 
 of " The Passionate Pilgrim." In 1861 was 
 published " The Golden Treasury," which 
 still retains its great popularity. Sir Edward 
 Cooke says that of all the books of that kind 
 it has seen more cities and fields and hills 
 in the pockets of more sorts and conditions 
 of men than any other book. 
 
 Lord Morley's favourite travelling poetry 
 book was " Matthew Arnold," which was 
 his cherished companion on many a journey. 
 
 In 1884 Francis Palgrave resigned the 
 secretaryship in the Education Department, 
 and in 1885 he was elected Professor of 
 Poetry at Oxford, holding the chair for ten 
 years, and died in 1897. 
 
 Sir Kenelm Digby was looked upon, and 
 properly looked upon, as an ideal head of a 
 public department. He had legal experience 
 at the Bar and as a judge of a county 
 court, but he did not confine his views to 
 points of law only, but was a born adminis- 
 trator. 
 
 He was dignified and genial, indefatigable 
 at his work, never irritable or tired, open- 
 minded and always ready to consider difñ- 
 culties and objections to what he proposed, 
 
150 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 but determined when a decisión had been 
 arrived at and a definite course taken. 
 
 Adolphus Liddell left a good position at 
 the Bar for the Under-Secretaryship of State 
 at the Home Office. Of all officials that I 
 ever had the honour of knowing he was the 
 most unofficial. He was no respecter of 
 persons ; secretaries of state and júnior 
 clerks were alike on terms of familiarity 
 with him, red-tape was unknown to him, 
 and I have known him in the middle 
 of a serious discussion whistle a popular 
 air. 
 
 He was admirable in his management of 
 a department like the Home Office, where 
 so many and varied subjects had to be 
 dealt with ; on all legal questions his advice 
 was of the greatest use to all the secretaries 
 of state that he served. His collie dog was 
 his inseparable companion, and I can see 
 him now walking at uncertain hours across 
 the Horse Guards Parade with his collie 
 by his side, which followed him into his 
 official room. This I am sorry to say gave 
 some oñence to many mayors and deputa- 
 tions, who were somewhat alarmed at the 
 apparent hostile attitude assumed towards 
 
Adolphus Liddell 151 
 
 them as intruders, but LiddelPs invariable 
 good-temper soon allayed their fears and 
 restored peace, and they— the secretary, the 
 mayor and the dog — parted the best of 
 friends. 
 
 In the Home Office he left a reputation of 
 being possessed of a clear judgment, always 
 coming to his point in the fewest possible 
 words. 
 
 Sir Godfrey Lushington, who succeeded 
 him as Under-Secretary, was in every way 
 unlike him. He was a hard worker and 
 with a certain ability, but wanting in his 
 bonhomie and popularity. He had about 
 him much of the schoolmaster — honest, 
 laborious and painstaking, but lacking in 
 personal interest on subjects which carne 
 before him. There is an account current 
 in his office, when some question of vivi- 
 section carne before him, that he said some- 
 thing which implied that he did not consider 
 a dog was a mammal, and he referred the 
 question to the inspector, who replied that 
 a dog was certainly a mammal, as was an 
 elephant and a baby. But he fell on days 
 when there was no trouble, as there was in 
 later times about suffragettes, Sinn Feiners, 
 
152 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 conscientious objectors, and constant 
 strikers. 
 
 Montague Corry, afterwards Lord Rowton, 
 began his career at the Bar, but before he 
 advanced far in his profession had the good 
 fortune to meet Mr. Disraeli at a country 
 house-party, when he told me how embar- 
 rassed he was at finding himself u playing 
 the fool M as the great man entered the room. 
 But he " played the fool M so well that 
 Mr. Disraeli told him that if ever he wanted 
 an improvisatore he should apply to him. 
 Shortly afterwards carne a change of Govern- 
 ment, and Mr. Disraeli became the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. Corry wrote reminding 
 him of the kind words he had used to him 
 when they met, and asking him if he would 
 help him to get a private secretaryship to 
 any of his colleagues. He was summoned 
 to Downing Street, and difñculties which 
 at one time seemed insuperable were to his 
 delight removed. He became secretary to 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, a 
 happy arrangement for master and man, for 
 from that moment a great friendship sprang 
 up between them, which lasted till Lord 
 Beaconsfield's death. Corry was a popular 
 
LORD ROWTON 
 
 152] 
 

Lord Rowton 153 
 
 man of the world, as he deserved to be, and 
 possessed all the charms of an Irishman, 
 always "smiling though the whole world 
 sighed — always dancing when the fiddle stopt 
 — always faithful till the curtain dropt." 
 But greater than hisservices to Lord Beacons- 
 field and his success in London society 
 was his creation of the buildings which bear 
 and ever will bear his ñame, where working 
 men could live at a small cost. The first 
 of these houses was erected in Vauxhall at 
 a cost of £30,000 to accommodate about 
 500 men. In 1894 ne became chairman of 
 a company possessing a capital of £450,000, 
 and houses were erected in various parts 
 of London and in Birmingham which have 
 proved a great success, providing accommo- 
 dation for many thousands of poor and al- 
 most destitute men, who find there shelter, 
 warmth and cheap food. By his personal 
 efforts he produced moneyfor these buildings, 
 but, what was more than money, he obtained 
 the active co-operation of Sir Richard 
 Farrant, without whose assistance the 
 scheme could not have been a success. He 
 succeeded Lord Rowton as chairman. 
 At the London County Council as an 
 
154 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 alderman I vainly attempted, after con- 
 sultation with Lord Rowton, to provide 
 similar houses for women. The financial 
 difñculties no doubt were very great, but 
 these were overeóme by the munificence of 
 Mrs. Lewis, and the Ada Lewis hostel for 
 women was started and has proved a com- 
 plete success, every room being oceupied by 
 women on the principies of the Rowton 
 Houses. 
 
 Sir Henry Colé was educated at Christ's 
 Hospital, and while young he was employed 
 by Sir Francis Palgrave in transcribing 
 records and employed his spare time in 
 watercolour painting with some success, 
 for he exhibited some sketches in the Royal 
 Academy, and by his f ather he was introduced 
 to J. S. Mili, Charles Buller and George 
 Grote. In 1838 the Record Office was 
 instituted, and Colé was appointed a sénior 
 assistant keeper and succeeded in having a 
 proper building erected for the care of the 
 valuable records of the country. In 1838 
 he became secretary of a commission 
 appointed for promoting postal reforms. 
 Cobden was so much impressed with his 
 ability and industry that he offered him 
 
SIR HENRY COLÉ 
 
 154] 
 
Sir Henry Colé 155 
 
 the secretaryship of the Anti-Corn Law 
 League. 
 
 His proposals for postal reforms were 
 adopted, and from 1838 to 1842 he was 
 employed in working out the details of the 
 scheme. Subsequently he became Chair- 
 man of the Society of Arts, which held ex- 
 hibitions of ancient and mediaeval decora- 
 tions. These exhibitions led to the idea of 
 the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was 
 warmly fathered by the Prince Consort. 
 A commission was appointed, consisting of 
 Sir C. Dilke, Robert Stephenson and Digby 
 Wyatt, but Colé was the most energetic 
 member of it. Lord Granville had already 
 offered him the secretaryship of the School 
 of Design, and the balance of the profits 
 of the Great Exhibition was devoted to this 
 school, which numbered nearly a hundred 
 branches throughout the country, and there 
 are probably many more at this moment. 
 Colé devoted his energies to the building 
 now well known as the Victoria and Albert 
 Museum, which is replete with works of art. 
 Colé was also successful in starting the 
 National College of Music. His was a 
 wonderful life of devotion to his love of 
 
156 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 art, and he was before his death able to 
 see the huge success of all that he had put 
 his hand to. 
 
 Hitherto I have dwelt on the modesty 
 of the Civil Service, but Colé was not of 
 those who hid his lantern under a bushel ; 
 in consequence he was assailed and some- 
 times ridiculed on all his doings. 
 
 F. Scudamore was appointed to the Post 
 Office in 1 84 1, andin 1861 he had prepared 
 a scheme for postal savings banks, Govern- 
 ment insurances and annuities. He was 
 the chief negotiator in the telegraph business 
 of the country being undertaken by the 
 Government, but his zeal unluckily outran 
 his discretion, and in his ardour he under- 
 took vast expenditure without Treasury 
 authority. His energy and administrative 
 qualities were very great, but as far as the 
 State was concerned they ceased. He was 
 not idle, and undertook telegraphic work in 
 Turkey. He found things were so hope- 
 lessly delayed that he resigned his work 
 there and indulged his literary tastes. He 
 died at Therapia in 1884. 
 
LORD WELBY 
 
 157 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LORD WELBY 
 
 IN the year of the Great Reform Bill 
 of 1832, Reginald Welby was born in 
 the Rectory of Hareston, Lincolnshire, the 
 youngest son of the Rev. John Earle Welby, 
 the Rector. In the churchyard of Allington, 
 cióse by, at his own wish, he now lies. 
 He was sent to Eton in 1845, where he won 
 some distinction as a football player, being 
 one of the Field eleven and of the Oppidan 
 eleven at the Wall, where he successfully 
 played against Collegers in 1850. He also 
 rowed in the " ten oar " in 1851. He was 
 " sent up for good " and in the same year 
 became President of " Pop." Here he be- 
 gan to show his financial instincts ; the 
 Society was then in debt, but he at once 
 obtained from oíd members sumcient to 
 make it solvent. As second Captain of the 
 Oppidans he was in " the select " for the 
 Newcastle Scholarship in his last year. 
 
 159 
 
160 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 From Eton he went to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, and after taking his degree he 
 acted for a time as private secretary to 
 Henry Austen Layard, for whom he had a 
 great admiration. 
 
 He had thoughts of being called to the 
 Bar, but his oíd Eton friend, Arthur Hayter, 
 now Lord Haversham, asked his father, Sir 
 William, who was then Patronage Secre- 
 tary, to get him nominated for a clerkship 
 in the Treasury by the Prime Minister with 
 others for a competitive examination. Lord 
 Palmertson agreed, and Welby was first 
 of three candidates in the examination, 
 and so began an ofñcial career which was 
 destined to end so successfully. He was 
 soon singled out as a young man of promise, 
 and became private secretary to succeeding 
 parliamentary secretaries. 
 
 In 1880 he became Assistant Financial 
 Secretary and Auditor of the Civil List, 
 when he prepared a scheme for its reform, 
 which, however, was not adopted, and in 
 1885, in succession to Lord Lingen, he 
 became Permanent Secretary, an ornee 
 which he held until his retirement in 
 1894. 
 
Lord Welby 161 
 
 During the tenure of these high offices 
 he served under, and advised, no fewer than 
 twelve Chancellors of the Exchequer, to 
 whom his shrewd perception of figures, his 
 indefatigable industry, and his love of work, 
 were of inestimable valué. What was said 
 of Godolphin might well have been said of 
 him, "that he was never in the way and 
 never out of the way." He always took 
 the strictest view of the duties of civil 
 servants. On one occasion some of us 
 thought he overstrained to a quixotic degree 
 his abhorrence of betraying ofncial secrets. 
 Late one evening Sir Stafford Northcote 
 acquainted him with the fact that Parlia- 
 ment was going to be dissolved on the 
 following day ; on his way home he met an 
 oíd friend, who was starting for the Riviera 
 that night, and was also a candidate for 
 Parliament at the next election. Welby 
 knew this and also that his friend, on 
 reaching Cannes, would hear the news 
 and would have to start home at once, but 
 no whisper did Welby utter, and his friend, 
 a poor man, had his journey for nothing. 
 Being himself a man with a keen sense of 
 right and wrong he did not easily forgive 
 
 11 
 
162 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 those who strayed in any way from the road 
 of probity. 
 
 He was devoid of the power of devolution, 
 and would occupy hours of valuable time 
 in doing work which might have been done 
 as well, if not better, by a júnior clerk. 
 He would often use a razor to cut a block. 
 Frequently when seeing him on some point 
 of ofíicial business, after talking for a long 
 time on every sort of irrelevant matter, 
 we found that the subject which we carne 
 to discuss was not even touched upon. 
 As such interviews were usually connected 
 with applications for expenditure, it has been 
 said that these apparently idle conversations 
 were on his part a diplomatic avoidance of 
 the application. His table at the Treasury 
 was a chaos. At the time of the Wain- 
 wright murder, when the poor victim's 
 limbs were cut up and distributed in various 
 places, a cynical colleague was heard to say : 
 " What a fool the murderer was— if he had 
 put the body on Welby's table it would 
 never have been discovered ! M And yet some 
 papers he would collect, docket, and arrange 
 with the greatest exactitude. By the kind- 
 ness of his relations I have seen diaries 
 
Lord Welby 163 
 
 and accounts, etc., beginning from his Eton 
 days, containing the minutest details of 
 journeys and expenses as well as copies 
 of family letters, all carefully written out 
 in his own hand. As Cardinal Newman 
 truly said : " We are two or three sel ves at 
 once." 
 
 Welby was by no means devoid of a spirit 
 of satire. He once accounted for not keep- 
 ing an appointment, for which we had been 
 looking forward, by explaining to us that 
 in the morning he had received a suggestion 
 from the War Office that a chest of gold 
 should be kept at each port for use in case 
 of war. This proposal he considered so 
 childish that he had occupied his afternoon 
 in answering it in words of one syllable. 
 I wonder if the sarcasm was duly seen and 
 appreciated ! 
 
 He told a story of himself of how a Cabinet 
 minister, who shall be nameless, called on 
 him to get some information, and when he 
 went away he thought, "what an ass that 
 man is ! He gets £5,000 a year and I only get 
 £2,000 ; " and then he sent for the clerk who 
 would supply the particulars required, and 
 found him such a master of his subject that 
 
164 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 he said, "that man only gets £150 a year 
 whilst I get £2,000, " and so the equilibrium 
 was adj usted. 
 
 It was whispered in Downing Street 
 that on Lord Welby's chimney-piece was a 
 statuette of " The British Taxpayer " before 
 which he performed his obeisance day and 
 night. His f riend Robert Meade, being sum- 
 moned from the Colonial Office to a con- 
 ference at the Treasury, wrote : " Dear Wel- 
 by — Shall I bring my own coals with me, lest 
 an excess should be caused on your vote for 
 fuel and light ? " 
 
 The public hardly estimates the import- 
 ance of the duties of the financial adviser 
 to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. These 
 politicians were human and therefore differ- 
 ent from each other in their views and wishes, 
 and yet Welby obtained and retained the 
 confidence and esteem of them all. The 
 Chancellor who won his own admiration 
 and añection in particular was Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who formed the highest opinión of 
 his ability. Mr. Gladstone, who was always 
 more than loyal to those who served him, 
 appreciated deeply the character as well as 
 the wisdom of his advice, and not only on 
 
Lord Welby 165 
 
 matters of finance. On Welby's elevation 
 to the peerage he wrote a minute to the 
 following effect : " After the signal honour 
 which Her Majesty, in gracious acceptance 
 of my advice, has been pleased to confer 
 upon Sir Reginald Welby, it is not necessary 
 for me to add any less emphatic testimony 
 to his pre-eminent merits." It is vain to 
 talk of what might have been, but I have 
 always thought that if Welby had not been 
 so faithfully and exclusively devoted to the 
 somewhat restricted limit of the Treasury, 
 he might have made his vast knowledge 
 and ability play a greater part in the govern- 
 ment of the country. In his room at 
 Stratton Street I believe could be found 
 caref ully arranged papers that would furnish 
 ampie material for a history of his own times. 
 These I hope may some day see the light. 
 
 His duties were not confined to his dealing 
 alone with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 but he was f requently the trusted adviser of 
 the Cabinet. 
 
 He took a leading part in questions re- 
 lating to India, Egypt, and Ireland, and look 
 where you will in any book dealing with 
 modern finance will be found Welby's ñame 
 
166 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 honourably mentioned. On Mr. Childers 
 becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 Welby described to him in a letter all the 
 duties connected with his office in relation 
 to the Treasury ; and I believe that the rules 
 for the conduct of business then laid down 
 are in forcé to this very day. 
 
 I might as well give the list of the ships 
 before Troy as attempt to tell the number 
 of commissions and committees on which 
 he served, and the many occasions when 
 he was chosen as chairman — for, as Lord 
 Granville once wittingly said of himself, he 
 might have well earned the title of Pére la 
 Chaise. 
 
