UBRMf UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE &r REMINISCENCES THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NKW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO 6 REMINISCENCES BY GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. u ' EDITED BY ARNOLD HAULTAIN, M.A. ILLUSTRATED Nefo THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1910 AH, rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE 8. S. McCLUKE COMPANY, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY, BY THE ONTARIO PUBLISHING COMPANY, AND BT THE SUN FEINTING AND PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION. COPYBIGHT, 1910, BY THEODORE ARNOLD HAULTAIN. Set up and clectrotyped. Published November, 1910. KotinooD J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE BY THE EDITOR I HAVE ventured to put my name on the title- page of this book because its author assigned to me the task of preparing it for the press. That task has been a difficult one. The bulk of the book was not composed till the writer had passed his seventy-fifth year; and although the manuscript was first written out by the author's own hand, then dictated to me, twice type-written, and constantly revised, yet not only is a septuagen- arian's memory apt to slip, but a septuagenarian's solicitude for accuracy is apt to be labile also. I have corrected many errors ; probably many still remain uncorrected. If so, I must plead that the work of editing was done in haste, and done some three thousand miles from the British Museum or the Bodleian. Again, much of the manuscript was in a chaotic state; some of the chapters, indeed, consisted vi PREFACE merely of fragmentary and inconsequent para- graphs. With these I have dealt as best I could. My own pen has hardly anywhere intruded itself : it is not for me to despoil the book of its peculiarities even of its repetitions. Elderly (and erudite) readers, however, must forgive my footnotes. They are for a younger generation. Besides, I have tried to remember / that names and events which may be quite famil- iar to readers on one side of the Atlantic may be very unfamiliar to readers on the other. For the greater number of these notes, Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Company's " Dictionary of National Biography " was invaluable. I have sought information from many sources, and amongst the many to whom I owe thanks are the Reverend the Master of University College, Oxford (for notes on the bust of King Alfred) ; the Right Honourable Sir Roland L. B. Vaughan Williams, Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal; the Editor of The Spectator; Sir J. Gardner D. Engleheart, K.C.B. ; the Reverend Professor Wil- liam Clark, of Toronto ; Mr. Mansfeldt de Car- donnel Findlay, C.M.G. ; Herr Franz H. Bassenge, PREFACE vii British Vice-Consul at Dresden; Mr. Arthur W. Kaye Miller, Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum; Mrs. Place, of Skelton Grange, Yorkshire (a cousin of Mr. Goldwin Smith) ; Mr. Frederic Harrison ; the Lady Frances Bushby; Constance Lady Russell, of Swallowfield ; the Right Honourable G. W. E. Russell; Mr. Wil- liam Prideaux Courtney; Mr. W. George Eakins, Librarian of the Law Society of Upper Canada, Osgoode Hall, Toronto ; Mr. George William Harris, Ph.B., Librarian of Cornell University. I wish also here to thank Dr. J. G. Schurman, President of Cornell University, and the Executive Committee of his Board of Trustees, for a gener- osity which has enabled me to edit these Remi- niscences in the room in which they were written; in the room in which, side by side, then* writer and I worked for more than seventeen years; the room in which I watched that writer breathe his last. THE LIBRARY, THE GRANGE, TORONTO, CANADA, November, 1910. CONTENTS CHAPTER I BOYHOOD. 1823-1834 PAGES Reading Social Life My Father and Family Our House Old Customs 1-11 CHAPTER II MORTIMER. 1848-1867 The Parish Rural Society Fox-hunting The Duke of Wel- lington Miss Mitford Sir Henry Russell John Walter Sir John Mowbray Lord Lyon Sir Roderick and Lady Murchison 12-31 CHAPTER III SCHOOL. 1831-1840 School Schoolmates Eton Dr. Goodall, the Provost The Head Master, Hawtrey William IV Queen Victoria Schoolmates 32-49 CHAPTER IV OXFORD. 1841-1845 Dean Gaisf ord Magdalen Magdalen Demys Martin Routh Fellows of Magdalen The Tractarian Movement The Curriculum Oxford Life Contemporaries . . 50-74 CHAPTER V OXFORD TUTORSHIP. 1851-1854 Fellows Arthur Penrhyn Stanley Benjamin Jowett Thor- old Rogers Mark Pattison Sir Travers Twiss . 75-87 ix X CONTENTS CHAPTER VI TRAVELS. 1847 PASmS The Tyrol Dresden Prague Normandy Guizot Italy Italian Exiles Louis Blanc 88-97 CHAPTER VII UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS. 1854-1858 The Unreformed University The Commissioners Dr. Jeune Liddell Tait Johnson The Report The Bill The Executive Commission The Executive Commission- ers Richard Bethell, Lord Westbury The Commissioners' Report 98-115 CHAPTER VIII EDUCATION COMMISSION. 1858-1861 The Commissioners William Charles Lake Nassau Senior James Eraser Popular Education . . . . 116-120 CHAPTER IX LAW. 1846 Lincoln's Inn On Circuit English and American Courts of Justice Criminal Law Judges The Bar Sir Gardner Engleheart Briton Riviere 121-131 CHAPTER X LONDON. 1845-1861 Macaulay Samuel Rogers Lord Hough ton Henry Hallam Milman Thackeray Croker Tyndall Herbert Spencer "The Grange" Lady Ashburton Carlyle Tennyson Bishop Wilberforce Lady Waldegrave Par- liamentary Debates The Theatre Louis Blanc Brougham Lady Dukinfield 132-160 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XI JOURNALISM. 1855-1858 PAOB8 Peel The Saturday Review Members of the Staff Froude Letters on the Empire 161-173 CHAPTER XII CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN Peel Disraeli "Lothair" Bentinck The Duke of New- castle Cardwell " Welbeck " Gladstone The Peel- ites Sidney Herbert Canning Dalhousie Sir James Graham Lord Aberdeen Russell Granville Godley Joseph Chamberlain Earl Grey .... 174-214 CHAPTER XIII THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL Objects of the School Peace Policy Anti-Imperialism Bright and Cobden Socialism Property The Irish Question 215-237 CHAPTER XIV BRIGHT AND COBDEN Bright's Oratory Cobden His Politics Peel Disraeli Peel as a Party Leader . . , . . . . . 238-271 CHAPTER XV OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP. 1858-1866 Settling at Oxford Telepathy Halford Vaughan Henry Smith Max Miiller Monier Williams Thorold Rogers Rolleston Waring Coxe Froude Cradock The Great Western Railway King Edward VII Prince Leopold Dr. Acland Gladstone .... 272-286 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER XVI PUBLIC EVENTS PAOB8 Crimean War The War Passion The War Policy Napo- leon III The Chartist Procession .... 287-293 CHAPTER XVII ELECTIONS Anthony John Mundella Sheffield Trades-Unionism Nursing a Constituency Election Tactics The Party System 294-300 CHAPTER XVIII IRELAND. 1862; 1881 Cardwell as Irish Secretary The Irish People Irish Liberals Crime in Ireland Education Social Life Robert Lowe Second Visit to Ireland Lord O'Hagan Royal Visits to Ireland W. E. Forster Gladstone's Irish Policy 301-318 CHAPTER XIX AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 1861-1865 Secession Its True Character Lincoln's View The Alabama Claim Attitude of the British Government British Lib- erals Visits to the United States Friends in the United States J. M. Forbes Emerson Lowell Bancroft The Attitude of the North Finance General Butler The Opposing Forces General Grant Sherman Gen- eral Meade Lee General Butler Again Washington Seward Abraham Lincoln 319-356 CHAPTER XX JAMAICA. 1866 Conflict of Races Outbreak Governor Eyre's Action The Jamaica Committee Chief Justice Cockburn's Charge CONTENTS xiii PAGES John Stuart Mill Woman Suffrage Thomas Hughes Frederick Denison Maurice Manchester Liberals . 357-364 CHAPTER XXI CORNELL. 1868-1871 Resignation of Oxford Professorship Invitation to Cornell Ezra Cornell The University Cornell's Ideas Arrival at Ithaca Fellow Lecturers Life at Ithaca The Oneida Community Friends at Cornell 365-379 CHAPTER XXII VISITS TO EUROPE Reading Magdalen Oxford Spiritualism Ignorance of Canada Knaresborough Curious Crimes Italy Flor- ence Venice Ravenna Second Visit to Italy Sicily The Mafia Pizzo Italian Cruelty Amalfi The Papacy Capua Rome Florence Again . . 380-398 CHAPTER XXIII VISITS TO WASHINGTON Settling in Canada Washington Bancroft Bayard The Pensions Bill The Capitol American Oratory Ameri- can Statesmanship Washington Society The Party System Newspaper Reporters E. L. Godkin . . 399-413 CHAPTER XXIV VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST. 1870; 1888; 1889 The North- West Winnipeg Skye Crofters Immigration Annexation The Canadian Pacific Railway The Rocky Mountains British Columbia .... 414-423 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER XXV CANADIAN POLITICS PAOBB The Relation of Canada to the Imperial Country Confedera- tion Quebec Titles for Colonists Political Parties Sir John Macdonald George Brown Alexander Mac- kenzie Edward Blake John Sandfield Macdonald Joseph Howe Francis Hincks Sir Richard Cartwright Sir Charles Tupper The Destiny of the Colonies An- nexation " Canada First " The Irish Question Free Trade Reciprocity The Temperance Question The Patrons of Industry The Weekly Sun . . . 424-449 CHAPTER XXVI MY LIFE IN CANADA. 1871-1910 Marriage "The Grange" Our Household General Mid- dleton Civic Charities The Governor-Generalship The Athletic Club Literary Opportunities The Uni- versity Question Sports Last Days . . . 450-465 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GOLDWIN SMITH Frontispiece Photograph by Elliot and Fry. FACING PAGES DR. RICHARD PRITCHARD SMITH 12 Goldwin Smith's Father. FACSIMILE OF LAST PARAGRAPH ON PAGE 25 . . . .25 GOLDWIN SMITH AT ABOUT FORTY YEARS OF AGE . . 75 Photograph by J. H. Guggenheim, Oxford. GOLDWIN SMITH AT ABOUT FORTY YEARS OF AGE . . 132 Copy of a photograph by Mayall, of Brighton. (The original hangs in the Common Room of University College, Oxford.) FACSIMILE OF PARAGRAPH ON PAGE 183 183 Showing (i) original manuscript (as dictated to me) ; (ii) an addition in pencil, and (iii) an emendation in ink, by the author. PHOTOGRAPH OF A BUST OF GOLDWIN SMITH . . . 272 Made at Oxford about 1866, by Alexander Munro. GOLDWIN SMITH AT ABOUT FORTY-FIVE YEARS OF AGE . 365 Photograph by C. H. Howes, of Ithaca, N.Y. GOLDWIN SMITH AT SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF AGE . " . 399 Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. GOLDWIN SMITH AT SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF AGE . . 424 Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. THE GRANGE . .450 Mr. Goldwin Smith's house at Toronto. PHOTOGRAPH OF A DEATH-MASK OF GOLDWIN SMITH . . 464 Made by Mr. Walter S. Allward, of Toronto, on June the ninth, 1910. IV REMINISCENCES CHAPTER I BOYHOOD 1823-1834 Reading Social Life My Father and Family Our House Old Customs. THE old town of Reading, with its still quaint-looking streets, its ruined abbey and friary, its memories of medieval Congresses and Roundhead sieges, sleeps, as my memory paints it, in the summer sun. It is a very quiet place. The mail-coaches travelling on the Bath road at the marvellous rate of twelve miles an hour change horses at The Crown and the Bear. So do the travelling carriages and post-chaises of the wealthier wayfarer. The watchman calls the hour of the night. From the tower of old St. Lawrence's Church the curfew is tolled. My nurse lights the fire with the tinder-box. Over at Caversham 1 a man is sitting in the stocks. In the streets are figures of a generation now bygone. Mrs. Atkins Wright, the great lady of the neighbour- hood, comes in with her carriage-and-four, postillions [ l A parish in Oxfordshire, a mile from Reading.] B 1 2 REMINISCENCES in gorgeous liveries, and an out-rider. Mr. Fyshe Palmer, 1 the Radical Member for the borough, is known by his Whig costume of blue coat and buff waistcoat, with a curious little hat stuck on his powdered head. The Quaker dress abounds. It is worn by Huntley and Palmer, who keep a little biscuit-shop in London Street, where a little boy buys cakes, and from which has since sprung the biscuit factory of the universe. The shop of the principal draper is the ladies' Club. Into old St. Lawrence's Church, not yet restored, the Mayor and Aldermen march, robed, with the mace borne before them. In the pulpit, orthodoxy drones undisturbed by Ritualism or the Higher Criticism. The clerk below gives out the Christmas Hymn, saying at the end of each line "Hal ! " in which he does not recog- nize an abbreviation of " Hallelujah." On a high seat in a high-backed pew sits a little boy, wishing the ser- mon would end, staring at the effigy of St. Lawrence on the capital of a pillar overhead, and wondering what the man could have been doing on the gridiron. Now and then his ear catches the sound of the Beadle's cane waking up a slumbering charity-boy to the ortho- dox excellence of the sermon. Compulsory Chapel at Eton and Oxford confirmed the impression compul- sory Church at Reading had made. The clergyman, the doctor, the solicitor, the banker, I 1 Charles Fyshe Palmer, seven times elected Member for Read- ing, was born in 1769 and died in 1843. See "The Town of Read- ing." By W. M. Childs. Reading: University College. 1910. Page 62.] BOYHOOD 3 the brewer, the retired general and admiral who has served under Wellington or Nelson, the retired mer- chant, the widower or spinster with a good income, form a social circle the members of which meet in each other's houses, play whist, the old game of long whist as played by Sarah Battle, and end with the temperate tray of sandwiches and negus. For the young people there are county balls, archery meetings, and other suitable diversions. There is no globe-trotting, hardly any departure from home, unless it be for health. Life, if it is not very lively, is calm ; free from its present restlessness, if it lacks its present interest. The young are now, perhaps, by pastimes and summer gatherings, brought more together than they were in those days and provided with more pleasure. It may be doubted whether the life of the elders is so social. A friend with whom many years afterwards I was staying at Sydenham pointed out to me from a hill the suburban villas, from the number of which it would be supposed there must be a good deal of society in the place. "Yet," said he, " there is none. You cannot bring those people together for any purpose whatever. The man goes up to town by the morning train, spends the day in business, comes back to dinner, reads the paper, and falls asleep. For two months each year the pair go into lodgings by themselves at the seaside." The society of such a place as Reading, in my early days stationary, so that people passed their lives together, is now shifting. Those who have made their fortune 4 REMINISCENCES in business are nowadays always changing their abode in quest of an Eden, and some of them chase the vision till they die. In the pulpit of the adjoining parish of St. Mary's the Higher Criticism had just dawned. Milman, 1 who was the Vicar, read German theology and gave his congregation a slight taste of it, which was not much relished. He also, being a poet, introduced new hymns, to the disparagement of Brady and Tate. 2 Orthodoxy confronted him in the person of a retired East Indian, whose objections were sometimes aud- ible in the Church. One Sunday afternoon the adver- sary marched out of Church. It was supposed, as a theological protest. But it afterwards transpired that he had found the key of the curry-powder in his pocket. From this state of things I have lived into an age of express-trains, ocean greyhounds, electricity, bicycles, globe-trotting, Evolution, the Higher Criticism, and general excitement and restlessness. Reading has shared the progress. The Reading of my boyhood has disappeared almost over the horizon of memory. Whither is the train rushing, and where will the ter- minus be? In that quiet town one of the quietest streets was P Henry Hart Milman, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's ; author of "History of Christianity under the Empire"; ."Latin Chris- tianity"; etc. 1791-1868.] P Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate wrote a metrical version of the Psalms.] BOYHOOD 5 Friar Street, in which my father lived. He was a physician in very good practice, personally much respected, and very kind to the poor. He was the son of the Rector of Long Marston in Yorkshire, and grand- son of the Rector of Wellington. The family, I believe, came from Wyburnbury in Cheshire, in the church of which parish there is a tomb with armorial bearings the same as ours. The little mansion-house of the family at Wyburnbury has disappeared; but its out- line is preserved by the shape of the modern house built upon its site. I never attempted to trace the pedigree. A genealogy composed by my brother-in- law, Mr. Homer Dixon, 1 is, I fear, totally unauthentic. Our coat of arms denotes connection with the Prit- chards, a Welsh family. My mother's maiden name was Breton, a mark of Huguenot descent. She was one of a numerous family of brothers and sisters. She was the niece and almost the adopted daughter of Mr. Goldwin of Vicar's Hill near Leamington, a West India merchant, whose name I bear. One day I was suddenly called home from school. [ l His wife's brother, Benjamin Homer Dixon, Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, Consul-General of the Netherlands in Canada. See "The Border or Riding Clans; Followed by a History of the Clan Dickson, and a Brief Account of the Family of the Author, B. Homer Dixon, K.L.N." Albany : Joel Munsell's Sons. 1889. Page 213. Also "Brief Account of the Family of Homer or de Homere of Ettingshall, Co. Stafford, Eng., and Boston, Mass." (Same publishers and date.) Page 23. Also "The Scotch Border Clan Dickson, the Family of B. Homer Dixon, and the Family of De Homere or Homer." Toronto. 1884. Page 35.] 6 REMINISCENCES I found the house in gloom. I was taken to my mother's bedside ; she spoke to me very tenderly, then told me to go and have my supper, and she would see me again. I saw her no more. The loss of her was the great misfortune of my life. 1 Already, before my mother's death, three little coffins had left the door. It is hard to be born only to suffer and die. Seventy years afterwards, when I was living in Canada, a drawer which I had not before noticed, in a desk which had belonged to my mother, being opened, revealed the relics of a little sister; her hair, her silver knife, fork and spoon, the stones which were to form her necklace, the double guinea given her on her birthday. One boy remained beside myself. 2 A brave boy he was, and a good soldier he would have made. He went with me to Eton, and had just got his commission 3 in the army when he died. His disease I have no doubt was appendicitis, the exist- ence of which was unknown in those days and for which there could have been no operation, as there were no anaesthetics in those days. Our house hi Friar Street stood on ground which had once belonged to the Abbey. In the garden, an apparent wreck, its limbs held together by chains, yet bearing fruit abundantly, stood a mulberry tree, I 1 She died on the nineteenth of November, 1833, when Goldwin Smith was ten years old.] [ 2 Arthur Smith. Born 1827 ; died 1845.] [ J The Commission is dated the 6th and 7th of November, 1843.] BOYHOOD 7 believed to be one of those planted in the time of Eliza- beth to introduce the silk trade. The garden was full of the old-fashioned flowers which horticulturists have now discarded, though those old flowers, the moss-rose, the lily-of-the-valley, and the columbine, inferior in size and brilliancy to the new, were perhaps superior in form. In an adjoining garden rose the stately sum- mer-house, with gilded ball, of Dr. Ring, a leader of the Evangelical party in those days. I see the old man now playfully shaking his cane at me when he was on his way to a sermon and I was galloping off on my pony. That scene the Great Western Railway has swept away. We children in those days at Christmastide looked joyously forward to three festivals, Christmas Eve and Day, Twelfth Night, and New Year's Day. At Christmas there was in every household a feast with turkey, plum pudding, and mince pie. At midnight on Christmas Eve the child as he lay in bed heard with ravishment mixed with awe the music of the Waits in the street. The Mummers, lineal repre- sentatives perhaps of the Miracle Plays in the Middle Ages, went in their fantastic disguises from house to house, singing the hymn, " Christ is Born in Bethlehem." All houses were decked with the evergreen holly and its bright berries, a piece of which, by the way, was sent the other day to The Grange from England by an old servant who had left us thirty years before. At Christ- mas the children looked for gifts, though I do not 8 REMINISCENCES remember any Santa Glaus. The poor were feasted, and I think there was something like an opening of all hearts. We in Canada the Anglicans among us, at all events have preserved all this in some measure, though perhaps with some abatement from the feelings of the old time in the old land. Perhaps the feeling about the sacredness of the season and belief in the historical certainty of that birth in Bethlehem may have somewhat declined. On Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany, twelve days after Christmas, we had parties for the children, with feasting on iced cakes decked with little sugar figures, and playing at snap- dragon, that is, plucking raisins out of a dish of blazing brandy. There was also drawing for King and Queen, a custom of which I never knew the origin or the con- nection with the ecclesiastical festival. New Year's Day again brought feastings and gifts, with good wishes for the New Year. Both on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day there were family gatherings, more easily brought about in the tight little island than they are here. I do not remember that New Year's Day in England was a special day for paying calls, or that it was supposed that by it enmities were buried. Carnival in Protestant England, of course, there was none, except among the Catholics. To the Protestant child in England Good Friday was, in fact, a feast, since it brought him hot cross buns. Cries of "One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns ! " were heard in all the streets. BOYHOOD 9 The next festival, if it could be called one, was May Day, the observance of which was connected with no religious ordinance or event, with no Christian ordi- nance at least, but with the revival of nature at the coming of spring, which could nowhere be more fitly celebrated than in England, with her verdant beauty, her green lanes, and hedgerows white with blossoms of May, her meadows full of cowslips and primroses, her woods full of purple and white hyacinths and vocal with the song of birds. In the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, May Day had been celebrated with sylvan pageantry and sports under the greenwood tree. In later days the decoration of the house with branches of May was about the only form of celebration generally left, May Day was the one day of happiness in the sad year for the poor chimney-sweeps, children of misery, parish orphans for the most part, but not seldom kid- napped for that most cruel trade. They came fantas- tically arrayed in rags of many colours and danced round a portable bower with a boy in it, clattering their shovels and brooms. They were repaid by a good dinner, the only one probably that they tasted in the year. Among many advances of humanity this hideous calling has now been long extinct. The legend was that -f- a child, the son of a wealthy mother, living in a great mansion where now the British Museum stands, had been kidnapped and made a sweep ; that on May Day his master unconsciously brought him to sweep the 10 REMINISCENCES chimneys in his mother's house; that he recognized his old room, crept into the bed, and was found there by his mother. The day of his recovery was made the Feast of Sweeps. On the Fifth of November, when I was young, the boys chaired about the streets a stuffed figure of gro- tesque appearance, which was afterwards burned with much shouting. Squibs and crackers were being everywhere let off through the day, and at night there were fireworks. The grotesque figure was Guy Fawkes, and the squibs and fireworks were in memory of the Gunpowder Plot. Though the privileges of childhood, especially a mischievous privilege, such as letting off fireworks in the streets, are tenacious of life, I should not expect, if I were now to visit England, to see the Fifth of November generally kept in the old style. The memory of the Gunpowder Plot is offensive to Catholics, the feeling against whom has died away. Boyhood has other gala days. There is a great cheese fair, a relic of medieval commerce, when the Forbury is paved with cheese and filled with enchanting booths and shows. There is election time, delightful to the boy, the polling lasting for a week, the town being all the time paraded by the rival processions with banners and music and the whole winding up with the chairing of the successful candidate. We had the greatest day of all when the Reform Bill of 1832 was carried, and the opening of an era of perfect govern- ment and popular bliss was celebrated in the Forbury BOYHOOD 11 with races, games, running in sacks, climbing greasy poles, chasing pigs with greased tails, and bobbing for cherries, winding up with fireworks in the evening. Between that state of things and the present there is only a single lifetime ; yet I feel as if I were writing of antiquity. CHAPTER II MORTIMER 1848- The Parish Rural Society Fox-hunting The Duke of Well- ington Miss Mitford Sir Henry Russell John Walter Sir John Mowbray Lord Lyons Sir Roderick and Lady Murchison. MY father married again. 1 His second wife was Katherine, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield, 2 Baronet. She was an excellent woman, managed her household admirably, and was very good to the poor, who thronged to her funeral when she died. She was a relic of the old style, saying 'goold/ 'Room/ (for Rome), 'sennight ' (for week), ' dish of tea.' About 1848, my father, having independent means, gave up [ l "November 13, 1839. At Heckfleld, R. P. Smith, esq. M.D., to Katherine, daughter of the late Sir. Nath. Dukinfield, Bart." Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1839: new series, vol. xi, p. 89.] [ 2 Sir Nathaniel Dukinfleld was the fifth Baronet. His wife Katherine was a sister of John Warde, the noted fox-hunter, of Squerries in Kent. Sir Nathaniel died October the 20th, 1824. He was succeeded by his second son, John Lloyd Dukinfield ; he, again, in 1837, by his brother, the Rev. Henry Robert Dukinfield, (fourth son of Nathaniel) Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields at whose house Mr. Goldwin Smith often stayed. See the close of Chapter X.] 12 DR. RICHARD PRITCHARD SMITH. Goldwin Smith's Father. MORTIMER 13 his profession, in which, however, he had been very successful, and retired to a country house at Mortimer, eight miles from Reading. The country there, though unrenowned, was lovely, with a rich view of English landscape from every eminence. The parish, while it was thoroughly rural, was social, containing several mansions. A new curate, when asked by the Bishop whether his cure was not very interesting, could reply, "Very interesting indeed, my Lord; I have seven parishioners who give fish and soup." Still, even here the lot of the labourer was hard, and his life of toil was too apt to end in the grim Workhouse which marred the beauty of the landscape. There was deep pathos in the melancholy complacency with which he looked forward to a decent funeral. I am glad that I stood on the platform with Joseph Arch, 1 who had a good work to do and did it honestly, with simplicity, and well; though, like other agitators, he may have found it difficult to end the campaign when his battle had been won. The neighbourhood was not unhistoric. Hard by was Silchester City, with its massive walls, a monument of Imperial Rome. Our windows looked on a rising ground with trees which in their disposition still bore [ l Joseph Arch, the founder of the National Agricultural La- bourers' Union, and the strenuous advocate for the amelioration of the agricultural labourer's condition, was born at Barford, in Warwickshire, in 1826, the son of a shepherd : he visited Canada in 1873 ; was President of the Birmingham Radical Union in 1883 ; entered Parliament in 1885.] 14 REMINISCENCES the trace of a Plantagenet hunting-lodge. Old Upton Manor House, with its hiding-places for the hunted Jesuit or priest, recalled the religious struggles of the Tudor times. The farmers in those days were conservative. They ploughed with four horses, they voted with the Squire. They attended the Parish Church, from neighbourly feeling fully as much as on religious grounds. The labourer went to Church rather under pressure, prefer- ring the little Methodist Chapel in a sly corner of the Parish, the eyesore of the Parson and the Squire, though he looked to his Parish Church for christening, marriage, and burial. A change was fast coming over the . relation between the farmer and the labourer. They now no longer eat at the same board. The farm- er's wife has become a lady with a piano, looking down on the farm-hands. What has wrought the change ? The Parson was the social, as well as the spiritual guide, and the almoner of the Parish. Much depended on him, especially where the Squire was not regularly resident. Our Parson, Harper, afterwards Bishop of Christ Church, New Zealand, was excellent. But in some neighbouring Parishes, especially where the Living was in the gift of very close Colleges, and the Incumbent, truly so called, was an old Fellow of the College who had spent half his life boozing in Common Room while he was waiting for preferment, things were not so well. One of these spiritual Pastors going MORTIMER 15 up to a College festival and taking his Churchwarden with him was by the Churchwarden put to bed in his boots. I fancy that though the peasantry could not fail to be grateful for the services of such a Parson as Harper or Fraser, 1 there was always in their minds a lurking suspicion of the black police. Squires differed as much as Parsons. On the average they were not so good; for a man must be made of fine clay if he will conscientiously perform his duty when he is not obliged. Some Squires were agricul- tural improvers, builders of model cottages, just to the poor. Most of them, in those days, at all events, were resident; globe-trotting had not come in; the passion for life in pleasure-cities was not so strong as it is now. Nor had agricultural depression and loss of rents begun to drive the lord of the mansion from his home. Some years ago, revisiting England, I was the guest of an old friend in an historic house to which it was evident he had difficulty in clinging. In walking we came to a point where we looked across a valley to the new palace of a Jewish financier, and I could read my old friend's thoughts in his face. Rural society in England has been changing, and so have its outward features. Some years ago I com- missioned an artist in England to paint for me a series of drawings representing things as they had been in our neighbourhood when I was young. It was with [ l James Fraser (1818-1885), Bishop of Manchester. See page 20 infra.] 16 REMINISCENCES difficulty that an old homestead and thatched cottage were found. The Churches, all but one, had been restored by Ritualism, which, though a change back- ward, was a change. Country houses were beautiful; but in country society there was no enchantment. You rolled eight or ten miles to a large dinner party ; you talked horses and roads, heard perhaps after dinner some lady play her grand piece on the piano ; and rolled home again. There were county balls and, in Summer, archery meetings. Garden parties were not yet. For the men the cover-side was the Club. Next to the Lord- Lieutenant in importance was the Master of the Hounds. Our Master of the Hounds, when I was first at Mortimer, was Sir John Cope. 1 He lived at Bramshill, a palace built by James I on the skirt of what was then a forest country as a hunting-box for his son, Prince Henry, whose guest Archbishop Abbot was when he acciden- tally killed the Keeper. Sir John was a type of his class. He hunted a wide country. In Winter his life was spent in the saddle; in Summer in training horses. He swore in good old style. "Sir John's pretty well in his swearing, sir," was his groom's answer to my father's inquiry after his health. Having no wife or child, he lived alone in that vast pile. At length he became paralyzed, and could only sit on the terrace to see the hounds meet. His last solace was to have them [ l Eleventh Baronet, second son of Sir John Cope, the sixth Baronet. He died_in 1851.] MORTIMER 17 called over by the Huntsman at his bedside. The end of the fox-hunter's life was apt to be dreary. I remember another of them who, having outlived his Melton set, living, like Cope, alone in a great mansion, and, like him, paralyzed, had no solace but shooting rabbits, which he did sitting in a cart on a music-stool, the stool enabling him to turn his paralyzed side enough for a shot. The rabbits, which he preserved, probably ate up a quarter of his rents. Not far off was the country of Assheton Smith, 1 paragon and pride of all fox-hunters, who hunted his own hounds when he was past seventy and performed marvellous feats of horsemanship, clearing a canal by leaping on and off a barge, leaping up hill a rail over which, when he had carried away the top bar, nobody could follow. His horses were so thoroughly trained to take everything at which he put them that one of them, when the rider was looking back after a lag hound, jumped with him into the middle of a pond. Assheton Smith went to hunt with old John Warde, 2 a relative of my stepmother, called the Father of Fox- hunting, at Squerries, Warde's place in Kent. There P Thomas Assheton Smith, born 1776 ; educated at Eton and Oxford ; member of the Marylebone cricket club ; M.P. for Andover, 1821-1832 ; and for Carnarvonshire, 1832-1834 ; master of the Quorn hounds, of the Burton hounds, the Penton hounds, and the Ted- worth hounds. Died in 1858.] P John Warde, of Squerries, in Kent, "one of the most celebrated men who was ever known in the hunting world." He was an M.F.H. for more than half a century. Hunted the Pytchley country from 1794 till 1808.] 18 REMINISCENCES was a frost. But Warde had the hounds out to show them to his guest. Smith desired to see them find a fox. Warde consented, but said he must whip off at the edge of the cover. Smith gave a look which Warde understood, and said, ' ' If that's what you mean, get upon Blue Ruin " Warde's favourite horse. Smith got upon Blue Ruin, had a run of twenty minutes over a frozen country, and killed. Warde deserved his sobriquet. Winter after winter he left his beautiful mansion to hunt some distant county, lodging where he could, and telling his wife that any room was large enough for a gentleman in which he could put on his stockings without opening the door. He would take at once into his service, without inquiry into character, any bold rider or good driver, sometimes to the dismay of his wife, a worthy woman, who tried to civilize these waifs. Looking out of window at Hatchett's in Piccadilly, he saw an urchin drive a four-in-hand coach up to the door in good style. He went down at once and took the urchin into his service. They were sitting in the drawing-room at Squerries one Sunday evening when the urchin was announced to say his Collect. Mrs. Warde, who was rather deaf, went into the next room to hear him. The door between the rooms being left ajar, they heard the urchin, instead of his Collect, repeat "Dickory, Dickory Dock," etc., at the end of which he was praised for saying his Collect so well and rewarded with a shilling. There was a fellow-feeling among fox-hunters, at MORTIMER 19 least among the veterans. My father found himself on his travels, in a city where he was not known, short of cash. He went to a Bank and tendered a cheque, saying that as he was unknown to them, he would call in a day or two for the money. But the Banker cashed the cheque at once, saying, "I saw you cross the street; I knew from your gait that you were a fox-hunter; you are sure to be honest." I had myself once to meet in conference a Tory Peer, who evidently regarded me, as a Liberal, with some suspicion ; but it happening to come out that I followed the hounds, his brow seemed to clear, and our conference proceeded happily. He probably thought that in any man who followed the hounds there must be a remnant of good. There were still hunting parsons. We had one in our parish, who, however, had given up his profession and was said only to put on a white tie when he was going to deal for a horse. There was another near us who, when sentiment grew stricter, was called to ac- count by the Bishop. "Mr. Blank, I have not a word to say against your ministrations. But this is a tat- tling world, and they tell me that you hunt." "It is indeed a tattling world, my Lord. They say your Lordship goes to the Queen's balls." "It is true that when I am invited by Her Majesty I do not think it proper to decline. But I am never in the room in which the dancing is going on." "That is just my case, my Lord. I have only one old mare, and I am never in the field in which the hounds are." 20 REMINISCENCES James Fraser, 1 afterwards Bishop of Manchester, was rector of the next parish. He was no less first- rate as a horseman than he was afterwards as Bishop, the firm seat and light hand perhaps still coming into play. Kingsley 2 was to be met in the hunting-field. Perhaps this helped him with Sir John Cope, who was patron of the good living of Eversley. The farmers in those days could afford to share the sport, and, provided you kept clear of young wheat and beans, had no objection to your riding over their fields. This will hardly continue. Fox-hunting will share the general change. Already it has become rather artificial, and more like a steeplechase than a hunt, little notice being taken of the working of the hounds, which had been the great point with the fox-hunters of old. However, it gave me some merry days, and an addition to my rather scanty stock of health. As Freeman, 3 the scourge of fox-hunters, is gone, I may venture to say that few pleasures can equal a good run. To shooting I did not so much take. If I enjoyed a season in the Highlands, it was more for the air, the scenery, the heather, and the lunch when the ladies came out to meet us by the burn's side, than for the grouse. Not in Scotland, but in America, I once shot t 1 Bishop of Manchester from 1870 till his death in 1885. Born in 1818.] [ 2 Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, author of "Alton Locke," "Westward Ho ! " etc.] [ 3 Professor E. A. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Con- quest.] MORTIMER 21 a deer. I did not kill it and they had to cut its throat. I shall never forget the pitiful look of its soft eyes. Never would I have shot at another deer. Not being a smoker for they would not let us smoke at Eton and nobody smoked in my College I have often wondered in what the pleasure of smoking consists. Is it an anodyne for the overwrought brain ? Whenever there was a long check, out came the cigars. But those brains were not overwrought. We were in the next parish to Strathfieldsaye, the country-seat of the Duke of Wellington. The old Duke performed all the duties of life, and among them, when he could, that of country gentleman. When his work in town permitted, he came down, called on his neighbours, entertained them, and showed himself to his people. I turned up one of his ample visiting-cards with his "F.M." the other day. There was a farm which ran into his estate and which he wished to buy ; but it was held at too high a price. One day on his arrival at Strathfieldsaye he was greeted by his bailiff with the glad tidings that the owner of the farm was in difficulties and was forced to sell at a low price. "I don't want to take advantage of any man's diffi-U\ culties," he replied; "go and give him the fair price for his land." He rode with hounds, but had a loose military seat, and was sometimes thrown. He did not like this to be noticed, and was far from pleased when a farmer said to him, "I see your Grace often parted from your saddle. Ye should tak oop your 22 REMINISCENCES stirrups and ride as I do." He was tenacious of his character as sportsman, and was greatly hurt when, on account of his age, he ceased to be invited to the Prince Consort's shooting parties. He kept a hunting stud to the last, though he could ride no farther than the cover-side. He had not much taste, and when a Roman villa was opened on his estate and drew visitors he had it covered up, saying that if people wanted to see curiosities they must go to Italy. The Church at Strathfieldsaye was in the park and was an uneccle- siastical structure in a cruciform shape, with a cupola, bespeaking the fantastic taste of the last Lord of Strathfieldsaye. Gerald Wellesley, the Duke's nephew, who was Rector of Strathfieldsaye, had often begged the Duke in vain to build something more like a Church. One day, however, the Duke said, "Gerald, I begin to think you are right. That building is not like a Church. I'll tell you what I'll do ; I'll put a steeple on it." The last time I saw the Duke was at the door of that Church. He was told that one of his old generals had just died. He looked grave for a moment as if he felt it to be a warning. Then he said, "He was a very old man, though"; put his arm in that of Lady Douro; and trudged sturdily away. The Duke was cold and aristocratic, or rather undemocratic, for he did not think much of titular rank. His soldiers trusted rather than loved him. He took too little thought for their claims or for their comfort, and spoke of them with too little feeling. But he was a noble model of simple devotion tJ C <* * MORTIMER 23 to duty, perfectly free from vanity, at least while his mind remained unimpaired. A worshipper, it was said, went up to him and begged to be allowed to take the hand of the victor of Waterloo. "Don't make a damned fool of yourself," was the hero's reply. The second Duke I knew well, and was his guest at Strathfieldsaye. He had something of his father's features, though without the forehead, and a spark of the intellect, but nothing of the character. He was a mere sybarite. He was married to a beautiful woman, and neglected her. It was said that when she com- plained to the old Duke, who was very fond of her, the answer was, "My dear, the Wellesleys have always been bad husbands." Of the history of the old Duke's marriage there were different versions, but no version was happy. The common one was that he had formed the engagement when the lady was in her beauty and had kept it as a point of honour when she was pitted with smallpox. This certainly was not true. The fact, I believe, was that she rejected him; that he went abroad, and on his return, when his love had cooled, was persuaded by a friend of the lady to offer himself again. But Wellington, the soul of duty, was not warm-hearted, or likely to be a very loving mate. Punctual in the performance of all the duties of life, the old Duke of Strathfieldsaye went regularly to Church. He had a gallery to himself, with a firepla.ee, the fire in which, growing deaf, he was apt to poke rather loud. 24 REMINISCENCES In a paddock at Strathfieldsaye, " Copenhagen," Wellington's charger at Waterloo, ended his days. "A low-shouldered brute," the second Duke irreverently called him to my father. He was a half Arab, and the breed, I believe, is apt to be low in the shoulder. The formation, I fancied, was perceptible in the Equestrian Statue which stood over the arch on Constitution Hill, and which, grotesque as its position was, the old Duke did not like to have removed. The second Duke showed me a collection of likenesses of Napoleon; I told him there was one he had not; a bust taken at the time of the Egyptian expedition, differing from the rest, as I thought, by showing some- thing more of enthusiasm and less of the hard look of settled ambition. It was in possession of Jerome Bonaparte at Baltimore. The Duke asked me when I returned to America to get him a photograph. The first attempt was a failure. But afterwards Jerome showed himself a genuine Bonaparte by the develop- ment of a cancerous tumour, of which he died. A photograph of the tumour was taken for submission to physicians at Paris. The photographer then got a good impression of the bust, which I suppose is still at Strath- fieldsaye. It was difficult to find any one who had seen Napo- leon. I made that remark at a dinner party, when a voice near me said, "I saw Napoleon." It was Lord Russell, 1 who had paid Napoleon a visit at Elba, ac- [ l Lord John Russell, first Earl Russell.] f Of ^ N - ? bsj \f ^ N > V ^ N 4 I i 4 > "j "s J ^ K i 1 J ^ 1 4 \ ' " \ t J 5 | t . N (A C< ^ 4 H \. S * 4 ^ ) i 1 fr 4 V v \i T sJ i * 1 ! 1% *i O H fc t \ \ ] \j i $ < ^ ARAGRA ^ N PH i * 4 ^ \ ^ ; 4 ^ * 1 1 ^ H to h V Nj >3 ^ I -^ ^ ^ K ,J . >i g ^ ^ x \i V V ^ 00 i 4i fi ^^ o ^r c X i ^ 1 i ^ ^ ^ ^ V . A *, 5 ^ t ^ -^ 4 i 4 V * * >x 5 < ^ N v, Vi ^ ^ MORTIMER 25 counts of which are already in print. I asked Lord Russell whether the common portraits were like. He said they were. I asked him whether there was not in the face that hard look of selfish ambition. This he had not noticed; but he said, and repeated with em- phasis, that there was something very evil in the eye. When Lord Russell spoke of war, Napoleon's eye flashed, showing, what was certainly the fact, that the lust of war was with him in itself a ruling passion. It is diffi- cult to divine what else could have led him to invade Russia. He evidently had no intention of restoring Poland. He was immensely fat, Lord Russell said, and this might account for his fatal lack of activity in his last campaign. Guizot told me that he had seen Napoleon at a win- dow in the Tuileries. Brougham used to tell an anec- dote of him which he said he had at first hand. In his flight from Waterloo he showed his depression. The member of his staff who was riding by his side thought he might be sorrowing over his loss of so many old companions-in-arms, and tried to comfort him by saying that Wellington also must have lost many old com- panions-in-arms. "He has not lost the battle," was the only reply. At Three-Mile-Cross, not far off, dwelt Miss Mitford, 1 the authoress whose "Belford Regis," portraying under feigned names the characters of Reading, amused in [ l Mary Russell Mitford, author of ."Our Village," etc. 1707- 1855.1 26 REMINISCENCES its day. She had won a large sum in a lottery. It was squandered by a worthless father, to whom she remained a most devoted daughter. Her great friend and literary ally was Talfourd, 1 whose "Ion," though now forgotten, is not without classical merit. Another notable neighbour at Mortimer was Sir Henry Russell 2 of Swallowfield, a retired Anglo-Indian of distinction who had long been the Resident at Hyder- abad. He was a fine specimen of the old Anglo-Indian school. It being in his days a six months' voyage from England to India, he had passed his life in Hindostan and had learned to identify himself with the people. No such word as "Nigger" ever passed his lips. He seemed to regard a Hindoo gentleman as his equal, though of a different race and religion. Missionaries he abhorred. "No gentleman," he said, "ever changed his politics or his religion." He was a man of refined tastes, a good writer, and a model of urbanity. When he was dying his medical man pressed on him a useless draught, telling him it would do him good. "I am sure it will," he said, "if it comes from your hand." He had brought away from India a healthy frame, as he said anyone might who would be temperate and careful. He was an active local improver and a practical pioneer of the reform of the Poor Law. At Bearwood, not far off, lived the mortal enemy of t 1 Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, judge and author, M.P. for Reading, 1835, 1837, and 1841. Born in 1795, died in 1854.] [ 2 Sir Henry Russell, second Baronet, eldest son of Sir Henry Russell, the first Baronet. Born 1783 ; died 1852.] MORTIMER 27 the new Poor Law, John Walter/ of The Times. The mighty Radical, as he then was, had pitched his tent among Tory Squires, to whom his name was a terror and with whom he for some time lived at war. He had a very strong temper, was firm in friendship, and inflexible in hate. When he was rebuked for the ran- cour with which he assailed a public man who bethought had betrayed him, and reminded that the Bible told you to forgive your enemies, his answer was, " Yes ; but it doesn't tell you to forgive your friends." My father was in treaty for the purchase of a house which had a road running too near it. Application had been made at Quarter Sessions for permission to turn the road. The vendor happened to be a particular enemy of Walter. Time after time Walter came with the only two local allies which he had to Quarter Sessions, and opposed the turning of the road. My father, happening to meet him, asked him what could be the motive of his opposition. It turned out that he had fancied that the turning of the road was a condition of the purchase and that the sale was hung up on that account. Learn- ing that he was mistaken, he ceased to oppose the turn- ing of the road. In Mortimer lived Sir John Mowbray, 2 the high Tory [ l This was the third John Walter of The Times. He was M.P. for Nottingham and for Berkshire. Born 1818 ; died 1894.] [ 2 The Right Honourable Sir John Robert Mowbray, the first Baronet, was the only son of Robert Stribling Cornish, of Exeter. He assumed the surname of Mowbray upon his marriage. Born in 1815 ; died 1899.] 28 REMINISCENCES member for the University of Oxford. His high Tory- ism did not interfere with our friendship, which was kept up by correspondence when I had left England. The value of the English rule which forbids politics to interfere with social relations is felt when one's lot is cast where that rule does not prevail and people feel at liberty to indulge their personal propensities under cover of political opinion. Mowbray was very interesting, for he was an epitome of the House of Commons. We had visitors at Mortimer ; one of them was Admi- ral, afterwards Lord, Lyons, 1 a man of keen intelli- gence and thorough knowledge of the world, as well as a great naval commander. He had been Ambassador 2 at Athens, and told some good stories of those days. There was to be a Court Ball. A British Consul and his family came to Athens for it. Lyons lunched with them on the day. A little boy asked for something on the table. Being refused, he asked for it again, threat- ening to tell if they would not give it to him. Again they refused. He flourished his spoon, and shouted, "Grandmamma's dead." It had been agreed to keep the old lady's demise quiet till after the Ball. Lyons gave a diplomatic dinner to propitiate an offended Oriental. There was an iced pudding, which being taken to the guest of honour first, he, seeing something [ x Edmund Lyons, first Baron Lyons of Christchurch. Born 1890 ; died in 1858.] [ 2 "Minister Plenipotentiary," I think this should be.] MORTIMER 29 unctuous, helped himself to it and put a large piece in his mouth. He jumped up, furious, spluttering, and rushed out of the room. Lyons followed him and found him implacable. His mouth was burnt; it was an abominable trick ; else why had the pudding been taken to him first? He went away unappeased, and diplo- macy missed its mark. Other visitors were Sir Roderick and Lady Murchi- son. 1 Sir Roderick was a cavalry officer who had taken to science, and being rich became its Amphitryon. Lady Murchison was very bright. She and I went to see Maple Durham, a fine Elizabethan house near Read- ing. Across the grounds there was a public path from which there was a good view of the mansion, to the lord of which the path, trenching on his privacy, was an eyesore. We were standing on this path to look at the house when a servant came up and said, " Strangers are not allowed to stand here." "Are they not?" said Lady Murchison; "then will you kindly fetch me a chair." Sir Roderick had been invited by the Czar Nicholas to survey the mining region of the Urals. He became intimate with the Czar, and testified, there is no doubt truly, to the Czar's perfect good will to England. I cannot help mentioning my father's household as almost a relic of old times. It was a household in the 1 Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, first Baronet. He published "The Silurian System" in 1838. Director General of the Geologi- cal Survey in 1855. Born in 1792 ; died 1871.] 30 REMINISCENCES true sense of the term. In it were five upper servants whose united terms of service with my father, my step- mother, or both, were two hundred and thirty years. They thoroughly identified themselves with the family and its interests, and when the household was broken up, took their pensions, and went into no other service. I am afraid they were not highly educated; I doubt whether they could have produced a grammatical letter among them. The old coachman, who had been with my father more than fifty years, could neither read nor write. He was excellent in his calling, and not without refinement of feeling. When his mistress was dying, he sent her up a rose as his farewell. Grow- ing very old, he had a fit upon the box. They wanted him to give up the reins, promising him as a pension his full wages and his house. But he said that if he ceased to drive the family he would die; the medical man said he believed he would. The master and mistress seldom left home, and treated the domestics not as servants, but as members of a household. House- holds are hardly possible now; in America it seems almost unexampled. Who now lives in the old house, thinking nothing of its former inmates ? Who strolls beneath those elms in the summer evening, and looks over the lawn to the farm on the hill which marks the site of the Plantagenet hunting-seat? Whose is now the room from the win- dow of which, rising to my early studies, I used to see the moon and the morning star together in the sky? MORTIMER 31 If you wish to give yourself a fit of the blues, you can- not do better than think of the haunts of your youth and call up the forms once familiar which have long since become dust. CHAPTER III SCHOOL 1831-1840 School School-life Eton Dr. Goodall, the Provost The Head Master, Hawtrey William IV Queen Victoria Schoolmates. To return to Friar Street, Reading, and the little boy. At eight years old I was sent, as the custom then was, to a boarding school. Being sickly, I was sent to one on the Downs, near Bath, for the sake of the air. The air did me good ; so perhaps did the idle- ness. The master was an ex-Lieutenant of Marines who had taken Orders. He knew little, and did not attempt to teach us much. School was over at one. After dinner we went to the playing-field or were taken to the Downs, where we collected fossils, butterflies, and plants. My little brain rested, my health im- proved; perhaps I owe it to those fallow years that, having set out with a very weak constitution, I am able to do some work at eighty-four. I sometimes say that if I have outlived four successors in my Chair of History at Oxford, I owe it to having been at two idle schools, as both Monkton Farley and Eton were. Speaking seriously, are not the brains of children 32 SCHOOL 33 overworked ? I suffered, however, from want of early grounding. Though the school was expensive, our fare was such as any English boy, still more any American boy, at the present day would regard with disgust. For break- fast we had three squares of bread and butter and a mug of tea. For dinner we had one helping of meat and one of pudding. The supper was the same as the breakfast. However, in five years I never was in bed for sickness, nor do I remember that any one of my schoolmates was. The custom of sending children to boarding-schools was, however, rather cruel. The child had not a little to suffer by severance from his home ; his home affec- tions were deadened; he was early familiarized and too often indoctrinated with evil. A boarding-school is seldom free from bullying, which makes strong boys tyrants and weak boys cowards. An experienced Oxford tutor said that his best pupils came from home with a good day-school ; the next best from the great public schools; those of the third grade from private boarding-schools ; and the worst of all from the private tutors. It is just to the private tutors to say that to them the desperate cases were generally turned over from the public schools. The home as well as the day- school must be good. The names and faces of my schoolmates at Monkton Farley are as fresh in my memory as if I had just left the school; while I forget the names and faces of 34 REMINISCENCES people to whom I was introduced yesterday. What is memory? What is it that stores up these myriads of impressions and retains them for seventy years ? It is of course something physical, since the receptive or retentive power of the retina is diminished, as I know too well, by old age. The connections are not less mysterious than the retention. I was travelling the other day in a railway carriage, when suddenly there occurred to my mind the name Heydukoff* With great difficulty, after some time, I recollected that it was the name of a hotel at Dresden where I had once dined in 1847 to taste a particular dish. Nothing had happened since to recall the incident to my mind ; nor was there anything in the surroundings to suggest it. Here is one riddle for physiology still to solve. Another, per- haps, is the spontaneous action of the imagination in sleep, originating scenes and incidents which have had no counterpart in our waking life. But this by the way. Still there is a glamour over the memories of our school days. Forty years after leaving Monkton Farley I was standing in a crowd at Dublin when I was touched upon the shoulder, and, turning round, was accosted by one of my schoolmates whom I had not seen or heard of since we parted at Monkton Farley school. I think I never enjoyed an evening more than P H. Heydukoff was a "Restaurateur" in Dresden at Frauen- strasse 12 (Palace of Cosel) in 1848; at Frauengasse 10 in 1849; and at Liittiehaustrasse 23, part, in 1850 and 1851.] SCHOOL 35 the one which, after our mutual recognition, I spent with him at his house. From a private school I went to Eton, trembling, for I was still far from strong and did not know what I might have to encounter in a great public school. My fears were at once dispelled. Fagging was merely one of the antiquities of the place, a remnant of the days when the young used to wait upon their elders, when the page of noble birth served for the company in hall. In my time hardly anything remained of it but the custom of laying for an upper boy his breakfast and tea things, in return for which he owed you his advice and protection. Bullying I neither encountered nor witnessed. Bullying was mean, and Eton boys were gentlemen; I enjoyed perfect freedom; played at games or not as I chose ; and "sapped," that is studied, when I took to it, without the slightest molestation. Perhaps if by sapping I had forced others to sap, I might not have been so free from molestation. A curious institution was the unreformed Eton of those days. Nothing was taught but classics; even mathematics were not part of the school course, nor was the mathematical master a member of the staff. It was said that when a mathematical teacher was appointed he asked the Provost whether he was, like the other masters, to wear a gown. "That is as you please." "Are the boys to take off their hats to me ? " "That is as they please." Our lessons were, as they had probably been for centuries, thirty lines, neither 36 REMINISCENCES more nor less, of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Poetae Graeci, or Scriptores Romani. In the sixth form we read a Greek play. The thing most prized was Latin com- position, especially in verse. If you wrote a good set of verses, they were sent to the Provost, the Head Master read them out to the class, and an asterisk was put after your name in the school list. This would now be deemed waste of time. For most of the boys it was so then ; the few became very familiar with the Latin poets and acquired form in composition. A great London editor told me that the only members of his staff who wrote in good form from the beginning had practised Latin verse. Exercises were done out of school, and there was no scruple about getting them done for you or using old copies. On my arrival I was offered by the servant of the boarding-house a col- lection of old copies, indexed, so that you might be pretty sure of finding something available when the subject for themes or verses had been given out in school. There were one regular whole holiday and one half holiday in every week. Saints' days were also holi- days. You were never in school more than three- quarters of an hour at a time. In morning-school you said by heart the Greek or Latin poetry which you had read in class. This was about the hardest part of the work, which, as a whole, was really little more than a formality. To wider and more serious study of the classics, SCHOOL 37 however, we were spurred in the higher part of the school by annual competition for the Newcastle Scholar- ship and medal, founded by the famous old anti-reform Duke, 1 who, when taxed with coercion of his tenants in elections, asked whether he had not a right to do as he pleased with his own. Through an oversight on the part of the Trustees the medal was not struck for forty years. When the oversight was discovered, and the winners, myself one of them, were hunted up, it was seen how wide had been the divergence of the paths in life of those whose starting-place had been the same. One of them had turned Jesuit, and by the rule of his Order was incapable of holding property in his medal. Not a few received their mark of classical distinction on the other side of the Styx. When one has lived long, it is curious to look back to the beginnings of so many careers and compare the expectations formed of them with the careers and their close. Many of the boys in those days were not destined for the University. Many went into the army, espe- cially into the Guards or the Light Cavalry regiments, the diplomatic service, the Royal Household, and the other pleasant pastures of aristocracy before competi- tion. They still got commissions in the army young, though not so young as they once had. I have seen a letter written by an Eton boy, one of the Bathursts, who had got his commission at fourteen and gone [ J Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham Clinton, fourth Duke of New- castle; 1785-1851.] 38 REMINISCENCES straight to Waterloo. It ran: " Dear Mamma : Cousin Tom and I are all right. I never saw anything like it in my life." Eton in those days was altogether very much wrapped up in herself, and thought less than she probably does now of University honours. My brother Arthur, who went with me to Eton, was destined for the army. I was myself nearly going into the Indian Civil Service. Outside of the school course, however, there was in that little commonwealth a good deal of intellectual activity. Many of the boys came from political homes and took a lively interest in public questions. "Pop," as the Debating Society, from being held over a ginger- beer shop, was called, was very vivacious, and bred orators, Gladstone among the number; though that great man's eloquence lost by practice in debating clubs at Eton and Oxford in freshness of style part of what it gained in fluency. Eton conservatism was grotesque. The nominal " bounds" of former days were preserved. In reality it was understood that there were no bounds and that between school hours, until " lock-up," you might go where you pleased, only that if you met a master out- side the nominal bounds you had to " shirk," that is, to make a show of keeping out of sight, while he was bound in courtesy not to see you. The river was out of bounds, though not only was boating the regular and recognized amusement, but we were all required to learn to swim. On Sunday afternoon the Castle SCHOOL 39 Terrace, where the King 1 showed himself and the band played, was in bounds, while the way to it was out of bounds. Eton rowed against Westminster at Datchet. The match was on a Saint's day after after- noon chapel. There was barely time for it between the chapel and the evening calling-over "absence," as it was curiously called. But to put off the calling- over for an hour would have been a disturbance of the spheres. So in chapel the reader rushed through the service; the choristers, for an anthem, sang three Hallelujahs; while the Head Master sat in his stall, looking perfectly unconscious that anything unusual was at hand. Games were still games when Waterloo was won on the playing-fields at Eton. "Athletics," with all their paraphernalia, were still in the womb of time. An Eton boy would have stared if you had spoken to him of gate-money. Nor was anybody killed or maimed at football. The College, that is, the Foundation, is now, since the admission has been by merit, the pick of the school. In those days it was in a low state, the nominations being used by the Provost and Fellows as mere patron- age. The Collegers were "Tugs," disrated by the Oppidans, pigging in a vast and murky den called Long Chamber, wearing stuff gowns, and not allowed to come on the Oppidan's part of the river. They went off by seniority to Fellowships at King's College, Cambridge, I 1 William IV.] 40 REMINISCENCES and from the Fellows at King's, in deference to an evil tradition, all the Eton masters were taken. The ablest of the Fellows went off to professions, and the school got what was left. Some of our masters were very incompetent. I was for two years in class under one who, though he was a good old soul and I love his memory, knew no more than I did. They have hap- pily changed all that. The Foundation has been thoroughly reformed. It has been provided with better lodgings than "Long Chamber"; the appointments to it are made by examination; and there even seems to be a danger of its absorbing too much of the best intel- lect of the school and leaving the dough without the leaven. There was one master who had not been a Fellow of King's, but having married the daughter of the Head Master, Keate, 1 had been brought in first to fill a gap, and then permanently retained, though not without discreditable manifestations of jealousy on the part of some of his colleagues. Edward Coleridge 2 was nephew of the poet and philosopher, brother of the judge, uncle of the Lord Chief Justice. I had the good fortune to be his pupil and board in his house. A deep scholar he was not ; but he was a maker of schol- f 1 John Keate, head master of Eton from 1809-1834. Born 1773 ; died 1852.] [ 2 Son of James Coleridge, of Tiverton, Devon ; born in 1801 ; Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1823-1826 ; Assistant Master at Eton, 1824-1850 ; Lower Master, 1850-1857 ; Fellow, 1857 ; Vicar of Maple Durham, Berks, 1862 until his death on the 18th of May, 1883. Alumni Oxonienses, s.v.] SCHOOL 41 ars. He inspired where he could not instruct. He loved his pupil-room, and gave himself with his whole heart to its service. His pupils requited his affection, and to have been "in my tutor's house " has always been among them a cherished memory and a bond. Coleridge was the Arnold of Eton, so far as Eton could have an Arnold, and there was sympathy between him and the Arnold of Rugby. Twice every Sunday, twice every holiday or Saint's day, and on every Saturday afternoon, to kindle the flame of piety in our souls, we were mustered at choral service in the College Chapel. Only on Sunday did we take Prayer-Books or even affect to join in the service. Our attendance on other days was a mere roll-call, two or three masters attending to keep order and prevent our talking too loud or too visibly munch- ing candies. On Sundays the Fellows, who were super- annuated masters, preached, and the sermons of some of them were not only platitudinous, but grotesque. Old Plumptre l was incomparable. He had a Puri- tanic habit of putting everything into Scripture lan- guage. When Owen the Socialist had, to Plumptre 's horror, been introduced by Lord Melbourne at Court, he had "made Blastus, the King's Chamberlain, his friend." Audible laughter would go round the juvenile congregation, and I have seen the Masters t 1 Frederick Charles Plumptre, Fellow of University College, Oxford, from 1817 to 1836 ; Tutor in 1820 ; Dean and Bursar in 1821 ; Vice-Chancellor of the University, 1848-1851 ; and Master of his College from 1836 till his death in 1870.] 42 REMINISCENCES themselves, unable to keep their gravity, ducking behind their stalls. Once Plumptre's text was "Woman." It introduced an invective against the worship of the Virgin as divine. There was an- other Fellow and preacher who wore a very high and stiff neck-cloth in which every other sentence was lost, while the alternate sentence was delivered in the shrillest tone. If, therefore, some of us were want- ing in love of our venerable and beautiful liturgy, or were otherwise undevout, we were not without an excuse. The real religion of Eton was that of the Classical Pantheon. It was said that once a boy, having some spiritual perplexities, was simple enough to commu- nicate them to the Head Master. The Head Master, when he had recovered from the shock, told him that he would give him an order on the bookseller for a Greek Testament with notes. The masters, however, did try to make the boys "gentlemen," a character rather narrow and savouring of caste, yet not worthless. Eton boys as a rule were idle, nor was their moral standard high; there was nothing in them like the moral aim or earnestness of Arnold's pupils. But there was in them a genuine dis- like of anything mean or cowardly. Their conversa- tion was clean; they did not swear, or talk filth. I believe it may be said that they were generally ashamed to lie, and would not have lied to a master. Propriety and cleanliness in dress were strictly enforced. Tall SCHOOL 43 hats, white ties, black swallowtail coats, and low shoes, not boots, were the regulation costume. The Provost, Dr. Goodall, 1 was outwardly and in- wardly antique. He wore knee-breeches, a cassock, shoes with buckles, and a wig. Against change of any kind he set his face. He would allow no improvements in the school course or in the appointment of masters. He would not allow a curtain to be hung over the door of the chapel, though half the sixth form, whose seats were near the door, were laid up with colds. By his command of the Eton vote in Parliament, he forced the Great Western Railway out of its course, and its eccentricities between Slough and Windsor are a monu- ment of his love of the ancient ways. It was said, and was hardly incredible, that when his letters were brought by rail he would not open them till they ought to have come by stage. He was autocrat, and under him there could be no reform. His successor, Provost Hodgson, 2 had been a boon companion of Byron and a translator of Juvenal. It might have been thought that he was a liberal and a reformer. Instead of this, he opposed all reform, even the proposal pressed by the Head Master, Hawtrey, 3 to give the school a free choice of masters instead of being confined to the Fellows of King's. t 1 Joseph Goodall, became Head Master in 1801, and Provost in 1809. Died in 1840.] [ 2 Francis Hodgson, Provost from 1840 till his death in 1852.] [ 3 Edward Craven Hawtrey, Assistant Master 1814-1834 ; Head Master 1834-1852 ; Provost 1852-1862.] 44 REMINISCENCES Dr. E. Craven Hawtrey, the Head Master, was also a singular figure, though in a very different way. As Eton was contrasted with the high moral and religious tension of Arnold's Rugby, so was Hawtrey contrasted with Arnold. He was a man of the world, a man of fashion, at home not only in London but in Parisian society, a sumptuous Amphitryon, an elegant but far from deep scholar, a writer of little verses in several languages, a collector of choice books in superb bindings, a connoisseur in wines, a dandy in dress. I see him now, calling over the roll in his rich silk gown and cassock, his gold eyeglass pendent from a heavy golden chain, his foot, which was his only beauty, put forward in his patent-leather boot; now sitting in the sixth class schoolroom and commending some happy rendering of a phrase in Horace or dilating on the remarkable body of the ancient wines. His features were the delight of the caricaturist, and little wooden busts of him were in demand. He was a man of sense, and would have made reforms if the Provost would have let him. He did get so far as to introduce into the work of one class the filling up of a skeleton map, which, with an- swers to a paper of geographical questions, we handed in as an act of piety on Sunday afternoon. He did not rule with a very firm hand, but floated along with tact and ease. He was in manners and sentiments unquestionably a gentleman; for the Eton of those days that was enough. Foreigners of distinction often visited Eton as SCHOOL 45 Hawtrey's guests. I saw in the schoolyard Daniel Webster, 1 with his brow and port of Jove. I saw Soult, 2 who looked the war-worn veteran that he was. Soult, when the boys recognized him and rushed to him, was half afraid that they were going to mob their old enemy, and was surprised at receiving a British ovation. Old William IV, the sailor King, was very fond of Eton, and used to come to our rowing matches and to the procession of boats on the fourth of July. On Election Day, at the end of the Summer term, the sixth form had to recite in Court-dress passages from Greek or Latin authors, " speeches," they were called, before the assembled school and guests. On one of those occasions the Queen 3 was present. At her side stood the Prince Consort, with features regular and handsome, but wanting in expression. Canonized for his virtues when he died, the Prince while he lived was unpopular on account of his manner, especially with women. Englishmen will bear a high manner in high people, though a frank manner pleases them more ; but Prince Albert had in fatal perfection the condescending man- P The American statesman, orator, and lawyer. It was probably when he was negotiating the Ashburton Treaty between Great Britain and the United States that he visited Eton. Born 1782; died 1852.] P Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, one of Napoleon's Marshals ; commander-in-chief in Spain. Ambassador Extraordinary to Great Britain at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, when, probably, he visited Eton. Born in 1769; died in 1851.] [ s Queen Victoria, of course ; who succeeded William IV in 1837.] 46 REMINISCENCES ner of German royalty. Happily he did not transmit it to his son. 1 Nothing is to me more odious than the pageantry of death. I would have the tenantless clay mingle in the simplest as well as in the quickest way with the general frame. Yet the funeral of a Royal Duchess which I attended as one of the Eton delegation was a striking sight. St. George's Chapel at night, hung with black, lines of Life Guards holding flambeaux, the approach of the corpse heralded by the Dead March, the procession up the Chapel with the female mourners in black lace veils reaching to their feet, certainly formed an impressive scene. I ran among a crowd of Eton boys behind Victoria's carriage from Eton to Windsor on the night of her marriage, 2 and I saw her more than once upon the Castle Terrace. She was dumpy but comely, with a fresh complexion, low forehead, receding chin, and prominent eyes. She had in short the features of her family. Notwithstanding her dumpiness, she acquired a queenly bearing. In everything, I suspect, she was a true granddaughter of George III. In the earlier years of her reign her very natural attachment to Lord Melbourne 3 as her political monitor and guardian, and her consequent connection with his party, exposed her [ l Afterwards His Majesty Edward VII.] [ 2 February the 10th, 1840.] [* William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister from 1835 till 1841 ; Queen Victoria's chief adviser. Born in 1779 ; died 1848.] SCHOOL 47 to the jealousy of the other side. In her later years political and social reaction exalted her into their fetish. She was made the object of extravagant adulation, and an age full of intellect, discovery, great writers, power- ful statesmen, and momentous events has been stamped with the name of a good and domestically exemplary, but in no way extraordinary woman. In politics she evidently became at last a thorough Stuart, enraged at the honour paid to Garibaldi. Among my schoolmates at Eton were John Duke Coleridge, 1 Lord Chief Justice that was to be, in " Pop," as afterwards at the Bar, noted for his silvery eloquence ; Lord Farrer 2 who became Permanent Under-Secretary of the Board of Trade, and, though he had inherited an ample fortune, continued in the public service; Henry Hallam, 3 who entered on the same day with me ; and William Johnson, 4 who afterwards took the name of Cory. Henry Hallam, like Arthur, had "the bow of Michael Angelo " on his forehead. Like Arthur he p First Baron Coleridge. He was the chief Counsel for the defendants in the celebrated "Tichborne case" in 1871-1872. Born 1820 ; died 1894.] [ 2 Thomas Henry Farrer, first Baron Farrer. Born in 1819 ; died in 1899.] [ 3 Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, younger son of Henry Hallam the historian, brother of the Arthur Hallam who was the subject of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." He went to Trinity College, Cam- bridge, and was one of the "Apostles." Born in 1824; died 1850.] [ 4 William Johnson, afterwards Cory, was an assistant master at Eton from 1845 till 1872. He wrote a "Guide to Modern English History " ; also several volumes of poems amongst the best known of which, perhaps, is his "lonica." Born in 1823; died in 1892.] 