 He was opposed to the introduction of 
 women typists in Government offices which 
 I had started at Somerset House, but at last 
 
 I persuaded him to let me bring to the 
 Treasury a typist and put her in competition 
 with the most skilled clerk he could produce. 
 My typist carne in the easiest of winners, 
 and Welby gave up his objection with a good 
 grace. There are now thousands of women 
 clerks in Government employment, and 
 
 II the cry is i still they come.' M A former 
 private secretary of his, now a distinguished 
 
LORD WELBY 
 
 166] 
 
Lord Welby 167 
 
 oñicial, tells me how soon he grew to love 
 him, and " I have loved him every since." 
 Lord Allerton, the Financial Secretary, once 
 asked him who was the youngest man in 
 the Treasury ; he told him of a youth who 
 was fresh from Oxford. " No," said Lord 
 Allerton, " it is Welby." 
 
 To me his loss was irreparable. Not 
 only were we bound by ties of early friend- 
 ship, but by ties of long ofñcial intercourse. 
 From 1868, when I first carne into the 
 Treasury as secretary to Mr. Gladstone, 
 there were few days on which I was not in 
 communication with him and Lord Frederick 
 Cavendish. Our mutual admiration of 
 Mr. Gladstone made all our meetings 
 delightful. Then carne the anxious days 
 when we heard with some alarm of Lord 
 Randolph ChurchüTs advent as Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and our pleasure at 
 finding him, after all, a chief whom we 
 admired and delighted to serve. He 
 persuaded me to join the London County 
 Council. But I must not dwell on my 
 personal loss. 
 
 While not only open to, but sympathetic 
 with, the latest extensión of Radical sentí- 
 
168 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 ment, he was in his personal habits an 
 old-fashioned Tory. He regarded a hansom 
 as a disagreeable innovation, u a shilling's- 
 worth of danger ;" he hated new American 
 expressions such as " week-ends," etc., 
 and never had a telephone. 
 
 During his official career he received many 
 marks of distinction, beginning with a C.B. 
 in 1874, a K.C.B. following in 1882, a G.C.B. 
 in 1892, a peerage in 1894, and finally was 
 sworn a Member of the Privy Council, which 
 he always considered the highest honour in 
 the power of the Crown to bestow. 
 
 Bernal Osborne, speaking of Sir James 
 Graham's industry, compared him to an 
 ómnibus horse which had worked all day 
 and in the evening harnessed himself to a 
 cab, and the analogy would hold good with 
 Welby. He indeed " filled the unforgiving 
 minute with sixty seconds' worth of 
 distance run." 
 
 There is an oíd Persian proverb which 
 says that " a stone that is fit for the wall is 
 not left in the way," and a man with such 
 a good character from his last place was 
 eagerly sought for by boards in the city. 
 One of his cleverest colleagues says of him, 
 
Lord Welby 169 
 
 in connection with his work there, that " he 
 possessed all the attributes of a strong man. 
 He picked up points rapidly and was quick 
 to come to conclusions and also to accept 
 corrections the moment he discovered he 
 was wrong. . . . He had a phenomenally 
 clear mind, rather spoilt, perhaps, by a taint 
 of ofncialism. . * * M He was himself a 
 transparently square and direct man, to 
 whom all tortuous things were a torment. 
 
 Neither my editor ñor my reader will 
 allow me space to speak of the splendid 
 work done by Lord Welby on the County 
 Council of London, to which he was elected 
 in 1906. He was chairman of the Finance 
 Committee, and served also on the General 
 Purposes Committee and many others, 
 subsequently becoming chairman of the 
 Council. 
 
 He would have furnished an admirable 
 theme for discussion on psychology, and if 
 I had the power I would like to dwell on 
 the character of the man rather than on 
 the points of his long ofncial life which are 
 now well known. 
 
 A distinguished friend of his and mine 
 once described him as a man who kept his 
 
170 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 friends in compartments, and so true is this 
 that after a cióse and intímate friendship of 
 over half a century I find he had many 
 friends and relations of whom I had not 
 even heard. Indeed I never thoroughly 
 mastered the intricacies of his most inter- 
 esting character, though no better or affec- 
 tionate friend ever existed. 
 
 No one, however, could better diagnose 
 the character of a man than he could, and 
 the result of such diagnosis often ended in 
 a very appropriate nickname. He belonged 
 to nearly a dozen clubs. In his salad days 
 he used to play whist at the Garrick with 
 a generation of men who have now passed 
 away, and in later years he would sumptu- 
 ously entertain there parties of Parliamen- 
 tary and omcial men on Budget nights. 
 At meetings of the Cosmopolitan he was 
 rarely absent, and was a most welcome 
 member, who clung to it, even in its fading 
 days, till the end carne. 
 
 He joined the Cobden Club in 1895 anc * 
 almost at once became chairman of com- 
 mittees. Being a convinced Free Trader 
 he threw his whole energies in advancing 
 the objects of the Club, and with Sir Louis 
 
Lord Welby 171 
 
 Mallet published a pamphlet on Cobden's 
 work and opinions which must have cost 
 him much thought and labour. 
 
 He presided at the International Free 
 Trade Congress, and in 1907, at the age of 
 seventy-five, he addressed from the chair at 
 great length a meeting of the Club. He 
 was President of the Royal Statistical 
 Society, and a member of the Dilettanti 
 Club, which was founded by Johnson, Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, Gibbon, and Burke in 
 1764. Welby's portrait now hangs on the 
 walls of the Club. He was also a member 
 of " Grillon's M — and those of us who have 
 read Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff's diary will 
 remember how frequently his ñame is men- 
 tioned as dining at one and the other. 
 
 He was a great judge of wine, and kept 
 up the oíd fashion of always sipping a drop 
 of a new bottle before it was handed round 
 to his guests, and I think it was at Grillon's 
 that someone once said : " How do you like 
 this '34 port ? " " Very much," replied his 
 neighbour, " it is as good as I give 36 for " 
 — and Welby would have liked to have had 
 that member excommunicated. 
 
 No human being that I have ever come 
 
172 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 across in my journey through life was ever 
 so richly endowed with the joie de vivre. 
 When, a long time ago, we were a party of 
 young men, a lady asked us what our several 
 ambitions were : one said one thing, 
 another another, but Welby at once said 
 to live f or 300 years ; and later on, when the 
 infirmities of advancing age were upon us, 
 he said to me, " If I had the option of living 
 on as I am I would compound for thirty 
 years." 
 
 His personal unpunctuality was prover- 
 bial, and amounted to punctuality, inasmuch 
 as you could always reckon upon his ap- 
 pearance at dinner a quarter of an hour 
 after the appointed time. 
 
 I have seen it stated that he was un- 
 popular, but it can only have been among 
 those who wished to make inroads on the 
 public purse at the Treasury, which was an 
 office of refusals, and looked on him as a 
 close-fisted tyrant, when as a matter of fact 
 there was never a man so full of genial fun 
 amounting to childish enjoyment of chaff. 
 
 He possessed a retentive memory and his 
 knowledge of books and history was as- 
 tonishing, but not half so astonishing as 
 
Lord Welby 173 
 
 how he found time and opportunity of 
 gaining his information. 
 
 He always retained his love f or the classics, 
 though making no pretensions to being a 
 scholar : he delighted in a good quotation, 
 especially from Horace. He had intimate 
 and strong f riendship with individual women, 
 but he had a poor opinión of them as a whole, 
 thinking that as " female women," or 
 " charms of life," as he called them, they 
 were only meant to afford amusement to 
 men. He seems to have been of the same 
 mind as the Frenchman — " Je hais le sex 
 en gros ; je l'adore en detail ! " He would 
 rarely talk to women seriously, and satisfied 
 himself with conversational badinage, 
 agreeing perhaps with Disraeli when he 
 said : " Talk to women as much as you can, 
 this is the way to gain fluency, because you 
 need not care what you say, and had better 
 not be sensible.' ' 
 
 One of Welby's aphorisms of the same 
 nature was " If women were reasonable, 
 life would be insupportable." With these 
 feelings about women he was always cour- 
 teous and almost deferential. He was him- 
 self a smoker, but neither in his own house 
 
174 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 ñor on board a yacht would he allow himself 
 or his friends to smoke in their presence 
 or even in their rooms — even when women, 
 to his great dislike, indulged in that practice 
 themselves. He was strongly opposed to 
 female suffrage. 
 
 He delighted, as only a Londoner could, 
 in the beauty of the country, and was never 
 what might be called a professional sports- 
 man, but a couple of stags in the autumn 
 or a brace of fish with Lord Bristol in Scot- 
 land, or twenty brace of pheasants in the 
 coverts of Ickworth, where he shot with the 
 guns which he called Ananias and Sapphira, 
 I venture to think gave him greater pleasure 
 than the sated sportsman would get from 
 the best deer forest or the biggest battues. 
 In the many autumns that he spent with us 
 his long rides with my sons and daughter 
 over the Surrey commons were a constant 
 source of boyish delight. As a rule men 
 love best what they do best, but he was an 
 exception to this rule, being but a poor 
 horseman and yet devoted to riding. Year 
 after year he lived with us in the happy 
 autumn days at Wanborough, a beautiful 
 manor house with a history dating from 
 
Lord Welby 175 
 
 1500, and never a day passed in which we 
 did not take long rides together to his infinite 
 delight, even when, as was not uncommon, 
 he parted company with his pony. He 
 loved what he would cali a junket, and 
 every year he entertained on the banks 
 of the Thames at Penton Hook a large party 
 of Treasury men, among whom he was the 
 merriest. The New Forest also was a 
 country that he was passionately fond of, 
 having been originally persuaded to go 
 there by his great friend Edward Pember. 
 
 In this connection I cannot refrain from 
 repeating a story in which he used to delight. 
 A man on duty at a level-crossing was 
 ordered to open his gates by an equerry of 
 the impatient Kaiser who was then stopping 
 in the neighbourhood. " Kaiser don't have 
 no power over me," he said. "I'm a 
 South- Western signalman." 
 
 I have not attempted to do more than 
 refer to details which perhaps may serve 
 in some little way to show the character 
 of my friend. If I have erred in speaking 
 of small idiosyncrasies and foibles I would 
 quote a conversation between Lord Dufferin 
 and Mr. Spurgeon. Lord Dufferin once 
 
176 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 reproved the great preacher with being too 
 frivolous in his sermons. Spurgeon answered, 
 " If that is so I am like the archer and 
 his bow — I fix the feather on the arrow to 
 make it fly more surely and fix itself more 
 deeply in the heart." If I have spoken of 
 my friend's little peculiarities and prejudices 
 it is only as a contrast to emphasise more 
 clearly his noble character, his strict sense 
 of honour, his generosity, and the loyalty 
 and high standard of right which were ever 
 conspicuous in him. 
 
 As Fielding in " Tom Jones : " says, " I 
 hope my friends will pardon me when 
 I declare I know none of them without a 
 fault, and I should be sorry if I could imagine 
 I had any friend who could not see mine ; 
 forgiveness of this kind we give and demand 
 in turn. It is an exercise of friendship, and 
 perhaps none of the least pleasant." 
 
 In December 191 4 Welby was severely 
 injured by being knocked down by a motor 
 near St. George's Hospital. For some weeks 
 he suffered from concussion of the brain, 
 and later on he was considered as having 
 recovered his usual health, but I do not 
 think that he ever quite threw oñ the effects 
 
Lord Welby 177 
 
 of the fall, which diminished the power to 
 resist an attack of jaundice which heralded 
 his last illness. I was about to pay him a 
 visit when I received a note saying that he 
 was not well enough to play the host ; the 
 handwriting alarmed me, and I tried to see 
 him as also many of his friends did, but he 
 would see nobody. 
 
 He was lying at Malwood, the lovely house 
 built by Sir William Harcourt in the New 
 Forest. 
 
 He was wonderfully cared for by his oíd 
 servant, who, with the nurses, watched over 
 his sick-bed, and he passed away in perfect 
 peace. 
 
 There is something very beautiful in the 
 thought of his death among the falling 
 leaves of the Forest — journeying to a home 
 where there in no autumn and no death. 
 
 12 
 
SIR S. PONSONBY, SIR F. MOWATT, SIR A. 
 WOODS, SIR A. SCOTT GATTY 
 
 179 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SIR S, PONSONBY, SIR F. MOWATT, SIR A. WOODS, 
 SIR A. SCOTT GATTY 
 
 SPENCER PONSONBY was born in 
 1824, the son of Lord Bessborough, at 
 one time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. He 
 gained admission into the Foreign Office at 
 the early age of sixteen, where he at once 
 commenced his education in the " Nursery." 
 In whatever work he might have been en- 
 gaged, he certainly became an efñcient 
 scholar, in singlestick, fives, and cricket, in 
 which game he distinguished himself in 
 later years, playing in Gentlemen and Players* 
 and many important county matches. 
 
 In 1846 he was sent as an attaché to 
 Washington, and on his return was appointed 
 private secretary to Lord Palmerston, who 
 in Lord Russell's Government was Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs. Lord Palmer- 
 ston told him that he must learn to write, 
 
 181 
 
182 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 which he did, and achieved the handwriting 
 for which the Foreign Office has ever been 
 distinguished. At this time the session 
 was occupied in domestic troubles rather 
 than in foreign affairs, and Ponsonby with 
 a young friend used to go and practise at 
 Lord's in the mornings, for Foreign Office 
 hours in those days were not of the earliest, 
 and on their return they took a hansom to 
 the extreme limit of the three-mile fare, and 
 tossed up who should pay it and receive 
 the objurgations of the driver as they ran 
 down the Duke of York's steps into the Park. 
 He also profited by the quotation used by 
 his master, that " the very best way of pro- 
 longing the day was to steal a few hours 
 from the night," for he became an habitué 
 of Pratt's Club, where " mutton chops, 
 grilled kidneys, and bottom crusts " were 
 served till any hour of the morning. 
 
 After Lord Palmerston's resignation Pon- 
 sonby remained private secretary to Lord 
 Clarendon and Lord Granville, and was 
 present at the negotiations which led to the 
 Treaty of Paris. 
 
 In the Canterbury Week so often des- 
 cribed he was an autocrat and distinguished 
 
SIR SPENCER PONSONBY 
 
 182] 
 
Sir S. Ponsonby 183 
 
 amateur, though the famous actress, Mrs. 
 Keely, would not allow his being called an 
 amateur, but an actor. 
 
 His knowledge of affairs led to his ap- 
 pointment as Controller of the Lord Cham- 
 berlain's Department, an office which he 
 held until 1901. His position brought him 
 into cióse and confidential relations both 
 with Queen Victoria and King Edward. 
 He was honorary treasurer of the Maryle- 
 bone Cricket Club and took an active part 
 in the management of finance and procedure. 
 His ñame, with that of his brother Frederick, 
 who afterwards became Lord Bessborough, 
 will ever be remembered at Lord's as one 
 of the early governors of I Zingari. The 
 origin of the Club is interesting, but I can 
 find no explanation of the adoption of its 
 Italian ñame, or of the riband to be worn 
 not only by members, but by their wives, 
 daughters and sisters, signifying " From 
 blackness through blood to gold," which is 
 the same as that of Belgium. It is related, 
 however, how a young man accosting a 
 member of the exclusive Zingari, said : " Are 
 you aware, sir, that you are wearing the 
 colours of the Balham Second Eleven ? " 
 
184 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Sitting one day in the pavilion of Lord's, 
 somebody asked Mr. Penn : " What does 
 Spencer Ponsonby do ? " " Why, he um- 
 pires the balls of Buckingham Palace," was 
 the answer. 
 
 In July 1845 Spencer Ponsonby, Baldwin 
 and some others found themselves at supper 
 at the Blenheim Hotel, Bond Street, when 
 they then and there formed a Club, chris- 
 tened it I Zingari, framed rules, and on the 
 following day elected a perpetual president 
 and informed twenty of their friends that 
 they were members of the Club, and issued 
 the following rules and regulations : 
 
 "At a Meeting held— no matter when, 
 and much less where — 
 
 Nobody, Chairman, 
 the following Rules and Regulations were 
 proposed and unanimously adopted : 
 
 " Resolved : That a Club be founded 
 for mutual cricket accommodation, which 
 shall have the ñame and style of ' I 
 Zingari/ 
 
 " That the Club be under the control 
 of a Perpetual President, an Annual Vice- 
 President, and a Biennial Committee of 
 six members elected by the P. P. 
 
Sir S. Ponsonby 185 
 
 " That no candidate be proposed unless 
 so agreed at a meeting consisting of 
 P.P., A.V.-P., and not less than two 
 B.C. men. The mode of election as 
 follows : 
 
 " The candidate shall be placed at a wicket 
 with or without a bat, as the C. may decide, 
 and be bowled at by the A.V.-P. or by any 
 member of the I. Z. so deputed by A.V.-P. 
 One straight ball to exelude. The number 
 of balls given not to exceed the number of 
 members comprising I. Z. 
 
 " That the entrance be nothing and 
 the annual subscriptions do not exceed 
 the entrance, etc. etc. 
 