48 REMINISCENCES was wonderfully precocious in thoughtfulness and culture, owing the culture to the circle in which at his father's house he had lived. Whether either of the brothers had genius as well as thoughtfulness and cul- ture was a question left unsolved, since both died young and under circumstances curiously alike ; each of them suddenly, when he was on a tour with his father. Of William Johnson great things were expected. We fancied that he would be a sage not unlike his illustrious namesake. The result was distinction, both educa- tional and literary, which has won a niche in the Na- tional Biography. But it was not a reproduction of Johnson, whom we cannot imagine writing lyrics of effusive affection on a favourite pupil. Our mode of life was favourable to friendship. We dined in the boarding-house hall, but took breakfast and tea in our own rooms with messmates of our own choice. Each boy had a room of his own, furnished as a sitting-room, but with a press bed. I think it was a civilizing arrangement. It is something, as I have always thought, to be brought up in a place of beauty and historic memories. All that could be done for the young heart in that way was done by Eton, with its ancient quadrangle, in the middle of which stood the founder's statue, its great grey chapel, its playing-fields and their ancient elms stretching along the side of the river, and the class- room on the panels of which boyish hands had carved what afterwards became historic names; while from SCHOOL 49 the other side looked down the castle-palace of the old English Kings. I am now in my seventeenth year. 1 I doff the regu- lation dress of Eton, don the black tie, which was the symbol of emancipation, take leave of the Head Master, placing my leaving-fee on the table, while I receive his parting gift of a book, and come away, looking ea- gerly forward into the doubtful vista of the life, then opening, now at its close. I 1 1840. He matriculated at Oxford on the 26th of May, 1841.] CHAPTER IV OXFORD 1841-1845 Dean Gaisford Magdalen Magdalen Demys Martin Routh Fellows of Magdalen The Tractarian Movement The Curriculum Oxford Life Contemporaries. I MATRICULATED at Christ Church, and was thus brought into brief contact with Dean Gaisford. 1 The Dean was called the Athenian Blacksmith, and both parts of the nickname were well deserved. He was a first-rate Greek scholar, though I venture to think that as an editor of the classics he adheres somewhat slavishly to certain manuscripts. But for his manners his friends could only say that his heart was good; which, as an autopsy was not possible, could give little satisfaction to those who suffered from his rudeness. " Cultivate classical literature, which not only enables you to look down with contempt on those who are less learned than yourself, but often leads to places of con- siderable emolument, even in this world." Such was the comic analysis of one of Gaisford's University sermons, and probably it was scarcely a caricature. P Thomas Gaisford ; appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford in 1812 ; Dean of Christ Church from 1831 till his death in 1855 ; edited many of the classics. Born in 1779.] 50 OXFORD 51 However, from Christ Church I was soon transferred to Magdalen, where, at the instance of my good friend Frederick Bulley, 1 afterwards President, I was nomi- nated to a Demyship by the President, Martin Routh. 2 My Magdalen, like my Eton, was a relic of the past. It had forty Fellowships, thirty Demyships or Scholar- ships, and a revenue of forty thousand pounds a year, besides its rich dower of historic beauty. It took no Commoners, and its educational output in my time was eight or ten Undergraduate Demys and one Gentle- man Commoner, who being under the phantom author- ity of the nonagenarian President, lived in a license beyond even the normal license of his class. Frederick Bulley, afterwards President, did something for us as tutor at least in the way of most kindly interest and encouragement ; but we really depended for instruction upon private tutors; "coaches" they were called. I was coached at different times by Congreve, 3 then Fellow of Wadham, and a strong Liberal and Evangel- ical of Arnold's school, afterwards a Comtist and head of one section of the Positivist Church in England; by the excellent Mountague Bernard, 4 afterwards Professor of Law, and, what was perhaps more impor- f 1 Frederick Bulley, President of Magdalen College from 1855 tiU his death in 1885.] [ 2 Martin Joseph Routh, President of Magdalen from 1791 till his death in 1854. Born in 1755.] [ 3 Richard Congreve, the Positivist ; founded the Positivist com- munity in London in 1855. 1818-1899.] [ 4 Mountague Bernard, first Professor of International Law at Oxford, 1859-1874. Born 1820 ; died 1882.] 52 REMINISCENCES tant, one of the founders of The Guardian; and by Lin- wood, 1 the author of an edition of ^Eschylus and the editor of the Musce Oxonienses. Linwood was a prodigy. He had written in an examination ninety- nine Greek iambic verses, which may be seen slightly cut down in the Musce Oxonienses, and which might easily pass for an extract from a second-rate play of Euripides. But he never sustained his Undergraduate reputation. His ^Eschylus is jejune, and he somehow ended in eclipse. I was fortunate in the members of our little circle of Demys. With pensive interest I recall their names. One of them I saw afterwards a Roman Catholic priest. We lived a happy life in our junior Common Room, seeing perhaps rather too little of the University out- side, though my Eton connection gave me acquaint- ances. Our star was Conington, 2 afterwards Professor of Latin, who had come up from Rugby a wonderful scholar with a miraculous memory and carried every- thing before him in examinations. His figure was rather grotesque, and there was about him a touch of the Dominie Sampson which tempted little practical jokes, though the story of his having been put under the pump is totally baseless and utterly unjust to his I I William Linwood, public examiner at Oxford 1850-1851. His best-known works are "A Lexicon to^schylus," 1843, and "Sopho- clis Tragcedise," 1846. Born 1817 ; died 1878.] [ 2 John" Conington, Professor of Latin from 1854 till his death in 1869. Edited many of the classics ; published some verse transla- tions. Born in 1825.] OXFORD 53 college mates, who were all of them as quiet and well bred as they could be. His learning perhaps was supe- rior to his taste ; but he was a great scholar, and would have been greater had not his life been cut short. He seemed to be the toughest of men, and little did I think that I should survive him. My kind father allowed me a horse, and pleasant rides I had over the higher country round the flat on which Oxford is built, by Bagley, Elsfield, Wood Eaton, Stow Wood, Beckley, and other points of beauty. The country was more open to the horseman then than it is now. Lord Abingdon 1 kindly lent me a key to his lovely Park at Wytham. Those rides were favourable to reflection as well as to health and enjoyment. The beauty of the College itself, with its Gothic Quadrangle, its lawns, and its deer-park, was a perpetual delight. It would be hard to say whether the Quadrangle looked its best under the summer sun or under the winter moon when the snow lay on its roofs. Once more I was happy in aesthetic influences as an element of education. About our President, Martin Routh, much has already been written. He died of an accidental mal- ady in his hundredth year. He had lived with Parr. 2 As an Undergraduate he had seen Dr. Johnson. He had seen the elevation of the house of Temple to the peerage; and he saw its fall. Yet he had been so t 1 Montagu Bertie, the sixth Earl of Abingdon, High Steward of Oxford and Abingdon, Lord-Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of Berks. 1808-1884.] [ 2 Samuel Parr, 1747-1825.] 54 REMINISCENCES wrapped up in his study of the Fathers and such a recluse that he had little to say about the times through which he had lived ; outside of his books, county gene- alogies were his theme. He was never seen but in full canonicals of the fashion of the last century. Somebody bet that he would show Routh without his canonicals, and thought to win the bet by crying 'fire,' of which Routh was horribly afraid, at the dead of night under his window. Routh at once appeared, in a great fright, but in full canonicals. Such was the story. Routh prolonged his life by excessive care, living as it were under a glass case and never going abroad except in the finest summer weather. On a Sunday in summer at afternoon chapel there would sometimes be a move- ment among the visitors in the ante-chapel, which, with the reverential attitude of the porter and presently the shuffling of aged feet, announced the President's approach. Till near the end of his life Routh presided at the terminal examinations, Collections, as they were called, when he would put questions on the history of the Odyssey, and explain that in those days no inde- cency was involved in the attendance of ladies on gen- tlemen in the bath. His deafness, increased by his wig, combined with his old-fashioned respect for rank, once led to a funny incident. A Gentleman Commoner, son of a Baronet, having been beyond measure lawless, was being reprimanded by the tutors. The President, who had been looking the other way, hearing the loud sound of voices, turned round, saw a Baronet's son on OXFORD 55 the opposite side of the table, and taking it for granted that the Tutors were paying him compliments, chimed in with, "I am very happy, Mr. Blank, to hear what the tutors say of you. Pray tell Sir Charles with my compliments that you are a credit to the College." The President held with his Presidency the country living of Theale * where he was said to preach erudite sermons to the rustics. "I know, my friends, that you may object to me what St. Irenaeus says." Routh's Patristic learning, which was then unique and had produced the Reliquice Sacrce, made him a grand card for the Tractarians when their movement began. Yet by those who knew him well it was thought doubtful whether he really cared much about the mat- ter. Curiosity, they said, rather than anything else, was the leading motive of his Patristic studies. Routh had become President before the idea of aca- demic duty had dawned. This perhaps is sufficient excuse for the state of sinecurism and torpor in which to the end of his days he allowed that magnificent College to remain. Roundell Palmer, 2 afterwards Lord Sel- borne, then a Fellow of Magdalen, among others moved for reform. But the answer always was, "Wait, sir, till I am gone." The Fellows of Magdalen were a curious assortment. Some were relics of the age depicted in the well-known P A parish about four miles from Reading.] P Roundell Palmer, first Earl of Selborne, Lord Chancellor in 1872.] 56 REMINISCENCES words of Gibbon, using the college as a tavern and a shooting-box. Two or three were ascetics of the new Tractarian school. Charles Reade, 1 the novelist, was a non-resident Fellow. He came into residence for one year for the sake of holding a College office to which a nomination was attached. His costume was a green frock-coat with brass buttons, and his behaviour was not less eccentric than his costume. We took him, in fact, to be almost crazy. Of the Tractarians the most notable were James Mozley 2 and William Palmer. 3 Many years afterwards, when the Regius Professorship of Theology was vacant, I was asked by a friend who was a member of the Government whom they ought to appoint. My answer was that of preachers, commen- tators, and writers on ecclesiastical history there were plenty ; but that the only theologian in the proper sense of the term known to me was James Mozley. I have no reason to believe that my opinion had any influence in the appointment ; but if it had, supposing Theology not to be an extinct science, I was justified by the re- sult. Mozley was a Tractarian, but short of Rome. William Palmer, brother of Roundell Palmer, after- wards Lord Selborne, was a man of genius whose genius took a singular turn. I saw a good deal of him. [ l Charles Reade was elected Fellow of Magdalen in 1835. Born 1814 ; died 1884.] [ 2 James Bowling Mozley, Regius Professor of Divinity in 1871 ; Bampton Lecturer ; Canon of Worcester. Born 1813 : died 1878.] [ 3 William Palmer ; Theologian and archaeologist ; brother of Roundell Palmer ; Fellow of Magdalen. 1811 to 1879.] OXFORD 57 Don Quixote did not live in the age of chivalry more completely than did William Palmer in the age of me- dieval religion. As an inn was a castle to Don Quixote, to William Palmer the Colleges were monasteries, only with a rule unhappily relaxed, the Fellows were monks, the scouts or College servants were lay brethren. Protestantism he anathematized, earning thereby the name of " Cursing Palmer." His leaning, however, was not to the Roman, but to the Greek Church, which attracted him by its superior rigidity. To bring the Anglican Church into communion with the Greek Church, or rather to get the communion in which he supposed they already were recognized, was the object of his life. For that purpose he went to Russia, and there opened before the heads of the Greek Church his budget of High Church doctrine, assuring them that such was the creed of the Church of England. But the Evangelical Chaplain of the Embassy at St. Peters- burg I believe it was he being called upon for his attestation, declared that the High Church doctrines were anathema. An untoward accident occurred. The wife * of Palmer's Russian host, travelling in Swit- zerland, was converted to Protestantism by an English clergyman of the Evangelical party. Her husband was horrified. Palmer had averred that the two Churches were in communion with each other. Yet here was an Anglican clergyman converting his wife as if she were a heretic or a heathen. Palmer at once [ l Princess Galitzin.] 58 REMINISCENCES started in chase. He pursued the lady from place to place, entering his caveat when she presented herself to receive the Communion. From Bishop Spencer, 1 then ministering in Paris, he received some encourage- ment. Returning to England, he put to each of the Bishops the question whether their Church was in com- munion with the Greek Church, and got a series of evasive replies, the gist of which was that the Greek Church was a long way off. From Archbishop Howley 2 he got two letters, but no reply. Then he tried the Anglican Church in Scotland, and proposed to attend a Synod on the question as the deputy of Bishop Spencer. But the answer was that Bishops could not sit by deputy, and that Bishop Spencer was dead. Palmer then resolved to enter the Greek Church. But the Greek Church required him to be re-baptized, and re-baptism in his eyes was unlawful, baptism by heretics being valid. Not very logically he then turned to the [ l George Trevor Spencer, Bishop of Madras ; graduated, Uni- versity College, Oxford, 1822 ; consecrated 1837 ; Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral 1860. Born in 1799, died in 1866. I learn from a private letter that he was Chaplain to the French Chapel in the Rue Marbceuf about the year 1840, just before he was made Bishop of Madras. And I find this verified in " Phases of My Life," by the Very Rev. Francis Pigou, D.D., Dean of Bristol, chapter ix, pages 150 and 151 (London : Edward Arnold ; 1898), in which the Dean says : " . . . Bishop Spencer, formerly Bishop of Madras, . . . had had the offer of Marboeuf Chapel in Paris. . . . The church, if such it could be called, was situate at the bottom of the Avenue Marboeuf, a side street off the Champs Elysees, of which now scarcely any trace is left. It was originally founded by Mr. Lewis Way, in 1824."] [ 2 William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1828 to 1848. Born 1776.] OXFORD 59 Church of Rome, which, however, he succeeded in entering without undergoing the conditional re-baptism commonly required of converts. Here his genius found its grave. Fantastic Egyptology, founded on the fancy that Satan had concocted the Egyptian religion in mockery of Christianity, occupied him till he died. If William Palmer was an ecclesiastical Don Quixote, he was also an ecclesiastical Ulysses. He had seen and studied every variety of religious belief and life. His conversation was most interesting; his language was racy in the highest degree. After his Russian adventure he wrote a book upon Church questions which you were allowed to purchase on declaring yourself a faithful layman, and which the virtuoso, if he ever meets with it on a bookstall, not having to make that declaration, will do well to acquire. "Then certain of the baser sort made a conspiracy and cut off his head," this or something like this is the account of the rebellion against Charles I. It was to Roundell Palmer, then a non-resident Fel- low of Magdalen, afterwards Lord Selborne and Chan- cellor, who had kindly taken notice of a young student, that I owed my introduction to his brother. I owed to him much more, the boon, for which I could never be sufficiently grateful, of his friendship in after-life. His history it is needless to repeat. He was a grand example of the union of high intellectual culture and literary tastes with the greatest professional energy 60 REMINISCENCES and success. His power of work was wonderful. When he was Attorney-General, about the hardest place then in the world, I called one Wednesday afternoon at his Chambers. His clerk said at first that he would see me, then added, "I think you had better not go in." " Why not ? " "Sir Roundell has not been in bed this week." Palmer told me afterwards that it was true; that he had been working hard to earn his Christmas holiday, and had not gone to bed till Wednesday night. The wit of the Magdalen Common Room was New- man 1 (not John Henry), a first-rate mimic. One day he amused himself by masquerading as a stranger visiting Oxford and hiring a guide to show him round, which the guide did with the usual illustrative com- ments. When at last they came to Magdalen, the guide pointed out the Fellows' Common Room. To his sur- prise and horror Newman bolted into it and was seen no more. Now was the crisis of the Tractarian movement, of which the Ritualist movement is the less earnest and masculine successor. The source of Tractarianism is plainly disclosed in the opening of the " Tracts." Lib- eralism was advancing, the support of the State was failing the Church, and threatened to be withdrawn from her altogether. She must therefore Jook for sup- port elsewhere, and she would find it in Apostolical I 1 Perhaps Thomas Harding Newman, of Wadham College. Matriculated in 1829 ; a Demy of Magdalen from 1832 to 1847 ; Fellow, 1846 to 1873 ; Dean of Divinity 1849 ; died 1882. But I am not sure. Ed.] OXFORD 61 Succession and the supernatural virtue of the Sacra- ments administered by priestly hands. Oxford, with her medieval Colleges and her clerical and celibate Fellows, was the natural centre of a movement which pointed to a revival of the Middle Ages. The dining- hall of Magdalen, where the diners usually were so few, was full enough on the day of the ecclesiastical Ar- mageddon, when all the country parsons came up to vote on the condemnation of Ward. 1 I was unlucky in never hearing Newman 2 preach. He had just been forced by the heads of the University to retire from the pulpit of St. Mary's and had withdrawn with a select circle of disciples to his monastery at Little- more. 3 I heard him read the service, which he did in a mechanical monotone, that he might seem to be the mere mouthpiece of the Church. His face, I always thought, betokened refinement and acuteness much more than strength. He was always in quest, not of the truth, but of the best system, presenting a sharp contrast to his brother Francis, 4 whom also I knew t 1 The Reverend William George Ward, nicknamed "Ideal Ward," one of the chief figures of the Tractarian movement. Wrote in defence of Newman's celebrated "Tract XC." The reference is to, his removal from his Degree for heresy ; joined the Roman Catholic Communion and wrote in favour of Papal infallibility ; published many controversial treatises. 1812-1882.] [ 2 John Henry, Cardinal Newman. Born 1801 ; died 1890.] p Two miles and a half from Oxford.] [ 4 Francis William Newman, Fellow of Balliol ; afterwards Prin- cipal of University Hall, London; author of a "History of Hebrew Monarchy," "The Soul," "Phases of Faith," etc. Born 1805; died 1897.] 62 REMINISCENCES well, and who through all his changes of opinions sought the truth with singleness of heart. The "Gram- mar of Assent " * is an apparatus for making yourself believe or fancy that you believe things which are good for you but of which there is no proof. It may be doubted whether, when the hot fit of conversion was over, Newman was a hearty Roman Catholic, or believed, as he vowed he did, in St. Januarius and the House of Loretto. Manning 2 accused him of minimizing Ca- tholicism, and he never would make converts from the Anglican Church. Few of the students of those days, few at least of the intellectual and serious class, were proof against the witchery of Newman's style or failed to be fascinated by his romantic presentation of the medieval Church after the aridity of the "high and dry " regime. Pusey 3 I used to see going about with sorrowful visage and downcast eyes and looking like the embodi- ment of his favourite doctrine, the irremissibility of post-baptismal sin. I heard him preach. He was undeniably learned, but by no means logical or clear. His catenas wanted a link. In his moral passages, however, he was highly impressive in his ascetic way. Manning I saw ascend the pulpit, a most imposing P "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," first published in 1870. It has gone through several editions.] [ 2 Henry Edward Manning, Roman Catholic Archbishop of West- minster. Born 1808 ; died 1892.] [ 3 Edward Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Ox- ford ; one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement ; a notable figure amongst the ' Ritualists ' of the time. Born in 1800 ; died in 1882.] OXFORD 63 figure, looking like an apparition of the Middle Ages; but I thought him a tinkling cymbal, as in fact he turns out to have been. That he would never have seceded if they would have made him a Bishop was the opinion of his brother-in-law Samuel of Oxford. 1 Of Ward I happened to see a good deal, when I was reading with a Fellow of Balliol in the vacation and dined in their Common Room. He was a first-rate dialectician, shrinking from no conclusion, and I fancy rather revel- ling in the uproar which he made. His joyous avowal that clergymen of the Church of England were embrac- ing the whole cycle of Roman Doctrine brought matters to a head and forced the hand of Newman, who had probably looked to remaining leader in the Church of England and ultimately negotiating reunion with Rome. Ward's figure was grotesque, almost Fal- staffian ; though very fat, he walked with a sort of skip, and wore low loose shoes which he had a trick of kicking off. He was a candidate for a Fellowship of All Souls' in the days when the qualifications for election there were social, and candidates were invited to dine with the Warden and Fellows that their social aptitudes might be seen. Ward, so the story ran, kicked his shoes off under the table; a rival candidate pushed them away from him, and when the party rose to pass from the Hall into the Common Room, Ward stood [ l Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and then of Winchester. His wife's sister, Caroline Sargent, married in 1833 Henry Edward, afterwards Cardinal, Manning.] 64 REMINISCENCES up without his shoes. There was something laughable about all that he said or did. As a medievalist he advo- cated clerical celibacy; but, to use his own expression, he had not himself the gift of continence, and the ascet- ics of his party were taken aback by learning that between the acts of his condemnation for Romanism in the Theatre, he had read a letter from a lady to whom he was engaged. Even in his religious writing there was a f riskiness which seemed to show that he enjoyed the fun. Keble, 1 who, with Newman and Pusey, made up the Tractarian Triumvirate, had left Oxford, married, and taken a country living. Some years afterwards I ac- companied his friend Judge Coleridge on a visit to his house. He was the embodiment of the sweet, gentle, somewhat mystical and not very masculine poetry of the " Christian Year." Why he had not joined the secession was evident enough. Besides his wife, he had a conjugal attachment, like that of George Herbert, to his parish Church. I was told that he loved to per- form service in it, even with a nominal congregation. Nor was he likely to be drawn into anything from which his heart recoiled by the pressure of strict logic. If he was troubled by the lateness of the Tractarian discovery that the Prayer Book, not the Thirty-Nine Articles, was the real standard of the Church of Eng- [ l John Keble, the author of "The Christian Year"; Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841 ; Vicar of Hursley, Hamp- shire, from 1836 till his death in 1866. Born 1792.] OXFORD 65 land, he could satisfy himself by reference to the anal- ogy of the Christian Dispensation, which came late into the world. Butler's " Analogy" 1 was in those days the Oxford Koran, and in its line of argument was found a universal solvent of the theological diffi- culties. A very great book Butler's " Analogy" un- doubtedly is ; but the assumption on which it is built, that we should expect in Revelation the same diffi- culties which we find in natural religion, is palpably unfounded. We should expect Revelation to be the corrective of the difficulties of natural religion, not their counterpart. Butler, however, was a profound thinker, and in spite of his ecclesiastical trammels nobly loyal to reason and truth. Curious forms did that resurrection of the ecclesias- tical past bring forth ; but none more curious than that of John Brande Morris, 2 who in the Tower of Exeter College fondly watched for the return of the Dark Ages. / He wrote a poem pronounced by some Tractarians ' f W^MM^ ^ equal to Milton's in excellence and superior in subject, * in which he spoke of oxen as " trained to labour by meek celibacy." Let me by the way correct a common error which has crept into the work of my excellent friend President [ x "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature." By Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham. First published in 1736.] [ 2 John Brande Morris, Fellow and Hebrew Lecturer, Exeter College, Oxford, 1837 ; joined the Church of Rome 1846. 1812- 1880.] 66 REMINISCENCES White on the ' ' Warfare of Science and Religion." 1 It is a mistake to think that Everett, the American Ambas- sador, was hooted in the Theatre when he was presented for an honorary degree. The hooting was not at Everett, 2 but at Jelf, 3 who had made himself very unpopular as Proctor. Several of the students were punished for it. I was in the Undergraduates' gallery, and saw and heard it all. Everett was not brought in till long after the hooting had begun. It unluckily happened that there was at the same time a Tractarian opposition among the Graduates to Everett's Honorary Degree on the ground that he was a Unitarian. But the opponents, though they showed their intolerance, did nothing rude. They sent a deputation to Everett to assure him that no personal offence was intended. In the Theatre they did no more than formally signify their dissent as a legal precaution. Throughout this period of controversy, earnest and sometimes heated as discussion was, social tolerance remained generally [ x "A History on the Warfare of Science with Theology in Chris- tendom." By Andrew Dickson White. 2 vols. New York : Appleton. 1896. The reference is to Vol. II. pp. 335-336. The incident occurred on the 28th of June, 1843.] [ 2 Edward Everett, the celebrated American statesman, orator, and author; successively Professor of Greek at Harvard College, 1819-1825 ; member of Congress ; Governor of Massachusetts ; Minister to England ; President of Harvard College ; Secretary of State; United States Senator. It was when he was Minister to England (1841-1845) that he was given the Honorary Degree. Born in 1794 ; died in 1865.] [ 3 William Edward Jelf, Greek Reader 1879 ; Tutor 1836 to 1849; Proctor 1843; Public Examiner 1841 to 1855; Bampton Lecturer 1857. Born 1811 ; died 1875.] OXFORD 67 unimpaired, and conversation in the Common Room was free. A body of English gentlemen, however bigoted, could never have been brought to hoot a guest. Academical duty, however, was lost in the theologi- cal fray. The teaching staff to a great extent aban- doned its task to the private coaches. From sinking into mere clericism the University was saved only by the Class List. The University having been absorbed by the Colleges, and the Professor having been super- seded by the College tutor, the Professoriate had sunk into decrepitude. Few of the Professors except the Professor of Theology, lectured, and if they did the attendance was very small. Buckland * lectured on geology, of which he with Sedgwick 2 and Murchison was a pioneer. I attended his course, and could not help marking the shifts to which he was driven in his effort to reconcile geology with Genesis. The effort now is to reconcile Genesis with geology. Dr. Arnold 3 held the chair of Modern History, to which he had been appointed by a Whig Government. His coming to deliver his course was a grand event. His name was a horror and a terror to the dominant High Church party. Turnus was appearing once more in the camp of ^Eneas. His lectures, however, were f 1 William Buckland (1784-1856), Professor of Mineralogy ; Reader in Geology ; Canon of Christ Church ; Dean of Westminster ; President of the Geological Society in 1824 and 1840.] [ 2 Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), Woodwardian Professor of Geol- ogy at Cambridge 1818 ; President of the Geological Society 1831.] [ 3 Thomas Arnold, the Head Master of Rugby ; Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford 1841.] fll 68 REMINISCENCES crowded. The success, professional and personal, was complete. The description of the blockade of Genoa drew tears from the eyes of Heads of Houses. The audience felt that they were looking on a hero. And a true hero Thomas Arnold was. Our curriculum was classical, mathematics holding a very secondary place, though a double first, that is, a first-class both in classics and mathematics, was the summit of honour ; classical distinction was the general road to such prizes open to merit as there were. Our classical course, however, included Aristotle, Plato for those who chose, and Butler by way of supplement, together with logic and ancient history. Aristotle was studied in a scholastic way and without distinction between the genuine and spurious books of the Ethics. Still the study was intercourse with a great intelligence. It kindled an interest in the problems of humanity. I tried for honours, and won them. But I have often doubted whether they were a blessing to me. My rela- tives always upbraided me with want of ambition, and the charge was perfectly true. But my University honours thrust upon me at the outset a sort of distinc- tion, which, as I was unambitious, has been the source of more pain than pleasure. My great pleasures have always been domestic, and I should have been happier ,in a perfectly private and tranquil walk of life. Whether the system of competitive examinations is good is a moot question. Love of the study is of course far better as a motive. But love of study is not uni- OXFORD 69 versal. Lord Althorp, 1 one of the best and most useful of English statesmen, owned that he would have re- mained a mere sportsman had he not been spurred to intellectual exertion by his mother's desire that he should succeed in a College competition. In this case, however, the studies were gymnastic. Bread-and- butter studies, now in the ascendant, ought to draw of themselves. The life of the ordinary Undergraduate has, I believe, become softer, more refined, and more luxurious than it was in my day. Wine parties, which were our social meetings, have, I am told, gone out of fashion. The sound of the piano is now common in College Quad- rangles ; it was hardly ever heard in my day. Rooms are said to be more elegantly and tastefully furnished. On the other hand, athletics have assumed monstrous proportions. Football in my time was never played by any adults but the roughs in the North, and when we played it at Eton only the ball was kicked, whereas everything now is kicked but the ball. Yet we are told that character is less masculine than it was. Nor is this a paradox. Athletic force is muscular, not moral. Among the incidents not to be forgotten of Oxford Undergraduate life were the Long Vacation reading parties. I have a pleasant recollection of the days spent with chosen companions at Filey, then a small village, with its spacious beach and the amphitheatre P John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorp and third Earl Spen- cer. 1782-1845.] 70 REMINISCENCES of rock into which the Northern Sea grandly rolls; amidst the beautiful scenery of Linton; or beside Grasmere lying in the quiet urn of its green hills. It was when we were in Devonshire that a trial took place closely resembling the Tichborne case. The title and estate of an infant Baronet were claimed by an impostor who pretended that he was the child of a secret mar- riage. The impostor, like the Tichborne claimant/ had got up his case with care ; and at the trial things were going well for him when word came to the counsel on the other side that a seal tendered by him as a proof of family identity had been manufactured for him a few weeks before in a London shop. The fact was sprung upon him; he collapsed under it, and in a few weeks was in Dartmoor gaol. The case created local excite- ment and no more. The Tichborne case set the whole country in a blaze, divided families, and it was thought would have divided the nation had a general election then taken place. So much more inflammable and excitable has the electric telegraph made the public mind. Such now, if a Tichborne case could divide the nation, is government by the people. Among my notable contemporaries, besides Coning- ton, were Matthew Arnold 2 and Freeman. Matthew P The celebrated Tichborne case lasted from May the llth, 1871, to February the 28th, 1874. The claimant's name was Arthur Orton.] [ 2 Matthew Arnold, the poet and critic, was born in 1822 ; was a Master at Rugby ; then Private Secretary to the Marquess of Lansdowne ; then an Inspector of Schools. He died in 1888.] OXFORD 71 Arnold was outwardly a singular contrast to his almost terribly earnest sire. Not that he was by any means without serious purpose, especially in his province of education. His outward levity was perhaps partly a mask, possibly in some measure a recoil from his father's sternness. As we were travelling together in a railway carriage, I observed a pile of books at his side. " These," said he, with a gay air, "are Celtic books which they send me. Because I have written on Celtic Literature, they fancy I must know something of the language." His ideas had been formed by a few weeks at a Welsh watering-place. He exerted, however, unquestionably an elevating and liberalizing influence on a large class of minds. He pierced the hide of Phi- listinism with the silvery shafts from his bow, though his idea of Philistinism may not always have been perfectly just. But in all fields, social or theological as well as literary, taste was supreme in his mind. If there is nothing disparaging in the phrase, I should say that he was the prince of connoisseurs. Freeman 1 was a follower of Newman, and the leading spirit of the Oxford Architectural Society, which conducted the aesthetic part of the medieval revival. He and I be- came great friends in after years, when he was living as a Thane on his paternal Allod at Somerleaze, near Wells. He was very happy when he was made a Justice P Edward Augustus Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest, was born in 1823, and was Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford from 1884 till his death in 1892.] 72 REMINISCENCES of the Peace. There are different versions of the story of his having been toasted at an Architectural Society's dinner as one " singularly familiar with the manners of our rude ancestors." But it was mere brusqueness, not insolence. From insolence he was entirely free. In America he probably counted too much on the sim- plicity of Republican fashions, a mistake into which the English visitor is apt to fall. As a historian, though diffuse in style and somewhat pedantic, he will always be master of his period. He was profoundly learned, strictly accurate, and, though he had his predi- lections, thoroughly honest. He loved truth and hated falsehood, loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Hence he dealt rudely with the worshipper of Henry VIII, in spite of Froude's * literary charm. Temple 2 and Clough were rather my seniors. Temple, making his way upon the small income of a Tiverton Scholarship at Balliol, was respected as the model of a hard-working and self-denying student. He was presently to contribute to that manifesto of Rationalism, "Essays and Reviews," 3 which set the orthodox world in a flame; though in his own essay there was nothing specially to alarm, and in fact I heard it delivered as a University Sermon without [ J James Anthony Froude's "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada."] [ 2 Frederick Temple, was Head Master of Rugby from 1858 to 1869 ; Bishop of Exeter, then of London, and then Archbishop of Canterbury.] [ 3 These were published in 1860. They were condemned by Con- vocation in 1861 and 1864.] OXFORD 73 disturbing the slumber of any of the Heads of Houses. He became Archbishop of Canterbury and supreme guardian of the orthodox faith. One cannot help wondering what was the mental process of transition. Transition to some extent from association with the authors of ' ' Essays and Reviews " there must have been. Clough, 1 Dr. Arnold's model pupil, seemed to me an instance of a moral overstraining which was a liability of Arnold's system. He came up to Oxford a phi- losopher. Ward, seeing the value of such a recruit to the Tractarian party, got hold of him, uprooted his existing beliefs, but failed to plant new beliefs in their room. Clough was altogether upset, and missed the first-class which he would otherwise have most easily won. He went through life with a vague and hopeless yearning for truth, which seemed to be depicted in his very face. Some short poems and a translation of Plutarch were the only products of a great intellectual power. In those days before University Reform the Fellow- ships of Magdalen were divided among certain counties, and there was no prospect of a vacancy in my county. I had to seek a fellowship elsewhere. It was with keen regret that I left Magdalen ; my heart has always turned to its beauty, and often the sound of its sweet bells has come to me across the ocean. Reformed it had, in ' I 1 Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet, was the son of a Liverpool cotton merchant ; born 1819 ; Scholar of Balliol ; Fellow of Oriel, and Tutor ; Principal of University Hall, London ; died 1861.] 