 11 That all directions connected with 
 the game 'may' be conveyed in the 
 French or Italian languages, etc. etc. 
 
 " That the colours of I. Z. be black, 
 red, and gold — the gold at top. That 
 they may be worn also by the wives, 
 daughters, and sisters of I. Z." 
 The extent of his popularity may be 
 estimated by the number of dinners given 
 in his honour by the cricketing world. 
 
 Mr. Lacey, the well-known secretary of 
 the M.C.C., kindly tells me stories of Pon- 
 
186 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 sonby's pluck and courage. One day when 
 walking to Paddington Station he slipped 
 and fell on his head and became insensible. 
 On recovering, he found himself surrounded 
 by a sympathetic crowd, and a policeman 
 sending for an ambulance. " Nonsense," he 
 said with emphasis, "1 am going to walk," 
 and he did with two broken ribs ; and on the 
 occasion of a Court function he rose from 
 his bed in an agonising fit of rheumatism 
 to do his duty. But the time carne, as it must 
 come to all of us, and when I saw him last 
 he said, with a smile on his face, " Well, 
 here I am as deaf as a post, as lame as a 
 tree, as blind as a bat." 
 
 " Lusirti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti, 
 Tempus abire tibi est." 
 
 Even as I write, another oíd friend, Sir 
 Francis Mowatt, has passed away into the 
 silent land. Born in 1837, he was educated 
 at Harrow and for a short time at Oxford, 
 which he left without taking a degree on 
 having gained, under Lord Palmerston's 
 scheme of limited competition, a clerkship 
 in the Treasury, where he remained for 
 forty-seven years. 
 
SIR FRANCIS MOWATT 
 
 [187 
 
Sir Francis Mowatt 187 
 
 From that day to the day of his retirement 
 he must have served under no less than a 
 dozen Chancellors of the Exchequer, among 
 them Sir G. C. Lewis, Mr. Gladstone more 
 than once, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Lowe, Sir 
 Stafford Northcote, Mr. Childers, Sir M. 
 Hicks Beach, Sir William Harcourt, Lord 
 Randolph Churchill and Mr. Goschen. 
 
 To write of the changes he witnessed 
 would require the courage of Mr. Wells, 
 but he saw in the happy days of 1874 an 
 Income Tax of 2d. in the £1 and the pros- 
 perity of the country, and he lived to see a 
 tax of 6s. in the £1 and the country weighed 
 down by a gigantic and overwhelming debt, 
 threatening bankruptcy. 
 
 In 1888 he attained to the high office of 
 Assistant Secretary and Auditor of the Civil 
 List, and succeeded Lord Welby as Per- 
 manent Secretary in the Department in 1894. 
 To follow such a predecessor was no easy 
 task, but imbued with the policy of his 
 chiefs, by his ready intuition, his patience 
 and tact, he succeeded in no ordinary degree 
 in performing the duties that devolved upon 
 him. The Treasury control in those days 
 was a reality, and required judgment, intelli- 
 
188 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 gence and good humour. The duty, which 
 to a considerable extent consisted in saying 
 " No " to all expenditure of a needless 
 character, to carry with him the acquiescence 
 of ever-changing Chancellors of the Ex- 
 chequer, was no easy one, but he performed 
 it with unfailing temper and was able to 
 gain the goodwill of all conflicting ele- 
 ments with which he had to deal, and to 
 convince the applicants that he was in the 
 right. 
 
 The " Times/ ' in an obituary notice, Te- 
 calis an almost forgotten incident which 
 occurred in 1900. Lord Salisbury, in one 
 of his sarcastic moods, criticised with much 
 severity the exercise of Treasury control, 
 which could only be interpreted as a direct 
 censure on the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and his subordinates. Sir Francis, secure 
 in the unassailable position as guardián 
 of the public purse, offered his resignation, 
 but Lord Salisbury apologised. He stated 
 in the House of Lords that the criticisms that 
 he indulged in were not directed against the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer or Sir Francis, 
 but to this day, says the M Times,' ' it remains 
 a mystery what Lord Salisbury thought the 
 
Sir Francis Mowatt 189 
 
 precise Treasury offences were, and who 
 were the offenders. 
 
 Apart from purely Treasury business Sir 
 Francis was constantly called upon to ad- 
 vise on all reforms, changes and organisa- 
 tions and reorganisations connected with 
 the Civil Service and on other subjects, 
 including the question of maintaining a 
 yearly expenditure of ¿12,000,000 on Army 
 reserves for guns and warlike stores. 
 
 Sir Francis's retirement, after forty-seven 
 years of arduous administrative work in the 
 trammels of the Treasury, did not leave him 
 idle, and he threw himself with undiminished 
 vigour into the battle of Free Trade im- 
 perilled, as he thought, by the action of the 
 Coalition Government. He was an active 
 and useful member of the Free Trade Union, 
 and chairman of the Cobden Club to the 
 end. 
 
 He was chosen as British delégate to the 
 International Railway Congress at Washing- 
 ton in 1906, and became a member of the 
 Royal Commission on Waste of Stores in 
 South África and on the Royal Commission 
 on Congestión in Ireland. He was a member 
 of the Senate of London University, and 
 
190 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 chairman of the Finance Committee. He, 
 with Lord Haldane, took a leading position 
 in the formation of the College of Science, 
 and was a commissioner of the Patriotic 
 Fund. He was chosen a Progressive alder- 
 man on the County Council, where he did 
 good service on various committees, and 
 took an active part in the organisation of 
 the Franco-British Exhibition at the White 
 City. There were many other ónices held 
 by him unknown even to his intimate f riends, 
 but only to the indefatigable research 
 of the " Times " ; but who would not be 
 proud of such a record of splendid public 
 life? 
 
 Of his private life few of his oíd friends 
 remain to say what one of them still 
 lingering behind can testify to the honour 
 of his friendship ; generous acts known to 
 him and secret from others dwell in his 
 recollection ; a delightful host, a charm of 
 conversation untrammelled by ofñcialism, 
 a fund of humour, with perhaps a tinge of 
 criticism only acting as a little salt, whole- 
 some and never bitter. 
 
 What a type he has left behind him as a 
 glory of the Civil Service —and a noble 
 
Sir Albert Woods 191 
 
 example — which, if followed, may still main- 
 tain even in these days the reputation it has 
 held in the past. 
 
 It requires some amount of courage to 
 approach the penetration of the Heralds* 
 College, but there are two men holding the 
 position of the Garter King-at-Arms who 
 were remarkable : Sir Albert Woods, who 
 was connected with the College from his 
 youth and passed through all the stages 
 of promotion until he carne to the highest 
 post of Garter King-at-Arms. He was 
 not possessed of any literary qualities, but 
 as "ne sutor ultra crepidam" — his motto 
 through life— he was an authority on all 
 ceremonials and questions of heraldry and 
 orders of knighthood, and was popular with 
 Royalty. He was a member of countless 
 honours, on the principie, I suppose, " that 
 he who drives fat oxen should himself be 
 fat." 
 
 Sir Alfred Scott Gatty was a very different 
 Herald King-at-Arms from his predecessor. 
 He was a man of the highest possible culture, 
 a musician and a patient painstaking arch- 
 aeologist and antiquarian, many volumes 
 of his MS. being left to the College of 
 
192 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Heralds. All his qualities were invalu- 
 able in his office. Sir Alfred was a well- 
 known and genial social figure, and his 
 dinners in the oíd hall of the College were 
 simply delightful. He had a strong family 
 love of theatrical performance, and in his 
 early days he had the proud distinction of 
 entering into a theatrical engagement with 
 Ristori ; and later in life he often regretted 
 that he had not entered the theatrical pro- 
 fession, which was adopted by his son. 
 He was always keenly interested in the 
 ceremonial side of his work, and in all the 
 rehearsals of great historie events, such as 
 the coronations of Kings Edward and George, 
 he was able to impart much theatrical effect 
 in grouping peers and great officials in the 
 Abbey, which added to the beauty of the 
 ceremonials. He always said that King 
 Edward possessed a keen dramatic sense, 
 but his greatest delight was in coaching the 
 Prince of Wales. Sir Alfred had a genuine 
 love of heraldry, and on one occasion he was 
 complaining to Gilbert of his difñculties in 
 providing arms and mottoes for newly made 
 peers and baronets. He mentioned Sir 
 Blundell Maple. " Nothing easier ! " said 
 
Sir Alfred Scott Gatty 193 
 
 Gilbert. " For a coat-of-arms put Richard 
 Cceur de Lion through the bars of his prison, 
 and for a motto ' Blondel m'appelle.' " 
 
 Lady Gatty had a lovely voice, and Beer- 
 bohm Tree, hearing her sing, turned round to 
 Gatty, saying : " Hark, the herald ángel 
 sings." 
 
 13 
 
SIR ROBERT MORANT 
 
 195 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SIR ROBERT MORANT 
 
 SIR ROBERT MORANT died in his 
 fifty-seventh year, and by his death 
 a very severe blow has been sustained by all 
 classes of the community, for it is a mere 
 statement of fact that no man in this country 
 has made so prof ound a study of the problems 
 of national health as he had, and no man had 
 shown a greater aptitude for constructive 
 organisation in this department of public life. 
 Sir Robert was often called a typical 
 bureaucrat by those who did not know him 
 intimately. In fact he was, first of all, an 
 idealist, relentless, merciless perhaps, in his 
 pursuit of that which he believed in, but 
 ever more severe upon himself than upon 
 others. Night after night, of recent years, 
 he worked till the small hours of the morning, 
 organising and planning on behalf of the 
 Ministry of Health, which was largely his 
 own creation, and to which he devoted him- 
 self heart and soul. These long hours and 
 
 197 
 
198 Contemporary Portraite 
 
 the strain they involved undoubtedly wore 
 him out. He has died, as he would have 
 wished, a martyr to one of the strongest 
 senses of duty which our public service 
 has known. 
 
 Sir Robert Morante career presents many 
 of the features of romance. It may be said 
 to have begun when he went out to Siam 
 as a tutor to the Royal Household, and or- 
 ganised there a system of education which 
 stands still as a monument to his ability. 
 At that time he showed the remarkable 
 aptitude for organisation which was later 
 to carry him far, and also the power to 
 read the minds of others which made his 
 great project of a Ministry of Health a 
 possibility. It was a natural evolution that 
 he should pass from this small stage to the 
 direction of education in England. Mr. 
 Balfour's Government showed great dis- 
 crimination when in 1902 it appointed him 
 to administer the Education Act which 
 aroused such fierce controversy between the 
 various religious bodies and out of which the 
 so-called " Passive Resistance " movement 
 aróse. Sir Robert administered the Act in 
 spite of the most determined opposition. 
 
Sir Robert Morant 199 
 
 More than that, he justified the Act in the 
 eyes of most reasonable men. His wide 
 and real knowledge, his forcé of character, 
 his sympathy with all that was best in edu- 
 cational life and thought, triumphed over 
 every obstacle. 
 
 Robert Laurie Morant was born on April 7, 
 1863, and was the son of the late Robert 
 Morant, of Hampstead. He was educated at 
 Winchester and New College, Oxford. At 
 Oxford, where he had a hard struggle upon 
 small means, he took a first class in the final 
 school of Theology. When he left Oxford 
 he went first to a famous preparatory school, 
 Temple Grove, and left his mark upon 
 its organisation. While still a very young 
 man he went out to Siam as tutor to a 
 nobleman there, and soon became tutor 
 to the Prince and Royal Family. At the 
 request of the King, he organised public 
 education in that country, His scheme 
 remains in marked contrast to the scheme 
 of Indian education, which, in the view of 
 many competent authorities, lacks its origin- 
 ality and practical character. His influence 
 in Siam was so great that he was spoken of 
 as " the Uncrowned King." Jealousies were 
 
200 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 naturally aroused, and when the King fell 
 ill and power passed out of his hands Morant 
 returned to England. He now threw himself 
 into social and educational work in East 
 London. " Slumming " was popular then, 
 but very diñerent was this young worker 
 from the host of dilettanti, who moved 
 lightly from West to East. They adventured 
 in many cases to prove a theory, he to con- 
 struct one. His association with the Webbs 
 sharpened the edge of his observation ; it 
 did not lead him into the mistakes which 
 others of the company made. He saw the 
 virtue of Fabianism ; he also saw through 
 its weaknesses. He carne back from East 
 London with the conviction that what had 
 to be done must be done by men of affairs 
 who had studied all the facts and understood 
 all the people. He never lost this attitude. 
 He had no patience with quackery in any 
 form. The secret of his life-work was dis- 
 closed in his own phrase, M No detail is ever 
 insignificante ' It was his rooted belief that 
 M great things always begin small, never with 
 a flourish of trumpets." No man detested 
 11 the limelight," as he called it, more than 
 Morant ; few men obtained more of it. 
 
Sir Robert Morant 201 
 
 In 1895 he became Assistant Director of 
 the newly instituted " Office of Special In- 
 quines and Reports " in the Education De- 
 partment. Here he joined Sir Michael 
 Sadler. His report on French primary 
 schools which was drawn up at this time 
 made a great impression and won him con- 
 siderable fame. When the Unionist Govern- 
 ment became committed to an education 
 policy and their credit much involved in 
 Education Bills for that purpose, Sir John 
 Gorst took Morant as his private secretary, 
 and henceforward the work of collecting 
 information, and concentrating it on the 
 material issues, fell mainly upon him. The 
 story of the passing of the Act of 1902 is too 
 long to repeat here. His share in it is 
 one of the romances of the Civil Service ; 
 but there must be many still who, when they 
 think of it, see again not only the brilliant 
 duels between Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. 
 Arthur Balfour, but also the eager face 
 " under the gallery " or the tall figure 
 striding through the lobbies. In the last 
 weeks of the Bill it became necessary to 
 think of how the Act was to be carried out, or 
 indeed ever brought into operation. Finally 
 
202 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Mr. Balfour decided that the only man who 
 could do that was the man whose great 
 constructive ability had made the Bill a 
 possibility, and Morant became Acting Secre- 
 tary of the Board of Education on 
 November i, 1902. 
 
 The Bill was then still in the House, and 
 required every moment of his time. But the 
 office had to be prepared for its passing, 
 and Morant entered upon his work of 
 organisation. By April 1, 1903, the Bill, 
 and the London Bill that followed, had 
 passed ; Morant was Permanent Secretary 
 of the Board, and the office had been divided 
 into three main branches. The división has 
 been criticised, but it was necessary at the 
 time. There were three sepárate problems 
 to be worked out, always in relation to the 
 administrative organisation of the new local 
 education authorities which had to be set up, 
 got to work, and persuaded to co-operate 
 with the Board. 
 
 In the field of elementary education the 
 managers of the great mass of voluntary 
 schools had to be constituted by reference 
 to their trust deeds. The denominational 
 and anti-denominational passions aroused by 
 
SIR ROBERT MORANT 
 
 302] 
 
Sir Robert Morant 203 
 
 the Act had to be composed. Revolt was 
 threatened on both sides, and passive re- 
 sistance was added to the political vocabu- 
 lary. The Education (Local Authority De- 
 fault) Act of 1904 was a milestone on a long 
 road of controversy which has happily 
 ceased to trouble us. 
 
 The original function of the Science and 
 Art Department had to be developed and 
 the conception of secondary education dis- 
 entangled from that of technical education 
 and the miscellaneous activities of evening 
 schools. The problem of higher education, 
 as Morant saw it, was mainly one of organi- 
 sation — central and local. " Get the organi- 
 sation right and the rest will follow," he 
 was always saying, and he would wish to 
 be remembered in the province of education 
 as the man who laid down the broad lines 
 of organisation which would in the fullness 
 of time bear fruit in a national system of 
 education. 
 
 To some his insistence on the details of 
 administrative organisation in his office 
 appeared excessive ; but his plan was always 
 the reflection and expression of some prin- 
 cipie, some conviction as to the framework 
 
204 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 within which the local authority, or ofñcial 
 or teacher, would each do the best work 
 most easily and effectively. No man was 
 essentially less bureaucratic than Morant. 
 The function of the ofñcial was to him that 
 of enabling other men to do real work with 
 the utmost scope for initiative and indivi- 
 duality. 
 
 When the fierce controversy over the 
 National Insurance Act began Mr. Lloyd 
 George called him to the Chairmanship of 
 the Insurance Commission, and laid upon 
 him in so doing a burden which would have 
 broken many a smaller man. The Act was 
 detested by half the people of the country. 
 The doctors were in open revolt, the friendly 
 societies were far from satisfied, powerful 
 vested interests threatened their opposition. 
 Sir Robert set himself to understand and 
 guide. Within a comparatively short time 
 a great change took place. The Act was 
 administered. Doctors began to speak of 
 Morant as " the biggest medical man of his 
 time "—though he was not, of course, a 
 medical man at all. His advice was eagerly 
 sought by all sections of the profession 
 throughout the difñcult years of the war, and, 
 
Sir Robert Morant 205 
 
 though he always disclaimed any professional 
 knowledge, there is no doubt that many 
 of the most momentous schemes arrived at 
 by the Central Medical War Committee 
 would have been less workable than they 
 proved had his inspiration been lacking. 
 