74 REMINISCENCES justice to the University and the nation, to be ; and I had to bear a hand in the process ; but I was helping to destroy a little Eden in a world where there are not many of them. An attempt was made by a reforming party at Queen's to open a Fellowship and Tutorship for me there ; it was defeated, as it was sure to be, by a combination of Anti-reformers and Ritualists. I found a more congenial home in University College. GOLDWIN SMITH AT ABOUT FORTY YEARS OF AGE. Photograph by J. H. Guggenheim, Oxford. CHAPTER V OXFORD TUTORSHIP 1851-1854 Fellows Arthur Penrhyn Stanley Benjamin Jowett Thorold Rogers Mark Pattison Sir Travers Twiss. MY life during the years that followed was rather a medley. I was for a time Tutor at University Col- lege; was Assistant Secretary to the Royal Commis- sion of Inquiry into the University of Oxford; and Secretary to the Parliamentary Commission of Reform which followed it ; tried the study of law for a time in London, but found that the profession would be beyond my strength ; fell back on the University ; and became Regius Professor of Modern History ; during my tenure of which office I was a member of the National Educa- tion Commission. Fellows at Colleges were then all unmarried and lived in College ; such of them as were in Orders waiting for College livings. We dined together in Hall, and after dinner had our chat round the fire in Common Room. The Common Room at University was that in which Johnson had often been a guest. Over its mantelpiece stood the bust of Alfred, our legendary founder, by 75 76 REMINISCENCES Bacon, 1 a copy of which now stands in the Hall devoted to liberal studies at Cornell. Living amongst our pupils, we saw a good deal of them. The marriage of Fellows and their residence out of College must have greatly loosened the old ties. This is a pity. But the change was necessary to secure teachers perma- nently devoted to their calling, which the celibate Fellows and Tutors of former days could not be. There is, I believe, little difficulty in managing young English gentlemen, if they trust you and know that you respect their feelings. They will bear reproof when they are conscious that it is deserved, and submit to all that is really necessary to the enforcement of law. Sarcasm, which hurts their self-respect, mistrust of their word and honour, or espionage, they will not bear. Of course it is necessary to remember that boys are boys, and while you hold the reins firmly, not to be always pulling at the horse's mouth. Tricks were sometimes played on the Dons, the authors of which, if you were wise, you were not over-anxious to discover. From the hazing which is the strange opprobrium of American Colleges we were almost entirely free. Once an unpopular student of our College was hazed. The College officer who had to deal with the case said in [ l The author probably refers to John Bacon, born 1740 ; died 1799; but Chalmers (History of the Colleges, etc., i, 36 [1810]) and Ingram (Memorials of Oxford, University College, p. 15 [1834]) describe the bust as "carved by Wilton from a model by Rysbrach." It was presented to the College by Jacob Pleydell Bouverie, Vis- count Folkestone, afterwards second Earl of Radnor.] OXFORD TUTORSHIP 77 effect, "Boys will be boys, and if you play pranks on me or my colleagues you will be punished if we are so unlucky as to catch you; but we are not insulted. Your fellow-student, if you maltreat him, is insulted. We are the guardians of the honour and feelings of everybody under this roof, and we mean to fulfil our trust." One appeal to good feeling was enough. As Tutor of University I stepped into the place of Arthur Stanley, 1 whose name, in those days great, and to High Churchmen terrible, is now almost forgotten, while the progress of the Higher Criticism has left the most daring of his heresies far behind. Stanley's influence as a theologian and a religious philosopher, never very great, apart from the charm of his personal character, has ceased. His best works are his "Life of Arnold," his historical lectures, and his "Sinai and Palestine." The work last mentioned called forth his utmost enthusiasm and gave the fullest scope for the display of his special gift, the historical picturesque. In the lectures on the Eastern Church he shows his ardent historical sympathies, his power of delineating historical character, his comprehensive- ness of view, and the picturesque vivacity of his style. His lectures on the Jewish Church lack a critical basis and strictness of critical treatment altogether. The lecturer too often escapes from a critical difficulty into P Best known perhaps as Dean of Westminster, a post he held from 1864 till his death in 1881. He was born in 1815 ; became Canon of Canterbury in 1851 ; and Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford in 1856.] 78 REMINISCENCES preaching. To account for the subsistence of the Israel- ites during forty years in the wilderness, with the min- imum of miracle, he labours to make out that the desert may once have been less barren ; a desperate hypothesis if carried to the necessary extent. The historian who tries to sit between the two stools, miracle and myth, comes to the ground. The case is even worse when the lecturer has to deal with the moral difficulties, such as the massacre of the Canaanites, the slaying of Sisera, and David's death-bed legacy of vengeance. Stanley was wanting in the power of strict and patient investigation, in the critical faculty, in force to grasp, almost in desire of grasping, positive and definite truth. He could scarcely even understand the need of positive and definite truth felt by ordinary natures, which had no golden cloud of historical sympathy and religious eclecticism wherein to float. Hence he over- rated the efficacy of the oil which, in a truly Evangelical spirit, he poured upon the troubled waters. He says that the writer of Genesis did not mean to teach us geology, but only the relation of man to his Creator. The writer of Genesis, however, did teach us geology, at least cosmogony, and his apologists are driven to saying in effect that the Creator, in dictating an account of his own work, though not scientifically right, was very nearly right, and almost anticipated the nebular hypothesis. It might be asked, too, whether the crea- tion of Adam and Eve does not concern the relation of man to the Creator. OXFORD TUTORSHIP 79 Stanley's theory of Church and State was derived not so much from Hooker, 1 to whom his biographer ascribes it, as from Arnold, who again seems to hare derived it from the Greek commonwealths, the study of which was his delight. Arnold failed to observe that though the Athenian Commonwealth had a State religion to which Socrates sacrificed, the religion of Socrates was outside that of the State, and brought him to a martyr's doom. Stanley, like Arnold, desired tint Church and State should be one. In strange practical contrast to his general liberalism, Stanley was an almost fanatical upholder of Church Establishments. He went the length of feeling a qualified sympathy even with * Bluidy Mackenzie.' He had persuaded him- self that, under the free system, there would be more of sectarian bitterness and mutual persecution. But he had only to look across the Atlantic to see that there would be nothing of the kind, and that you might have a Christian nation without a State Church. Strange to saypwhen he visited America he seemed to miss the significance of what he saw, and to identify himself with the Episcopal Church alone. As a Liberal, Stanley belonged himself to one of the Church parties, and could not help at last being drawn from his chosen position of mediator and peacemaker into the party fray. When he was in it, he fought like a gamecock, and developed unexpected powers as an oratorical I 1 Richard Hooker, the author of "The Laws of Eodaaastieall Politic."] r\u-^ 80 REMINISCENCES gladiator in the debates of Convocation, though he always bore himself as became a single-hearted cham- pion of truth and justice, never descending to virulence or faction. He now threw back his mantle of half orthodoxy, and stood revealed to High Churchmen and Evangelicals as the horrid thing he was. Their dread of him was ludicrous. Of course flowers were scattered on him by orthodoxy. He was told that his conduct "was scarcely reconcilable with the most fundamental principles of morality"; that "if he had behaved with like profligacy in the service of an earthly sovereign he would have been tried by court-martial and shot " ; and that he had committed "a graver offence than the tutor who corrupts his pupil's mind or the trustee who robs the widow and orphan of their property." This, though his enemies did not know that he had administered the Sacrament to such an arch-heretic as Mrs. Annie Besant 1 and witnessed a Spanish bull-fight on a Sunday ! The dust of these furious controversies has now been gathered into a narrow urn. Stanley describes the rumour of Newman's secession to Rome as producing an effect like that of the crack of doom. It seemed, he said, that the sun was about to hide its rays and that darkness was falling on the scene. To us the confluence of Newmanism with Romanism seems as natural as the confluence of two drops of water on a window-pane, and perhaps fraught with consequences little more P President of the Theosophical Society. Author of numerous works. Born in 1847.] OXFORD TUTORSHIP 81 momentous to humanity. We have far other questions now before us. What Stanley did practically towards liberalizing theology was done, not so much by his theological arguments, as indirectly by his treatment of Bible history. As his biographer says, he brought semi- mythical personages and events down to a human level. He carried on, and pretty well completed, the work begun by Milman, who, daring in his day, first designated the Father of the Faithful as a Sheikh. I must not forget Stanley's high claims as a bio- grapher, in which character he first won distinction, and is to many, perhaps, still best known. His "Life . ! of Arnold " is a noble, and no doubt in the main a true, C^- picture of a genuine hero. Though panegyrical, as a Life written by a friend and disciple must be, it is not slavish, any more than was Stanley's devotion to Arnold himself. The Life is no doubt true, I say, in the main. There was something in Arnold's character, as there is something in his face, which a pupil who lay in his master's bosom could hardly see. Stanley was never a schoolboy; at Rugby, though neither unsocial nor unpopular, he lived apart. He tells us that the school- world of "Tom Brown " was an absolute revelation to him, opening up a world of which, though so near him, he was utterly ignorant. Nor could he well be sensible of any tendency in Arnold's monitorial system to make boys prematurely sage. Stanley's Oxford prize poem, "The Gypsies," rises 82 REMINISCENCES far above the prize poem level, and promises a real, if not a great, poet. This promise he never fulfilled. It is strange that he should have entirely lost, if ever he had it, a sense of music, art, and scenery; that he should have seen nothing in the glorious Alps but "unformed and unmeaning lumps," and found, maugre Ruskin, no beauty or attempt at beauty in the interior of St. Mark's. He had no ear for music, yet between him and its Queen, Jenny Lind, there was an almost passionate friendship. "A quaint pathetic helplessness in practical matters that proved at once attractive and endearing" was characteristic of Stanley, and is ascribed by the bio- grapher to the petting care with which he was always treated by his domestic circle. But surely it must have been natural and not unconnected with his want of accuracy in investigation. He never could do a rule- of-three sum, and when he voted for Mill, who held that the power of doing a rule-of-three sum ought to be a qualification for the suffrage, he said that he had been voting for his own disfranchisement. His handwriting was the despair of postmen and printers. A letter addressed by him to Dublin found its way to Bath. His "here we caught our first view of Jerusalem " was printed "here we caught our first view of Jones." A highly confidential letter intended for the Liberal Bishop Thirlwall * he misdirected to the High Church [ l Bishop of St. David's. 1797-1875. But Stanley exculpates himself. See Prothero and Bradley 's " Life," I, 442.] OXFORD TUTORSHIP 83 Bishop Wilberforce, with ludicrous results. As Dean of Westminster, while he was a most admirable custos of the Abbey, he seems to have been a poor custos of its estate. But his want of aptitude for business, and his natural distaste for it, enhance the merit of his readiness to undertake such a post as that of secretary of the Oxford Commission, and lay aside his congenial work for it when what he deemed his duty called. He lived, if ever a man did, not for himself, but to do good. S>int animae nostrae cum illo. I was also intimate with Stanley's illustrious yoke- fellow Jowett, 1 about whom, since his death, much has been written. He was a far deeper and more ac- curate scholar than Stanley, as a comparison of his " Romans" with Stanley's " Corinthians" will show. His essays in the same work evince great spiritual insight and sympathy as well as literary grace. But there was no clinch in his mind. He would have doubted and kept other people doubting forever. Whatever was advanced, his first impulse was always to deny. Doubt is better than credulity only so long as you are pushing on to truth. Nor can I understand how a man could have found it possible to speak or even to think with perfect freedom in such a position as that of the clerical Head of a College, performing religious services and preaching in the College Chapel, [ l Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and trans- lator of Plato. Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. Born 1817 ; died 1893.] 84 REMINISCENCES when he had ceased to believe, not only in revealed religion and miracle, but apparently in the existence of any trustworthy evidence of the personality and teaching of Christ. I cannot help thinking that Jowett sought in translation a mental refuge. The result, no doubt, was happy for those who can read the Classics only in an English dress; though it is difficult to pre- serve in a translation the aroma of Plato or the fresh- ness of new-born philosophy struggling to express itself which engages us in Thucydides. Jowett did great things for Balliol and the University. Men afterwards eminent owed to him the awakening and direction of their intellectual life. Another Liberal notability, though in a very different line and style, was Thorold Rogers, 1 Professor of Politi- cal Economy, with his burly frame, his voice of thunder, his headlong Radicalism, and his rollicking good hu- mour. He was a satirist as well as an economist. Stubbs 2 and Freeman were mutual admirers. The most remarkable figure in our circle was perhaps that of Mark Pattison. 3 He had once been an ardent ... jrb follower of Newman. It was said that he had escaped secession only by missing a train. He had, however, I *K JU I 1 James Edwin Thorold Rogers, first Tooke Professor of Statistics , and Economic Science at King's College, London ; then Drummond Professor of Political Economy, Oxford ; M.P. for Southwark, and afterwards for Bermondsey ; published many works. 1823-1890.] [ 2 William Stubbs, Mr. Goldwin Smith's successor in the Chair of Modern History at Oxford. He was nominated Bishop of Ox- ford in 1888.] [ 3 Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Born 1813 ; died 1884.] OXFORD TUTORSHIP 85 missed that train with a vengeance, and had become a notable specimen of the recoil ; though once when he preached before the University there seemed to me to be something like a regurgitation of the asceticism of his Newmanite days. In his case, as in that of Jowett, one could not help wondering how an Agnostic could hold the office and perform the religious functions of a clerical Head of a College. Pattison was profoundly learned, rigorously accurate, and a Draconian critic. His talk, when he was in the right vein, was highly instructive and amusing, with touches of rather grim humour. He was the chief of a party called " Re- searchers," who held that the proper function of a University was not teaching, but research, for which holders of University emoluments ought to be left perfectly free from fixed duties. He was himself not a happy example of his system, since as a tolerably active College Tutor he had produced his excellent Life of Casaubon, while as the holder of a College Headship which was almost a sinecure and was by him made entirely one, he produced nothing of more consequence than newspaper reviews, a short biography of Milton, and a school edition of Pope's "Essay on Man." That there was an unpleasant element in his character, passages in his Memoirs 1 show. If there are such things in the manuscript which he has deposited with the Curators of the Bodleian for future publication, the t 1 " Memoirs." By Mark Pattison. Late Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. London : Macmillan"and Co. 1885.] 86 REMINISCENCES Curators ought to use the knife, not allow themselves to be made the agents of posthumous libel. How Conington can have moved Pattison's spleen, it is hard to tell. 1 He was amiable, inoffensive, and if he had changed his mind about religious questions, Pattison had done the same. Still more discreditable is the allusion to the misfortunes of Dr. Travers Twiss, 2 against whom Pattison cherished a grudge for having many years before, as the legal adviser of University College, decided against him a question of eligibility to a Fellowship. The case of Travers Twiss was one which might have moved even a disappointed candi- date's heart to pity. From the summit of prosperity and reputation he was suddenly cast down by the dis- covery of a flaw in the pre-nuptial character of his wife. A scoundrel, who, I heard with pleasure, had ended his days in a Work-House, being acquainted with Lady Twiss's history, blackmailed her and her husband till they could bear it no more. A prudent friend offered to take the wicked blackmailer out of the way by finding him constant employment abroad. But they determined to go into Court. Lady Twiss ji 1 See the " Memoirs," pp. 245 et seq.] [ 2 Sir Travers Twiss ; bursar, tutor, examiner, barrister ; Professor of Political Economy, of International Law ; Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, 1855-1870 ; Chancellor of the Diocese of Lon- don ; etc. He married in 1862 Marie Pharialde Rosalind Van Lynseele. Those who desire to know the details of the "flaw" spoken of in the text, may consult the Law Reports of the London Times of the second week of March, 1872. Born in 1809 ; died in 1897. The reference to Sir Travers Twiss in Pattison's "Me- moirs" is on pages 176-7.] OXFORD TUTORSHIP 87 broke down. Twiss had to resign his Chancellorship of the Diocese of London, and was a ruined man. One day before his marriage I had dined with him in his elegant little house in Park Lane, and quaffed Cabinet Johannisberger, the gift of Metternich, 1 for service done to Austria by Twiss's pen. The next time I saw him was in the Strand, some years after his fall. I crossed over to grasp his hand, but he dived into the crowd. p The Austrian statesman and diplomatist, Prince Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich-Winneburg. 1773- 1859.] CHAPTER VI TRAVELS 1847- The Tyrol Dresden Prague Normandy Guizot Italy Italian Exiles Louis Blanc. OF course I travelled. Very limited the range of travel was compared with what it is at the present day. On the other hand, when I and my companions rambled over Switzerland, Tyrol, and the Southern slopes of the Alps, a faint hue of romance still lingered on the knap- sack. We climbed the Rigi on our own feet. At Zermatt, where now are great hotels, the good Madam Lauber, in her little wooden hostelry, feasted us with goat's flesh, and when I was out late at night sent her ostler with a lantern to look for me on the Alps. Now there are great hotels, and there is to be a railway up the Matterhorn. In Tyrol you lived for about two shillings a day in clean quarters with coarse but not unwholesome fare, and coffee, probably home-grown. In Tyrol, however, for want of trained guides we were once near getting into a scrape. We were to cross from the head of the valley of the Inn into the vale of Me ran. Our guide did not know the pass, and on the recommen- dation of the priest, at whose house, for lack of an inn, 88 TRAVELS 89 we put up, we took a peasant from the village. Late in the afternoon we reached a plateau of snow through which we could just wade and on the other side of which was the only descent to the vale of Meran. Just then came on a blinding snowstorm, a thing bewildering and almost appalling in the Alps. The peasant lost heart ; refused to go on ; when persuaded to go on, took to his flask for courage, and when, fortunately, we had just got clear of the plateau, tumbled over a little precipice and lay like one dead in the snow beneath. He was got down the mountain to a spot where help could reach him from a village. Of my knapsack memories the Lago d' Orta * with the mountain path from Orta to Varallo is the sweetest. From the Dent de Jaman I saw a magnificent thunder-storm between the Alps and the Jura. The reverberation of the thunder between the ranges hardly ceased for hours. The first sight of the distant Alps seems to give one a new sense. Cobden, whom Tories called "a, bagman," said to me when I was going to America, " There are two sublimities in nature, the sublimity of rest and the sublimity of motion. The sunset Alps are the sublimity of rest, the sublimity of motion is Niagara." He would now find Niagara turned into a power and railroads running up the sunset Alps. No wonder Switzerland does not produce human poets in face of such transcendent poe- try of nature. A spiritual philosophy is more likely to be born in sight of the Alps than a school of poetry. P (?) Laguna d' Orta.] 90 REMINISCENCES A pleasant summer I spent in 1847 with an Oxford party at Dresden, where we were then about the only English. We studied German in the morning; dined at the Bruhlsche Terrasse at noon; at six went to the theatre, which was excellent. We saw the " Merchant of Venice " acted there for the first time. The rapture of the audience and its enthusiastic acclaim of Shake- speare's name were delightful. Often, of course, I stood before the Sistine Madonna. That, it seems to me, is the only infant Jesus with a supernatural look, and it seemed to me that the effect might have been produced by putting the eyes of a man into a child's face. As to the pictures of the Virgin and Child in general, I must confess that if there is one thing of which I am more weary than I am of them it is a picture of the Holy Family. Art toils in vain to depict Deity as a child in a mother's arms. We went up the Elbe to Prague, the city of quaint magnificence and teeming memories ; the most roman- tic being those of Wallenstein. In Prague John Huss reigns no more. He was supplanted by the Jesuits with their St. John Nepomuk, 1 Queen's confessor, and martyr, as the Jesuits say, to the secrecy of the Confes- sional, while the jealous King gave another account of the martyrdom. My companion nearly won the crown of martyrdom for himself and me by striking the statue of St. John Nepomuk with his umbrella as we crossed the bridge over the Moldau. [ l Usually, I think, called St. John of Nepomuk.] TRAVELS 91 Travelling is much altered since those days. Going from Ham to Hanover we had to get into the interior of a crowded Eilwagen at noon in burning weather and to crawl amidst clouds of dust through the whole of that day, the following night, and great part of the next day. I preserve to this hour a grateful recollection of the bottle of Assmannshauser with which I refreshed my- self at Hanover. The paragon of quick travelling was the Mallepost from Geneva to Paris, which took two pas- sengers in a coupe. At the Geneva Poste with the first stroke of the clock at 4 P.M. the wheel turned. We trotted up the Jura, had ten minutes for refreshment at the top of it, then galloped with successive relays of neighing and kicking stallions to Paris, having only one halt of a quarter of an hour for refreshment. We were turned out at the Paris Poste at one o'clock in the morning of the second day to find our lodgings as we could. My fellow-traveller fortunately had a car- riage to meet him, in which he kindly took me to Meu- rice's; otherwise I might have spent the rest of the night in the yard. However, if travelling was less easy, people were not so restless. A man who had a holiday reposed. The present age is so restless that it can find repose only in action. If a man has a holi- day, he sets out to travel as far as he can by rail, encountering almost as many cares in catching trains, looking after baggage, and getting rooms at hotels, as there are in the business for relief from which he flies. It was later on that, feeling in need of refreshment, 92 REMINISCENCES I took a quiet carriage drive through Normandy, stopping at each place till I had exhausted its antiqui- ties and beauties, living at the tables d'hote of the little hotels, and seeing something of the people. I picked up some history by the way. Wide is the gulf between the France of the days before the Revolution and the France of to-day. I came upon a ruined chateau. The peasants could tell me nothing about it; did not know who had been its lords; but said it had belonged to a Baron who shod his horses with silver. Perhaps the grandfathers of some of these men had stood bareheaded at the gate to see the Lord go forth. In the wall of the auberge was a medallion portrait, probably taken from the chateau. The landlady could not tell me whose it was, but I thought I recog- nized the features of Marie- Antoinette. On the trip I fell in with a young French official who was going his rounds. We travelled some way together, and a very pleasant companion he was. I was struck with his attitude towards the Church. He seemed to have got beyond any antipathy to it, and to regard it with perfect indifference, as a thing with which he had no concern. I was at the Church of Mont St. Michel when a party of peasants entered. The women all went up to the altar and knelt to it; the men all stood aloof. On the other hand I had an introduction to a wealthy gentleman at Caudebec who was working zealously for the Church. The connection is every- where close between religious and political reaction. TRAVELS 93 Zola's picture of the peasantry in "La Terre " did not seem to me to be applicable to the Norman peas- ants. Taking shelter from the rain in a Norman cottage, I found what seemed to me, for peasants, opu- lence and civilization. But from what my friend Lady Verney, 1 a very careful observer, said, Zola's description is true of the peasantry in the South. A sorry result of a century of revolution ! In the magnificent churches of Caen you feel the majesty of the Conqueror. At Falaise the castle still looks down upon the tanneries, as in the days when Robert the Devil wooed the tanner's daughter. There lie buried Walter 2 and Biota, 3 reputed victims of the Conqueror's ruthless ambition. I thought of the con- cluding words of one of Halford Vaughan's 4 lectures on the Norman Conquest. "John, who murdered his nephew, was weak, and he is infamous ; but if Walter P Probably Frances Parthenope, eldest daughter of William Edward Nightingale, and second wife of Sir Harry Verney, the second Baronet. She wrote "Real Stories from Many Lands," 1878; "Peasant Properties, and other Selected Essays," 2 vols., 1885 ;" Cottier Owners, Little Takes and Peasant Properties. A Reprint of 'Jottings in France, Germany, and Switzerland,"' 1885 ; and many other books.] [ 2 Walter, Count of Mantes (and chosen Count of Maine), son of Godgifu, the daughter of King Ethelred.] [* Biota, his wife, daughter of Herbert Wake-Dog. They were said to have been poisoned by William the Conqueror, while they were his guests. See Freeman's "The Norman Conquest," iii, 139; iv, 391. For the tale in brief, the general reader may be referred to Freeman's " William the Conqueror," chap. iv. London : Macmillan. 1888. ("Twelve English Statesmen" Series.)] [ 4 Henry Halford Vaughan, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford from 1848 to 1858.] 94 REMINISCENCES and Biota sleep in the vaults of Falaise, the horse of William's equestrian statue prances proudly over their forgotten graves." I had made the acquaintance of Guizot * when he was an exile in London. A note recalling our acquaintance brought a kind invitation to Val-Richer. I found a charming family group assembled there. The fallen Minister was evidently happy in the circle of home affections; and I set down his happiness as a proof of his having used power on the whole for good. So I believe he had; though his enemies might call him an austere intriguer, and though a stain was left on his career by the Spanish Marriage plot; which, how- ever, was not his work, but that of his crafty master. His talk, as we paced the garden after breakfast, was mainly about the religious state of Europe. He seemed to look with complacency on the Papacy as a conservative power. There had been a division in the French Protestant Church, in which he was on the con- servative side, while his son-in-law was on the latitudi- narian. Coming to the subject of Ireland, he stopped in his walk, and with an emphatic wave of his hand said, "The conduct of England to Ireland for the last thirty years has been admirable." I replied that in intention it had ; but that we had still to do away with the Irish Church Establishment. To this he assented, and then repeated what he said before. I 1 Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, the celebrated French statesman and historian. 1787-1874.] TRAVELS 95 Italy I saw for the first time with the raptures of a student of history, ancient and modern. I was im- pressed, of course, by the luminous grandeur of St. Peter's, but the impression was not religious; it was merely aesthetic, and the style, in strong contrast with that of the Gothic Cathedrals of Christendom, seemed to mark the distinction between the Papal autocracy and the religion of Anselm and Thomas a Kempis. A later tour took in Ravenna, on which I looked as the asylum of one of the greatest of poets, but one who at the same time had polluted imagination with the hateful Purgatory and Hell, depicting God as an almighty fiend torturing through all eternity for their frailty beings whom he had himself created frail. Profoundly interesting is Syracuse, specially to all who read in the original the narrative by Thucydides of the retreat of the Athenians, which has been called the finest of all narratives and is certainly among the very finest. No place took my fancy more than Perugia, enthroned upon its hill with its glorious view over those valleys, and with the shrine of St. Francis near. The city having become cramped and rather noisome, a new quarter had been thrown out with a new hotel. In the hotel-book was entered Ruskin's name, with an anathema against the new quarter as a profanation of history and art. The censor, however, had put up at the new hotel. To talk about Venice would be a platitude. About St. Mark's, beautiful and interesting as it is, Ruskin's 96 REMINISCENCES raptures seem to me to be overdone. What impressed me intensely and indelibly was the whole scene. I saw that scene just in time, before the Campanile had fallen and steam busses had been put on the Grand Canal. In England in that revolutionary era I saw a good deal of the Italian exiles, Mazzini, Sam, and Arrivabene. 1 Mazzini impressed me as really noble. His mark was humanity, of which he wished his Italy to be a free and worthy organ. He assured me that he had never been concerned in any assassination plot. Between Gari- baldi and me letters passed, and when he visited Eng- land he was going to visit Oxford and put up at my house, but a jealous fairy whisked him away. A far more questionable servant of humanity was Louis Blanc, 2 with whom I sat on Richmond Hill through a long summer afternoon, talking of his doings and those of his party in France. In exile he was mod- erate, as well as very lively and attractive. But it seemed to me that he had no definite policy, though he had strong feelings, and if the guillotine had been put into his hands, I am afraid he would have used it. Here, P Giuseppe Mazzini, the celebrated Italian patriot and revolu- tionary, was born in 1808, and died in 1872. Count Aurelio Saffi was (with Mazzini and Armellini) elected one of the Triumvirate of Rome in 1849. Count Carlo Arrivabene was the author of "An Epoch of my Life " ; '/The Urgency of the Venetian Question " ; "Italy under Victor Emmanuel," etc.] [ 2 Jean Joseph Charles Louis Blanc, the French politician, his- torian, political writer, and socialist; the advocate of "National" or "Social," "Workshops.'! Born 1811 ; died 1882.] TRAVELS 97 however, was the latest outcome of three-quarters of a century of European revolution, of which the enor- mous carnage and incalculable destruction were by no means the most costly part. The most costly part was the effect on character, political and social. Let Rus never glorify revolution. 4J, &W 1 1 Of Louis Blanc when he was an exile in England I saw a good deal. He was then all gentleness and phi- lanthropy ; but had he been in power, I am afraid the demagogic despot, perhaps even the Terrorist, would have appeared. As we lay together on the grass at Richmond I might have been taken, as a British Lib- eral, to symbolize progress, while, after fierce con- vulsions, a Reign of Terror, hideous massacres, whole- sale banishments, dominations of scoundrels, military despotism with enormous sacrifice of life in the des- pot's wars, and a long train of commotions, usurpa- tions, and massacre following, with more civil war and overthrow of free institutions, were represented in Louis Blanc. I 1 A later addition.] CHAPTER VII UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 1854-1858 The Unreformed University The Commissioners Dr. Jeune Liddell Tait Johnson The Report The Bill The Executive Commission The Executive Commissioners Richard Bethell, Lord Westbury The Commissioners' Report. "THAT which man changes not for the better, time, the great innovator, changes for the worse." Never was the truth of Bacon's maxim more forcibly illus- trated than in the history of the University of Oxford. The Colleges had absorbed the University, which had originally been free. The Statutes of the College had remained unchanged from the time of their medieval founders. The Fellowships, which were originally provisions for poor students, but had by the change of circumstances become the endowments of the teaching staff, were saddled with all the preferences for birth- place, place of education, kinship, or poverty, in which the partiality of a founder, in an age little regardful of differences of intellect, had thought it harmless to indulge. Oaths were taken to observe codes of medie- val discipline which neither were nor could be observed. All the evils of which Adam Smith and Turgot have spoken as attaching to endowments displayed them- UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 99 selves in full force. The Professoriate was almost dead, few of the Professors lecturing, still fewer having a respectable audience. Worst of all, perhaps, the Heads or Fellows having been required to take Orders in the days when every scholar was a Clerk, the Univer- sity and its Colleges had since the Reformation become strictly clerical, and the University, instead of being as it had once been, a place of general learning, science, and education, had become the citadel of ecclesiasticism and the arena of ecclesiastical dispute. Science was exiled. The ancient languages and literature alone were studied. Even mathematics had but a slight footing at Oxford, though Newton had made them fashionable at Cambridge. The University was cut off from the majority of the people of the United Kingdom by Anglican tests, and the Nonconformists were despised for their lack of culture, while they were excluded from L its national seats. A reform had commenced at Oriel and Balliol, where conscientious Heads had opened the Fellowships to merit. Little Dr. Jenkyns, 1 Master of Balliol, was a comic figure and the subject of innumer- able jokes. But with all his grotesqueness and pom- posity he was, as Carlyle says of a reforming statesman, a good antiseptic element in his day. So was Eve- leigh 2 the Provost of Oriel. Oriel and Balliol, how- ever, were small Colleges, and with them improvement f 1 Richard Jenkyns. He was also Vice-Chancellor ; also Dean of Wells. 1782-1854.] [ 2 John Eveleigh was Provost from 1781 till his death in 1814. He was born in 1748.] 100 REMINISCENCES seemed to halt. It even showed a tendency to recede when Tractarianism, having become dominant, betrayed its hostility to intellect and its determination to keep the endowments, consequently the tutorial staff, as close as possible to those whom it called pauperes Christi; in fact, to youths of inferior intellect and sub- missive character, such as ecclesiastical leadership requires; while the tide of ecclesiastical agitation threatened to drown whatever was left of academical interest and duty. Social advantages undoubtedly there were, but in the way of intellectual gain all that an Oxford student got for three years of his life at a round sum of money was a smattering, soon forgotten, of Greek and Latin. Mr. James Heywood, a Nonconformist Member of Parliament, was bringing forward an annual motion for inquiry into the Universities mainly with a view to the abolition of religious tests. His motion was regularly negatived, being unsupported by the Liberal leaders, who saw no party capital in University reform, while they were afraid of stirring a formidable wasps' nest. A few of us, Mark Pattison and Jowett among the number, met in the rooms of Arthur Stanley at University College and addressed to Lord John Russell, the head of the Liberal Government, a request that he would not allow the occasion of Heywood's motion again to pass without holding out hope of assistance to University reform. In compliance with this request Lord John Russell announced a Commission of Inquiry UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 101 into the Universities and their Colleges. The wasps at once swarmed out upon him; Gladstone denounced interference with private foundations; the Minister seemed to waver. A series of letters written to The Times and signed "Oxoniensis," taking Bacon's maxim for their test, were credited with having helped to con- firm him in his resolution. At all events he persevered, and Royal Commissions of Inquiry, one for Oxford and one for Cambridge, were appointed. The Oxford Commissioners were Hinds, 1 Bishop of Norwich, a Whig prelate, put in the chair to propitiate Churchmen; Tait, 2 then Dean of Carlisle, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Jeune, 3 Master of Pem- broke College; Liddell, 4 then Head Master of West- minster, afterwards Dean of Christ Church ; Dampier, 5 a lawyer, to keep the Commission right in its law; Baden Powell, 6 Professor of Geometry, to represent science; and George Henry Sacheverell Johnson, 7 a [' Samuel Hinds. 1793-1872.] [ 2 Archibald Campbell Tait. 1811-1882.] [ 3 Francis Jeune ; afterwards President of the Probate and Divorce Court ; created Baron Helier in 1905 ; died in that year.] [ 4 Henry George Liddell, joint author, with Robert Scott, of the Greek Lexicon. 1811-1898.] [ 5 John Lucius Dampier, son of Sir Henry Dampier, the judge, at this time Vice- Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall ; at one time Recorder of Portsmouth. 1792-1853.] P Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. 1796-1860.] [ 7 George Henry Sacheverell Johnson, Dean of Wells ; Fellow, ' &k/6 Tutor, and Dean of Queen's College, Oxford; Savilian Professor of Astronomy, 1839-1842 ; Whyte Professor of Moral Philosophy, 1842-1845 ; F.R.S., etc. 1808-1881.] most sober or just. Of all his writings the least just, / while it is perhaps the most brilliant, is the Essay on Warren Hastings. Justice has been done upon it by Fitz james Stephen. 3 Rogers 4 especially might well dislike Macaulay, against whom, with his feeble voice, he could make no head. He was silent during dinner. After dinner, P Philip Henry, fifth Earl Stanhope, the historian. 1805-1875.] [ 2 Queen of George IV.] [ 3 "The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey." By Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I., one of the Judges of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. In two volumes. London : Macmillan and Co. 1885.] f 4 Samuel Rogers, the poet; published "Pleasures of Memory," 1792; "Columbus," 1810; !' Human Life," 1819; etc. Born 1763; died in 1855.] 134 REMINISCENCES when the ladies were gone, he told anecdotes in lan- guage evidently prepared. It was treason then to talk. There was certainly a strain of malice in him. He was sensitive on the subject of his social position, and could not forgive Sydney Smith for saying in his presence that he would "bet a cheque on Rogers and Co." Theo- dore Hook l was never tired of whipping him on that tender spot. He was sensitive also about his appear- ance, as, if he aspired to beauty, he had good reason for being. It was said that he had driven his foot through a portrait which told unflattering truth. I wish I had been present when the attention of the party was sud- denly drawn to a caricature bust of him which the host had inadvertently left upon the mantel-piece. The struggles of the party to cope with the horror, some taking the line that it was a likeness, others that it was not, were described to me as very amusing. The im- mortality which Rogers expected for his poems has not been theirs. He is not deep, yet there are passages in him, such as the opening lines of " Human Life," which are pleasant to my simple ear. Of all the social talkers I should say the pleasantest was Sir David Dundas, 2 then Solicitor-General. He really conversed, and, while leading the conversation, drew out his company and made other people feel that they too had said good things. P Theodore Edward Hook, the novelist and wit. 1788-1841.] [ 2 Sir David Dundas, the statesman ; M.A. 1822 ; barrister 1823 ; M.P. 1840-1852 and 1861-1867; Q.C. 1840; Judge-Advocate- General 1849.] LONDON 135 When the Life of Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) l appeared, people were disappointed because it did not sparkle with wit. Nobody who knew him could share the disappointment. It was not in any witty things that he said, but in his manner, which was wit in itself, that the charm resided. His good-natured simplicity of speech (if that will do for a translation of naivete) had earned him the nickname of "the cool of the evening." He was an eager hunter of notorieties. It was said that he would have had the most noted felon of the day at his breakfast-table if he could. Sitting there and looking round on the circle, you asked yourself how you came into that museum. Milnes was a great and a most successful collector of autographs. He showed me on the same page some love-verses written by Robespierre when a youth, and a death-warrant signed by him under the Reign of Terror. General Grant, when he went to breakfast with Milnes, was presented with a round-robin which he had signed as a cadet at West Point. Milnes would not tell us how he had obtained it. To a collector of autographs everything is moral. The writer of "Palm Leaves," 2 in which, by the way, there are some very pretty lines, had at one time been a [ l Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton, a Cam- bridge "Apostle " ; M.P. for Pontefract, 1837 ; interested himself in copyright, the Philobiblon Society, Miss Nightingale's Fund, Me- chanics' Institutes, Penny Banks, Reform of the Franchise ; a poet and a writer upon political and social topics.] [ 2 "Palm Leaves." See "The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton. Collected edition. Two vols. London : Murray. 1876. Pp. 134-168.] 136 REMINISCENCES follower of Urquhart, 1 the devotee and political champion of Turkey and the East. Urquhart can hardly have been sane. Milnes said that once when he went to Urquhart 's house, the door was opened by Urquhart's son stark naked ; that being the father's idea of physical education. Eton friendship with Hallam's son Henry opened to me the house of his illustrious father, 2 which was no longer in the "long unlovely street," but in Wilton Crescent. The historian was then old and bowed down by the loss of the son whose epitaph is "In Memoriam," as well as by that of his wife and his favourite daughter. In earlier days he had been rather a social terror. People in his presence had spoken in fear of contradic- tion. It was said that he had got out of bed in the night to contradict the watchman about the hour and the weather. Sydney Smith said that the chief use of the electric telegraph would be to enable Hallam to con- tradict a man at Birmingham. But in his old age and to a boy like me Hallam was all mildness and kindness. I see the old man now, sitting in his library, with gout in his hands, in mournful dignity waiting for the end. But he would know that his work was done. Milman's 3 name it now seldom heard, yet he has left [ l David Urquhart, diplomatist ; secretary of the British Embassy at Constantinople ; M.P. 1847 to 1852. Born 1805 ; died 1877.] [ 2 Henry Hallam, the author of "State of Europe during the Middle Ages " ; "Constitutional History of England " ; "Literature of Europe " ; etc. Born 1777; died 1859.] [ 3 Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul's ; Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1821-1831 ; best known perhaps by his "History of the Jews," his "History of Christianity," and his "Latin Chris- tianity." Born 1791 ; died 1868.] LONDON 137 his mark in his Histories of the Jews and of the Latin Church ; nor is the " Martyr of Antioch " without merits as a poem. The author of the prize poem on the Apollo Belvedere * had set out in life with an immense Oxford reputation. In his History of the Jews he had as a stu- dent of German theology faintly anticipated the Higher Criticism, and incurred orthodox suspicion accordingly. That he had talent, a richly stored mind, and conversa- tional power is certain. Whether he had anything more is doubtful. If he had, it was stifled in him, as it was in other rationalist theologians, by the fatal white tie. Thackeray I used to meet at the dinners of the Satur- day Review, but had not much intercourse with him. If he was cynical, his cynicism did not appear in his face or manner, which betokened perfect simplicity and good nature. From good nature, and not from that alone, I cannot help thinking that he lapsed when he gibbeted Croker 2 in " Vanity Fair " under the name of " Wen- ham " as the parasite and pander of the Marquis of Hertford, easily discernible under the pseudonym of the " Marquis of Steyne." Croker was a rancorous politician, and both by his tongue and pen provoked bitter enmity; but there was nothing in his relation with Lord Hertford 3 to brand him as a parasite, much f 1 Milman won the Newdigate Prize for English Verse in 1812.] P John Wilson Croker ; politician and essayist. Perhaps many remember him chiefly as the Editor of an edition of Boswell's ."Johnson." 1780 to 1857.] [ 3 Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, third Marquess of Hert- ford ; M.P., Oxford, Lisburne, and Camelford, 1819-1822 ; Vice- Chamberlain to George, Prince Regent. 1777-1842.] 138 REMINISCENCES less could he be supposed capable of playing the pander. As a leading anti-reform member of the House of Com- mons he had been an associate of Hertford and other magnates of the Tory party. The connection con- tinued after Croker's retirement in disgust from public life. Slander, under cover of a fictitious name, as I have said before, when the person really meant can be easily recognized, is at once the most deadly and the most cowardly of all ways of assailing character. The person assailed cannot defend himself without seeming to countenance the libel. In the house of Sir Roderick Murchison I used to meet the men of science ; but it was not till later that I became intimate with Huxley * and Tyndall. 2 With Tyndall I became very intimate, and greatly loved him, though on some points we widely differed. He called himself a Materialist, and never allowed you to call him anything else, ever faithful to his formula that matter contained the potentiality of all life. But never was a man less materialist in the gross sense of the term. I used to think that he would have found it very difficult to account, on any materialistic theory, for his own sen- timents and aspirations. Between Huxley and Owen 3 there was at that time war about the Hippocampus t 1 Thomas Henry Huxley, the great comparative anatomist and supporter of the Darwinian hypothesis. Born 1825 ; died 1895.] [ 2 John Tyndall, the natural philosopher ; successor of Faraday as Superintendent of the Royal Institution. Born 1820 ; died 1893.] [ 3 Sir Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist. 1804-1892.] LONDON 139 Minor. That Huxley was in the right seemed to be the verdict of the scientific world ; had he found himself in the wrong, he would have frankly owned it, for no man could be more loyal to truth. Murchison was a man of large property ; he had been in the army ; had taken to geology and become the Amphitryon of the scientific world. He had been engaged in exploring the mineral wealth of the Ural, and became very intimate with the Czar, 1 whose feeling toward England, as he assured me, I have no doubt truly, was as good as possible, she being in the Czar's eyes the great conservative power. The day before the Crimean War nobody expected or desired it; while it was going everybody was mad about it; when it was over everybody condemned and deplored it. If I remember rightly, I was an early subscriber to Herbert Spencer's 2 works. But it was not till much later, I think in 1876, that I became well acquainted with the man. We were staying at Buxton together. If a new moral world is built upon materialism, Herbert / Spencer will have been one of the chief builders. In any case, he was a shining light and a power. Of his personal eccentricities plenty of stories have been told. His nervous sensibility was extreme. A game of bil- liards was enough to deprive him of his night's rest. He had been looking forward with pleasure to a meeting with Huxley; but he gave it up because there was a t 1 Nicholas I.] [ 2 Herbert Spencer, author of the Synthetic Philosophy. Born 1820 ; died 1903.] 140 REMINISCENCES difference on some scientific question between them, and this might have given rise to an argument which Spencer's nerves could not bear. A literary flippancy * of mine once caused an estrangement between us, but I am happy to say we became the best of friends again. The most interesting of my social experiences, how- ever, were my visits to The Grange, a name familiar to all who have read the Life of Carlyle. Lord Ashbur- ton, 2 of the then immensely wealthy House of Baring, was a man of intellect and culture, and by no means a social cipher, though a less important figure than his wife. Lady Ashburton 3 was a great lady, perhaps the nearest counterpart that England could produce to the queen of a French salon before the Revolution. In person, though not beautiful, she was majestic. Her wit was of the very brightest, and dearly she loved to give it play. She had at the same time depth of charac- f 1 Mr. Goldwin Smith said of Spencer's famous definition of Evo- lution "While an aggregate evolves, not only the matter composing it, but also the motion of that matter, passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity" ("Data of Ethics," chap, v., 24) that "the universe may well have heaved a sigh of relief when, through the cerebration of an eminent thinker, it had been delivered of this account of itself." See Contemporary Review, vol. xli, pp. 335, et seq., Feb., 1882 : " Has Science yet Found a New Basis for Morality ? " Herbert Spencer replied in the next number of the Review with an article on "Pro- fessor Goldwin Smith as a Critic," in which the critic was accused of " grave misrepresentation."] [ 2 William Bingham Baring, second Baron Ashburton. 1799- 1864.] [ 3 This was Lord Ashburton's first wife. She had been Lady Harriet Mary Montagu, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Sand- wich.] LONDON 141 ter and tenderness of feeling. It was a mistake to think that she was a Mrs. Leo Hunter on a grand scale. She cared as little for reputation in itself as she did for rank or wealth. To form a circle of brilliant talkers with her- self as its centre was her aim ; and in this she fully suc- ceeded. One or two appreciative listeners were also desirable, and were there. Beauty may have been a passport, at least I do not know what but the wonder- ful beauty of Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence, Sally Ward 1 that had been, could have brought her and her not intellectually brilliant husband to The Grange. Every- thing was arranged for conversation. Breakfast was a function, and was served on round tables, each of a conversational size. The last comer always took Lady Ashburton out to dinner, that he might be thoroughly introduced into the circle. Carlyle 2 was always there. He was a great favourite of Lady Ashburton. His talk was like his books, but wilder; in truth, his pessimism was monotonous and sometimes wearisome, though he could not fail to say striking things, still less to use striking words. One summer evening we came out after dinner on the ter- P Sally Ward was the daughter of Robert J. Ward, of Kentucky. She is described as "a radiant woman, instinct with sparkling life from the crown of her beautiful head to the tips of her slender feet, spoiled, wilful, lovely, and loving." Before she was twenty, she married Bigelow Lawrence of Boston ; but applied for and obtained a divorce within a year. She had three other husbands. Died in 1898. See "Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century." By Virginia Tatnall Peacock. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 1901. Pp. 148 et seq.] [ 2 Thomas Carlyle, born 1795 ; died 1881.] 142 REMINISCENCES race. There was a bright moon, and for a few minutes we all looked at it in silence, each probably having his own thoughts. At last a voice was heard. "Puirauld creature." Whether the moon was an object of pity in itself, or because she was doomed to look down on human affairs, I failed to divine. Tennyson was there. I adored the poet, and should have liked to be able to worship the man. His self- consciousness and sensitiveness to criticism were ex- treme. One of the party, whose name I forget, but who acted as a sort of aide-de-camp to Lady Ashburton, asked me what I thought of Tennyson. I said that it was most interesting to meet him. "But is he not very sensitive? " "Sensitive ! I should think he was. If my little girl were to tell him that his whiskers were ugly, he wouldn't forget it for a month." They asked Tennyson to read some of his own poetry aloud. This he was understood to be fond of doing. But to the general disappointment he refused. At his side was sitting Carlyle, who had been publishing his contempt of poetry. Immolating myself to the public cause, I went over to Carlyle and asked him to come for a walk in the grounds. While we were gone, the reading came off. I was reminded of this incident, which I had long forgotten, by a reference to it the other day in the Illustrated London News. Mrs. Carlyle was at The Grange. She was a modest personage, rather in the background. Nobody knew that she was so clever as her letters prove her to have LONDON 143 been. But that Lady Ashburton ever gave her serious cause for unhappiness I do not in the least believe. Lady Ashburton was a queen, and may, like other Royalties, have been sometimes a little high; but she was incapable of doing anything unfeeling. I had a great respect for her character as well as admiration for her wit, and have always cherished the memory of the message which she sent me from her death-bed. In the circle of The Grange was to be seen Bishop Wilberforce. He had good right to be there, for he was a very brilliant talker, especially happy in repartee. Of his eminent ability there could be no doubt. He would certainly have made his mark as an advocate or a politician. He set out as an Evangelical like his father ; he became, as was natural for a bishop, a High Churchman. He tried to combine both systems and to ride two horses with their heads turned different ways. This in itself gave him, perhaps undeservedly, an air of duplicity and a nickname. He was, however, morbidly desirous of influence, which he seemed even to cultivate without definite object. It was said that he would have liked to be on the committee of every Club in London. He had the general reputation of not being strictly veracious; nor, as I had once occasion to see, was he, when Church party was in question, inflexibly just. He turned upon the Hampden question l when he found that his course was giving offence at Court, [ l That is, the appointment of the Reverend Renn Dickson Hamp- den to the see of Hereford, 1847.] 144 REMINISCENCES and was upbraided with tergiversation by his party. He turned upon the Irish Church question just in time to be promoted from Oxford to Winchester, and to what he probably coveted more than the income, the Chancellorship of the Garter; and when he put forth a pathetic valedictory assuring the clergy of Oxford that he was agonized at leaving them, but could not disobey the call of the Spirit, he provoked a smile. There could be no question as to his meritorious activity in his diocese. He was at first a fine preacher, but at last his incessant activity, leaving no time for reading or thought, impaired the matter of his sermons and com- pelled him to make up for lack of substance by delivery, of which, having an admirable voice and manner, he remained a perfect master. Too much allowance can hardly be made for the difficulties of the Mitre in those times. A very different realm from The Grange was Straw- berry Hill, where reigned Frances, Lady Waldegrave, 1 whose husband, Lord Carlingford, 2 and I were College friends. To the sham Gothic mansion built by the virtuoso Horace Walpole on the bank of the Thames had been added an enchanted castle of pleasure, with gorgeous salons and magnificent grounds for out-of- door f6tes stretching along the river. Frances, Lady Waldegrave, had been four times wedded. Thrice, P Frances Elizabeth Anne, Countess Waldegrave. 1821-1879.] [ 2 Chichester Samuel Fortesque, afterwards Parkinson-Fortesque, Baron Carlingford, 1823-1898.] LONDON 145 it was said, she had married for title or wealth; the fourth time for love. She was a rather florid beauty, taking perhaps to an elderly man. In her fourth wed- lock she had chosen well, for Carlingford was a man of whom she might be proud, since he became a Cabinet Minister, and at the same time a domestic pillow. He was an Irishman, and when in the theatre at Dublin the jocular crowd asked his spouse which of her four husbands she liked best, she could turn their imperti- nence to plaudits by saying, "The Irishman, of course." She was the daughter of Braham 1 the singer, and one of the best of daughters, for in her grandeur she never failed in devoted attachment to her father, whose portrait hung conspicuous upon her wall. Her am- bition was to gather the whole of the great world, Roy- alty included, in her salons at Strawberry Hill. In this she thoroughly succeeded. Curiously enough, the great fortune which she had accumulated by her successive marriages she had just run through when she died. After her death, I was staying with her husband at the place in the country where she was buried. There she lay, with a list of her husbands on her monument. Her fourth husband could not bear himself to take me to the grave; he had to put me in the hands of the curate. Utterly unlike to Harriet Lady Ashburton was Frances Lady Waldegrave; yet Frances Lady Waldegrave, to use Carlyle's phrase, was not without an eye, and she could interest herself in other subjects [ l John Braham, the tenor singer. 1774 (?)-1856.] 146 REMINISCENCES than balls and garden parties when she had a quiet hour. It was a mark of the difference between the two social monarchies that while at The Grange breakfast, as I have said, was a conversational function for which ar- rangements were made, at Strawberry Hill you came down to breakfast at your own hour and were served separately from a carte. The host and hostess did not appear till luncheon. Now the splendour has departed from Strawberry Hill, from the gilded salons and the magnificent grounds. The place has become a tea-garden, or something less elysian still. Sic transit gloria mundi. In a mansion close to Strawberry Hill lived in luxu- rious exile the Due d'Aumale * and the Comte de Paris. 2 D'Aumale, it seemed to me, would have made a strong Pretender; he was a soldier and a man of action, highly cultivated withal. But he was not the heir, and it seems that when he got back to France he gave himself up to pleasure. The Comte de Paris was a gentle creature who never could have made a Pretender with- out a Morny 3 to play his game. Among the intellectual magnates who were kind to me I must not forget Lord Stanhope. 4 I spent some P Henri Eugene Philippe Louis d'Or!6ans, Due d'Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe ; born 1822.] [ 2 Louis Philippe Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe. 1838-1894.] [ 3 Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Due de Morny, hah* brother of Napoleon III ; a leading spirit in the coup d'etat of December, 1851.] [* Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth Earl Stanhope, author of ."His- LONDON 147 very pleasant days at Chevening * with a literary com- pany, two members of which were Mr. and Mrs. Grote. 2 Grote was quiet and retiring. Mrs. Grote was un- retiring, a rather formidable woman with a very sharp wit. Stanhope's History is not a masterpiece; but it is interesting and fair, the work of a man of sense and a gentleman. The last qualification is valuable to an historian of the politics of aristocratic days. Hard by lived also my great friend Grant Duff, 3 a most accomplished politician and man of the world, whose name calls up the memory of pleasant hours. When he was leaving for his government in India, we gave him a farewell banquet at a great hotel. I, having come some distance, took a bed there. In the morning I was awakened by a knock at my door and a female voice offering me brandy and soda. The more I de- clined the cup of health, the more pressingly it was offered. Was it intended for some other revellers, or was it taken for granted that those who had dined there overnight must want brandy and soda in the morning? From Chevening we visited Knole, the country seat tory of the War of Succession in Spain " ; "History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles " ; "History of Eng- land comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht " ; etc. 1805-1875.] P The seat of the Earls Stanhope, at Sevenoaks.] [ 2 George Grote, the historian of Greece. 1794-1871. Mrs. Grote had been Harriet Lewin.] [ 3 James Grant Duff, Bombay Grenadiers ; Resident of Poona ; .'' Resident of Sattara; published a "History of the Mahrattas." . 1789-1858.] 148 REMINISCENCES of Lord Sackville 1 near Sevenoaks. I there found a portrait of Walsingham 2 which confirmed me in the belief that a portrait which on leaving Oxford I made over to the Bodleian, it having passed for a portrait of Sir Thomas Bodley, 3 was really a portrait of Elizabeth's great Secretary of State. Each portrait has the des- patch symbolical of the Secretaryship, as the white wand is of the Treasurership, in its hand. The date of the subject's age on the picture does not exactly agree with Bodley 's age. The date of Walsingham's birth is uncertain. His monument in St. Paul's was destroyed by fire. A party at a country house was seldom complete with- out Hayward, 4 the prince of anecdotists and the great authority on social history and gossip. His anecdotes certainly gained embellishment by repetition, and were, therefore, perhaps more amusing than authentic. He was fond of dissolving the false pearls of history and destroying heroic illusions. It was with much gusto that he assured us that Pitt's last words were, not "Oh ! my country! how I leave my country!" but, "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies." Disraeli, whom he must in some way have offended, has alluded [ l Mortimer Saekville-West, first Baron Sackville.] P Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan statesman. 1530( ?)- 1590.] P The founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 1545-1613.] [ 4 Abraham Hayward, the essayist ; author of " The Art of Din- ing," " Sketches of Eminent Statesmen and Writers," and of three series of Essays ; editor of Mrs. Piozzi's "Autobiography," etc. 1801-1884.] LONDON 149 | to him in "Lothair" as "a little parasite." Little he was in stature, but he was no parasite ; on the contrary he bore himself very much as the master of the circle. He was a bachelor; his pen must have brought him. an income; and as he had many friends among the po- litical leaders, he could have got an appointment, if he had needed it. But he, no doubt, prized his freedom. I had a good friend in the Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr. Denison, 1 afterwards Lord Ossington, through whose interest I enjoyed debates. He would always get me under the gallery or in some place on the floor of the House. It is on the floor of the House only that a debate can be enjoyed. I shall have occasion further on to mention one or two of the great speakers. Of those I heard the general level did not seem to me to be high. There was great waste of time in droning through speeches which were mere dilutions of the morn- ing's editorials. Why cannot each speaker, except the leaders, instead of wandering over the whole subject, take a point and press it home ? The whole discussion, however, is little more than a great party demonstra- tion. The name "deliberative assembly" is a mockery. On any party question there is no more deliberation than there is in the interchange of volleys between two lines of battle. Besides, every one is talking less to the House than to the Reporters. While I am in a fault- finding mood I may say that the House, and still more p John Evelyn Denison, first Viscount Ossington, Speaker from 1857 to 1872.] 150 REMINISCENCES the House of Lords, is too highly decorated for a hall of debate, where nothing should divert the eye from the speaker. Ventilation and acoustics at that time were bad. It seems that architectural science has not yet learned to produce with certainty a room in which you can be heard, a place in which you can breathe, or a chimney which will not smoke. The acoustics of the House of Lords were worse than those of the House of Commons. It was said that the leader of the Opposi- tion went out and bought an evening paper to learn what the head of the Government was talking about. During the passage of the Oxford University Bill I was placed on the steps of the throne to watch the Bill and communicate with the Minister in charge. On that spot, where nobody sits, you could hear the speakers on both sides well. I enjoyed the theatre, and had in Patrick Comyn l [sic] and Smyth Pigott 2 pleasant companions to add to my enjoyment. Of all the acting that I saw the grand- est was that of Ristori 3 in " Gamma " ; above all, in the [ l Patrick Cumin, C.B., was the son of William Cumin, M.D., of Clifton (so the Annual Register; the Alumni Oxonienses says Glasgow). He graduated at Oxford (Balliol College) in 1845 ; took his M.A. in 1850 ; was a Barrister-at-Law of the Inner Temple ; and was for many years Secretary of the Education Department of the Privy Council. He is described to me as "a pleasant friend and an energetic official." Died on the llth of January, 1890, aged 65.] [ 2 Edward Francis Smyth Pygott, for twenty years in the Lord Chamberlain's Department as Examiner of Stage Plays. Born in 1824; died February 23rd, 1895.] P Adelaide Ristori, Marquise Capranica del Grillo, the celebrated Italian tragedienne; born in 1821.] LONDON 151 famous scene in which Gamma elicits the secret of her husband's murder by affecting love of the murderer, then entices him to drinking the poisoned cup, drinks of it herself, and dies. The plot, which is from Plu- tarch, Tennyson has taken for his "Cup." Of Rachel * Matthew Arnold has said that she began where Sara Bernhardt ended. She was passion, especially of the satanic kind, incarnate. "Adrienne Lecouvreur" was her topping part, and the death scene, for which she was supposed to have studied in a hospital, was her topping scene. Her direct opposite was the female star of the English stage, Helen Faucit, 2 who was all tenderness. About Wigan, 3 our male star, there seems to have been a difference of opinion. His friends asserted that he alone could act a gentleman; his critics said the re- verse. Some of the opera people acted as well as sang well ; Jenny Lind 4 did in pieces that suited her, such as "Gazza Ladra" and "Figlia del Regimento." Some- thing was missed when, having renounced opera, she sang at concerts. Tietjens 5 also acted well in such a part as "Lucrezia Borgia"; while her companion Al- boni, 6 supreme and rapturously applauded as a singer, P Elisa Felix, called Rachel, the great French actress. 1821- 1858. Matthew Arnold's saying is in his Essay on "The French Play in London." See his "Works" (Edition de luxe), vol. xi, p. 205. London : Macmillan ; and Smith Elder.] [ 2 Helena Saville Faucit, afterwards Lady Martin (wife of Sir Theodore Martin). 1817-1898.] [ Alfred Sydney Wigan. 1814-1878.] [ 4 Johanna Maria Lind, married Mr. Otto Goldschmidt. 1820- 1887.] [ 5 Teresa Tietjens, or Titiens, a German singer. 1834-1877.] [ 6 Marietta Alboni, a celebrated Italian singer ; born in 1824.] 152 REMINISCENCES stalked the stage in her tabard with the grace of a female elephant. Jenny Land's character enhanced her popularity. She was no harpy, like other prima donnas, but left something for the lesser folk. I have spoken of the friendship between Jenny and Arthur Stanley, who was, like Johnson, dead to the charms of music, and said that the only thing that pleased him was a drum solo. Where he could have heard a drum solo we never could ascertain. Mario 1 and Grisi 2 having spent the fortunes which they had made, they were forced to return to the stage. But superannuated as they were, I fancy their audience, though it received them well, took more pleasure in seeing than in hearing them. Charles Kean 3 acted " Hamlet" with applause; yet, I thought, not well. Shakespeare is a philosophic poet as well as a dramatist, and sometimes transcends the dramatic sphere. Perhaps one who had the sensibility to feel the part of Hamlet would scarcely have the nerve to act it. The best Hamlet I ever saw was that of the German Devrient, 4 who did at all events solilo- quize the soliloquy, not declaim it. I enjoyed a visit to Sadler's Wells, 5 the people's P Joseph Mario, called Marquis dei Candia, called "a lyric artist." 1810-1833. He married Grisi.] [ 2 Giulia Grisi, dame Gerard de Melcy. She was a sister of Giuditta Grisi, the singer ; and a cousin of Carlotta Grisi, the dancer. 1812-1869.] [ 3 Charles John Kean, second son of Edmund. 1811 ( ?)-1868.] [ 4 It is difficult to determine which, among the many actors who bore this name, is meant. Perhaps Gustave Emile, who died at Dresden in 1872.] [ 5 In Islington.] LONDON 153 theatre, long since improved out of existence. It was pleasant to see the loyalty of the people to Shake- speare. The taste of the people, being simple, is sound. Phelps, 1 at Sadler's Wells, was a fine declaimer. He gave well Prosperous speech in "The Tempest." But all the theatres, and especially Sadler's Wells, suffered from Charles Kean's fancy for spectacle. He imagined that Shakespeare was an antiquarian, and put on his plays in the garb of the historic period. So we had the Duke of Athens, who to Shakespeare was like a Duke of Milan, talking of nunneries; fairies in Athe- nian groves ; and two Athenian gentlemen going out to fight a duel with Grecian swords. In " Macbeth" we had the rude simplicity of primitive Scotland, and the throne, to which Macbeth's ambition climbed through treason and murder, was a wooden stool. Shakespeare paid no more respect to historical character than to geography, and he had no scenery at all. I was in a box at the opera one evening, with two friends. The party next night was to meet again. I arrived first. Presently one of the other two came in. I asked after the third, and was horrified by the reply that he had shot himself that afternoon. The evening before he had apparently been in the best of spirits. He was young and wealthy. I never learned the cause of his weariness of life. The weather was very sultry and bad for the liver. t 1 Samuel Phelps, who "made Shakespeare pay " for nearly twenty years at Sadler's Wells. Born 1804 ; died 1878.] 154 REMINISCENCES Having spoken of E. S. Pigott, I may say that he was very intimate with Dickens, whom I only once saw, and whom I understood it was difficult to meet, as he lived very much in a choice circle of his intimate friends. Pigott told me his opinion of the unhappy relations between Dickens and his wife, which came too much before the world. It was a common case ; Dick- ens had married at a low level, and his wife had not risen with him; otherwise, according to Pigott, an excellent judge, there was no fault on her side. The matrimonial history of writers of works of imagination has often been unhappy. Their imagination turns a woman into an angel, and then they find that she is a woman. About this time the scandalous world was being regaled with the war between Bulwer 1 and his wife. When Bulwer was being elected at Hertford, 2 his consort drove up in a post-chaise, mounted the hustings, and delivered a philippic against him. Their son was credited with some lines on the occasion : Who came to Hertford in a chaise, And uttered anything but praise, About the author of my days ? My Mother. If Dickens's own home was not happy, few writers have done more to make other homes happy and dif- fuse kindly feelings. His " Christmas Carol" is an Evangel. P Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lyt- ton, the novelist. 1803-1873.] [ 2 June the 8th, 1858.] LONDON 155 I became intimate with some of the exiles driven to England by the political storms of Europe. Among them was Louis Blanc, of whom I saw a good deal. I took more to the Italian exiles/ Mazzini, Saffi, and Arrivabene, whose cause, that of Italian independence, was perfectly pure. To Mazzini, whose acquaintance I formed at the house of Sir James Stansfield, 2 I took very much. He seemed to me a genuine servant of humanity, regarding Italian nationality, to the rescue of which he gave his life, as subservient to the general good of mankind. He denied that he had been con- cerned in any assassination plot. With Garibaldi 3 I exchanged letters, but we never met. He was coming to Oxford and to my house when he was suddenly whisked out of the country, by what influence is a mystery to this hour. For myself, I never doubted that it was by the influence of the Queen. Victoria was a Stuart upon a Hanoverian throne. A friend of mine at Court heard Disraeli feeding with slanderous stories her hatred of Garibaldi. She bitterly hated Bismarck also for having put an end to the Kingdom of Hanover. Perhaps that may have been partly the account of her sympathy with France against Germany. The French Emperor/ to whose influence some sus- f 1 See footnotes on page 96 ; Chapter VI.] [ 2 Sir James Stansfield, Liberal M.P. ; held high political posts ; strong upholder of the cause of Italian unity. 1820-1898.] f 3 Giuseppe Garibaldi, the celebrated Italian patriot, was born at Nice in 1807, and died in 1882.] [ 4 Napoleon III.] 156 REMINISCENCES pected the spiriting-away of Garibaldi was due, had in him still something of the Revolutionist and an eye to possible assistance from that side. Two famous relics of a political generation gone by, Brougham 1 and Lyndhurst, 2 I just saw. Lyndhurst I heard make a speech in the House of Lords, too cur- sory for the display of his mighty reasoning powers. It was curious to see a man who had been at Boston a British subject before the American Revolution. Nothing can adequately paint the galvanic motions of Brougham's face and figure. His activity and pro- ductiveness, as is well known, were miraculous. He as- pired to leadership not only in law, politics, and litera- ture, but in science. Lord Stanhope used to tell a story of the editor of a new magazine who humbly petitioned Brougham for an article to grace his first number. The happy man received three articles by return of post ! Brougham's private secretary, Sir Denis le Marchant, 3 told me that Brougham, when he was leading at once in the Bar and in Parliament, mak- ing one speech seven hours long, could do with two hours' sleep each night. On Saturday afternoon, he would turn in till Monday morning. When he was in full practice on the northern circuit and at the same [ l Henry Peter Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux ; Lord Chancellor. 1778-1868.] p John Singleton Copley, the younger, Baron Lyndhurst ; Lord Chancellor. 1772-1863.] [ 3 Sir Denis le Marchant, first Baronet ; Liberal M.P. 1795- 1874.] LONDON 157 time candidate for the representation of Yorkshire in Parliament, he would, after a long day in court, get into a post-chaise and go very long distances to election meetings. Summoned suddenly to attend his client Queen Caroline on a great emergency, he slept all the way in the carriage. For this preternatural activity, however, he paid by long fits of depression. His sister, 1 who was with us at Mortimer, was grotesquely like him in all respects, and was subject to the same fits of depression, which, however, in her case, were more lasting. Brougham was very emotional, and wept bitterly when he heard of the death of an old political associate. His attempt to revive his failing notoriety by circulating a report of his having been killed by an accident took in the whole press except the Times. Eton introduced me, among other houses, to that of Lord Chancellor Campbell, 2 whose son, Lord Strathe- den that afterwards was, and I had been in the same boarding-house. It was of Lord Campbell as the author of the " Lives of the Chancellors" that Lyndhurst said he had added a pang to death. He may not be strictly accurate or impartial, but his book is racy of the pro- fession. It was to Campbell that was due the putting the plaintiff in a libel case into the witness-box. It seems doubtful whether he did well. The consequence is apt to be, instead of the trial of the defendant for his f 1 Query. According to Burke, Henry, first Lord Brougham and Vaux, had no sister.] [ 2 John Campbell, first Baron Campbell, Lord Chancellor. 1779- 1861.] 158 REMINISCENCES slander, the trial of the person libelled on his general character and life. I spent a day with Lushington, 1 Lady Byron's Coun- sel, but nothing was said about the famous case. Lush- ington would never speak of it. His lips might be sealed by professional duty. Yet it seems strange that when the portentous version of the matter adopted by Mrs. Beecher Stowe was in circulation, he should not, if he could with truth, have denied that there was any- thing more than a matrimonial quarrel of the common kind. In my childhood I had seen Lushington chaired on his election for Reading. 2 Blessed are Clubs, and above all Clubs in my memory the Athenaeum, with its splendid library and its social opportunities. Without Clubs what would bachelor- life in London be? We know pretty well from the record of days before them. Instead of being de- nounced as hostile to marriage, the Clubs ought to be credited with keeping young men fit for it. Even with a Club, the life of a young man in a city where he has no home is not free from danger. In trying many years afterwards to assist in the foundation of a good Club for young men in Toronto, I was acting on observations made during my own stay in London. Without a home in London, I could myself hardly be said to be. I had something like a home in the house f 1 Stephen Lushington. 