 The medical profession is proverbially 
 difficult to handle. Yet Morant handled it 
 and won its confidence, even its añection. 
 He saw its difíiculties and sympathised with 
 them. For years before any ofticial action 
 was taken he worked towards his great 
 object — a Ministry of Health. On many 
 occasions, just when hope that the Ministry 
 would be set up seemed brightest, some 
 obstacle carne in the way and the scheme 
 was dropped. Morant never wavered and 
 never despaired. At last his patience pre- 
 vailed, and the Prime Minister was won over 
 to the scheme. From that hour no sort of 
 doubt existed that Morant must be the first 
 Secretary of the Ministry. 
 
 His last working thoughts were of the 
 hospital crisis, which engaged his cióse 
 attention. That he had a solution no one 
 who knew him can doubt. Unhappily he 
 has been cut off at a moment when his skill 
 
206 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 and «patience were most <needed. Yet he 
 leaves a great legacy and a great record of 
 service. 
 
 He was a great civil servant, and his 
 whole life was inspired by devotion to the 
 public service. A man of warm domestic 
 affections and a genius for friendship, he 
 counted no sacrifice too great to make for 
 the advancement of his public ideáis. A 
 furious and indefatigable worker, he more 
 than once " dropped in his tracks." In the 
 strategy of his public work he knew the 
 valué of reserves and did not waste them — 
 for himself he kept no reserve of physical 
 strength or energy, and spent all that was 
 in him. He was a born fighter, but all the 
 antagonisms which clustered round him, 
 and they were many, aróse out of some 
 clash of views as to public policy or conduct. 
 The men and institutions he handled were 
 to him primarily instruments of public 
 service, and all his conñicts he viewed as a 
 struggle for some principie, and he saw 
 principie in everything. This made his 
 bigness. However much men disagreed with 
 him, they could not but feel that he was 
 fighting for something large, and by the 
 
Sir Robert Morará 207 
 
 side oí his largeness small men became 
 smaller and were displeased. He was dis- 
 trustful of men's motives, but no man 
 trusted those whom he had proved more 
 implicitly or was more loyal to them. 
 
 No man commanded more willing and 
 laborious service from his colleagues by the 
 forcé of example, by the vital interest which 
 he imparted to the dullest detail, and by the 
 warm personal affection which he inspired. 
 His ofñcial life was an essay in the philosophy 
 of the public service ; he did not write it, 
 he seldom expounded it, but he practised 
 it, and what he did will last. 
 
NO. 10 DOWNING STREET 
 
 14 . 209 
 

CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NO. 10 DOWNING STREET 
 
 I CAN conceive no angle of the earth 
 more full of historical recollections 
 than 10 Downing Street. " Here," says 
 John Morley, " was woven the artful fabric 
 of policy and of party in which all the crafty 
 calculations, the fierce passions, the glowing 
 hopes, and confident ambitions of so many 
 busy, powerful minds, have been exercised." 
 All the great men of the days of the Georges 
 must in their time have passed before the 
 door of No. 10. There must have stood 
 Sir Robert Walpole's chariot and Chatham's 
 sedan-chair ; while Horace Walpole himself 
 saw those men who, as Macaulay says, were 
 Whigs when it must have been as dangerous 
 to be a Whig as a highwayman ! Men who 
 had been concealed in garrets and cellars 
 after the Battle of Sedgemoor, and who had 
 put their ñame to the declaration that they 
 would live and die with the Prince and 
 
 211 
 
212 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Princess of Orange. Walpole's own Secre- 
 tary to the Treasury, John Scrope, had 
 fought f or Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and in 
 the disguise of a woman carried despatches 
 between the Prince of Orange and the dis- 
 affected English peers. In 1724 he was 
 appointed Secretary to the Treasury (at 
 the age of sixty-two), and held the post 
 till he died in harness at the age of ninety. 
 His fidelity to Walpole brought him many 
 enemies, and the Committee of Secrecy in 
 1742 threatened him with the Tower for 
 refusing to give evidence as to his chief's 
 disposal of Secret Service money. He re- 
 plied that he did not care whether he spent 
 the few months he had to live in the Tower 
 or not, but that the last thing he would do 
 was to betray the King, and next to the King 
 the Earl of Orford. 
 
 I recollect in a witty speech at the Mansión 
 House the American Minister describing 
 Downing Street as the greatest street in the 
 world, because it lay at the hub of the 
 gigantic wheel which encircles the globe 
 under the ñame of the British Empire ; he 
 laid claim to it as an American street 
 because it originally belonged to one Down- 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 213 
 
 ing, a pupil educated in Scholá Publica 
 Prima in the State of Massachusetts, as 
 indeed it did. It is perhaps only a legend 
 that Queen Anne presided over a meeting 
 of the Cabinet in the house No. 10. But 
 the real interest of the house began when it 
 fell into the possession of the Crown, and 
 George I bestowed it on the Hanoverian 
 Minister, Barón Bothmar, who died there 
 in 1731. At his death, George II offered it 
 to the great minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 
 who, as we all know, with a public spirit 
 perhaps rarer in those days than it is now, 
 refused it as a private gift, but accepted 
 it to serve as an official residence in perpetu- 
 ity f or succeeding First Lords of the Treasury. 
 Here Sir Robert took up his residence in 
 1735, and three years later Lady Walpole 
 died there, being buried in Westminster 
 Abbey, where there is a beautiful statue 
 erected to her memory cióse to Henry VII's 
 Chapel, where her husband's banner, as a 
 Knight of the Bath, hangs ; the passer-by 
 may read there a long list of her virtues 
 inscribed by Horace Walpole, who, a little 
 later, laments the delightful rooms in 10 
 Downing Street, which he was so soon to 
 
214 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 quit. Sir Robert Walpole for twenty years 
 was Prime Minister, and when in 1742 he 
 ceased to hold office, he removed, much to 
 his son's regret, to Arlington Street, where 
 he died in 1745. 
 
 He was succeeded by Lord Wilmington, 
 who was celebrated in verse as — 
 
 " That oíd, dull unimportant Lord 
 Who at the longed-for Money Board 
 
 Sits first, but does not lead. 
 His younger brethren all things make, 
 So that the Treasury's like a snake, 
 
 And the tail moves the head." 
 
 But he never resided there, having lent the 
 house, as Horace Walpole says, to Mrs. 
 Sandys. Then carne what was called the 
 " Broadbottom and short administraron " 
 of Lords Granville and Bath— 1746— which 
 lasted, as the wits of the day said, for forty- 
 eight hours seven minutes and eleven 
 seconds. 
 
 Sir Robert Walpole was considered by 
 historians to be the originator of Cabinet 
 Councils, as we understand them now ; for, 
 before he was First Lord, Queen Anne 
 presided over meetings of a Committee of 
 the Privy Council, which were always held 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 215 
 
 on a Sunday, and also attended debates 
 in the House of Lords. She was the last of 
 our Sovereigns who in person attended such 
 councils ; for it would have been impossible 
 for the early Georges to preside over deliber- 
 ations which were conducted in what to 
 them was an unknown tongue. 
 
 These meetings were held in the Cockpit, 
 a part of Whitehall Palace, where the Treaty 
 of Utrecht was disclosed to the Lords of 
 the Council, and where Communications 
 from the Sovereign were made. Here the 
 Treasury was first lodged by William III in 
 1697, and for a century later letters were 
 not infrequently dated from the Cockpit. 
 Of that building little trace remains, but in 
 a dull and gloomy passage leading from 
 Whitehall to the Treasury Chambers there 
 are still two Tudor windows, the only re- 
 mains of the oíd Whitehall Palace. The 
 Cockpit was partly in the present garden of 
 10 Downing Street and partly on the site 
 of the present Treasury Chambers. Under- 
 neath, in what is now a coal-cellar, the cocks 
 are said to have been kept. There, to this 
 day, is to be seen a leaden cistern bearing 
 the cypher of Charles II. 
 
216 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 I cannot trace accurately where Cabinets 
 were held after the Cockpit. No place 
 could have been more interesting than this ; 
 for there Oliver Cromwell had lived before 
 the death of King Charles, and after the 
 Restoration it became the residence of 
 General Monk, who was at the same time 
 Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief 
 of all the Land Forces in the three kingdoms, 
 First Commissioner of the Treasury, and 
 Commander of the Fleet of England, prob- 
 ably the only subject who was addressed as 
 Father by his Sovereign. Afterwards it 
 became the residence of Princess Anne. 
 
 Sir Edward Hertslet, a great authority, 
 says that Cabinets were held in Cleveland 
 Row, afterwards in a private house leased 
 in Downing Street till 1861, and then in 
 Whitehall Gardens, pending the erection of 
 the new Foreign Office ; but this does not 
 tally with my own recollection of Cabinets 
 in the oíd Foreign Office, where they cer- 
 tainly met till the cióse of the Crimean War. 
 A friend who was then private secretary 
 to Lord Panmure at the War Office told 
 me how, when the news of the fall of 
 Sevastopol arrived, he ran across to the 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 217 
 
 Foreign Office, where he was told by the 
 messenger that he could not go up the oíd 
 staircase, as it was forbidden. " I pushed 
 by," he says, " went up and knocked at 
 the door myself, which was opened by Lord 
 Clarendon. Palmerston, on hearing the 
 news, gave a view-holloa you might have 
 heard across the Park." 
 
 Lord Hammond was a great stickler for 
 Cabinets being held in the Foreign Office, 
 but in Lord Clarendon's absence at Vienna, 
 after the cióse of the war, they were sum- 
 moned to Downing Street, where they 
 continued to be held, I believe, during the 
 building of the new Foreign Office. 
 
 The first minister after Walpole who 
 lived in No. 10 was Lord North, who never 
 would allow himself to be called Prime 
 Minister. When he assumed office he had 
 little prospects of an enduring administra- 
 tion, for he had to face the opposition 
 of Chatham, Rockingham, and Grenville ; 
 nevertheless he moved into the official resi- 
 dence, which he inhabited from 1770 to 
 1783. During the Gordon riots his house 
 was attacked, and yet he was said to have 
 become so attached to the room he inhabited, 
 
218 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 that after he had ceased to be First Lord 
 he wandered into it, and sat down in his 
 oíd accustomed seat, much to the astonish- 
 ment of the Treasury ofñcials. 
 
 It was to this house that Lord Chatham, 
 after his dramatic fainting-fit in the House 
 of Lords, was carried on his way to Hayes 
 Place, where he died. His son used the 
 house as his residence, and counted all days 
 lost that were not spent there. He and Lady 
 Hester Stanhope, his eccentric niece, kept 
 house together, and built what is now called 
 the banqueting room and the fine kitchen 
 under it. " I let her do as she pleases," 
 said Pitt, " for if she were resolved to cheat 
 the devil, she could do it." She became the 
 dispenser of much patronage in 1804, and 
 was practically the solé Secretary of State 
 for the Department of Treasury banquets. 
 
 Lord Grey was the next First Lord who 
 inhabited the house, and he lived there 
 through all the stormy times of the Reform 
 Bill. We all know the engraving of poor 
 Haydon's picture of the aged statesman, 
 sitting over the drawing-room fire with the 
 underwritten words : M Shall I resign ? M 
 But history cannot be written from pictures, 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 219 
 
 which are very often theproductof the artist's 
 fertile imagination. I have seen a coloured 
 engraving representing a Cabinet Council, 
 at which the Lord Chancellor in his robes 
 and wig was sitting beside William IV 
 discussing the Reform Bill. 
 
 Lord Goderich, during his short adminis- 
 tration, moved into No. 10, and here was 
 born his son, the present Lord Ripon. His 
 mother was nervous previous to her confine- 
 ment, and had all the doors taken off their 
 hinges, lest any of them should slam 
 during her illness. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel never moved from his 
 house in Whitehall to take up his residence 
 in Downing Street, though he transacted 
 his ofncial business there. It is not so very 
 long ago — indeed I am told as lately as 
 1 893-4 — that a charge used to appear in 
 the annual estimates presented to Parlia- 
 ment, for a small annuity for the sweeper 
 who kept the crossing clean, so that the 
 Prime Minister should not dirty his boots 
 on his passage from Whitehall to the 
 Treasury. 
 
 In PeePs day Cabinets were more frequent 
 than they are now ; peers, as Mr. Gladstone 
 
220 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 once told me, were not summoned to Cabinets 
 on Saturdays, on which days arrangements 
 only for the business in the House of Com- 
 mons in the coming week were discussed. 
 Had this rule been in forcé in Sir Robert 
 Walpole's days, he only and his First Lord 
 of the Admiralty would have been sum- 
 moned ; while Pitt would only have sum- 
 moned himself. 
 
 Cabinet dinners, which were in full forcé 
 up to Lord Aberdeen's time, were discon- 
 tinued by Lord Palmerston. I can well 
 imagine how they offended his social in- 
 stincts, for what can be duller or more 
 tedious than, after the day's work is over, 
 to fight all the oíd battles again with the 
 same colleagues at dinner ! Indeed, nine 
 times out of ten, men-dinners are lugu- 
 brious ceremonies. If the company is clever, 
 jealousies spring up, and men who are 
 brilliant conversationalists where women 
 are, miss the charm and sparkle of their 
 presence and the desire to please which is 
 wanting among men alone. Disraeli wisely 
 said, " There are many dismal things in 
 middle life, and a dinner of only men is 
 among them." 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 221 
 
 The discontinuance of these dinners, too, 
 prevented the possibility of another Cato 
 Street conspiracy, at the time when the 
 whole Cabinet was to have been blown up 
 at Lord Harrowby's in Grosvenor Square. 
 
 Lord Palmerston, riding down to Cabinets 
 on his oíd grey horse to the little door of 
 the Treasury Garden, rarely remained there, 
 even for ofíicial purposes, preferring to 
 transact all his business at his own house 
 by means of papers sent to and fro in locked 
 boxes. 
 
 In 1868 Mr. Disraeli held a meeting of 
 his party there, and subsequently, as Lord 
 Beaconsfield, lived there ; but the humble 
 surroundings which had been sumcient for 
 Walpole, Pitt, and Grey were not considered 
 worthy of the author of " Lothair," and in 
 1874 the cultured taste of Mr. Mitford, then 
 Secretary of the Board of Works, was called 
 in to redecorate the house throughout. 
 
 In was one day in 1872 that I was sum- 
 moned to Downing Street, and on my arrival 
 I was surprised to find Mr. Gladstone in 
 the garden with Sir Henry Storks and Sir 
 Frederick Abel, who had promised to de- 
 mónstrate the art of felling trees noiselessly 
 
222 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 by gun-cotton. A mast had been planted 
 in the ground with a necklace of gun-cotton 
 around it, which at the proper time was to 
 be exploded. Mr. Ayrton, then First Com- 
 missioner of Works, who was not a scientific 
 believer, was protesting against the experi- 
 ment, but on Sir Frederick's assurance that 
 nobody would be " one penny the worse," 
 the gun-cotton was exploded with a terrific 
 report, which was heard in Hyde Park. I 
 found myself under a shower of glass, which 
 had fallen from the skylight of the First 
 Lord's house, and all the adjoining windows 
 were smashed. 
 
 There was one person who rejoiced — that 
 was the triumphant Ayrton. Theories were 
 exploded as well as gun-cotton. 
 
 On Saturday, June 15, 1872 — a hot day, 
 for we had hot days then ! — the Cabinet was 
 summoned at eleven o'clock, to await the 
 decisión of the Alabama Court from Geneva. 
 After they had been waiting for some hours, 
 Lord Granville carne to my room and said : 
 " If we all sit together much longer, doing 
 nothing, we shall, in the nature of things, 
 quarrel. Can you get me a chess-board ? M 
 This I did, and the Cabinet all went out on 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 223 
 
 the " tarrass " and watched a chess tourna- 
 ment between Lord Granville and Mr. 
 Forster the only time, probably, when an 
 accurate picture of a Cabinet was drawn 
 from life ; for the sharp eye of Mr. Fairfield 
 had seen and seized his opportunity of 
 making an accurate drawing from his room 
 in the Colonial Office. 
 
 Living in Carlton House Terrace, Mr. 
 Gladstone did not consider that he would 
 gain much in time or convenience by 
 migrating to Downing Street, so he thought 
 it better that I should live there, and 10 
 Downing Street became our home — a home 
 possessing peculiar attractions for my wife 
 and me, not only as having been originally 
 given to my great-great-grandfather, Sir 
 Robert Walpole, but because she was born 
 there, Captain George Barrington, her 
 father, who was a Lord of the Admiralty 
 in Lord Grey's Government, having married 
 the daughter of Lord Grey. Curiously 
 enough, her brother, Charles Barrington, 
 became Lord Palmerston's secretary, and 
 was the next person who lived there, and 
 then, in 1869, we occupied the house during 
 Mr. Gladstone's great administration. 
 