1782-1873.] [ 2 Lushington contested Reading unsuccessfully in 1830, but was next year returned for Winchelsea : perhaps he was chaired at Read- ing then. Ed.] LONDON 159 of my father's brother-in-law, the Rev. Sir Henry Dukinfield, 1 who had succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death of his brother after being for some time pastor of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sir Henry was an active and valued coadjutor of Blomfield, the Bishop of London, a statesman prelate who strove to adapt the Church to the times and renew her hold upon the nation not by reviving her claims to priestly authority, but by placing her in the van of social improvement. He was the apostle of public baths and wash-houses. 2 His wife, Lady Dukinfield, 3 was my ideal of a lovely and graceful English woman. Nor was her character less graceful than her form and manner. Her portrait 4 bears me out. La belle Anglaise, she had been called in France, and her beauty was of the kind that loses least by age. She was a niece of Craufurd, 5 Welling- ton's Peninsula General. Her father was a diplo- I 1 See note at the foot of the first page of Chapter II.] [ 2 "He suggested the passing of the Act of Parliament (9th and 10th Viet. c. 74), which is generally called by his name, empowering vestries to raise money on the parish rates for the erection and support of Baths and Washhouses for the poor." See "A Memoir of the Rev. Sir Henry Robert Dukinfield, Bart." Printed for Private Circulation. London : W. H. Dalton. 1861. Page 57.] [ 3 She was a daughter of Sir James Craufurd, Baronet, who was British Resident at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803, and afterwards Minister Plenipotentiary at Copenhagen. She married, first Gen- eral Chowne ; second, Sir Henry Dukinfield.] [ 4 By George Richmond (1809-1896). It hangs in the drawing- room of The Grange at Toronto.] [ 5 General Robert Craufurd, third son of Sir Alexander Craufurd, first Baronet, of Newark, Ayrshire, and brother of Sir Charles Gregan-Craufurd, G.C.B. Born 1764; killed at Ciudad Rodrigo, January the 24th, 1812.] 160 REMINISCENCES matist. She was with him at Brussels at the time of Waterloo, and was the last survivor but one of those who had danced at the famous Ball. Her memory was perfectly clear. They all knew that the French were advancing. But Wellington, to prevent a panic, had desired that the Ball might take place. The lodg- ings of Lady Dukinfield's father were opposite to the quarters of the Duke, whom she saw mount his horse and ride forth. She also saw the Guards, her brother's regiment, march out. On the day of Waterloo, she and her father were dining with the Prince de Conde, 1 when news came that the British were totally defeated and the French were marching on Brussels. The Prince called for his horses and went off to Ghent. Lady Dukinfield's father hurried her home, but found that his horses had been stolen. They presently got horses and set out for Ghent, finding the road blocked with fugitives. Before they reached Ghent they were overtaken by news of the victory. I did not ask Lady Dukinfield where the ball had taken place. Prince Leopold afterwards heard her story, and I believe took a note of it. He may have asked the question. Sir Henry, a clergyman and a devout one, one day let fall the remark that a man's religious reputation must be very high to enable him to refuse a challenge to a duel. I note this to mark the change of sentiment. P Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Conde. 1736-1818.] CHAPTER XI JOURNALISM ' 1855-1858 Peel The Saturday Review Members of the Staff Froude Letters on the Empire. LIVING in London with leisure, I was drawn into journalism, and at the same time into a political con- nection. I wrote some articles in the Morning Chroni- cle, the organ of the Peelites, as the section of the Con- servative party, comprising Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle, 1 Sidney Herbert, 2 Cardwell, 3 and Canning, 4 which had adhered to Peel, was called. I had the greatest respect for Peel as a thoroughly wise and patriotic statesman, while I loathed the "blackguard combination," as Wellington justly called it, of office-seeking Whigs and Corn-Law Tories, the work of Disraeli, by which the Peel Government was overthrown. Disraeli, who had fawned on Peel in his "Letters of Runnymede," 6 now turned round and as- sailed him with rancorous and slanderous abuse. I I Henry Pelham, fifth Duke of Newcastle. 1811-1864.] [ 2 Sidney Herbert, first Baron Herbert of Lea. 1810-1861.] [ J Edward, Viscount Cardwell. 1813-1886.] [ 4 Charles John, afterwards Earl Canning ; Governor-General of India during the Mutiny. Born in 1812 ; died in 1862.] [ B "The Letters of Runnymede." London: John Macrone, St. James's Square. MDCCCXXXVI.] M 161 162 REMINISCENCES I presently found myself on the regular staff of the Saturday Review. The editor and one of the proprie- tors was John Douglas Cook, 1 a singular character. He was a sort of filius terror. What his early history had been, we never could clearly learn ; it appeared that he had been in India ; it was certain that he had been on the Times. He had edited the Morning Chronicle during its short life as a Liberal-Conservative organ. He was a rough strong man, without literary culture or faculty. But he had great newspaper tact. Though he could not write himself, he instinctively knew good writing. His courage and self-possession were im- perturbable. Unrefined though he was, I became at- tached to him, and I cherish his memory. Our other proprietor was Alexander Beresford-Hope, 2 a very wealthy man, highly cultivated, to whom I fancy the Review was a sort of literary yacht, though he was a High Churchman and inspired the religious department of the paper in that sense. He was generally supposed to have been a member of the Young England party got up by Disraeli, of which Lord John Manners 3 was the most prominent member, and which is advertised in "Coningsby"; but this he always denied. He was the son of Hope 4 the millionaire, and had married a P John Douglas Cook, born in Aberdeenshire 1808 (?) ; died in 1868.] [ 2 Alexander James Beresford-Hope, politician and author. 1820- 1887.] P Charles Cecil John Manners, sixth Duke of Rutland. 1815-1888.] [* Thomas Hope, author and virtuoso ; belonged to the rich family of Amsterdam merchants. 1770 (?)-1831.] JOURNALISM 163 daughter of Lord Salisbury, 1 a woman bright and brave. "Bedgebury" was a sumptuous chateau. In those days there were thirty acres of kept grass, with two men and a donkey always employed upon them. But sumptuosity was not the best of it. The other members of the original staff, if I remember rightly, were George Venables ; 2 Maine, 3 afterwards Sir Henry Maine, the historical jurist; Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquis of Salisbury; 4 Hemming; 5 Collett Sandars ; 6 and Scott, 7 a clergyman, called, from his cure, Scott of Hoxton. It was afterwards, I be- lieve, that Sir William Harcourt 8 joined the staff. George Venables and Lord Robert Cecil were the chief political writers. Sandars wrote the articles on social subjects, for which he had a fine touch. [* Lady Mildred Arabella Charlotte Henrietta Cecil, eldest daughter of James, second Marquess of Salisbury. 1822-1881.] [ 2 George Stovin Venables, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge ; barrister ; journalist. Born 1810 ; died 1888.] [ 3 Sir Henry James Sumner Maine. 1822-1888.] [ 4 Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, third Marquess of Salis- bury. 1830-1903.] [5 Py&tt&dj George Wirgman Hemming, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Senior Wrangler, took his A.B. Degree in 1844, ft tvylfl and proceeded A.M. in 1847 ; a Q.C. ; for some years Counsel for t,***J the University ; one of the Official Referees of the Supreme Court of Judicature ; Master of the Library of, and Treasurer of, Lincoln's Inn.] [ 6 Thomas Collett Sandars, a Barrister ; editor of Justinian's ."Institutes." 1825-1894.] P The Rev. William Scott, Vicar of St. Olave's, Jewry, London. 1813-1872.] [ 8 The Right Hon'ble Sir William George Granville Venables- Vernon-Harcourt ; Solicitor-General, 1873 ; Home Secretary, 1880 ; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1885 and 1892. Born 1827 ; died 1904.] 164 REMINISCENCES Scott, a special ally of Hope, wrote the articles on Church questions. Hemming was supposed to take finance. But when he and I, by strange and pleasant chance, met after many years in the Park at Toronto and talked over our old literary comradeship, he told me that this impression was a mistake. Lord Robert Cecil had incurred his father's displeasure, by his mar- riage with a daughter of Baron Alderson, 1 an extremely clever woman who was supposed privately to help us with her pen. Something of the Saturday Reviewer was afterwards discernible in Lord Salisbury's speeches, perhaps not to his political advantage ; for that which would be smart in an article may be too smart in a Min- ister's speech. He offended the Irish vote by a philo- sophic remark on the inequalities of political capacity and the imprudence of giving democratic institutions to the Hottentots. " Master of flouts and gibes and sneers " he was called by Disraeli. As the guest of Hope at Bedgebury, where we had very pleasant meet- ings, I was thrown much into Lord Salisbury's company, and I always felt and expressed more confidence in his judgment and rectitude than in his strength. Bismarck in his slashing way said of him that he was a reed 2 painted to look like iron. This was exaggeration. But Lord Salisbury used to speak both in public and private of Disraeli's character and designs in terms [ l Georgina Caroline, eldest daughter of the Honourable Sir Edward Hall Alderson, Baron of the Exchequer.] [* Query. Lath?] JOURNALISM 165 which it might have been thought would make their union impossible. His ultimate submission to Disraeli / was ascribed to the pressure of his aspiring wife. His consent to the attack on the independence of the Transvaal Republic, being the man of honour that he was and clearly committed on the question, may prob- ably be ascribed to the dominant influence of Chamber- lain. The staff, or at least the circle of contributors, was afterwards so much enlarged that at the Saturday Review dinners at Richmond or Greenwich it seemed as if the whole literary tribe of London were gathered together. Douglas Cook's policy, to which Beresford-Hope's purse enabled him to give effect, was to buy the very best article, whatever might be the necessary price. The field was open ; The Spectator having declined after the death of Rintoul * ; and the Saturday paid, as I understood, from the first. Had I written in Latin the epitaph of George Vena- bles, it would have been Magnus Vir, Si Emersisset. It was always a mystery to me how a man with his ability, his force of character, and his political information, could have been content to remain through life an anonymous journalist. I never heard him make a speech; but he was said as Parliamentary Counsel to have spoken extremely well. His style as a writer was P Robert Stephen Rintoul, founder of The Spectator. 1787- 1858.] 166 REMINISCENCES peculiar and not popular. His sentences followed each other without connecting particles, like a succession of pellets from a popgun. But his articles were full of weighty good sense. Nor was he without sardonic wit. When Thesiger, 1 a popular man, but a bad lawyer, was made Chancellor, Venables said, "Sir Frederick The- siger is raised to the Chancellorship amidst universal sympathy, which we cannot help extending to the suitors." When Palmerston, a Tory at heart, made a clap-trap speech, in favour I think of an extension of the franchise, and Pakington, 2 a professed Conserva- tive, imitated and tried to cap him, Venables said that if Pakington's speech was insincere that only increased the servility of the imitation. If any one into whose hands the Saturday may since have fallen fancies that its success was due to political pepper, he is mistaken. Its tone during its palmy days was epicurean, and this was the source of its popularity in the circles by which it was chiefly supported. It was said of us that whereas with the generation of the Reform Bill, everything had been new, everything had been true, and everything had been of the highest im- portance, with us nothing was new, nothing was true, and nothing was of any importance. One day Cook asked me whether I had written a review of a book which he had put into my hands. I [ l Frederick Thesiger, first Baron Chelmsford ; Lord Chancellor 1858-1859, and 1866-1868. Born 1794 ; died 1878.] [* John Somerset Pakington, first Baron Hampton. (His real name was Russell.) 1799-1880.] JOURNALISM 167 replied that I had read the book, but that it was not worth reviewing. "Ah!" he said, "you are not like the others. If I give them a bad book, they cut it up ; you tell me that it is not worth reviewing." I somehow got a false reputation for sharpness as a reviewer. A work like Froude's "Henry VIII," 1 not only artfully palliating the detestable crimes of a despot, but art- fully blackening the memories of his victims such as More, Fisher, and Pole, surely calls for reprobation. 2 I have always thought that Macaulay was inhuman in insisting on the republication of his review of poor Satan Montgomery's poems. 3 It is a pity he did not live to read Fitzjames Stephen's examination of his Life of Warren Hastings. 4 It might have taught him mercy. Froude was undoubtedly a man of genius. He was a most brilliant and fascinating writer, and his History becomes far more historical when death has rid him of Henry VIII. But neither accuracy nor justice ever was his strong point. He was very impossible. He had set out under the influence of Newman ; he ended, after an interval of scepticism, under that of Carlyle. p James Anthony Froude's "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth."] [ 2 Probably the reviews of the first two volumes of Froude's His- tory of England which appeared in the Saturday Review of April, the 26th and May the 3d, 1856, were from Mr. Goldwin Smith's pen.] [ 3 Robert Montgomery. 1807-1855.] t 4 " The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey." By * Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I. . . . Two volumes. London : Macmillan. 1885.] 168 REMINISCENCES Neither of his prophets was likely to put him in the way of plain truth. My most important or least unimportant work as a journalist, however, was a series of letters in the Daily News, afterwards reprinted under the title of "The Empire." l It commenced with a letter advocating the cession of the Ionian Islands, which were in a chronic state of discontent, to Greece ; a measure favoured by my political friends and presently adopted without any of the terrible effects predicted by the worshippers of Empire. The whole series was anti-Imperialist, advocating the concession of independence to adult Colonies, so that England might become indeed the mother of free nations. In the debate on the question of the Ionian Islands, Disraeli attacked me in the House of Commons. The publication of his letter to Lord Malmesbury, 2 then Foreign Secretary, has shown that he himself regarded "these wretched Colonies" as "a mill-stone round our necks," and held that they would "all be independent in a few years." (Malmes- bury's Memoirs, i. 344.) Nor was this a transient ebul- lition. His friend Sir William Gregory tells us 3 that he [ l "The Empire. A Series of Letters published in The Daily News, 1862, 1863." By Goldwin Smith. Oxford and London: John Henry and James Parker. 1863.] [ 2 James Howard Harris, third Earl of Malmesbury. 1807-1889.] [ 3 " . . . as for the colonies, his expressions were (always those of contempt and a contented impression that we should sooner or later be rid of them." - "An Autobiography. By Sir William Gregory, K.C.M.G., formerly Member of Parliament and sometime Governor of Ceylon. Edited by Lady Gregory." London. Murray. 1894. Page 105.] JOURNALISM 169 held the same language in private to the end of his life. To show how little I shared Disraeli's contempt for the Colonies, it was in consequence of a suggestion made by me to a Colonial Secretary that they were first men- tioned in the Queen's Speech. The opinions held by me on the Colonial Question were at that time prevalent; some of our statesmen avowed them, more were inclined to them. They were undoubtedly shared by my friend Sir Frederic Rogers, 1 the permanent head of the Colonial Office. They were certainly not deemed treason by my friend Godley, 2 the founder of Canterbury, New Zealand, with whom I had a good deal of intercourse on colonial subjects. He was at all events strongly in favour of Colonial self-government, and said that he would rather be ruled by a Nero on the spot than by a Board in London. There is now a tidal wave of the opposite sentiment ; but I have more than once in the course of a long life stood on the dry beach where a tidal wave had been. I remain unshaken in my convictions. Nor was the movement in which, through those letters, I took part, without important effect at the time. A larger meas- ure of self-government was given to the Colonies; the British troops were withdrawn from them ; and an end was put to petty wars with Maoris and Kaffirs which the presence of the troops, by encouraging the aggres- P Frederic Rogers, Baron Blaehford, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1860 to 1871. 1811-1889.] [ 2 John Robert Godley, Under-Secretary-at-War. 1814-1861.] 170 REMINISCENCES siveness of the Colonists, had fomented and which had cost Great Britain many millions. Palmerston, seconded by Layard, 1 proclaimed the regeneration, political and financial, of the Turkish Empire; encouraged British investment in its funds; identified British diplomacy with its preservation ; and drew us into a war with Russia in its defence. In the letters I argued on the opposite side, and on this ques- tion at least few will say that my pen was enlisted on the side of wrong. The publication of the letters brought me into con- nection with Walker, 2 the editor of the Daily News, one of the most thoroughly upright and conscientious mem- bers of the Press I ever knew. What is behind the Press is now a very grave, not to say terrible, question. If such men as Walker were behind it, we should be safe enough. The Letters on the Empire, with general connections, gave me for the time something of a political position. I was offered the nomination for Chelsea and Kensington, a constituency in which the Liberals had a safe major- ity. But I knew the difference between the pen and the tongue. I never was a speaker, nor had I strength for Parliamentary life. Disraeli, however, seemed to take it into his head that I was likely to be trouble- f 1 Sir Austen Henry Layard, excavator of Nineveh ; politician. 1817-1894.] [ 2 Thomas Walker ; editor of the Daily News from 1858 to 1869 ; then editor of the London Gazette till 1889. Born at Oxford in 1822 ; bred a carpenter ; died in 1898.] JOURNALISM 171 some, for again he attacked me personally in the House of Commons. This time it was for writing against en- tails of land, a subject for which I had prepared my- self under the guidance of an eminent land agent. He afterwards pursued me across the Atlantic and tried to brand me, under a perfectly transparent pseudonym, if "Oxford Professor " could be called a pseudonym at all, as a "social sycophant." 1 There is surely nothing more dastardly than this mode of stabbing a reputation. [ l "The Oxford Professor, who was the guest of the American Colonel, was quite a young man, of advanced opinions on all subjects, religious, social and political. He was clever, extremely well-in- formed, so far as books can make a man knowing, but unable to profit even by that limited experience of life from a restless vanity and overflowing conceit, which prevented him from ever observing or thinking of anything but himself. He was gifted with a great command of words, which took the form of endless exposition, va- ried by sarcasm and passages of ornate jargon. He was the last person one would have expected to recognise in an Oxford professor ; but we live in an age of transition. "A Parisian man of science, who had passed his life in alternately fighting at barricades and discovering planets, had given Colonel Campian, who had lived much in the French capital, a letter of introduction to the Professor, whose invectives against the principles of English society were hailed by foreigners as representative of the sentiments of venerable Oxford. The Professor, who was not satisfied with his home career, and, like many men of his order of mind, had dreams of wild vanity which the New World, they think, can alone realise, was very glad to make the Colonel's acquaintance, which might facilitate his future movements. So he had lionised the distinguished visitors during the last few days over the Univer- sity ; and had availed himself of plenteous opportunities for exhib- iting to them his celebrated powers of exposition, his talent for sar- casm, which he deemed peerless, and several highly finished pictur- esque passages, which were introduced with extemporary art. "The Professor was much surprised when he saw Lothair enter the saloon at the hotel. He was the last person in Oxford whom he expected to encounter. Like sedentary men of extreme opinions, 172 REMINISCENCES Although I declined to run for Parliament myself, I went with some of my friends to their elections and en- joyed the fun, of which something still lingered, though reform had quenched the glories of Eatanswill. The Liberal Whip one day sent for me and told me that Mr. Mundella, 1 a Nottingham merchant, had been asked to run for Sheffield, the seat of the most militant trade- unionism, that Mundella was a novice in politics, but would be inclined to accept, if I would go with him and post him. The Whigs frowned on the enterprise, say- ing that Roebuck 2 ("Tear 'em" was his nickname), the other candidate, through his influence with the unions, was sure of success and would come back with his restive Radicalism a greater thorn in the side of the Government than ever. Besides, there was danger of a riot. I suggested a reference to Gladstone. The answer was, Fight. To Sheffield we went. Mundella was approached by the most extreme and formidable of the unions. He took by my advice a boldly in- dependent line, which was successful, the great Union no doubt having its enemies, and was returned by a large majority. At Abingdon one hall was stormed, he was a social parasite, and instead of indulging in his usual invec- tives against peers and princes, finding himself unexpectedly about to dine with one of that class, he was content to dazzle and amuse him." Disraeli, "Lothair," Chapter xxiv.] I 1 Anthony John Mundella, M.P. from 1868 till his death in 1897 ; much interested in Factory Acts and Education Acts, etc. Born in 1825.] [ 2 John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. 1832-1837 ; 1841-1847 ; 1849- 1868 ; 1874-1879. Born 1801 ; died 1879.] JOURNALISM 173 and at Reading we had a row. But these were nothing to the election days of old. At Woodstock we fought against the interest of Blenheim, represented by Lord Randolph Churchill * of curious fame. But Blenheim had given its Christmas doles and prevailed. I 1 Third son of the sixth Duke of Marlborough. 1849-1894.] CHAPTER XII CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN Peel Disraeli ' ' Lothair " Bentinck The Duke of Newcastle Cardwell " Welbeck " Gladstone The Peelites Sidney Herbert Canning Dalhousie Sir James Graham Lord Aberdeen Russell Granville Godley Joseph Chamberlain Earl Grey. PARTLY by my connection with Journalism; partly by my Eton and social connections, I was led to in- timacy with some public men, with the Peelite circle at first, and afterwards with Bright, Cobden, and the Man- chester School. Peel x himself was always the object of my political allegiance. I saw in him a statesman, in his later days at all events, above party, who sought and studied with singleness of heart the good of the whole nation, and though I had less respect for some venerable institutions than he had, I recognized his wisdom in preferring administrative reform, which he steadfastly pursued, to organic change. Beyond doubt he had the confidence not only of the majority, but of the most intelligent and respectable part of the nation. His fall before an unprincipled coalition of Protection- ist Tories, office-seeking Whigs, English Radicals, and [ l Sir Robert Peel, second Baronet ; Prime Minister 1834-1835 ; 1841-1846. Born in 1788 ; died 1850.] 174 CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 175 Irish enemies of the Union had increased my feeling in his favour. Of Peel I saw nothing. When I went to London he had fallen from office ; not from power ; he was still at the head of the House of Commons and of the country. Greville says truly that he would have been elected Prime Minister by an overwhelming majority. 1 Soon afterwards he was killed by a fall from his horse. He was a good shot, but a bad horseman, having a loose seat. Care was supposed to be taken in buying horses for him on that account. But the horse which killed him had been offered for sale to my father and other fox- hunters in our neighbourhood, and had been rejected for its trick of bucking and kicking. Our neighbour at Mortimer, Sir Paul Hunter, 2 met Peel riding in the Park, recognized his horse, actually turned to warn him ; but fearing to intrude, abstained. The horse probably played its usual trick; threw Peel over its head; and he, falling with the reins in his hand, pulled down the horse upon him. The horse with his knee broke the rider's rib, drove it into his lungs, and thus, like the mole whose mole-hill killed William III, played a part in history. It was currently reported, and the belief has found a place in Froude's Biography 3 of Disraeli, that Peel I 1 "Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria." By Charles C. F. Greville. London: Longmans. 1885. Vol. Ill, pages 100, 101.] [ 2 Sir Claudius Stephen Paul Hunter, second Baronet, J.P., D.L. 1825-1890.] P In "The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria " Series, edited by Stuart J. Reid.] 176 REMINISCENCES wanted to send Disraeli a challenge for something said by him in the Corn Law debates. Peel did want to send a challenge, and for something said in the Corn Law debates; but it was not to Disraeli; it was to Lord George Bentinck. 1 The Duke of Newcastle, who was asked by Peel to carry the challenge, told me the story. We were talking about our contemporaries at Eton and Oxford. This led to mention of Sidney Herbert and a reference to a false charge against Peel of having abused Sidney Herbert's confidence in him. The Duke said that no one would be less likely to be guilty of such a thing than Peel, who was so sensitive about his relation to his friends that, for aspersing it, he had wanted to send a challenge to Lord George Bentinck. The Duke proceeded to say that after the debate, when the House was up, Peel had asked him to wait while he wrote the customary letter to the Queen, then took his arm and walked with him toward his own house in Hyde Park Gardens, saying by the way that Bentinck' s language had been an aspersion on his honour and the Duke must carry a challenge. The Duke remonstrated. Peel insisted. They walked to and fro till workmen began to pass on their way to work. Peel was then per- suaded to go to bed, the Duke promising speedily to return. Returning, the Duke found Peel still resolved to send the challenge, but at length consideration for what the Duke pleaded would be the feelings of the [ l William George Frederic Cavendish-Bentinck, fifth child of the fourth Duke of Portland, a statesman and a sportsman. 1802-1848.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 177 Queen in case of serious consequences prevailed. Hav- ing heard the story I naturally asked how it was that Peel felt so much a blow of Lord George Bentinck's bludgeon when he showed such indifference of Disraeli's poniard, of which he once only stooped to take cursory notice. The Duke's answer was that, calling at Peel's house on his way to the House of Commons, he had been shown by Peel, who took it from his bag, a letter from Disraeli asking place. That he had ever asked Peel for place Disraeli in the House of Commons de- nied. The letter which proves that he lied is now pub- lished by Mr. Charles Parker l and most abject it is. The Duke gave me the fact with full liberty to use it. I took a note of it from his lips. But I was also cog- nizant of it in another way, Peel's correspondence having been opened to me by his literary executors for the purpose of a projected Life. My inspection of the correspondence was confidential, and I felt bound not I to embarrass the literary executors, especially when Peel had himself shown so much delicacy on the subject. It i is not unlikely that the letter was before him in Peel's bag when Disraeli's falsehood was told. Thus the fact remained unknown until, after a long delay caused by various accidents, Peel's correspondence saw the light. To me, however, it was well known what the man was who was making his gambling-table of my country. I do not feel sure that I did right in keeping the secret. P "Sir Robert Peel." By Charles Stuart Parker. In three volumes. London : Murray. 1891 and 1899. Volume II, page 486.] 178 REMINISCENCES Divulged it might have averted mischief, but Peel had kept it. There was one slip in the Duke's narrative. He said that if he would not take the challenge Peel threatened to apply to Lord Hardinge. 1 Hardinge was then in India. But I found that he had acted for Peel in an affair with a Colonel Mitchell, 2 and to this no doubt Peel referred. There was always fire under Peel's snow, and he was of the old school of honour. Disraeli had in reality no great difficulties to over- come. He was a Jew by descent, but a baptized Christian. He was married to a rich wife. He started in public life as an adventurer, angling for a seat in Parliament by baits thrown out to both parties, and going through a series of transformations in the course of which he had a slanging match with O'Connell, who called him the " lineal representative of the impenitent thief." In his " Letters of Runnymede " he fawns fulsomely on Peel and scurrilously abuses the Whigs. One part of his Parliamentary strategy was the con- coction of little pointed sayings about the personal peculiarities of his opponents; as when he said of Horsman 3 that he was a " superior person," and al- luded to Hope's 4 "Batavian grace." Lord Salisbury B P Charles Stewart, second Viscount Hardinge, private Secretary to his father, Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor-General of India, 1844-1847; M.P. ; Under-Secretary f or War ; etc. 1822-1894.] [ 2 Query. John Mitchell, author of "The Life of Wallenstein," ."The Fall of Napoleon," etc. 1785-1859.] [ 3 Edward Horsman, Whig politician. 1807-1876.] [ 4 Alexander James Beresford-Hope.] [ 5 The third Marquess.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 179 was a " master of gibes, flouts, and jeers." People were weakly afraid of drawing these shafts of ridicule upon themselves. When, however, Disraeli tried to kill Gladstone by saying that he was a "sophistical rheto- rician intoxicated with the exuberance of his own ver- / bosity," the ridicule turned on himself. Disraeli's strong point as a speaker was personal /"* ' , _ r r j. ^ heard him at the time of the Mutiny make a highly laboured speech on the Indian question which evidently wearied and partly cleared the House. Even as a novelist he indulges in personal attack, though when he comes to deal with Lord Hertford his own syco- phancy betrays itself and he betrays a strong contrast to the free hand of Thackeray. His "Letters of Runny- mede " are an extravagant imitation of Junius. He says to Russell, who had given him no provocation, " A miniature Mokanna, you are now exhaling upon the consti- tution of your country, which you once eulogized, and its great fortunes, of which you once were proud, all that long-hoarded venom and all those distempered humours that have for years accumulated in your petty heart, and tainted the current of your mortified life." ' He avowed that he was a flatterer, having, as he said, found the practice useful. To the Queen he "laid it on with a trowel " and with most satisfactory effect. He once opened a sitting of the Privy Council with an ex- travagant compliment to her as an authoress. He was overheard pandering to her hatred of Garibaldi, and P Pages 59, 60.] 180 REMINISCENCES when she said that she had been told the same thing before, said, "Then it must be true, for no one would tell your Majesty anything, but the truth." Peel could not give Disraeli place, but his reply to him was perfectly courteous, and it seems that he en- couraged him at his rather unfortunate debut in the House of Commons by a kindly cheer. Disraeli pre- sently commenced a series of laboured attacks on Peel. His object at this time was blackmailing, for he pro- tested against being ruled out of the party, and after- wards asked Graham, Peel's colleague, for patronage. The split between Peel and the Protectionists opened a grander game. That he had lampooned the Corn Law squires in "Popanilla" l did not prevent his flinging himself into their arms and glutting at once his revenge and his ambition by a series of most intensely venomous attacks on the great convert to free trade. He was fortunate in the split between Peel and his Protection- ists. He was fortunate in finding such a tool as Ben- tinck, with his sporting reputation, his stolidity and violence, wherewith to work upon the angry squires. He was fortunate in finding a patron like Lord Derby, all-powerful with the Tory and Protectionist party, and at the same time not unjustly nicknamed "The Jockey," with a good deal of the turfite in his character, and, though supposed to be a paragon of high principle, not too scrupulous to take a leap in the dark with the high- P "The Voyage of Captain Popanilla." By the Author of "Vivian Grey." London. 1828.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 181 est interests of the nation, if thereby he could dish the Whigs, of whom, at the time of the Reform Bill, he had been about the most violent. He was doubly fortunate in the sudden death of Bentinck, who was ferociously sincere and would never have consented to the second part of his friend's game, jettison of Protection. He was fortunate, again, in having on the throne, no longer Prince Albert, who abhorred him, but Prince Albert's widow, highly receptive of the flattery which, to use what was reported as his own expression, he laid on with a trowel. His cleverness nobody denies. It was shown by leading the gentlemen of England out of the path of honour. But his whole course was one of manoeuvring with a selfish aim. Long as was his career, not one good measure of importance bears his name. Nor in his speeches is there anything high or noble, anything that can be quoted for its sentiment, anything that shows genius unless it be the genius of the literary stabber. His elaborate oration on India at the time of the Mutiny, which I heard, was very heavy, and thinned the House. His vindictiveness was truly oriental. In his Life of Lord George Bentinck he still gloats over the recollection of Peel rising " con- fused and suffering " from his attacks, as he fancied, though it was really pain at the rupture of the tie with party and friends about which Peel's feeling was in- tense. The passage * is interesting read in comparison I 1 Chapter xv. In the tenth edition of Disraeli's "Life," I find the passage on page 195.] 182 REMINISCENCES with Peel's scrupulous delicacy in respecting the con- fidential letter suing for place. It may have been partly by suspicion of my posses- sion of an unpleasant secret that Disraeli was moved to follow me across the Atlantic and try, as he did in "Lothair," * to brand me as "a social sycophant." His knowledge of my social character was not great, for I had only once met him in society. His allusion to the "Oxford Professor" who was going to the United States was as transparent as if he had used my name. Had I been in England, where my character was known, I should have let the attack pass; but I was in a strange country where, made by a man of note, the attack was likely to tell. I therefore gave Disraeli the lie 2 and neither he nor any of his organs ever ventured to repeat the calumny. Surely nothing can be more dastardly than an attack on character under cover of a pseudonym. However false and ma- licious the slander may be, the person attacked can- not repel it without seeming to recognize its aptitude. In "Popanilla" will be found clear proof that Dis- raeli was not a Protectionist, but a satirist of Pro- [ l See note on page 171, chap, xi.] [ 2 In the following letter : "In your 'Lothair' you introduce an Oxford Professor who is about to emigrate to America, and you describe him as a social parasite. You well know that if you had ventured openly to accuse me of any social baseness you would have had to answer for your words ; but when sheltering yourself under the literary forms of a work of fiction, you seek to traduce with impunity the social character of a political opponent, your expressions can touch no man's hono they are the stingless insults of a coward."] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 183 tection. He took to Protection for the purpose of his conspiracy against Peel with the intention of throwing it over, as he did, when his object had been gained. This programme he could not have carried out if Lord George Bentinck had lived, insead of being removed, as he was, just at the right moment, by a sudden death. Bentinck was an honest fanatic, and would never have allowed Disraeli to turn him round for the purpose of the game. In Bentinck, who had the character and confidence of the land-owning gentry, which Disraeli lacked, was found the exact tool required by Disraeli. The charge against Peel of having " murdered" Can- ning, which Disraeli in his Life of Bentinck has carefully credited to his " friend," was Disraeli's own invention and infused by him into his dupe. Bentinck had been Canning's private Secretary. It was not likely that he would have followed Peel all those years if he had be- lieved him to be the betrayer of Canning, and had he been himself devoted to Canning, as Disraeli pretends, though Greville scouts the idea. 1 At the time when Peel declared for free trade dire distress prevailed. Tens of thousands of working-men were out of employment. Grass was being boiled for food. Wedding-rings were being pawned by the hun- dred. In Ireland a terrible famine impended. Yet this Semite, who had shown that he saw and ridiculed the fallacy of Protection, as he continued, when Pro- tectionism had served his turn, to do, could for his own f 1 "Memoirs," second part, Volume II, pages 398 et seq.] Oi O CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 185 revenge and advancement coolly play the Protection- ist game. The Conservatives who had stuck to Peel through the Corn Law conflict, and though few in number were the brains of the party, included Graham, 1 Lord Aberdeen, 2 Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle, 3 Dal- housie, 4 Cardwell, 5 Sidney Herbert, and Canning. Hav- ing hovered for a time between the two camps, they ul- timately coalesced, and finally fused, with the Liberals. The six younger members of the group had been not only taken into office, but personally trained by Peel, who was master of all departments and was unique in devices to provide the country with a succes- sion of statesmen. My chief political friends of the group were the Duke of Newcastle and Edward Cardwell. The Duke had been, like me, though somewhat before me, in Cole- ridge's house at Eton, which I have said was a bond. The Duke of Newcastle was not a great statesman, perhaps he was not even a very great administrator, for though he was a good man of business and devoted to work, he wore himself out with details which he P Sir James Robert George Graham. 1792-1861.] P George Hamilton Gordon, fourth Earl of Aberdeen, Secretary for War and the Colonies under Peel. 1784^-1860.] [ 3 The fifth Duke.] [* James Andrew Brown Ramsay, tenth Earl and first Marquess of Dalhousie, President of the Board of Trade ; afterwards Governor- General of India. 1812-1860.] [ 5 Edward, Viscount Cardwell ; held many high political posts under Peel and Aberdeen, Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. 1813-1886.] 186 REMINISCENCES ought to have left to subordinates ; and I fancy he had not the gift of choosing his subordinates very well. The breakdown in the Crimea, however, was not his fault, but the fault of a long-disused and rusty machine which he was just getting into order when the Govern- ment fell. Though a man of strong feelings and affec- tions, he lacked imagination, and perhaps owed partly to that defect the unhappiness which befell him in his married life. But he was a thoroughly upright, high- minded, and patriotic gentleman, who kept his soul above his rank, and devoted himself to the service of the State; while the fortitude with which he bore accumulated misfortune and torturing disease would have touched any heart, as it did mine. He showed, as I have said, remarkable tact and temper in presiding over the Education Commission, which was made up of men chosen as representatives of different opinions on a burning question. In that respect, at all events, he would not have been a bad head of a government. His colleagues would also have felt that they could thor- oughly trust his honour. It was in an unlucky hour, and at the bidding of an ill-starred ambition, that he for- sook the Colonial Office for the Ministry of War. As a Colonial Minister he was successful in his own way, which was that of a decided Imperialist, though he was too good-natured ever to quarrel with a friend who wrote in support of the opposite view. I turned up the other day one of his notes bidding me come to dinner and he would have one or two Colonists to CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 187 "roast" me. His greatest mistake, perhaps, was his alliance with Sadleir l and that gang. But into this he was led by a sincere desire of a liberal government for Ireland. His liberal tendencies did not fail to bring upon him the wrath of his father, who had greatly encumbered the estate by reckless purchases of terri- torial influence for the purpose of upholding ultra- Toryism, and had prepared for himself a place among the most hapless victims of the irony of fate by opening the door of the House of Commons to Mr. Gladstone. Card well, whose acquaintance I made at first through the Duke, always seemed to me the model of a public servant. He was the most typical pupil, as well as one of the warmest adherents of Peel, who, as I have said, did his best to train statesmen for the country, and exacted, as the title to promotion, the conscien- tious industry and thorough devotion to the public service of which he was himself a grand example. Cardwell, like Peel, was dry, and, like Peel, somewhat stiff and formal ; there was nothing about him brilliant or impressive to anyone who was not impressed by duty. He was not and never could have been a party leader ; he had not the fire, the magnetism, the eloquence, or the skill as a tactician. It did not seem to me that he ever scanned the political field for strategical purposes as party leaders do. He was content to do the business and solve the question of the hour. The question of f 1 John Sadleir, the ."Irish politician and swindler." 1814- 1856.] 188 REMINISCENCES the hour he solved by an honest sort of opportunism, rather than on any very broad principle, or with refer- ence to any far-reaching policy. Not only was he unqualified to be a party leader, but he was an indiffer- ent partisan; his mind was too fair, and his judgment was too cool. On the other hand, he was a true com- rade, a fast friend, and not a bad hater of the enemies of his friends. I believe that this is the right way of stat- ing the case, and that Cardwell was free from rancour. I know that some whose opinion is of weight thought him unjust to opponents. It is difficult for a gladiator in such an arena as party politics to be perfectly just; but I must say that I never heard Cardwell speak bit- terly of mere difference of opinion, or of anything but what he sincerely believed to be dishonest. He was cautious, perhaps reticent, to a fault. Without being eloquent, he was a good and convincing speaker in Peel's manner, and particularly clear in exposition; yet he never spoke if he could help it, and more than once rehearsed to me, in substance, speeches which he was going to make, but when the time came did not make. It was as an administrator and practical legis- lator that he was really great. While others talked and manoeuvred for power, he did an immense amount of work, and of the best quality, for the nation. His great achievements and monuments are the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, l which is still the code of our Mercantile Marine, and the transformation of the army p 17 and 18 Viet. Cap. cxx.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 189 from an unprofessional and unscientific to a profes- sional and scientific force, which he accomplished with Lord Wolseley's aid. Peel made it a point of honour so carefully to prepare his Bills that they should pass with little amendment, and in this, as in other respects, Cardwell was a faithful pupil. The Merchant Shipping Bill with its five hundred and forty-eight sections passed v through Committee at^single^sitting curious con- , trast to a Franchise Act, the work of the opposite school, which, when it finally became law, retained of the original Bill scarcely anything but the preamble. 1 The transformation of the army in face of all the prejudices and opposition of the men of the old school was probably as heavy a piece of work as ever fell to the lot of a British legislator. It broke Cardwell down, and brought on the malady which closed his working days. The strongest testimony is borne, by those who are best qualified to judge, to the temper and patience as well as to the ability and the power of mastering details dis- played in the conduct of the business. Testimony equally strong is borne to the display of the same qualities in other departments, notably in the Board of Trade. As Colonial Secretary Cardwell had to deal, amidst a tornado of public excitement, with the ques- tion of the disturbances in Jamaica and of Governor Eyre. 2 The case of Jamaica he was generally allowed to have settled well, though in the case of Governor t 1 No doubt a reference to Disraeli's Reform Bill, which became law in August, 1867.] [ See Chapter XX.] 190 REMINISCENCES Eyre it was impossible to unite the suffrages of those who regarded the Governor as a hero with the suffrages of those who regarded him not only as the hateful in- strument of a cruel panic, but as the dastardly murderer of his personal enemy, Gordon. To Cardwell is due, if not the initiative, the execution, of a great change in Colonial policy; for he it was who, by practically in- sisting that the Colonies should pay for troops main- tained in them, inaugurated self-defence, which was a long step towards Colonial independence. Cardwell was no eye-server; he did the work of his office thor- oughly and faithfully without any thought of self-dis- play or of the figure which he was to make before the House of Commons; and one could not help thinking how absurd was the party system which compelled the country to deprive itself of such a departmental ad- ministrator because the party to which he belonged had been defeated on some legislative question totally unconnected with the business of his department. Albeit, as has already been said, no party leader or organizer of political forces, Cardwell in council, though quiet, was strong, and was able even to control the course of errant and flaming bodies which afterwards set the political firmament on fire. Such at least was the impression which I formed when I was living in the Peelite circle. Though everywhere but in his home Cardwell seemed rather cold, his wife could not live when he was gone. Her remaining days, in fact, were almost spent in lingering round his grave. CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 191 With Newcastle and Cardwell I was very intimate, passing much time and meeting interesting people in the houses of both of them. Clumber, the Duke's abode, was in itself full of interest as a great historic house still full of historic treasures, gifts, some of them gifts of Royalty, to statesmen of old. Among these was a superb pair of Sevres vases, the gift of the King of France. They had been lent to an exhibition where one of them was swept in a roll of cotton off a packing table and smashed to pieces, but had been very skilfully put together again. The Duke was trying to redeem the estate encumbered by the extravagance of his predeces- sors, one of whom had indulged his pride by buying and tearing down a vast and sumptuous mansion in the neighbourhood that Clumber might have no rival. But saving must have been difficult when such a house- hold as I saw in the domestic Chapel at Clumber was to be maintained. These households must have eaten deeply into the revenues of the landed aristocracy of England. The present King, 1 then Prince of Wales, was at Clumber. In his honour a banquet was given in the state dining-room, with the ancestral dessert service of gold plate, which did not seem to me very dazzling in its brilliancy. The Mayors of neighbouring towns were invited. Ice to cool wine had just come into fashion. One of the Mayors took it for an entree, got it on his plate, first tried to cut it, then carried a lump of it to his t 1 This refers, of course, to his late Majesty King Edward VII.] 192 REMINISCENCES mouth with a spoon. A well-trained footman, seeing the situation, whipped away the ice, but the Mayor's confidence was shaken for the rest of the feast. A strange claim raised to the Portland inheritance reminded me of a visit I paid to Welbeck in company with Denison, afterwards Lord Ossington, 1 when we were together staying at Clumber. Denison was the brother-in-law of the Duke of Portland. 2 When we approached Welbeck he said, "I can't take you in; I can't go in myself, though I am the Duke's brother-in- law. He is hypochondriac, lives underground, goes underground to the railroad, and will let nobody see him. But we can look round the place." The first things I saw were some pines which had been trans- planted at their full growth with a screen of proportion- ate height to protect them from the wind. The next thing was a newly-built set of stables, coach-houses, and other offices on the very grandest scale, with carriages and horses to match, all to keep up the state of a gran- dee who never showed his face out of doors. It is surely most unlikely that a man so full of aristocratic pride, even if his sanity was impaired, should have chosen to masquerade as a London tradesman. We rode home by moonlight through a grove of spruces, feathering to the ground, which I thought the most solemn things in the way of trees I had ever seen. I f 1 See page 149, Chapter X. He married Charlotte, seventh child of the fourth Duke of Portland. 1800-1873.] [ 2 William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck, the fifth Duke of Portland. Born, 1800 ; died in 1879.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 193 have since seen the rival of that grove, perhaps its su- perior, in the road through the forest from Vancouver to New Westminster. My memories of Gladstone, with whom I was also very intimate, I have given elsewhere. 1 I will not dwell again on his almost miraculous powers of work and speech, on his mastery of the art of framing great measures and carrying them through Parliament, on his triumphs as a financier, his general though less un- chequered merits as a statesman, his virtues, graces of character, and piety as a man. Nor need I touch again his weaker points; his liability to self-deception and casuistry, or the violent impulsiveness and combative- ness which hurried him at last into his Irish policy and made his great friend and admirer Lord Selborne de- scribe him in a letter to me as " morally insane." Even in his intellect there was a strange mixture of weakness with strength. It is difficult to believe that the same man can have made the budget-speeches .and written, as Gladstone in the full light of research and science wrote, about theology and Homer. His fancy, heated with the political fray, grew wild enough to compare the abolition of the exclusionist Parliament of Ireland to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. In the earlier part of his career, Gladstone I suspect was uncon- sciously controlled by the gentle influence of friends such as Cardwell and Newcastle, both of whom he lost. P "My Memory of Gladstone." Toronto: Wm. Tyrrell; London : T. Fisher Unwin. 1904. Second edition, 1909.] 194 REMINISCENCES Of Mr. Morley's 1 Life, the first two volumes are his- torical as well as admirably written; this can hardly be said of the last. It does credit to Peel's largeness of mind that he should have recognized and promoted high ability in a character so different from his own. Gladstone was loyal to Peel, but I do not think he ever loved him. Peel was an orthodox Protestant and Erastian, while Gladstone was a High Churchman, with Ritualists for his special friends, and hankering for re- union with Rome. After Peel's death, and when Pro- tection, as Disraeli said, was "dead and damned," Glad- stone would have taken the Conservative leadership, if Disraeli had not stood in the way. Disraeli professed his willingness to go, but did not go. That for which I could never cease to be grateful to Gladstone was his noble advocacy of the cause of the oppressed ; of the cause of the Italians by Austria and the Bourbons ; of the cause of the Christians oppressed by the Turks. Here at all events he was perfectly single-hearted and sincere. His sympathy was with everybody who was struggling to be free. This it was mainly, I believe, which led him in the American War of Secession to lean to the side of the South, and in a not very happy moment to proclaim that Jefferson Davis had made the South a nation. His course gave offence to strong Liberals. It was probably with a view to re- gaining their good opinion that he wrote one of them a [ l Now Viscount Morley of Blackburn. His Life of Gladstone was published by Messrs. Macmillan in 1903.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 195 letter saying that if the South were separated from the North he would willingly see Canada annexed to the North. The avowal would not have satisfied those who desired the extinction of the slave-power ; while it might have embarrassed the writer if he had ever been called upon again as Minister to deal with Colonial ,' ( questions. It was therefore destroyed. It may safely be said that it was not without serious misgiving that Gladstone went into the Crimean War. This probably was the real source of his secession from Palmerston's Government. It happened that when he was meditating that step I was with him one morning on business. Our business done, he went on to talk to me, or to himself, about the war in a way that be- trayed his intention. He said that Russia had offered us the terms originally demanded, and that if the Tro- jans would have given back Helen and her possessions, the Greeks would have raised the siege of Troy. It did not occur to him that the terms originally demanded might not satisfy after the expenditure of so much blood, or that when he had roused the pugnacity of the bull-dog it might be difficult to call him off. I can hardly attempt here fully to discuss his charac- ter, his public character, of course, I mean; for his private character, it need not be said, was admirable in every way. Labouchere said that he did not object to Gladstone's having aces up his sleeve, but he did object to his thinking that the Almighty had put them there. Jowett, who always withheld his confidence, said some- 196 REMINISCENCES thing much more severe. 1 Simplicity certainly was not Gladstone's ordinary characteristic, nor could it be denied that he had a singular power of self-deception. It was the general impression that he would have taken the Conservative leadership if Disraeli had been out of the way. Having become the Liberal Leader, he threw himself into his part with all the impetuosity of his nature ; persuading himself, perhaps, that he had long been a Liberal as he persuaded himself that he had long been inclined to Home Rule. It cannot be denied that his great Liberal moves, Disestablishment and Home Rule, coincided, though he might not be conscious of the coincidence, with the exigencies of his struggle for power. It has now been pretty well proved that his sudden dissolution of Parliament in 1874 without con- sulting his colleagues, which appeared so unaccount- able, and for a time wrecked his party, was his mode of escape from a personal dilemma in which he had in- volved himself by taking the salaried office of Chancel- lor of the Exchequer without going to his constituents for re-election. I was at Manchester when the disso- lution was announced, and I remember the astonish- ment and consternation which it caused. Archbishop Tait told me that what he most feared in Gladstone was his levity. This may seem paradoxical ; yet I believe the Archbishop was right. That Glad- f 1 See "The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, M.A. Master of Balliol College, Oxford." By Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D., and Lewis Campbell, M.A., LL.D. 2 vols. London: Murray. 1897. Volume I, page 406.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 197 stone's moral aspirations were high cannot be doubted. It is more doubtful whether his sense of responsibility was very strong. At a dinner party at which I was present he came up late from the House. He was in the best of spirits and seemed to have nothing on his mind. At last he spoke of the motion of which he had just given notice in the House. The motion, as afterwards appeared, was one which would have brought the two Houses into collision with each other, and the notice of which had been given amidst extreme excitement. When his love of power and his pugnacity were ex- cited, it is questionable whether he thought much of anything but victory. Perhaps there is a certain similarity between the cases of a political leader and a stormy element which would make extreme sensitive- ness a drawback. That Gladstone was a statesman of the very highest class I should find it difficult to believe. His moves always seemed to be impulses rather than parts of a settled plan. In his speeches on the extension of the franchise he failed to indicate the polity which he ex- pected to produce, and talked fallacious commonplace about uniting the whole people about their ancient throne. If he attacked the Lords, it was not that he had deliberately made up his mind in favour of a change, but that they came in his way at the moment ; and the constitutional doctrines which he put forward on that occasion were the angry fabrication of the hour. His proposal to give Ireland a Parliament of her own and at 198 REMINISCENCES the same time a representation in the United Parlia- ment which would have enabled her to hold the balance of parties and practically to dominate there, can hardly be mentioned with calmness. His lifelong friend and supporter, Lord Selborne, said in a letter to me that Gladstone was " morally insane." As a speaker he was in the highest degree effective, but the effect was produced by his command of the subject, by the ascendancy of his character, by the im- pressiveness of his manner and an admirable voice, rather than by any grace or force of language. He was at his best, I think, in expounding a great measure and steering it through the House. He had, as was said before, marred the freshness of his style by over- much speaking in debating-clubs early in life. His prolixity, which Disraeli called his verbosity, was not felt by the hearers of his speeches, who were rather struck by his command of perfectly correct language, but it is greatly felt by his readers. "We are much better off than you are for a leader " said a Conservative Member of Parliament to a Liberal ; "ours is only an unprincipled scoundrel, yours is a dangerous lunatic." Tories were always saying, and half believed, that Gladstone was literally insane, and stories of his insanity were current. One was that he had gone to a toyshop and ordered its whole contents to be sent to his house. I asked Lady Russell whether there could be any foundation for this report. Her answer was, "I begin to think CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 199 there must be, for I have heard it now every session for several years." If Gladstone had not, like Brougham, the vanity of versatility, he had the propensity in large measure. It is true that his amazing powers of acquisition enabled him in a way to deal with many subjects. But his writings, enormously voluminous and various, are of little value. His controversy with Huxley about Gen- esis displayed his weakness. His argument, in effect, was that the Creator, though unscientific, had come re- markably near the truth about his own work and had all but hit upon the Nebular Hypothesis. In his Homeric and mythological lucubrations there are some things that are interesting, but there are others so fantastic that their publication shakes one's confidence in the general wisdom of the man. He once propounded to me a Homeric theory which he was going to give to the world founded on a philological discovery which he sup- posed himself to have made. I felt sure that the dis- covery was an illusion, and tried to convince him of this, without effect. Just then his brother-in-law, Lord Lyttleton, 1 who was a first-rate classical scholar, came into the room. He evidently saw the matter as I did, yet he allowed himself to be half talked-over, and I sup- pose the fancy went into print. Before the publication, Gladstone gave a Homeric dinner to half a dozen schol- ars, including Milman and Cornewall Lewis. The osten- sible object of our meeting was to discuss Gladstone's P The fourth Baron.] 200 REMINISCENCES theories. But of discussion there was very little. I suspect it was not easy for adverse truths to find access to the Great Man. It was very difficult to convince him by argument ; but I suspect he was more open to infusion. There was nothing fine or indicative of high intellect in the face except the fire of the eye. The whole frame bespoke nervous energy. Gladstone was a first-rate sleeper. At the time when he was being fiercely at- tacked for his secession from Palmerston's Government, I was told by a common friend whom I met one evening that he was in a state of extreme excitement. I hap- pened next morning to have business with him. He went out of the room to fetch a letter, leaving me with Mrs. Gladstone, to whom I made some remark on the trying nature of his situation. She answered that her husband came home from the most exciting of the scenes, laid his head upon the pillow, and slept like a child ; that if ever he had a bad night he was good for noth- ing the next day, but that this very rarely happened. Greville's Journal has revived the memory of the Peelites ; and an article appeared the other day, by the survivor and the most renowned of the group, in which, as a set of men taking their own course and remaining outside the regular parties, they were designated as a public nuisance. 1 One cannot help surmising that they P This refers to Gladstone's article on " The History of 1852-60, and Greville's latest Journals" in The English Historical Review for April, 1887, Volume II, page 258. Much of this chapter con- sists of passages taken from Mr. Goldwin Smith's article on " The Peelites" in Macmillan's Magazine of October, 1887.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 201 incurred this severe judgment in some measure by their similarity to a set of public men who at the present time are so misguided as to refuse at the call of a party leader to say what they think false and to do what they think wrong. It is the car of the Caucus Juggernaut rolling backwards over political history. 1 Though I never was in public life, I saw a good deal of some of the Peelites, and from them heard about the rest more than after the lapse of many years I can re- member. The acquaintance of the Duke of Newcastle I made through our common tutor at Eton, Edward Coleridge, who died the other day, 2 and of whom, amidst the flood of biography, I wonder no memoir has appeared. Coleridge was the Arnold of Eton. He was a very Eton Arnold, it is true ; and as he was not head master, but only an assistant, his sphere was rather his own pupil-room than the school. But in that sphere, and in his own way, he did for the very dry bones of education at Eton what Arnold did at Rugby. "My Tutor " was greatly beloved, as he deserved to be, by all his pupils, and the connection always remained a f 1 This sentence occurs in the article on " The Peelites " in Mac- millan's Magazine for October, 1887. It will be remembered that Mr. Gladstone adopted a Home Rule policy in March of the pre- vious year, bringing in his Home Rule Bill in the following month ; and that the definite formation of the Liberal Unionist Party occurred twelve months later, seven months before the appearance of Mr. Goldwin Smith's article.] [ May the 18th, 1883. Edward Coleridge was Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1823-1826 ; Assistant Master at Eton, 1824-1850 ; Lower Master, 1850-1857 ; Fellow, 1857 ; Vicar of Maple Durham, Berks, from 1862 till his death.] 202 REMINISCENCES bond. It drew together even those who, like the Duke and myself, had not been contemporaries at Eton. I passed a summer with Cardwell in the Phoenix Park when he was Secretary for Ireland, and there had the advantage both of observing Irish government and of hearing Lord O'Hagan, Sir Alexander McDonnell the head of the Education Department, Dr. Russell the Principal of Maynooth, and other wise and patriotic Irishmen, on the Irish Question. 1 Of Sidney Herbert I did not see so much. He was the model of a high-bred English gentleman in public life. To the elevation of his character, fully as much as to his powers of mind, he owed his high position, his designation as a Prime Minister that was to be, and the tears shed over his early grave. He had the advantage of rank and wealth; not of rank and wealth only, but of historic rank and of wealth associated with the poetry of Wilton. Of aristocracy he was the very flower. The special qualities of leadership he can hardly be said to have shown, and though he administered the War Office well, I should not suppose that his power of work rivalled that which was possessed by some of his asso- ciates. He had, however, beneath a quiet bearing, and a slight appearance of aristocratic listlessness, plenty of courage and not a little force of character. Disraeli, who hated him as Peel's " gentleman," at- tacked him bitterly and found that he had better have let him alone. "If a man wishes to see humiliation, f 1 Notes on these names will be found in Chapter XVIII.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 203 let him look there," said Sidney Herbert, pointing at Disraeli, who had thrown over Protection, with his finger, beneath which even Disraeli cowered. Sidney Herbert was a High Churchman, and Wilton Church shows that the aesthetic element of the school was strong in him. Mr. Gladstone, as all the world knows, was a High Churchman also; so in a less degree was the Duke of Newcastle ; and the combination of political Liberalism with Ritualism may be said to have had its origin in the secession of the Peelites from the Tory party. Of Lord Canning I saw something in connection with the Oxford University Reform Bill, with which he was charged in the House of Lords, and for the debate on which I was set to cram him. He seemed to me, I con- fess, slow of apprehension and somewhat puzzle-headed. It was believed that he was sent to India to get him out of the Cabinet where he gave trouble by his opinionative- ness; and everybody shuddered, when the Mutiny broke out, at the thought that India was in his hands. I was dining with Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1 who had been head of a College in India, and a Chairman of the East Indian Company was one of the guests, when news arrived of the capture of Delhi by the Sepoy mutineers. Great was the consternation. It was increased by mis- trust of Lord Canning, then Governor-General of India. Canning had been advanced by Peel as a tribute to the [ Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, Baronet, of Wallington. 1807- 1886.] 204 REMINISCENCES shade of his father, to whom, however, Peel had never done the wrong of which Bentinck, prompted by his friend, accused him. But he was slow of intellect, as I found when I had to coach him for the debate on the Oxford University Bill. In the Cabinet his opinion- ativeness gave trouble, and it was understood that he had been sent to India, then perfectly quiet, to get him out of the way. These misgivings he nobly belied. He met the tremendous peril well, and saved the character of the country by keeping control over the bloodthirsty frenzy of the dominant race, and thereby earning for himself the epithet, meant as opprobrious, but really glorious, of "Clemency Canning." What the frenzy in India was and into what jeopardy it brought the honour of the Imperial country may be learned from the letters of the good Lord Elgin 1 and from those of Russell 2 to the Times. One Commander proposed impalement. In England also frenzy reigned, and horrible were the yellings of literary eunuchs displaying their virility by cries for blood. Philanthropy itself in the person of Lord Shaftesbury 3 was carried away so far as to coun- tenance stories of the mutilation of Englishmen by the rebels, which, after bringing on a storm of vengeful fury, proved unfounded. We had a terrible lesson on the moral perils of the Empire. Lord Dalhousie's government of India and his State I 1 James, the eighth Earl.] . Vf.&., [ 2 Alexander Russell, journalist. 1814-1876.] \ [* Anthony Ashley Cooper, eighth Earl.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 205 Papers relating to it were another proof of Peel's suc- cess in forming administrators. This may be said without raising any question as to his Indian policy. His name as a member of the British Parliament is connected with what has always seemed to me the weakest point in Peel's career, the abandonment, on the eve of the railway-mania, of the policy of control over the construction of railways which Lord Dalhousie had earnestly recommended and afterwards applied, as Governor-General, to the railway system of India. Peel's extreme unwillingness to interfere with the opera- tions of trade and commercial enterprise was a fault on the right side, but it was a fault. Graham, 1 as well as Cardwell, always seemed to me a striking instance of the weakness of the system which inseparably connects the duty of an administrator with that of a legislator on organic questions. As an admin- istrator he was first-rate. At the beginning of the Crimean War he got the navy with wonderful rapidity into first-rate order. He was also excellent as a speaker, both in force and clearness. On the organic questions with regard to the greatest of which he had played leading parts as a member of the Grey Government, he seemed to trim and to be playing a game of his own. But Parker's Life 2 of him apparently shows that the apparent trimming was really an honest avoidance of [ l Sir James Graham, second Baronet, of Netherby.] [ 2 " Life and Letters of Sir James Graham second Baronet of Netherby, P.C., G.C.B." 1792-1861. By Charles Stuart Parker. 2 vols. London : Murray. 1907.] 206 REMINISCENCES doubtful combinations at the expense of his personal ambition. Graham's reputation and influence were so high that it was said he could command fifty votes in the House of Commons, and his foot was on the steps of power when he died and in a moment was forgotten. Of Lord Aberdeen personally I saw nothing. But from what his associates said in private, as well as from his public conduct, I learned to feel the greatest respect for him. It seemed to me that with him for Foreign Minister England presented herself to other govern- ments as an English gentleman presents himself to his fellows, upright and honourable in all his dealings, careful to maintain his own rights and dignity, and equally careful to respect those of other people. No- body ever suspected Lord Aberdeen of trickery, of intrigue, or deception of any kind. His despatches bear the marks of perfect straightforwardness and truth. Though Conservative in diplomacy, he was not illiberal; he declared for the repeal of the Corn Laws before any of his colleagues, and he never refused his assent to any measure of domestic reform. He it was who, sitting at Wellington's side when the Duke made his fatal declaration against any reform of Par- liament, told him that he had undone the party. On the other hand, he was anti-revolutionary, and never conspired or caballed for propagandist objects against the Governments with which he had to deal. He kept for his country all her friends, and never made her an CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 207 enemy. On the Neapolitan question we should have liked him to be less discreet. Of Lord Russell, 1 better known in history as Lord John Russell, I saw most towards the end of his life, when he was living at Richmond, and my wife and I were spending a summer on the Terrace. I then conversed a good deal with him. He had a vast his- toric name as the mover of the Reform Bill of 1832 and the veteran leader of the Whig party in Parlia- ment. But I never could think him very great. He was the reverse of Peel; not being a first-rate admin- istrator, he was prone to recruit his popularity by appeals to the desire of organic change. It is difficult not to believe that this propensity was working in him when after his explicit declaration of finality he declared for fresh extensions of the suffrage, and wept with mortification upon being forced to drop his Bill. He professed a belief in the elevating and purifying in- fluence of responsibility on the political character and conduct of the people, in which perhaps he may have been sincere. He was not magnanimous. Nothing could justify or excuse his coalition with the Protection- ists to turn out Peel, nominally on the question of the Irish Coercion Bill, really on that of Protection, when he had himself acknowledged the necessity for the Bill and had committed himself to free trade. Holding office in the Coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, he P First Earl Russell ; third son of John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford. 1792-1878.] 208 REMINISCENCES was too sensible of the sacrifice which he had made, and wanting in hearty loyalty to his chief. His deser- tion of his colleagues when Roebuck * gave notice of a motion of censure, proved, as was said at the time, that he had not been at a Public School. Nor was much greatness of mind or exalted patriotism shown by his eagerness to embarrass and trip up Peel in the Corn Law crisis of 1846. Still, he played a great part with ability, and as a party leader in the House of Commons had shown consummate skill. Of the speakers he had heard he thought the three best were Plunket, 2 Can- ning, and Peel. Plunket, if I remember rightly, he thought the most persuasive ; Canning the most charm- ing; Peel the most formidable in debate. He was him- self by no means a first-rate speaker, though in his speeches there was almost always something above the common mark. I saw something of Lord Granville, 3 a thoroughly diplomatic personage, most graceful and engaging. "Puss," he was nicknamed from his gentleness. But when he was stirred, as he was when Derby and Disraeli put a spy at his door to watch his communications with the Peelites, it was found that "Puss had claws." The Foreign Office seems to be regarded rather as a sphere apart, the holder of which is not bound thoroughly P John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. for Bath. 1801-1879.] P William Conyngham Plunket, first Baron Plunket, Lord Chan- cellor of Ireland. 1764-1854.] P Granville George Leveson-Gower, second Earl of Granville. 1815-1891.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 209 to share the general policy of the Government, but only to preserve the outward unity of the Cabinet by his vote. Lord Rosebery 1 evidently was not a Home Ruler when he gave a regulation vote for Gladstone's measure of Home Rule. 2 I can hardly believe that Lord Granville heartily concurred in Gladstone's Irish policy, though he retained the Foreign Office under Gladstone. Sitting beside him at dinner and talking to him about politics, I was struck by the con- servatism of his tone. Grandees covet the office which brings them into the grand circle of Europe. Among my London associates was Godley, the founder of Canterbury in New Zealand, a notable man in his way. As a model colony and a High Church Utopia, Canterbury failed, as all model colonies do; as did afterwards the model colony in Tennessee, in which Thomas Hughes 3 embarked. The colonist who has come out only to better himself materially does not share the enthusiasm for the ideal. But the settlers brought out by Godley to Canterbury, being of a respectable and religious class, were, like the Puritan colonists, a good moral foundation. Neither Godley nor Sir Frederic Rogers nor any of the authorities on colonization with whom I used to converse in those days had the slightest tincture of the t 1 Archibald Philip Primrose, fifth Earl of Rosebery.] [ 2 September the 8th, 1893, when the House of Lords defeated, by 419 to 41, Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill.] [ 3 County Court Judge, author of "Tom Brown's School Days." 1822-1896.] 