224 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 From 10 Downing Street, in 1879, Disraeli 
 once wrote to Cardinal Manning : " I have 
 held eight Cabinets in a week, a feat un- 
 precedented in the annals of Downing Street. 
 Sir Robert Peel once held f our, but they were 
 not so tranquil as ours." 
 
 Cabinets have no local habitation. I 
 see them in oíd days meeting everywhere. 
 In Bertram Currie's house in Combe Wood 
 is a brass tablet recording how a Cabinet 
 was held there during a visit of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's. Another Cabinet which I recollect 
 was adjourned from the room in Downing 
 Street to the Garden terrace. 
 
 To all of us the Cabinet room was a sort 
 of political temple ; but to a famous oíd 
 ofñce-keeper, Appleton, who had lived to 
 see so many administrations, it was a veri- 
 table holy of holies. 
 
 " Come in here, sir, if you please," he one 
 day said to a high official in the Treasury, 
 Lord Welby, " the table had to be en- 
 larged and see what the Board of Works 
 has done ; they have put a leaf made of 
 deal in the middle of the mahogany table — 
 is that respectful ? M My economist friend 
 suggested that the green cloth would cover 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 225 
 
 it. All he could say was : " Is that re- 
 spectful ? " 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone returned in 1892, he 
 found it difñcult to hear at the long table 
 in the accustomed room, and the captain's 
 biscuits and carafe of water, which are 
 granted by a grateful country to its ministers, 
 were taken upstairs into what was called 
 the Deputation room, and I have in my 
 possession a plan, drawn by Mr. Gladstone 
 himself, showing the position of the tabíe 
 and how his Cabinet was to be arranged 
 around it. 
 
 In 1894 ne attended his Cabinet for the 
 last time. He sat, as John Morley in his 
 wonderful biography tells us, composed and 
 still as marble ; the emotion of his col- 
 leagues did not affect him as them. He 
 followed the words of acknowledgment and 
 farewell in a little speech of four or five 
 minutes, his voice unbroken and serene, 
 the tone low, grave, and steady — and then 
 he said : " God bless you all." 
 
 Lord Rosebery continued the arrange- 
 
 ment until he made way for Lord Salisbury, 
 
 who reverted to the oíd plan, which still 
 
 exists, of holding his Cabinets in the new 
 
 15 
 
226 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 ^oreign Office, while Mr. Balfour carne as 
 tenant of the oíd house. To those who have 
 never seen the house I may perhaps quote 
 a book which was published in the year of 
 Waterloo. Nightingale, in his " London and 
 Middlesex," describes — 
 
 " Downing Street as a narrow, mean-look- 
 ing street, but opening at the top into a hand- 
 some though small square, in which is the 
 residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and Prime Minister. This house has nothing 
 in its exterior or interior of peculiar merit, 
 except it be the excellent taste and beauty 
 manifested in the furniture, decorations, 
 paintings, library, etc. Nothing, however, 
 appears to be superfluous or unnecessarily 
 expensive ; a stranger who visits the houses 
 of some of our very first public officers and 
 political characters would not suppose that 
 the resources of the country are at any time 
 in a very flattering state, or he would con- 
 clude that a spirit of parsimony had seized 
 the whole nation. One would have thought 
 that the official residence of such a person 
 as the first minister and chief director in 
 the affairs of the revenue would have had 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 227 
 
 a commanding and conspicuous situation, 
 and have been adorned with some emblems 
 of our national greatness, or some intima- 
 tions of our rank among the nations of 
 Europe. Instead of this, it is hidden in a 
 córner, and cannot be approached by the 
 public except through one of the meanest- 
 looking streets of the metrópolis. Indeed, 
 there seems to be a culpable neglect and 
 want of laudable ambition in this respect, 
 pervading even the government itself." 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Nightingale would now be 
 satisfied, were he alive, if he were to see the 
 building he despised ornamented as it was 
 in the time of the flag mania, in defiance of 
 all architectural rules, with a ridiculous 
 flagstaff. 
 
 No sketch, however slight, should pass 
 over in silence the pictures collected in the 
 First Lord's house. They are few but very 
 interesting — of men mainly distinguished in 
 finance. Mr. Scharf, then the Director of 
 the National Portrait Gallery, was the first, 
 I believe, to identify and classify thern. 
 I fancy this was in Mr. Gladstone's last 
 Government. No connection with finance, 
 
228 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 however, can be traced in the portrait by 
 Lely of Lord Maynard, who carnes the stañ 
 of the Comptroller of the Household ; how 
 he carne to an honoured place in Downing 
 Street cannot be discovered. Then there 
 is a portrait of Thomas, Lord Clifford 
 of Chudleigh, Lord High Treasurer and 
 Treasurer of the Exchequer, whose ñame 
 furnished the first letter of the famous 
 Cabal. A fine full-length picture of Richard 
 Weston, Earl of Portland, who was Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer in 1620, Treasurer 
 of the Exchequer in 1624, and Lord High 
 Treasurer in 1628, until he was created 
 Earl of Portland in 1633, is the centre figure 
 of the panel at the end of the room. He 
 wears a black suit with a short mantle, with 
 a white lace circular ruff. He holds in 
 his hand a wand of office and wears the 
 Order of the Garter suspended by a blue 
 ribbon. It is a fine picture, painted not 
 by, but after, Vandyke. Burne-Jones con- 
 sidered it as an example of how a great 
 artist influenced the painters of his day. 
 
 Then, over the chimney-piece, is a fine 
 portrait, by Van Loo, of Sir Robert Walpole, 
 First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 229 
 
 of the Exchequer from 1721 to 1742, wearing 
 the embroidered robe of his office. The 
 broad blue ribbon of the Garter, so rarely 
 bestowed on a commoner, crosses his dark- 
 brown undercoat. His right hand holds 
 erect the ceremonial embroidered purse of 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think 
 Sir Robert must have had a vain appre- 
 ciation of the beauty of his hands, as in so 
 many of his portraits they are placed in 
 very prominent positions. 
 
 There is a bust portrait of Sir John 
 Lowther, who was First Lord of the Treasury 
 in 1 69 1, painted by a French artist, Hya- 
 cinthe Francois Rigaud, which was presented 
 by the Earl of Lonsdale as late as 1826. 
 Near it there is a portrait of Sydney Godol- 
 phin, Earl of Godolphin, who was Lord High 
 Treasurer from 1702 to 17 10 — life-size to 
 the waist, carrying his wand of office. This 
 was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and was 
 presented by the Countess de Grey in 1827. 
 
 Then there is a portrait of Perceval, who 
 was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1807 and 
 Prime Minister in 1809, by George Francis 
 Joseph. Mr. Perceval was assassinated in 
 the lobby of the House of Commons in May 
 
230 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 1812. Another portrait is of Henry Booth, 
 afterwards Barón Delamere, who was Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer in 1689, and was 
 created Earl of Warrington in 1690. The 
 presentment is of a young man, with long 
 flowing hair hanging below his shoulders, 
 and wearing black and polished metal 
 armour — I suppose a kind of fancy dress. 
 This is also painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 
 and has been engraved by John Smith. 
 Thomas Osborne, the first Duke of Leeds, 
 who was Lord High Treasurer from 1673 
 to 1679, is painted by John Greenhill, while 
 Henry Pelham, who was First Lord of the 
 Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 from 1743 to 1754, is painted by Van Loo, 
 in his ofñcial robes, with the embroidered 
 purse of the Seal of the Exchequer. Mr. 
 Gladstone's portrait, a copy of Millais' pie- 
 ture belonging to Lord Rosebery, hangs 
 appropriately on the walls. It was pre- 
 sented to that historie house by his private 
 secretaries on his retirement. It is to be 
 regretted that more pictures of those who 
 have held such high offices should not have 
 a place in a building so appropriate to 
 them ; and it is to be hoped that in future, 
 
No. 10 Downing Street 231 
 
 at any rate, such portraits may be forth- 
 coming for the benefit of posterity. 
 
 It is impossible to think of the number of 
 Prime Ministers and First Lords that have 
 existed since the house became their pro- 
 perty in Walpole's time, without being struck 
 with the mutability of human ambitions, 
 successes, and failures. Behold what 
 shadows we are, and what shadows we 
 pursue ! Since that time what changes 
 have not convulsed and passed over Europe : 
 the overthrow of thrones and dynasties ; 
 and we may be thankful that our constitu- 
 tion has been so firmly built on a rock as 
 to be independent of the rise and fall of 
 ministers and the ebb and flow of politics. 
 
PRIÍÍTED IN GRBáT BRITAIN 
 
 BY HAZBLL, WATSON AND VIMCY, LD., 
 
 LONDON A.1TD A.YLESBURY. 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" 
 
 C T? T) T T? O PRACTIC AL H ANDBOOKS 
 OrL/JVlJlrO FOR COLLECTORS 
 
 Most people nowadays are collectors in a small 
 way of Autographs, China, Furniture, Prints, 
 Miniatures, or Silver, and would take up these 
 fascinating hobbies more extensively, and collect 
 with profit, if they had a knowledge of the subject. 
 
 It is to the beginner and would-be collector that 
 Unwin's " Chats " Series of practical handbooks 
 especially appeal. They are the recognized stan- 
 dard guides to collecting, each volume being the 
 work of an expert on the subject dealt with. 
 
 Each volume is profusely illustrated with carefully- 
 chosen specimens of the various styles and periods. 
 
 Full índices, Bibliographies, and Lists of Sale Prices 
 at Public Auctions are included in the volumes. 
 
 " As this is the age of collectors, so it is the age of books for their guidance. 
 Mr. Unwin's series of books for collectors now includes twenty-one 
 volumes, and if bargains are missed it is certainly not the fault of the 
 various writers." The Nation, 
 
 HOW TO COLLECT WITH PROFIT 
 
 is the keynote of the series. The phenomenal prices realized at 
 auction sales are obtained by those who have collected wisely. 
 Prices are still rising, and those who have the knowledge are buying 
 for fu ture rises. Ask always for and see that you get UNWIN'S 
 "Chats" Series — the standard popular handbooks on collecting. 
 
 THE "CHATS" SERIES IS ON SALE AT ALL BOOKSELLERS 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND IS PUBLISHED BY 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 LIST OF VOLUMES 
 
 Chats on English China. By Arthur Hayden. Illus- 
 trated with reproductions of 156 marks and 89 specimens 
 of china. Cloth, lOs. 6d net. Sixth Impression. 
 
 This is the standard work on the subject. The volume 
 will enable the possessors of oíd china to determine 
 the factories at which their ware was produced. 
 " It gives in a few chapters just what the beginner wants to know 
 about the principal varieties of English ware. We can warmly 
 commend the book to the china collector." Pall Malí Gazette. 
 
 ** So simply yet so thoroughly written, that it is a sage guide to the 
 veriest tyro in china collecting." Bookman. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Furniture. By Arthur Hayden. With 
 a coloured frontispiece and 104 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 lOs. 6d. net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we ha ve seen ; so 
 that altogether this is a model book of its kind." Athenceum. 
 
 " A fully illustrated practical guide for collectors." The Times. 
 
 " Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic Unes, and 
 has made his book what it purports to be — a practical guide for the 
 collector." The Saturday Review. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Prínts. How to Collect and Identify. 
 By Arthur Hayden. With a coloured frontispiece and 
 72 full-page plates. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. Fifth Impression. 
 Every branch of the subject is carefully and explicitly 
 handled in this book, and valuable information as to 
 technical processes and identification of prints is given. 
 " If there is a better book of its kind on print collecting we have not 
 yet come across it." Daily Oraphic. 
 
 " A very useful handbook for beginners, intended to help any reader 
 of artistic tastes, but very modérate means, to collect to good pur- 
 pose." The Times. 
 
 Chats on Costume. By G. Woollis£roft Rhead, R.E. 
 With a coloured frontispiece and 117 other Illustrations. 
 Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 A practical guide to historie dress. * Clothes " is 
 a subject that has been neglected by collectors, 
 and this book will be a useful guide to those who 
 desire to repair that neglect by forming a collection. 
 11 A book that is at once the work of an authority on the subject 
 of costumes, and one that helps to enlarge our rango of selec- 
 tion." PaU Malí Oaxette. 
 
 T. FJSHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Oíd Miniatures. By J. J. Foster, F.S.A. 
 With a coloured frontispiece and 116 other Illustra- 
 tions. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 This book presents in a concise and popular form a variety 
 of valuable information on the collection and preservation 
 of miniatures, on the leading English and French artists, 
 and on the specimens exhibited in public galleries. 
 
 " Mr. Foster is truly a guide, philosopher and friend. He tells us 
 not only how to judge and how to buy miniatures, but how to take 
 proper care of them. . . . The splendid photographs by which the 
 book is enriched adds in a great measure to its attractiveness and 
 utility." Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Lace and Needlework. By Mrs. Lowes. 
 With a frontispiece and 74 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 lOs. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 Written by an expert and enthusiast in these most 
 inter esting branches of art. The low price at which 
 the work is issued is exceptional in dealing with 
 these subjects, and it is remarkable in view of the 
 technical knowledge displayed and the many photo- 
 graphic illustrations which practically interleave the book. 
 
 " In commendable, olear and concise style Mrs. Lowes explains the 
 technical features distinguishing each example, making the book the 
 utmost valué in identifying samples of oíd lace."— Weldon's Ladies' Jour. 
 
 Chats on Oriental China. By J. F. Blacker. With 
 a coloured frontispiece and 70 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 lOs. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 Will be of the utmost service to collectors and to all who 
 may have oíd Chinese and Japancse porcelain in their 
 possession. It deals with oriental china from the various 
 standpoints of history, technique, age, marks and valúes, 
 and is richly illustrated with admirable reproductions. 
 
 "A treatise that is so informing and comprehensive that it commands 
 the prompt recognisation of all who valué the choice productions of 
 the oriental artists. . . . The illustrations are numerous and invalu- 
 able to the attainment of expert knowledge, and the result is a hand- 
 book that is as indispensable as it is unique." Pall Malí Gazette. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1: ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON. W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on English Earthenware. A companion volume 
 to " Chats on English China." By Arthur Hayden. 
 With a coloured frontispiece, 150 Illustrations and tables 
 of over 200 illustrated marks. Cloth, 
 
 lOs. 6d. net. Third Impression. 
 
 " To the ever-increasing number of collectors who are taking 
 an interest in oíd English pottery . . . will be found one of 
 the most delightful, as it is a practical work on a fascinating 
 subject." Hearth and Home. 
 
 " Here we ha ve a handbook, written by a well-known authority, 
 which gives in the concisest possible form all the information that 
 the beginner in earthenware collecting is likely to need. Moreover, 
 it contains one or two features that are not usually found in the 
 multifarious " guides " that are produced to-day." Nation. 
 
 Chats on Autographs. By A. M. Broadley. With 
 130 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Being an expert collector, Mr. Broadley not only discourses on 
 the kinds of autograph he owns, but gives some excellent cautionary 
 advice and a valuable ' caveat emptor ' chapter for the benefit of 
 other collectors." Westminster Qazette. 
 
 " It is assuredly the best work of the kind yet given to the public ; 
 and supplies the inteiyiing collector with the various sources of infor- 
 mation necessary to his equipment." Manchester Guardián. 
 
 Chats on Pewter. By H. J. L. J. Masse, M.A. With 
 52 half-tone and numerous other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 lOs. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " It is a remarkably thorough and well-arranged guide to the subject, 
 supplied with useful illustrations and with lists of pewterers and of 
 their marks so complete as to make it a very complete and satis- 
 factory book of reference." Manchester Guardián. 
 
 " Before setting out to collect oíd pewter it would be as well to read 
 Mr. Massó's book, which is exhaustivo in its information and its 
 lists of pewterers, analytical index, and historical and technical 
 chapters. Speciator. 
 
 Chats on Postage Stamps. By Fred J. Melville. 
 With 57 half-tone and 17 line Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 lOs. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The wholo book, with its numerous illustrations of excellent quality, 
 is a vade mecum for stamp collectors, even though their efforts may 
 be but modest ; we congratúlate Mr. Melville on a remarkably good 
 guide, which makos fascinating reading." Academy. 
 
 " There is no doubt that Mr. Melville's book filis a void. There is 
 nothing exactly like it. Agreeably written in a popular style muí 
 adequately illustratotl, it is certainly one of the best guides to phila- 
 telic knowledgo that have yet been published." World. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 A DELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C 2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Oíd Jewellery and Trínkets. By MacIver 
 Percival. With nearly 300 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 " The book is very thorough, dealing as it does with classic, antique 
 and modern ornaments ; with gold, silver, steel and pinchbeck ; with 
 the precious stones, the commoner stones and imitation." — Outlook. 
 " * Chats on Oíd Jewellery and Trinkets ' is a book which will enable 
 every woman to turn over her jewel-case with a fresh interest and 
 a new intelligence ; a practical guide for the humble but anxious 
 collector. ... A good glossary of technicalities and many exeel- 
 lent illustrations complete a valuable contribution to collector's 
 lore." Illustrated hondón News. 
 
 Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture. A com- 
 panion volume to " Chats on Oíd Furniture." By Arthur 
 Hayden. With a coloured frontispiece and 75 other 
 Illustrations. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " One gets very much for one's money in this book. Seventy-three 
 full-page illustrations in half-tone embellish a letterpress which is 
 replete with wise description and valuable hints." Vanity Fair. 
 
 " Mr. Hayden's book is a guide to all sorts of desirable and simple 
 furniture, from Stuart to Georgian, and it is a delight to read as well 
 as a sure help to selection." Pall Malí Oazette. 
 
 " Mr. Hayden writes lucidly and is careful and accurate in his state- 
 ments ; while the advice he gives to collectors is both sound and 
 reasonable." Westminster Qazette. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Coins. By Fred W. Burgess. With a 
 coloured frontispiece and 258 other Illustrations. Cloth, 
 lOs. 6d. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " A most useful and instructivo book . . . will prove a boon to the 
 intending collector of oíd coins and tokens, and full of interest to 
 every collector. As was to be expected of any volume of this series, 
 the illustrations are numerous and good, and greatly assist the reader 
 to grasp the essentials of the author's descriptions." Outlook. 
 
 " The author has not only produced ' a practical guide for the col- 
 lector ' but a handy book of reference for all. The volume is wonder- 
 fully cheap." Notes and Queries. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Copper and Brass. By Fred W. 
 Burgess. With a coloured frontispiece and 86 other 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. F. W. Burgess is an expert on oíd copper and bronze, and in his 
 book there is little information lacking which the most ardent 
 collector might want." The Observer. 
 
 " Italian bronzes, Africana charms, Chínese and Japanese enamels, 
 bells, mortars, Indian idols, dials, candlesticks, and snuff boxes, 
 all come in for their share of attention, and the reader who has 
 mastered Mr. Burgess's pages can face his rival in the auction- 
 room or the dealer in his shop with little fear of suffering by the 
 transaction." The Nation. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, W.C 2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Household Curios. By Fred W. Burgess. 
 With 94 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. Burgess gives much information about such attractive antiquea 
 as oíd glass and enamels, oíd leather work, oíd clocks and watchee, 
 oíd pipes, oíd seáis, musical instruments, and even oíd samplere and 
 children's toys. The book is, in short, an excellent and compre- 
 hensivo guide for what one may cali the general collector, that is, 
 the collector who does not confine himself to one class of antique, 
 but buys whatever he comes across in the curio line, provided that 
 it is interesting and at modérate price." Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 Chats on Japanese Prínts. By Arthur Davison 
 Ficke. With a coloured frontispiece and 56 Illustra- 
 tions. Cloth, 6s. net. Third Impression. 
 " Mr. Ficke writes with the knowledge of the expert, and his history 
 of Japanese printing from very early times and his criticism of the 
 artista' work are wonderfully interesting." Tatbr. 
 " This is one of the most delightful and notable members of an 
 attractive series. ... A beginner who shall have mastered and made 
 thoroughly his own the beauty of line and the various subtlety and bold- 
 ness of linear composition displayed in these sixty and odd photographs 
 will have no mean foundation for furthcr study." — Notes and Queries. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Clocks. By Arthur Hayden. With a 
 frontispiece and 80 Illustrations. 2nd Ed. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. 
 " A practical handbook dealing with the examples of oíd clocks likely 
 to come under the observation of the collector. Charmingly written 
 and illustrated." Outlook. 
 
 " One specially useful feature of the work is the prominence Mr. 
 Hayden has given to the makers of clocks, dealing not only with 
 those of London, but also those of the leading provincial towns. The 
 lists he givos of the lattor are highly valuable, as they are not to be 
 found in any similar book. The volume is, as usual with this series, 
 profusely illustrated, and may be recoromended as a highly interesting 
 and useful general guide to collectors of clocks." The Connoisseur. 
 
 Chats on Oíd Silver. By Arthur Hayden. With a 
 frontispiece, 99 full-page Illustrations, and illustrated 
 table of marks. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. Third Inipression. 
 " Mr. Hayden's ' Chats on Oíd Silver ' deals very thoroughly with a 
 popular branch of collecting. There are a hundred full-page illus- 
 trations together with illustrated tables and charts, and the student 
 of this book can wander round the oíd curiosity shops of these islands 
 with a valuable equipment of knowledge. . . . Altogether we have 
 here a well-written summary of overything that one could wish to 
 know about this branch of collecting." Th> s 
 
 44 The information it gives will be of exceptional valué at this tinu*. . 
 when so many families will be forcod to part with thflif ttvasures — 
 and oíd silver is among the most procious possessions of the present 
 day." Morning Post. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C.2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 Chats on Military Curios. By Stanley C. Johnson, 
 M.A., D.Sc. With a coloured frontispiece and 79 other 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 " Mr. Johnson in this book describes many of the articles a collector 
 should be on the look out for, giving short but informativo notes on 
 medals, helmet and cap badges, tunic buttons, armour, weapons of 
 all kinds, medallions, autographs, original documents relating to 
 Army work, military pictures and prints, newspaper cuttings, obso- 
 leto uniforms, crests, stamps, postmarks, memorial brasses, money 
 and curios made by prisoners of war, while there is also an excellent 
 biography on the subject. The author has, indeed, presented the 
 reader with a capital working handbook, which should pro ve a friendly 
 and reliable guide when he goes collecting." Field. 
 
 Chats on Royal Copenhagen Porcelain. By Arthur 
 Hayden. With a frontispiece, 56 full-page Illustrations 
 and illustrated tables of marks. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. 
 
 " This very beautiful and very valuable book will be eagerly wel- 
 comed by lovers of porcelain. . . . Mr. Hayden describes with great 
 skill and preciseness all the quality and beauty of technique in which 
 this porcelain excels ; he loves it and understands it, and the examples 
 he has chosen as illustrations are a valuable supplement to his 
 descriptions." Bookman. 
 
 A NEW "CHATS" VOLUME TO BE ISSUED IN 
 THE AUTUMN OF 1920. ORDER EARLY 
 
 Chats on Oíd Sheffield Píate. By Arthur Hayden. 
 With frontispiece and 53 full page Illustrations, together 
 with makers' marks. Cloth, lOs. 6d. net. 
 
 Oíd plated ware has, by reason of its artistic excellence 
 and its technique, deservedly won favour with collectors. 
 The art of making plated ware, which originated at Sheffield 
 (henee the ñame " Sheffield píate "), was continued at 
 Birmingham and London, where a considerable amount 
 of " oíd Sheffield píate " was made, in the manner of its 
 first inventors, by welding sheets of sil ver upon copper. 
 The manufacture lasted roughly a hundred years. Its 
 best period was from 1776 (American Declaration of 
 Independence) to 1830 (Accession of William IV). The 
 author shows reasons why this oíd Sheffield píate should 
 be collected, and the volume is illustrated with many 
 examples giving various styles and the development of the 
 art, together with makers' marks. Candlesticks and 
 candelabra, tea-caddies, sugar-baskets, salt-cellafs, tea- 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C. 2 
 
UNWIN'S "CHATS" SERIES 
 
 pots, coffee-pots, salvers, spoons, and mariy other articles 
 shown and described in the volume indícate the exquisite 
 craftsmanship of the best period. The work stands as a 
 companion volume to the author's " Chats on Oíd Sil ver/ ' 
 the standard practical guide to oíd English silver collecting. 
 
 Bye Paths in Cuño Collecting. By Arthur Hayden, 
 Author of " Chats on Oíd Silver," etc. With a frontis- 
 piece and 72 full-page Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 21s. net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Every collector knows the ñame of Mr. Arthur Hayden, and knows 
 him for a wise counseller. Upon oíd furniture, oíd china, oíd pottery, 
 and oíd prints there is n<5 more knowing judge in the country ; and 
 in his latest volume he supplies a notable need, in the shape of a vade- 
 mécum exploring some of the nondescript and little traversed bye- 
 paths of the collector. There was never a time when the amateur 
 of the antique stood more in need of a competent guide. . . . 
 The man who wishes to avoid the pitfalls of the fraudulent will 
 find much salutary advice in Mr. Hayden's gossipy pages. 
 There are chests, for example, a fruitful field for reproduction. 
 Mr. Hayden gives photographs of many exquisite examples. There 
 is a marriage coffer of the sixteenth century, decorated with carved 
 figures of Cupid and Hymen, a fine Gothic chest of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, with rich foliated decorations ; and a superb livery cupboard 
 from Haddon Hall. From Flanders come stoel coffers, with a lock 
 of four bolts, the heavy sides strongly braized together. Then there 
 aro snuffers, with and without trays, tinder-boxes, snuff graters, and 
 metal tobáceo stoppers. The most fascinating designs are shown, 
 with squirrels, dogs, and quaint human figures at the summit. Fans 
 and playing-cards provide another attractive section. 
 
 Chicken-skin, delicate, white, 
 
 Painted by Cario van Loo. 
 The fan has always been an object of the collector's passion, because 
 of the grace of the article and its beauty as a display. Mr. Hayden 
 shows a particularly beautiful one, with designs after Fragonard, 
 the sticks of ivory with jewelled studs. Then there are watch-stands, 
 a little baroque in dosign, and tablé-bells, some of them shaped as 
 female figures with spreading skirts, oíd toys and picture-books, and, 
 of course, eradles, of which every English farm-house once boasted 
 its local variety. Altogether the book abounds in inviting pictures 
 and curious information, and is certain of a large, approciative 
 publio." Daily Telcgrapfi. 
 
 TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE AUTUMN, 1920 
 The Fan Book : Including Special Chapters on Europcan 
 Fans of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By 
 MacIver Percival, author of " Chats on Oíd Je \\( Qeiy and 
 Trinkets." Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo, cloth, 21/- net. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON. W.C.2 
 
THE ADVANCE OF 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 A FEW NOTES ON SOME INTERESTING BOOKS 
 DEALING WITH THE PAST HISTORY, PRESENT AND 
 FUTURE POSSIBILITIES OF THE GREAT CONTINENT 
 
 When in 1906 Mr. Fisher Unwin commissioned the late 
 Major Martin Hume to prepare a series of volumes by 
 experts on the South American Republics, but little 
 interest had been taken in the country as a possible field 
 for commercial development. The chief reasons for Áhis 
 were ignorance as to the trade conditions, and the varied 
 resources of the country, and the general unrest and 
 instability of most of the governments. With the coming 
 of the South American Series of handbooks the financial 
 world began to realize the importance of the country, 
 and, with more settled conditions, began in earnest 
 to develop the remarkable natural resources which 
 awaited outside enterprise. Undoubtedly the most 
 informative books on the various Republics are those 
 included in The South American Series, each of 
 which is the work of a recognized authority on his subject. 
 
 " The output of books upon Latin America has in recent years been 
 very large, a proof doubtless of the increasing interest that is felt 
 in the subject. Of these the ' South American Series ' is the most 
 noteworthy." The Times. 
 
 " When the ' South American Series ' is completed, those who take 
 interest in Latin-American affairs will have an invaluable encyclo- 
 paedia at their disposal." Westminster Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Unwin's ' South American Series ' of books are of special interest 
 and valué to the capitalist andtrader." — Chamber of Commerce Journal. 
 
 Full particulars of the volumes in the "South American 
 Series," also of other interesting books on South 
 America, will be found in the pages following. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON, W.C.2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 1 Chile. By G. F. Scott Elliott, M.A., F.R.G.S. With 
 
 an Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 39 Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " An exhaustive, interesting account, not only of the turbulent 
 history of this country, but of the preseht conditions and seeming 
 prospects." Westminster Gazette. 
 
 2 Perú. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an In- 
 troduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 64 Ulustrations. 
 Cloth, 18/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " An important work. . . . The writer possessea a. quick eye and 
 a keen intelligence ; is many-sided in his interests, and on certain 
 eubjects speaks as an expert. The volurae deala fully with the develop- 
 mont of the country." The Times. 
 
 8 México. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With an 
 Introduction by Martin Hume, a Map and 64 -Ulustrations. 
 Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The book is most comprehensivo ; the history, política, 
 topography, industries, resources and posaibilitiea being most ably 
 discussed." The Financial News. 
 
 4 Argentina. By W. A. Hirst. With an Introduction by 
 Martin Hume, a Map and 64 Ulustrations. Cloth, 15/- 
 net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 " The best and most comprehensivo of recent works on 
 the greatest and most progressive of the República of South 
 America." Manchestcr Ouardian. 
 
 5 Brazil. By Pierre Denis. Translated, and with an 
 Historical Chaptcr by Bernard Miall. With a Supple* 
 mentary Chaptcr by Dawson A. Vindin, a Map and 
 86 Ulustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 " Altogether the book ia full of information, which shows the author to 
 have made a most careful study of the country." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C 2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 6 Uruguay. By W. H. Koebel. With a Map and 55 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 M Mr. Koebel has given us an expert's diagnosis of the present con- 
 dition of Uruguay. Glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, he 
 has prepared a document of the deepest interest." — Evening Standard, 
 
 7 Guiana. British, French and Dutch. By James Rodway. 
 With a Map and 32 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 18/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Rodway's work is a storehouse of information, historical, 
 economical and sociological." The Times. 
 
 8 Venezuela. By Leonard V. Dalton, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 
 
 With a Map and 45 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 15/- net. Third Impression. 
 
 " An exhaustivo and valuable survey of its geography, geology, 
 history, botany, zoology and anthropology, and of its commercial 
 possibilities in the near future." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 9 Latin America : Its Rise and Progress. By F. Garcia- 
 Calderon. With a Preface by Raymond Poincaré, 
 President of the French Republic. With a Map and 34 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 President Poincaré, in a striking preface to this book, 
 says : " Here is a book that should be read and digested 
 by every one interested in the future of the Latin genius." 
 
 10 Colombia. ByPHANOR James Eder, A.B., LL.B. With 
 2 Maps and 40 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 15/- net. Fourth Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Eder's valuable work should do much to encourage invest- 
 ment, travel and trade in one of the least-known and most promising 
 of the countries of the New World." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 T FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON," W.C.2 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES 
 
 11 Ecuador. By C. Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With 2 
 Maps and 37 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Enock's very thorough and exhaustivo volume should help 
 British investors to take their part in promoting its develop- 
 ment. He has studied and described the country in all ite 
 aspects." Manchealer Guardian. 
 
 12 Bolivia. By Paul Walle. With 4> Maps and 59 Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 18/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 Bolivia is a veritable El Dorado, requiring only capital 
 and enterprise to become one of the wealthiest States of 
 America. This volume is the result of a careful investiga- 
 ron made on behalf of the French Ministry of Commerce. 
 
 18 Paraguay. By W. H. Koebel. With a Map and 32 
 Illustrations. Cloth, 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Gives a great deal of serious and useful information about the 
 possibilities of the country for the emigrant, the investor and the 
 tourist, concurrently with a vivid and literary aocount of ite 
 history." Economist. 
 
 14 Central America : Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, 
 Honduras, Panamá and Salvador. By W. H. Koebel. 
 With a Map and 25 Illustrations. Cloth, 
 
 15/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 "We strongly recommend this volume, not only to merchante look- 
 ing ahead for now oponings for trade, but also to all who wish for 
 an accurate and interesting account of an almost unknown 
 world." Saturday Revicw. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C 2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 OTHER BOOKS ON 
 SO U TH AMERICA 
 
 Spanish America : Its Romance, Reality and Future. 
 By C. R. Enock, Author of " The Andes and the Amazon," 
 "Perú," "México," "Ecuador." Illustrated and with a 
 Map. 2 vols. Cloth, 30/- net the set. 
 
 Starting with the various States of Central America, Mr. 
 Enock then describes ancient and modern México, then 
 takes the reader successively along the Pacific Coast, the 
 Cordillera of the Andes, enters the land of the Spanish 
 Main, conducts the reader along the Amazon Valley, gives 
 a special chapter to Brazil and another to the River Píate 
 and Pampas. Thus all the States of Central and South 
 America are covered. The work is topographical, de- 
 scriptive and historical ; it describes the people and the 
 cities, the flora and fauna, the varied resources of South 
 America, its trade, railways, its characteristics generally. 
 
 South America : An Industrial and Commercial Field, 
 By W. H. Koebel. Illustrated. Cloth, 
 
 18/- net. Second Impression, 
 
 11 The book considera such questions as South American commerce, 
 British interests in the various Eepublics, international relations 
 and trade, Communications, the tendency of enterprise, iudustries, 
 etc. Two chapters devoted to the needs of the continent will be 
 of especial interest to manufacturers and merchants, giving as they 
 do valuable hints as to the various goods required, while the chapter 
 on merchandise and commercial travellers afibrds some sound and 
 practical advice." Chamber of Commerce Journal. 
 
 T FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C.2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Vagabonding down the Andes. By Harry 
 
 A. Franck, author of "A Vagabond Journey Round the 
 
 World," etc. With a Map and 176 Illustrations. 
 
 Cloth, 25/- net. Second Impression. 
 
 11 The book is a brilliant record of ad venturo us travel among 
 strange scenes and with even more strange companions, and 
 vividly illustrates, by its graphic text and its admirable photo- 
 graphs, the real conditions of life in the backwood regions of South 
 America." Mancheater Guardián. 
 
 •'Mr. Franck is to be congratulated on having produced a readable 
 and even fascinating book. His journey lay over countries in which 
 an increasing interest is being felt. Practically speaking, he may 
 be said to have started from Panamá, wandered through Colombia, 
 spending some time at Bogotá, and then going on to Ecuador, of 
 which Quito is the centre. Next he traversed the fascinating country 
 of the Incas, from the borders of which he entered Bolivia, going 
 right across that country till he approached Brazil. He passed 
 through Paraguay, cut through a córner of the Argentino to Uruguay, 
 and so to the River Plata and the now well-known town of Buenos 
 Ayres." Country Lije. 
 
 In the Wilds of South America: Six Years of Explora- 
 tion in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Perú, Bolivia, 
 Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. By Leo E. Miller, 
 of the American Museum of Natural History. With 48 
 Full-page Illustrations and with Maps. Cloth, 21/- net. 
 
 This volume reprcsents a series of almost continuous 
 explorations hardly ever paralleled in the huge áreas 
 traversed. The author is a distinguished field naturalist 
 — one of those who accompanied Colonel Roosevelt on 
 his famous South American expedition — and his first object 
 in his wanderings over 150,000 miles of territory was the 
 observation of wild life ; but hardly second was that of 
 exploration. The result is a wonderfully informativo, 
 impressive and often thrilling narrative in which savage 
 peoples and all but unknown animáis largely figure, which 
 forms an infinitely readable book and onc of rare valué 
 for geographers, naturalists and other scientific nun. 
 
 T, FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON. W.C. 2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The Putumayo : The Devil's Paradise. Travels in the 
 Peruvian Amazon Región and an Account of the Atrocities 
 committed upon the Indians therein. By E. W. Harden- 
 burg, CE. Edited and with an Introduction by C. 
 Reginald Enock, F.R.G.S. With a Map and 16 
 Iliustrations. Demy 8vo, Cloth, 
 
 10/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 " The author gives us one of the most terrible pages in the history 
 of trade." Daily Ckronicle. 
 
 Tramping through México, Guatemala and Hon- 
 duras. By Harry A. Franck. With a Map and 88 
 Iliustrations. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 «'Mr. Harry Franck is a renowned vagabond with a gift for vivid 
 description. . . . His record is well illustrated and he tells his story 
 in an attractive manner, his descriptions of scenery being so well 
 done that one feels almost inclined to risk one's life in a wild race 
 dwelling in a land of lurid beauty." Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 "Mr. Franck has combined with an enthralling and amusing 
 personal narrativo a very vivid and searching picture, topogra- 
 phical and social, of a región of much political and economic 
 interest." Glasgow Herald. 
 
 México (Story of the Nations). By Susan Hale. 
 With Maps and 47 Illus. Cloth, 7/6 net. Third Impression. 
 
 " This is an attractive book. There is a fascination about México 
 which is all but irresistible. . . . The authoress writes with 
 considerable descriptivo power, and all through the stirring 
 narrativo never permits us to lose sight of natural surround- 
 ings." Dublin Review, 
 
 Things as they are in Panamá. By Harry A. 
 Franck. With 50 Iliustrations. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 "Mr. Franck writes from personal knowledge, fortified by the 
 aptitude of a practical and shrewd observer with a sense of humour, 
 and the result is a word-picture of unusual vividness." — Standard. 
 "A sparkling narrativo which leaves one wondering again why the 
 general reader favours modern fiction so much when it is possible 
 to get such vivacious yarns as this about strange men and their ways 
 , in a romantic córner of the tropics." Daily Mail. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON, WC.2 
 
BOOKS ON SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The Spell of the Trópica. Poems. By Randolph 
 H. Atkin. Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 The author has tra^elled extensively in Central and South 
 America, and has strongly felt the spell of those tropic lands, 
 with all their splendour and romance, and yet about which 
 so little is known. The poems are striking pen-pictures 
 of life as it is lived by those men of the English-speaking 
 races whose lot is cast in the sun-bathed countries of 
 Latin- America. Mr. Atkin's verses will reach the hearts 
 of all who feel the cali of the wanderlust, and, 
 having shared their pleasures and hardships, his 
 poems will vividly recall to " old-timers " bygone 
 memories of days spent in the land of the Coconut Tree. 
 
 Baedeker Guide to the United States. With 
 Excursions to México, Cuba, Porto Rico and Alaska. 
 With 83 Maps and 49 Plans. Fourth Edition, 
 
 1909. Cloth, 15/- net. 
 
 IMPORTANT. Travellers to the Republics of South America 
 will find WESSELY'S ENGLISH-SPANISH and SPANISH- 
 ENGLISH DICTIONARY and WESSELY'S LATIN-ENGLISH 
 and ENGLISH-LATIN DICTIONARY invaluable books. Bound 
 in cloth, pocket size. Price 4/- net each. 
 
 Ask for Wessely's Edition, published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.. 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. LONDON W.C.2 
 
THE STORY OF 
 THE NATIONS 
 
 THE GREATEST HISTORICAL LIBRARY 
 IN THE WORLD :: :: 67 VOLUMES 
 
 Each volume of ' * The Story of the Nations " Series is the work of 
 a recognized scholar, chosen for his knowledge of the subject and 
 ability to present history in an attractive form, for the student and 
 the general reader. The Illustrations and Maps are an attractive 
 feature of the volume, which are strongly bound for constant use. 
 
 67 Voluntes. Cloth, 7s. 6d. net each. 
 
 See page 2 for an announcement of a new volume. 
 
 " It is many years since Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin commenced the 
 publication of a series of volumes now entitled " The Story of the 
 Nations." Each volume is written by an acknowledged authority 
 on the country with which it deals. The series has enjoyed 
 great populan ty, and not an uncommon experience being the 
 necessity for a second, third, and even fourth impression of 
 particular volumes." Scotsman. 
 
 " Probably no publisher has issued a more informativo and valuable 
 series of works than those included in " The Story of the 
 Nations." To-Day. 
 
 "The series is likely to be found indispensable in every school 
 library." Pall Malí Oazette. 
 
 " An admirable series." Spectator. 
 
 " Such a universal history as the series will present us with in 
 its completion will be a possession such as no country but 
 our own can boast of. Its success on the whole has been very 
 remarkable." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " There is perhaps no surer sign of the increased interest that is now 
 being taken in historical matters than the favourable reception which 
 we believe both here and in America is being accorded to the various 
 volumes of " The Story of the Nations " as they issue in quick 
 succession from the press. More than one volume has reached its 
 third edition in England alone. . . . Each volume is written by one 
 of the foremost English authorities on the subject with which 
 it deals. . . . It is almost impossible to over-estimate the valué 
 of the series of carefully prepared volumes, such as are the 
 majority of those comprising this library. . . . The illustrations 
 make one of the most attractive features of the series." — Guardian. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C. 2 
 
A NEW VOLUME IN "THE 
 STORY OF THE NATIONS" 
 READY IN THE AUTUMN, 1920 
 
 BELGIUM 
 
 FROM THE ROMÁN JNVASION TO THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 By EMILE CAMMAERTS. With Maps and 
 Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cloth, 7/6 net. 
 
 A complete history of the Belgian nation from its origins 
 to its present situation has not yet been published in this 
 country. Up till now Belgian history has only been 
 treated as a side issue in works concerned with the Belgian 
 art, Belgian literature or social conditions. Besides, 
 there has been some doubt with regard to the date at 
 which such a history ought to begin, and a good many 
 writers have limited themselves to the modern history 
 of Belgium because they did not see in olden times 
 sufficient evidence of Belgian unity. According to the 
 modern school of Belgian historians, however, this unity, 
 founded on common traditions and common interests, 
 has asserted itself again and again through the various 
 periods of history in spite of invasión, foreign domination 
 and the various triáis experienced by the country. The 
 history of the Belgian nation appears to the modern mind 
 as a slow development of one nationality constitutcd by 
 two races speaking two different languages but bound 
 together by geographical, economic and cultural con- 
 ditions. In view of the recent proof Belgium has giren 
 of her patriotism during the world-war, this imparlial 
 enquiry into her origins may prove interesting to British 
 readers. Every opportunity has been taken to insist on 
 the frequent relalionships between the Belgian provincc s 
 and Great Britain from the early middle ages to the present 
 time, and to show the way in which botli countries WCW 
 affected by thcm. Written by. one of the most dis- 
 tinguished Belgian writers, who has made a specialty of 
 his subject, this work will be one of the most brilliant and 
 informing contributions in " The Story of the Nations." 
 
A COMPLETE LIST OF THE 
 VOLUMES IN "THE STORY OF 
 THE NATIONS" SERIES. THE 
 FIRST AND MOST COMPLETE 
 LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY 
 PRESENTED IN A POPULAR FORM 
 
 1 Rome: From the Earliest Times to the End of 
 the Republic. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. Third 
 Edition. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 2 The Jews: In Ancient, Medissval and Modern 
 Times. By Professor James K. Hosmer. Eighth 
 Impression. With 37 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 3 Germany. By S. Baring-Gould, M.A. Seventh 
 Impression. With 108 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 4 Carthage: or the Empire of África. By Professor 
 Alfred J. Church, M.A. With the Collaboration 
 of Arthur Gilman, M.A. Ninth Impres- 
 sion. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 5 Alexander's Empire. By John Pentland Mahaffy, 
 D.D. With the Collaboration of Arthur Gilman, M.A. 
 Eighth Impression. With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 6 The Moors in Spain. By Stanley Lane-Poole. With 
 the Collaboration of Arthur Gilman, M.A. Eighth 
 Edition. With 29 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 7 Ancient Egypt. By Professor George Rawlinson, 
 M.A. Tenth Edition. Eleventh Impres- 
 sion. With 50 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 8 Hungary. In Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Times. 
 By Professor Arminius Vambéry. With Collaboration 
 of Louis Heilpin. Seventh 
 Edition. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 9 The Saracens: From the Earliest Times to the Fall 
 of Bagdad. By Arthur Gilman, M.A. Fourth 
 Edition. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS-co*¿íw 
 
 10 lreland. By the Hon. Emily Lawless. Revised and 
 brought up to date by J. O'Toole. With some 
 additions by Mrs. Arthur Bronson. Eighth 
 Impression. With 58 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 11 Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of 
 Assyria. By ZénaIde A. Ragozin. Seventh 
 Impression. With 80 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 12 The Goths: From the Earliest Times to the End 
 of the Gothic Dominion in Spain. By Henry Bradley. 
 Fifth Edition. With 85 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 1.3 Assyria : From the Rise of the Empire to the Fall 
 
 of Nineveh. (Continued from " Chaldea.") By 
 
 Zénaide A. Ragozin. Seventh 
 
 Impression. With 81 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 14 Turkey. By Stanley Lane-Poole, assisted by 
 C. J. W. Gibb and Arthur Gilman. New 
 Edition. With a new Chapter on recent 
 events (1908). With 43 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 15 Holland. By Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 Fifth Edition. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 16 Media? val France : From the Reign of Huguar Capet 
 to the beginning of the 16th Century. By Gusta ve Masson, 
 B.A. Sixth Edition. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 17 Persia. By S. G. W. Benjamín. Fourth 
 Edition. With 56 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 18 Pheenicia. By Professor George Rawlinson, M.A. 
 Third Edition. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 19 Media, Babylon, and Persia: From the Fall of 
 Nineveh to the Persian War. By Zénaíde A. Ragozin. 
 Fourth Edition. With 17 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 20 The Hansa Towns. By IIelen Zimmern. Third 
 Edition. With 51 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 21 Early Britain. By Professor Alfred J. Church, M.A. 
 Sixth Impression. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATlONS-coruinued 
 
 22 The Barbary Corsairs. By Stanley Lane-Poole. 
 With additions by J. D. Kelly. Fourth 
 Edition. With 39 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 23 Russia. By W. R. Morfill, M.A. Fourth 
 Edition. With 60 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 24 The Jews under Román Rule. By W. D. Morrison. 
 Second Impression. With 61 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 25 Scotland : From the Earliest Times to the Present 
 Day. By John Mackintosh, LL.D. Fifth 
 Impression. With 60 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 26 Switzerland. By Lina Hug and R. Stead. Third 
 Impression. With over 54 Illustrations, Maps, etc. 
 
 27 México. By Susan Hale. Third 
 Impression. With 47 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 28 Portugal. By H. Morse Stephens, M.A. New 
 Edition. With a new Chapter by Major M. Hume and 
 5 new Illustrations. Third Impres- 
 sion. With 44 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 29 The Normans. Told chiefly in Relation to their 
 Conquest of England. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Third 
 Impression. With 35 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 30 The Byzantine Empire. By C. W. C. Omán, M.A. 
 
 Third Edition. With 44 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 31 Sicily : Phcenician, Greek, and Román. By Professor 
 E. A. Freeman. Third Edition. With 45 IÜustrations. 
 
 32 The Tuscan Republics (Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca) 
 with Genoa. By Bella 
 
 Duffy. With 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 33 Poland. By W. R. Morfill. Third Impres- 
 sion. With 50 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 34 Parthia. By Professor George Rawlinson. Third 
 Impression. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS-^iW 
 
 35 The Australian Commonwealth. (New South Wales, 
 Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, 
 Queensland, New Zealand.) By Greville Tregarthen. 
 Fifth Impression. With 36 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 36 Spain. Being a Summary of Spanish History from 
 the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Granada (a.d. 
 711-1492). By Henry Edward Watts. Third 
 Edition. With 36 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 37 Japan. By David Murray, PhD., LL.D. With a new 
 Chapter by Josepii W. Longford. 35 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 38 South África. (The Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free 
 State, South African Republic, Rhodcsia, and all other 
 Territories south of the Zambesi.) By Dr. George 
 McCall Theal, D.Litt., LL.D. Reviscd and brought up to 
 date. Eleventh Impression. With 39 Illustrations and Maps . 
 
 39 Veníce. By Alethea Wiel. Fifth 
 Impression. With 61 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 40 The Crusades : The Story of the Latin Kingdom of 
 Jerusalem. By T. A. Archer and C. L. Kingsford. 
 Third Impression. With 58 Illustrations and 3 Maps. 
 
 41 Vedic India: As embodied principally in the Rig- 
 Veda. By Zénaíde A. Ragozin. Third 
 Edition. With 86 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 42 The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By 
 
 James Rodway, F.L.S. Third 
 
 Impression. With 48 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 43 Bohemia : From the Earliest Times to the Fall of 
 National Independence in 1620; with a Short Summary 
 of later Events. By C. Edmund Maurice. Second 
 Impression. With 41 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 44 The Balkans (Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia and Monte- 
 negro). By W. Miller, M.A. New Edition. With 
 a new Chapter containing their History from 1296 to 
 1908. With 89 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS-continued 
 
 45 Canadá. By Sir John Bourinot, C.M.G. With 63 
 Illustrations and Maps. Second Edition. With a new 
 Map and revisions, and a supplementary Chapter by 
 Edward Porritt. Third Impression. 
 
 46 British India. By R. W. Frazer, LL.D. Eighth 
 Impression. With 30 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 47 Modern France, 1789-1395. By André Lebon. 
 With 26 Illustrations and a Chronological Chart of the 
 Literary, Artistic, and Scientific Movement in Con- 
 temporary France. Fourth Impression. 
 
 48 The Franks. From their Origin as a Confederacy to 
 the Establishment of the Kingdorñ of France and the 
 Germán Empire. By Lewis Sergeant. Second 
 Edition. With 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 49 Austria. By Sidney Whitman. With the Colla- 
 boration of J. R. McIlraith. Third 
 Edition. With 35 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 50 Modern England before the Reform Bill. By 
 
 Justin McCarthy. With 31 Illustrations. 
 
 51 China. By Professor R.K.Douglas. Fourth Edition. 
 W r ith a new Preface. 51 Illustrations and a Map. 
 Revised and brought up to date by Ian C. Hannah. 
 
 52 Modern England under Queen Victoria : From the 
 Reform Bill to the Present Time. By Justin McCarthy. 
 Second Edition With 46 Illustrations. 
 
 53 Modern Spain, 1878-1898. By Martin A. S. Hume. 
 Second Impression. With 37 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 54 Modern Italy, 1748-1898. By Professor Pietro 
 Orsi. With over 40 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 55 Norway : From the Earliest Times. By Professor 
 Hjalmar H. Boyesen. With a Chapter by C. F. 
 Keary. With 77 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 56 Wales. By Owen Edwards. With 47 Illustrations 
 and 7 Maps, Fifth Impression. 
 
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS-co^w 
 
 57 Mediaeval Rome : From Hildebrand to Clement VIII, 
 1073-1535. By William Miller. With 35 Illustrations. 
 
 58 The Papal Monarchy: From Gregory the Great to 
 Boniface VIII. By William Barry, D.D. Second 
 Impression. With 61 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 59 Mediaeval India under Mohammedan Rule. By 
 
 Stanley Lane-Poole. With 59 Illus- 
 
 trations. Twelfth Impression. 
 
 60 Parliamentary England: The Evolution of the 
 Cabinet System, 1660-1832. By Edward 
 Jenks. With 47 Illustrations. 
 
 61 Buddhist India. By T. W. Rhys Davids. Fourth 
 Impression. With 57 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 62 Mediaeval England, 1066-1350. By Mary 
 
 Bateson. With 93 Illustrations. 
 
 63 The Corning of Parliament. (England, 1350-1660.) 
 By L. Cecil Jane. With 51 Illustrations and a Map. 
 
 64 The Story of Greece : From the Earliest Times 
 to a.d. 14. By E. S. Shuck- 
 burgh. With 2 Maps and about 70 Illustrations. 
 
 65 The Story of the Román Empire. (29 b.c. to a.d. 
 476.) By H. Stuart Jones. * Third 
 Impression. With a Map and 52 Illustrations. 
 
 66 Sweden and Denmark. With Chapters on Finland 
 and Iceland. By Jon 
 Stefansson. With Maps and 40 Illustrations. 
 
 67 Belgium. (See page 2 for special announcement.) 
 
 IMPORTANT-ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER TO LET 
 YOU EXAMINE A SPEC1MEN VOLUME OF 
 "THE STORY OF THE NATIONS " SERIES 
 
 T. TISHER UNWIN Ltd., 1 Adelphi 
 Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
 And of all Booksellers throughout the World 
 
POETRY THAT 
 
 1 Jrl K 1 jL/ JL/ )^ A COLLECTION OF 
 
 SONGS FROM OVERSEAS THAT THRILL WITH VIVID 
 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ADVENTUROUS LIFE IN THE 
 FROZEN NORTH, IN THE OUTPOSTS OF CIVILIZATION 
 AND OF THE HEROISM OF SOLDIERS IN BATTLE 
 
 SONGS OF A SOURDOUGH. By Robert W. Service. 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Thirty-ninth Impression. 
 Also a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " Of the Canadian disciples of Kipling, by far the best is R. W. Service. 
 His ' Songs of a Sourdough ' have run through many editions. Much 
 of his verse has a touch of real originality, conveying as it does a just 
 impression of the something evil and askew in the strange, uncouth 
 wilderness of the High North." The Times. 
 
 "Mr. Service has got nearer to the heart of the old-time place miner 
 than any other verse -maker in all the length and height of the 
 Dominion. . . . He certainly sees the Northern Wilderness through 
 the eyes of the man into whose soul it is entered." Morning Poat. 
 
 RHYMES OF A RED-CROSS MAN. By Robert W. 
 Service. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Fifth Impression. 
 Also a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " It is the great merit of Mr. Service's verses that they are literally 
 alive with the stress and joy and agony and hardship that make up 
 life out in the battle zone. He has never written better than in this 
 book, and that is saying a great deal." Bookman. 
 
 " Mr. Service has painted f or us the unutterable tragedy of the war, the 
 horror, the waste, and the suffering, but side by side with that he 
 has set the heroism, the endurance, the unfailing cheerfulness and the 
 unquenchable laughter." Scots Pictorial. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT T H R I L L S-contd. 
 
 BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO. By Robert W. 
 
 Service. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Thirteenth 
 
 Impression. Also a Pocket edition. Fcap. 8vo, 
 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " It is to men like Mr. Service that we must look for really original 
 verse nowadays ; to the men on the frontiers of the world. ' Bailada 
 of a Cheechako ' is magnificent." Oxford Magazinc. 
 
 " All are interés ting, arresting, and worth reading in their own 
 setting for their own sakes. They are full of life and fire and 
 muscularity, like the strenuous and devil-may-care fight of a life 
 they describe." Standard. 
 
 RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE. By Robert W. 
 Service. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 4/6 net. Fourteenth 
 Impression. Also a Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " There is real rollicking fun in some of the rhymed stories, and some 
 sound philosophy in the shorter serious poems which shows that 
 Mr. Service is as many steps above the ordinary lesser poets in his 
 thought as he is in his accomplishments." Academy. 
 
 " Mr. Robert Service is, we suppose, one of the most popular verse- 
 writers in the world. His swinging measures, his robust ballads of 
 the outposts, his joy of living have fairly caught the ear of his 
 countrymen." Spectator. 
 
 THE SPELL OF THE TROPICS. By Randolph 
 H. Atkin. Clclh, 4/6 net. 
 
 The poems are striking pen-pictures of life as it is lived by 
 those men of the English-speaking races whose lot is cast 
 in the sun-bathed countries of Latin-America. Mr. Atkin's 
 verses will reach the hearts of all who feel the cali of the 
 wanderlust, and, having shared their pleasures and han! 
 ships, his poems will vividly recall to " old-timers " bygone 
 memories of days spent in the Land of the Coconut Tree. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT T H R I L L S-contd. 
 
 THE SONG OF TIADATHA. By Owen Rutter. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 Composed on the familiar metre of " Hiawatha," " The 
 Song of Tiadatha " (Tired Arthur), an extra vaganza 
 written in the highest spirits, nevertheless is an epic 
 of the war. It typifies what innumerable soldiers have 
 seen and done and the manner in which they took it. 
 
 " This song of Tiadatha is nothing less than a little English epic of 
 the war." The Morning Post. 
 
 " Every Army officer and ex-officer will hail Tiadatha as a brother. 
 4 The Song of Tiadatha ' is one of the happiest skits born of 
 the war." Evening Standard. 
 
 SONGS OUT OF EXILE : Being Verses of African 
 Sunshine and Shadow and Black Man's Twilight. By 
 
 CULLEN GOULDSBURY, Cloth, 
 
 4/6 net. Fourth Impression. 
 
 " The ' Rhodesian Rhymes ' won for their author the journalistic 
 title of ' The Kipling of South África,' and indeed his work is full of 
 crisp vigour, fire and colour. It is brutal in parts ; but its brutality 
 is strong and realistic. Mr Gouldsbury has spent many years in 
 Rhodesia, and its life, black and white, is thoroughly familiar to 
 him. . . . Mr. Gouldsbury is undoubtedly a writer to be reckoned 
 with. His verse is informed by knowledge of wild life in open places 
 and a measure of genuine feeling which make it real poetry." — Standard. 
 
 FROM THE OUTPOSTS. By Cullen Gouldsbury. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Third Impression. 
 
 " Mr. Cullen Gouldsbury's collections of his verses are always welcome, 
 and the last, ' From the Outposts,' is as good as its predecessor. No 
 one has quite Mr. Gouldsbury's experience and gift." Spectator. 
 
 " It has been well said that Mr. Gouldsbury has done for the white 
 man in África what Adam Lindsay Gordon in a measure accomplished 
 for the Commonwealth and Kipling triumphantly for the British 
 race, and he certainly is good to read." Field. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
POETRY THAT T H R I L L S-contd. 
 
 THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS and other Poems. 
 ("The Song of the Guns.") By Herbert Kaufman. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Fifth Impression. 
 
 11 A singular gift for expressing in verse the facts, the heroism, even 
 the humours of war ; and in some cases voices its ideáis with real 
 eloquence." The Times. 
 
 " Mr. Kaufman has undoubtedly given us a book worthy of the great 
 hour that has brought it forth. He is a poet with a martial spirit 
 and a deep, manly voice." Daily Mail. 
 
 LYRA NIGERIA. By Adamu. (E. C. Adams). 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. Second Impression. 
 
 " Mr. E. C Adams (Adamu) is a singer of Nigeria, and it can safely 
 be said he has few, if any, rivals. There is something in these illus- 
 trations of Nigerian life akin to the style of Kipling and Service. 
 The heart of the wanderer and adventurer is revealed, and in particular 
 that spirit of longing which comes to all . . . who have gone out 
 to the far-lands of the world " Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 SUNNY SONGS. Poems. By Edgar A. Guest. 
 Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 In America Mr. Guest is an extraordinarily popular writer 
 of verses, though this is his first introduction in book form 
 to the British public. He brims over with sound sense 
 and tonic cheeriness. He is keenly sensible of the humour 
 of domestic life, but is deeply sympathetic with the 
 associations which combine in the word " Home." Henee 
 he is read by women with amusement and pleasure. During 
 the war his poem, " Said the Workman to the Soldicr," 
 circulated by the hundred thousand. Like Béranger 
 and all successful poets, he is essentially lyrical ; that 
 is to say, there is tune and swing in all his verses. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
RICHARD MIDDLETON'S WORKS 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS (First Series). By Richard 
 Middleton. Cloth, 5/- net. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in placing the ñame of Kichard Middleton 
 beside the ñames of all that galaxy of poets that made the later 
 Victorian era the most brilliant in poetry that England had known 
 since the Elizabethan." Westminster Beview. 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS (Second Series). By Richard 
 Middleton. Cloth, 5/- net. 
 
 " Their beauty is undeniable and often of extraordinary delicacy, 
 for Middleton had a mastery of craftmanship such as is usually given 
 to men of a far wider imaginativo experience." Poetry Review. 
 
 " Among the ' Poems and Songs ' of Richard Middleton are to be 
 found some of the finest of contemporary lyrics." Country Life. 
 
 OTHER WORKS BY 
 
 RICHARD MIDDLETON 
 
 THE GHOST SHIP AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 MONOLOGUES. 
 THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. 
 
 THE WAITING WOMAN and other Poems. By 
 Herbert Kaufman. Cloth, 4/6 net. 
 
 " Mr. Kaufman's work possesses in a high degree the qualities of 
 sincerity and truth, and it therefore never fails to move the reader. 
 . . . This volume, in short, is the work of a genuino poet and 
 artist." Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 " A versifier of great virility and power " Review of Reviews. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
BY W. B. YEATS AND OTHERS 
 
 POEMS. By W. B. Yeats. Second edition. Large 
 Crown 8vo, Cloth, 10/6 net. Ninth Impression. 
 
 " Love songs, faery themes, moods of meditation, scenes of legendary 
 wonder . . . is it possible that they should become so infinitely 
 thrilling, touching, haunting in their fresh treatment, as though they 
 had never been, or poets had never turned to them ? In this poet's 
 hands they do so become. Mr. Yeats has given us a new thrill of 
 delight, a new experience of beauty." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 OTHER POEMS BY 
 
 W. B. YEATS 
 
 COUNTESS CATHLEEN. A Dramatic Poem. Paper 
 cover, 2/- net. 
 
 THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE. Paper 
 
 cover, 1/6 net. 
 
 C. Stead. 
 
 4/6 net. 
 
 WHY 
 
 Cloth, 
 
 DON'T THEY CHEER ? By R. J. 
 
 " Before the war Mr. Stead was known to Canadians as, 4 The Poet 
 of the Prairies.' He must now be ranked as a ' Poet of the Empíre.' 
 . . . There is a strength, a beauty, a restrained passion in his wnr 
 verses which provo his ability to penétrate into the heart of things 
 such as very few of our war poets have exhibited." — Daily Express. 
 
 SWORDS AND FLUTES. By William Kean Seymour. 
 Cloth, 4/- net. 
 
 " Among the younger poets Mr. Seymour is distinguished by his 
 delicacy of technique. ' Swords and Flutes ' is a book of grave and londw 
 beauty expressed in lucent thought and jewelled words. ' The Ambush ' 
 is a lyric of mastery and fascination, alike in conception and rhytlnn, 
 which should be included in any representativo anthology of Qeorgian 
 poetry." Daily Express. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
THE MERMAID SERIES 
 
 THE BEST PLAYS OF THE OLD DRAMATISTS 
 
 Literal Reproductions of the Oíd Text. With Photo- 
 gravure Frontispieces. Thin Paper edition. Cloth, 5/- 
 net per volume. Leather, 7/6 net. 
 
 Marlowe. THE BEST PLAYS OF CHRISTOPHER 
 MARLOWE. Edited, with Critical Memoir and 
 Notes, by Havelock Ellis ; and containing a General 
 Introduction to the Series by John Addington 
 Symonds. 
 
 Otway. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS OTWAY. 
 
 Introduction and Notes by the Hon. Roden Noel. 
 
 Ford. THE BEST PLAYS OF JOHN FORD. Edited 
 by Havelock Ellis. 
 
 Massinger. THE BEST PLAYS OF PHILLIP 
 MASSINGER. With Critical and Biographical Essay 
 and Notes by Arthur Symons. 
 
 Heywood (T.). THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS 
 HEYWOOD. Edited by A. W. Verity. With 
 Introduction by J. A. Symonds. 
 
 Wycherley. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF WILLIAM 
 WYCHERLEY. Edited, with Introduction and 
 Notes, by W. C. Ward. 
 
 ÑERO AND OTHER PLAYS. Edited by H. P. Horne, 
 Arthur Symons, A. W. Verity and H. Ellis. 
 
 Beaumont. THE BEST PLAYS OF BEAUMONT 
 AND FLETCHER. Introduction and Notes by 
 J. St. Loe Strachey. 2 vols. 
 
 Congreve. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF WILLIAM 
 CONGREVE. Edited by Alex. C. Ewald. 
 
 Symonds (J. A.). THE BEST PLAYS OF WEBSTER 
 AND TOURNEUR. With an Introduction and 
 Notes by John Addington Symonds. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2 
 
THE MERMAID SERIE S-contd. 
 
 Middleton (T.). THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS 
 MIDDLETON. With an Introduction by Algernon 
 Charles Swinburne. 2 vols. 
 
 Shirley. THE BEST PLAYS OF JAMES SHIRLEY. 
 
 With Introduction by Edmund Gosse. 
 
 Dekker. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS DEKKER. 
 
 Notes by Ernest Rhys. 
 
 Steele(R.). THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF RICHARD 
 STEELE. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, 
 by G. A. Aitken. 
 
 Jonson. THE BEST PLAYS OF BEN JONSON. 
 
 Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Brinsley 
 Nicholson and C. H. Herford. 2 vols. 
 
 Chapman. THE BEST PLAYS OF GEORGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Edited by William Lyon Phelps. 
 
 Vanbrugh. THE SELECT PLAYS OF SIR JOHN 
 VANBRUGH. Edited, with an Introduction and 
 Notes, by A. E. H. Swain. 
 
 Shadwell. THE BEST PLAYS OF THOMAS SHAD- 
 WELL. Edited by George Saintsbury. 
 
 Dryden. THE BEST PLAYS OF JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 Edited by George Saintsbury. 2 vols. 
 
 Farquhar. THE BEST PLAYS OF GEORGE FARQUHAR. 
 
 Edited, and with an Introduction, by William 
 Archer. 
 
 Greene. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF ROBERT 
 GREENE. Edited with Introduction and Notes 
 by Thomas H. Dickinson. 
 
 T. FISHER UN WIN LTD., 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C. 2 
 
&i«S PAR ™ ENT 
 
 LUANPbRIOD ' ,r> 
 
 •IfC 
 
 «** no. DD6 , 60m , ,?sr ERs sSv AL sr 20 BERKELEy 
 
«ALUB MB y. ü . c . BEBKElEy 
 
 B000flM3 4 c, M 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 I 
 
¡ i! m i. 
 
 ! ÍMM-fil ; I! 
 
 I mM\ 
 
 m 
 
 im 
 
 .'ííilí 
 
 lililí 1 1 
 
 IHHHHHI 
 
 n 
 
 ■■•¡ütlWli 
 
 WW 
 
 i til SííSlf 
 ni i f 
 
 fita 
 
 ¡líll lili 
 
 fcwh 
 
 l!!¡¡¡! 
 
 «ll¡F-i 
 
 ■íl 
 
 Hillift 
 
 üIíH'll: íl; 
 
 ni 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■ H 
 
 i'il 
 
 fmñ\ 
 
 1 ■ ■ 
 
 ■■B 
 
 MilMIH'í 
 
 HHB