210 REMINISCENCES Imperialism which we are now called upon, on pain of being damned as "Little Englanders," to embrace. All looked forward to colonial independence, and re- garded England as the destined mother of free nations. I believe I am right also in thinking that some even of the most Conservative regarded the ultimate union of Canada with the rest of her continent as probable if not certain. These men were not less regardful and proud of the grandeur of their country, though more modest in their aims for her, than are members of Imperial Leagues. They thought that the greatness and power of England were not in her dependencies, but in herself. They also felt the value of insular security and the weakness of an Empire open to attack in all parts of the globe. It is with pleasure that I find among my correspon- dence a letter from Joseph Chamberlain l deprecating my opposition to his scheme of planting in each of the cities a Radical Caucus to control the representation which would have been his tool. He was then in his extreme Radical phase, threatening to make property pay a ransom for its existence. I saw the man's whole career. It was that of a political gambler laying his stakes, now on Rouge, now on Noir. He was taken into Gladstone's Government to please the Radical wing of the party, and intrigued against his chief, working up outside the Cabinet a party for himself, [ l The Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. for Birming- ham since 1885 ; Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1895-1903.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 211 and drawing from Gladstone, as Labouchere told us in Truth, about the bitterest words that ever fell from Mr. Gladstone's lips ; at that time, Gladstone, being still Unionist, Chamberlain for Home Rule and in its extreme form/ that of federation. If Wemyss Reid's state- ment' 1 regarding the ownership of the Pall Matt Ga- zette is true, Chamberlain must have been attacking his colleague in the Government, Forster, from behind, when Forster was struggling with insurrection in Ire- land. When Gladstone was talking Home Rule, Chamberlain turned against it, and without apology or explanation went over to the Conservative camp, became a Jingo, presently took office under the high Tory and Imperialist, Lord Salisbury, 2 and drew the country into the Boer War. 3 His next move was a repetition against Balfour of the manoeuvre practised against Gladstone. After getting rid by a trick of the free-trade members of the Cabinet, Chamberlain went out of it, leaving his son to work as his confederate in it, got up a Protectionist movement of his own, captured the party organization and press, meaning when this was done to press a dissolution and drive Balfour on the rocks. This he did. But the vessel was driven on the rocks too hard. To Chamberlain was due the Boer P See "Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid, 1842-1885." Edited, with an Introduction, by Stuart J. Reid. London : Cassell. 1905. Chapter XV.] [ 2 He was Colonial Secretary in Lord Salisbury's Coalition Min- istry of June, 1895.] [ 3 October, 1899.] 212 REMINISCENCES War, the consequences of which, after seeing them on the spot, led him to cover them by an agitation for Tariff Reform, as he and his followers call Protection. Another public man with whom I was brought into connection, though more by correspondence than per- sonally, was Earl Grey, 1 with whose moderate Liberal- ism in politics I sympathized. Macaulay spoke very harshly of him because his refusal to form a Govern- ment of which Palmerston, the universal disturber, was to be Foreign Minister formed the ostensible cause of Russell's failure to form a Government upon Peel's resignation in 1846. Lord Grey's temper may not have been very compliant; but he was a thoroughly upright statesman and if he or any one minded as he was could have held the helm, all would have gone on pretty well. We corresponded a good deal, and he was a very old man when I received from him a letter in thirty quarto pages on the political situation. P The third Earl Grey. 1802-1894.] CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 213 NOTE BY THE EDITOR I append here Disraeli's letter to Peel alluded to on page 177; also parts of the speeches of Peel and Disraeli made in the House of Commons when this letter was referred to by the first-named. "GROSVENOB GATE, Sept. 5, 1841. "DEAR SIR ROBERT, "I have shrunk from obtruding myself upon you at this moment, and should have continued to do so if there were any one on whom I could rely to express my feelings. " I am not going to trouble you with claims similar to those with which you must be wearied. I will not say that I have fought since 1834 four contests for your party, that I have expended great sums, have exerted my intelligence to the utmost for the propagation of your policy, and have that position in life which can command a costly seat. "But there is one peculiarity in my case on which I cannot be silent. I have had to struggle against a storm of political hate and malice which few men ever experienced, from the moment, at the instigation of a member of your Cabinet, I enrolled myself under your banner, and I have only been sustained under these trials by the conviction that the day would come when the foremost man of this country would publicly testify that he had some respect for my ability and my character. "I confess, to be unrecognized at this moment by you appears to me to be overwhelming, and I appeal to your own heart to that justice and that magnanimity which I feel are your characteristics to save me from an intolerable humiliation. "Believe me, dear Sir Robert, "Your faithful servant, "B. DISRAELI." (Parker's "Life of Peel," Vol. II, page 486.) Peel's Speech: "Sir, I will only say of that hon. gentleman that if he, after reviewing the whole of my public life a life extending over thirty years previously to my accession to office in 1841 if he then enter- tained the opinion of me which he now professes ; if he thought I 214 REMINISCENCES was guilty of these petty larcenies from Mr. Horner and others, it is a little surprising that in the spring of 1841, after his long expe- rience of my public career, he should have been prepared to give me his confidence. It is still more surprising that he should have been ready, as I think he was, to unite his fortunes with mine in office, thus implying the strongest proof which any public man can give of confidence in the honour and integrity of a Minister of the Crown." Hansard, 3 S. Ixxxvi, 689. Disraeli's Speech : "I never shall it is totally foreign to my nature make an application for any place. But in 1841, when the Government was formed I am sorry to touch upon such a matter, but insinuations have been made by paragraphs in the newspapers, and now by charges in this House I have never adverted to the subject, but when these charges are made, I must. In 1841, when the Govern- ment was formed, an individual possessing, as I believe him to possess, the most intimate and complete confidence of the right hon. gentleman, called on me and communicated with m'e. There was certainly some conversation I have certainly never adverted to these circumstances, and should not now unless compelled, be- cause they were under a seal of secrecy confided in me there was some communication, not at all of that nature which the House perhaps supposes, between the right hon. gentleman and me, but of the most amicable kind. I can only say this It was a transaction not originated by me, but which any gentleman, I care not how high his honour or spirit, might entertain to-morrow." Hansard, 3 S. Ixxxvi, 707-708. CHAPTER XIII THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL Objects of the School Peace Policy Anti-Imperialism Bright and Cobden Socialism Property The Irish Question. THE members of the Manchester School, or most of them, are in their graves. The youngest survivors must be seventy. The other day I was reading the obituary of my old friend Sir James Stansfield 1 and thinking that I must be about the last left of my circle, when I received an engraving of the portrait of Sir Thomas Bazley, 2 a leader of the Manchester School. In thanking him I said how much pleasure it gave me to know that there were two of us still alive. I re- ceived an answer from his son, saying that it was he that had sent the portrait, that his own age was seventy, and that his father, my friend, if he were alive, would be one hundred and two. The object of the School was economical. Imperial- ism and Militarism it opposed on economical grounds as enemies to trade and frugality. It had nothing to do with Socialism, but on the contrary was always for the liberty to which Socialism would put an end. For [ 1820-1898. Held various high political posts ; M.P. for Hali- fax ; Under-Secretary of State for India ; etc.] [ 2 1797-1885. Cotton manufacturer and politician.] 215 216 REMINISCENCES peace and reduction of armaments it pleaded as a whole on economical, its leaders on philanthropic, grounds. 1 "School " and not "Party " is the right term. The circle never was formed into a party, never put forth a general programme, had not even recognized leaders, though it looked up to Bright and Cobden. Its only organization was the Anti-Corn-Law League, 2 in which it had its origin, and which brought its chiefs to the front. No doubt, on the part of the manufacturers who formed the League, self-interest was strong. Some of them, when they had gained their commercial object, or, as Cobden said with his usual simplicity, when "their gross, pocket question was settled," fell away politically, and even became Tories. The senti- ment of class, manufacturer against squire, also made itself felt. Unhappily, without gross pocket questions or sectional sentiment, you will not often find a suffi- cient motive power; and it was by self-interest on the part of a Parliament of landowners that the Corn Law had been imposed. That Free Trade has not made the progress in the world which at the moment of victory its English cham- pions hoped and predicted, is true; yet the mockery with which the prophets are assailed is unjust. What has arrested the progress of Free Trade? Not change of conviction, but the political power of sinister inter- [ l What follows, down to page 237, appeared in the Contemporary Review, March, 1895, Volume LXVII, pages 377-388.] [ 2 Founded in January, 1839. It was dissolved July 2, 1846.] THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 217 ests, international antipathies, cultivated for the pur- poses of Protection, and, above all, the necessity of tax- ation created by bloated armaments, for the existence of which Manchester peace-mongers assuredly have not to answer. The Protectionist tariff of the United States itself was a war-tariff. While Protectionism L/j reigned in American legislation, almost all the pro- fessors of political economy in the American Univer- sities, and the writers on economy generally, were on the side of Free Trade. To the taunt that the world had not continued to move in the direction of Cobden's policy, Free Trade and peace, Cobden could reply, so much the worse for the world. He could not help the revival of the war spirit, nor in 1850 could he well have foreseen it. Pitt's economical calculations were suddenly wrecked by the French Revolution. It was to the United States that Cobden looked with special hope, and there all was changed by the War of Secession. That Cobden was not free from the enthusiasm of his convictions, and that he overrated the power of his economic talisman, has already been admitted. The League having done its work, and the bond which it created having come to an end, there remained the school of political thought which it had formed. There was plenty of room in that school for differences of opinion on particular questions, and for varieties of degree in the application of the general principles which were held in common. "To try to square the policy 218 REMINISCENCES of the country with the maxims of common sense and of a plain morality " was Bright's description of his own aim, and it was the general aim of his school. Peace-mongers, Quakers, and Little Englanders were epithets freely bestowed on us by the Jingoes. If anybody can persuade himself that a Europe armed to the teeth and consuming a large part of its earnings in preparation for war is a blessing, he may call us any names he pleases. We did not preach defencelessness, or tame submission to wrong. Cobden said that in a just war, though he could not serve in the field, he would serve in the hospital. Bright was a Quaker, but he had tacitly dropped the extreme sentiments as well as the garb and dialect of his community, and never, I believe, in his later years, said anything against national defence. He was a member of a Government which had the army and navy in its charge, though he never administered, and would no doubt have refused to administer, a War Department. That he would have been extreme in his peace policy I do not doubt. But surely, for an industrial people dependent on trade for its daily bread, if not for a warlike aris- tocracy, his was the right extreme. The School stead- fastly opposed Palmerston with his Civis Romanus sum and his Russian and Chinese wars. On the question of the war with China he beat us, and unseated our chiefs in a general election by an appeal to what he called the honour of the country. Let Palmerston's admirers read the letters of his own envoy to China, THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 219 Lord Elgin, in Walrond's excellent Life, 1 and say by whom the real honour of the country was best upheld. For nothing was the Manchester School more denounced than for its steady opposition to what was supposed to be the patriotic policy of perennial enmity to Russia and of propping up the Turkish Empire in Europe. What now remains of the fruits of the Crimean War but the Crimean graves, and to what has Turkish Em- pire come? Another example is that of the Boer War, which the Manchester School would assuredly have opposed, as a great Manchester journal most gallantly did oppose, and the only fruit of which was the loss of two hundred and fifty millions of money and a far worse loss of honour, xi-t) ***~ft^ A^fe**# t4r+4' It was always possible, as I can bear witness, to belong to the Manchester School, and at the same time to regard the British army and navy with the heartiest attachment and their achievements with the liveliest pride; though it was not possible for any one belong- ing to the Manchester School to join in the Jingo choruses of the music-halls, or to forget the responsi- bility that rests on every civilian who incites to war. On this subject there were different shades of sentiment among us. Some of us thought, and, as the event [ l " Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, Governor of Jamaica, Governor-General of Canada, Envoy to China, Viceroy of India." Edited by Theodore Walrond, C.B. With a Preface by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. London: Murray. 1872.] 220 REMINISCENCES proved, with reason, that Bright and Cobden were too much inclined to rely on the good faith of the French Emperor * and to deride the necessity of pre- parations against his restlessness, his necessities, and the schemes to which his necessities gave birth. The extravagances of the panic-mongers had driven them to the opposite extreme. They also, perhaps, gave the Emperor credit for better motives than those which really actuated him in making the commercial treaty. They did wrong, as some of their followers thought and think, in discouraging the volunteer movement. They, however, did not quarrel with those among their friends who like myself enlisted as volunteers. That the real occasions for war are very few, and that instead of courting and provoking it, every effort ought to be made to avert it and to keep its spirit under control were, it is to be believed, the only necessary articles of the Manchester creed in relation to this subject. For these we must answer at the tribunal of history if we ever have the honour to come before it. The question between intervention and non-inter- vention, again, was one on which, though our general principle was non-intervention, we recognized no hard- and-fast line. To meddling with the domestic affairs or institutions of other nations we were generally op- posed. There would probably have been difference of opinion as to intervention in favour of Italian inde- pendence. Garibaldi, however, had passionate ad- [ Napoleon III.] THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 221 mirers and supporters in the personal circle of Bright and Cobden. I do not think that any of us denied that there was a community of nations, or that a right and clear cause must be upheld and wrong put down. Again, during the War of Secession in the United States, at Manchester was the centre of opposition to sympathy and alliance with the slave power. For this, too, we were denounced as negrophilists, enemies to British interests, and patriots of every country but our own. Those reproaches have sunk in silence. We saw the party of alliance with the slave power go into an inner chamber to hide itself, and almost cringe to the victorious Republic. Just now * the particular cry against the School and its memory is that we were anti-colonial and wanted to get rid of the colonies, a base design in which we are triumphantly told we have failed, after being tantalized by a near approach to success. To get rid of the colonies, as it would be highly criminal, is happily impossible, the relation between the Mother-country and a colony being one which can never be annulled. A colony need not be a dependency, nor have the most successful colonies been dependent. The tie between Greek Mother-country and colony was strong though purely parental. To promote colonial independence was our aim, and a great step towards it was made by the completion of colonial self-government and the with- drawal of the troops. By the withdrawal of the troops [* This was written about January, 1895.] 222 REMINISCENCES the British taxpayer obtained relief from the expendi- ture on Maori and Kaffir wars which had cost many millions, and would probably have continued so long as the colonists had British troops at their command. The colonists gained not less in humanity and in self- reliance. By neither measure is it now contended that the colonies have suffered, or that the mutual affection of the Mother-country and the colonies has been impaired, much as was said against both at the tune. Imperial Federationists are now trying to reverse the Manchester policy. But they have not yet achieved any practical success. We never wished to make England little. We believed that her greatness was in herself, and was only impaired by the dissipation of her forces, and her exposure, through her dependen- cies, to attack in every quarter of the globe. The England of Cromwell was not little. If, in regard to Imperial and foreign policy generally, the Manchester School has been in favour of neutrality, moderation, and justice, rather than of meddling, bullying, and aggression, surely there is in this nothing that need grate on a patriotic ear. Scrupulous regard for the rights and for the honour of others, while you manfully maintain your own, is the rule of an English gentleman's conduct in private life, and it never entails loss of dignity, seldom loss of anything else. Review the diplomatic and Imperial history of England in this light, and say which of the two policies has been that of her best rulers, and by which of the two most THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 223 has been gained or lost. Is it possible that quarrel- someness and aggressiveness should be the true policy of a country with a world-wide commerce, with depend- encies open to attack in every part of the world, and dependent on the importation of raw materials ? Then, the Manchester men were unsentimental. They were " cotton-spinners " and "bagmen," with the gross and sordid notions of their trade. It was not likely that, owing its origin to a commercial question, and having its seat in a manufacturing centre, the School would be particularly poetic. On some occa- sions, as in the struggle against slavery, the culture of the country was almost all on the other side. No doubt the school had the defects of its qualities and the exaggerations of its principles. But if Bright and Cobden directed their political efforts to the promotion of material welfare, it was not because they were in- capable of appreciating spiritual things, or set material things above them, but because they thought that the material welfare of the people was the special object of government. Cobden said that he valued religious equality more than commercial freedom. One can only smile at the idea that there was less of sentiment in Bright or Cobden than in a Tory squire or colonel. In both of them there was rather more. Bright adored Milton, and read poetry, as well as the Bible, better than any other man I ever heard: nor could any man talk with more interest on high subjects. Cobden was a reader of Burke, Spenser, and Cervantes, as his 224 REMINISCENCES speeches and pamphlets show. He read Demosthenes in a translation. Bright's speeches are classic, and Cobden was a first-rate writer in a plain style. His heart was thoroughly open to beauty and to poetical impressions of every kind. When he was asked by a friend who was about to visit America whether Niagara was worth a special journey, his answer was: "There are two sublimities in Nature: one of rest, the other of motion; the sublimity in rest are the distant Alps, the sublimity of motion is Niagara." * Let it be remembered, too, that a sentiment, though different from that of war and aggrandizement, attaches to the prosperous industry which brings with it kindly feel- ings, self-respect, cheerful hearts, and happy homes. As to character, our belief was that if the people were prosperous they would be happy, and that if they were happy they would as.ja.iule be good. We of the Manchester School were, or flattered our- selves that we were, thorough going reformers in a prac- tical way. Bright stood aloof from the two aristocratic parties, and compared them to two trading establish- ments which pretended to be rivals, and courted custom by running each other down till each became bankrupt, when it turned out that both were the same concern. We looked forward to the elimination of the hereditary principle from legislation. We also looked forward to the severance of the connection between Church and State, and all the more earnestly when the State clergy f 1 See also Chapter VI, page 89.] THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 225 preached war, or rang their church-bells on the acquittal of Governor Eyre ; 1 though opposition to a State Church was not opposition to religion, for both Bright and Cobden were religious men, and Cobden remained a member of the Church of England, saying that it had been the Church of his mother. It seems that events have not condemned us, and it would have been better to have considered betimes the expediency of changes for contemplating which we were called revolutionists. Revolutionists we never were, nor can any revolution- ary party claim the allegiance of any of the survivors of us. To make the past slide quietly into the future was Bright's conception of statesmanship, as expressed by himself. Peel, as the Minister of practical reform, had our strong sympathy. In a memorable letter, Cobden tendered him not only sympathy, but support. Cobden, as may be gathered from Mr. Morley's Life of him, was rather indisposed to move in the line of organic change, and preferred to devote his energies to economic improvement. On looking back, I think it must be owned that we were somewhat too trustful of the political intelligence of the masses, and too ready to concur in the sweeping extension of the suffrage. For this, perhaps, more than for anything else, we may have to fear the verdict of posterity. Not from us, however, but from Lord John Russell and the Whigs came the first proposal to disturb the settlement of 1832. In Cobden's writings P See Chapter XX.] Q 226 REMINISCENCES will be found clear perception of the danger of popular ignorance and folly, loyalty to government by intelli- gence, and freedom from sympathy with anything like mob rule. The Chartists were enemies to the League. One of the School, at least, believes that he can truly say that he never addressed an audience of working-men on the subject without avowing his belief that the franchise was a trust, for which qualifications ought to be required. It must be remembered, too, that we were for a reform of the House of Lords, a measure then thought revolutionary, but which, if it could now be carried in an effective shape, might redress the balance of the Constitution. It must further be remembered that Bright and Cobden were sincere, and had no selfish or party end in view. They were not like the Whigs and Tories, who were bidding against each other for power by largesses of the suffrage. Their object was not to "dish " Whigs or Tories, but to set Parliament free from the landowning oligarchy, by which it was still dominated, and to bring it into unison with the interest of the whole nation. The Corn Law struggle unhappily took the shape of a war between two classes, the landowners and the mill- owners, which was waged with great bitterness on both sides, and certainly not with the least bitterness on the side of the landowners. I am not aware that either Bright or Cobden was a strenuous advocate of peasant- ownership, though they would gladly have seen the great estates of the present aristocracy broken up, and THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 227 an end put to the divorce of the people from the land. They could hardly fail to see that agricultural England was almost irreversibly organized on the principle of large farms. But they did, in the heat of conflict, make somewhat unmeasured attacks on the squire and the manorial system. There was no denying, however, that the condition of the peasantry in those days over large districts was very wretched and dis- creditable to their masters. Too symbolical of it was the pair of trousers belonging to a Dorsetshire peasant exhibited in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, which stood upright with grease and patches. The landlord's pretence that he was defending the labourer against Free Trade could not possibly be treated with respect. The weak point in the manorial system is that it de- pends on the willingness of a rich man to do unforced duty. In anything like a malignant and fanatical attack on the landed gentry as a class, or an attempt to use taxation as an instrument for their ruin, I do not believe that Bright or Cobden would for a moment have thought of taking part. To the character of our leaders I think we may point with reasonable pride. They had their failings, no doubt, but in the main they were actuated through their whole career, not by ambition or self-interest, but by a sincere belief that what they were doing was for the public good. There is something in this at least as noble as the vociferous patriotism which leads to the prizes of ambition. For Cobden a handsome 228 REMINISCENCES provision was made by generous friends, of whom Mr. Thomasson l of Bolton was the chief. He had left his business to give himself to the cause. Why was the tribute which he received from gratitude, and had amply earned, less honourable than the fortune which a member of the landed aristocracy inherits by birth? The same Tory Press which denounced Cobden as a mendicant charged Bright as a manufacturer with hard and rapacious treatment of his workmen; Bright said nothing, but the workmen came forward, and gave the accusers an answer which silenced them forever. I do not think that either Bright or Cobden looked very favourably on the trade unions. They were master manufacturers, and the unions, at Sheffield especially, showed their bad as well as their good side. My own convictions as well as my sympathies led me to fight for the unions, which seemed to me absolutely necessary if justice was to be done the artisan against the united phalanx of employers. I received some hard knocks in the fray. I stood with the heartiest satisfaction on the platform of Joseph Arch, who behaved unexceptionably, never giving a political turn or that of a social war to his movement. For the movement he had heart-rending cause in the wages of farm labour and the state of the rural poor. With the Socialists the Manchester School never had anything in common, except the most general desire P Thomas Thomasson, manufacturer and political economist. 1808-1876.] THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 229 to remove economical injustice and to promote the good of the whole people. Its motto, often repeated by Bright and Cobden, was " All constraint, Except what Wisdom lays on evil men, Is evil." It thought that man having, after centuries of struggle, shaken himself free from the paternal control of auto- crats or aristocracy, and got a chance of self-develop- ment, ought to be allowed to make what he could of that chance, and not thrust again under a despotic yoke, even though the despot, instead of being a king, might be a committee representing the trade unions. It regarded the general function of Government as that of protecting, not regulating, the conduct of life. "I would rather," said Cobden, "live in a country where this feeling in favour of individual freedom is jealously cherished than be without it in the enjoyment of all the principles of the French Constituent As- sembly." The principle was no doubt carried to excess in the attitude of some of the Manchester men towards factory legislation. Nor was their combat, in this case any more than in that of the Corn Laws, untainted by self-interest. On the other hand, the landowners, in pressing the Factory Acts, were certainly actuated in some measure by a desire to retaliate on the land- owners for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Brougham, who had no interest in manufactures, was, on principle, an opponent of the Factory Acts. We were, and the 230 REMINISCENCES survivors of us still are, for liberty. But liberty, in our conception, was not selfish and inhuman isolation. No one ever was a greater lover of liberty, or could have been less congenial to Socialists, than Bright's particular idol Milton, who deliberately sacrificed his eyesight to the public service. Self-help is mutual help, because, constituted and related as we are, we all, at every moment of our lives, stand in need of each other's aid; whereas, under a paternal Government, be it that of an ordinary despot or of a Socialist com- mittee, each man will look more to the Government and less to his fellows. What does Individualism, against which there is now such an outcry, mean? Does it mean self-exertion and self-reliance, or does it mean selfish isolation? If the latter, I repeat, it was never preached by the Manchester School. Freedom does not preclude voluntary association, which may co-exist with it to any extent; whereas, under the Socialistic system, voluntary association would be no more. There would be an end, too, apparently, of private beneficence. Some Socialists seem to go as far as the abolition of domestic ties. In Bellamy's Utopia * no child is to be dependent on parental care. As to the limits of government, I am not aware that the Man- chester School ever attempted exactly to fix them. They must be fixed largely by circumstances, and by the stage of social progress at which any community [ l " Looking Backward." Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1890.1 THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 231 has arrived. The paternal meddling of Peter the Great may not have been so bad for the Russia of his time, nor may that of the Jesuit have been so bad for Paraguay. What services Government should under- take, whether it should own the railways as well as the highroads, and the telegraph as well as the post; whether it should build in private yards or in yards of its own, is not a question of principle; nor am I aware that the Manchester School ever enunciated any dogma on the subject. It is in the hands of offi- cials, let us remember, not in those of the community at large, with its collective wisdom, that, under the Socialist dispensation, we should be. A system of State education, which Cobden, by the way, favoured, is in the charge of the Minister of Education and his bureaucratic subordinates. However, let Government do that which the citizen cannot do for himself with the aid of voluntary association, and let it protect all who cannot protect themselves. To say this, one need not be a Socialist. No man of sense will object to good sanitary regulations or to the adoption of the necessary means of enforcing them, any more than he will rejoice in the extension of official interference for its own sake, or in the growth of an army of inspectors. Nor does even a limitation of the hours of adult labour, as a measure of public health, whether it be wise or unwise, violate the general principle of freedom of contract, or answer to the aspirations of the Socialist who wishes to put the State in the place of the capitalist, and make 232 REMINISCENCES it the employer of labour. But when we are told that an entity called the State has rights transcending those of the individual citizen, and that it is the State's duty to regulate our industries and lives, the answer is that the State, if it means anything but the Govern- ment, is a mere abstraction, which can have no rights or duties of any kind. In property, again, the Manchester School, like everybody but Proudhon in those days, believed. We believed in it as the only known motive power of pro- duction, and at the same time the foundation of domes- tic life. We wished to do away with such a privilege as the power of entail ; but we thought that all a man's honest earnings, whether great or small, were his own, and that this, being the only incentive to earning and saving, was for the good of the community as well as for that of the individual man, unless a race of men could be found willing to work, not for themselves and their families, but for the community at large. We should have gone heartily with any one who sought to regulate taxation so that as little of the burden as possible should fall upon the poor; though we should not have gone with any one who wished to use the tax- ing power for the purpose of demagogic confiscation. We were never, I believe, for the spoliation of the few by the many, any more than for that of the many by the few. By Cobden, in his controversy with Delane, 1 anything like agrarian rapine was indignantly dis- I 1 John Thadeus Delane, editor of The Times. This was in 1863.] THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 233 claimed. Peace and economy, we hoped, would afford fiscal relief to all, and especially to the working-classes ; while the increase of wages, arising from Free Trade and its consequences, was at any rate a larger measure of upward levelling than any which Socialism with its ateliers nationaux has yet achieved. The hopes of the Manchester School were limited to gradual improvement. The last millennium in his- tory, which was that of French fraternity, had covered the century with its wreck. It may be that a new era is now opening, and that the social organism is at last to be, not improved only, but transformed. Socialists, however, have not yet told us what their scheme of a reconstituted society is, or how they propose to put it in execution. They must bear in mind that for the construction of the new edifice they have only those human materials which they have already condemned as full of prejudice, selfishness, and the evil traditions of property and competition. At present, we have nothing before us but most general principles or senti- ments, sometimes embodied in Utopian visions of fic- titious characters who wake from a magic sleep or pass through some fissure of the earth into a social and material paradise free from cupidity, from competition, from pecuniary transactions, and almost from disease and death. Meanwhile, the wage-earning classes through Europe, the mechanics especially, are imbibing and proceeding to act upon a very practical Socialism of their own. They are learning that instead of im- 234 REMINISCENCES proving their lot by frugality, temperance, and faithful industry, it will be easier and more pleasant to use their political power in transferring the property of the other classes to themselves. In almost all countries governed by popular vote a reign of legislative confis- cation seems to be setting in, and demagogues are beginning to vie with each other in the purchase of votes by largesses of public money that is, the money of all except the politically favoured class. Labour is in danger of being demoralized, and unless the owners of property are willing to be plundered without limit, they will presently turn to bay, and there will be social war, in which the victory of the demagogues and masses is not assured. If the trans- formation of society is to take place through the rival action of political parties bidding against each other for power, the crash is not far off. I cannot help, in conclusion, protesting that nothing can be more unjust than to charge Bright and his associates with apostasy because they refused to turn round with Mr. Gladstone on the Irish Question. They had all along been hearty friends to justice for Ireland, heartier friends, if practical effort is to be the measure, than the Irish Members of Parliament themselves. They had strenuously pleaded for the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland, for the reform of the Irish land system, for the payment of the tenants for improvements, for the abolition of primogeniture, for every righteous measure that could help the people THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 235 to the possession of land, though not for the subversion of the faith of contracts, or for the spoliation of pro- prietors. They had done this long before the conver- sion of Mr. Gladstone to the policy which he himself denounced as that of " dismemberment and rapine." They had always been favourable in a general way to the extension of local self-government. But not one of them, I believe, had ever committed himself to Home Rule or disunion in any form. Cobden shrank from alliance, almost from contact, with O'Connell, and in answer to the advocates of Repeal, said that the real source of evil was in the character of the Irish Members of Parliament, which he thought would not be improved by transferring them from Westminster to Dublin. I was myself supposed at the time to have truly reflected the sentiments of my friends in a work on "Irish History and Irish Character." 1 Much of the historical part of that book has required and undergone modification in the light of subsequent research. But in its practical conclusions it is Unionist and as much opposed to Mr. Gladstone's measure of Home Rule as anything I could write now. A man must surely be steeped in party spirit if he can persuade himself that we were all bound at Mr. Gladstone's bidding to change in a day the opinions of our lives, not only about Irish policy, but about Irish history, and to join him in de- nouncing as a monstrous crime what he himself lauded P" Irish History and Irish Character." By Goldwin Smith. Oxford and London : J. H. and Jas. Parker. 1862.] 236 REMINISCENCES as the great work of Pitt. Was it supposed that we could shut our eyes to the circumstances under which Mr. Gladstone's sudden conversion to Home Rule took place ? Were we bound to go with him in reviving the hideous memories and rekindling the hateful pas- sions of a war of Irish races, in setting the masses against the classes, and ignorance against intelligence, in reviv- ing dead jealousies and antipathies among the different sections of the United Kingdom all for the purpose of forcing on the nation a policy in which we had never believed, and which the nation, if the issue could be clearly tendered to it, free from irrelevant subjects of agitation, would manifestly condemn? We had never bound ourselves to Mr. Gladstone's leadership. We rejoiced, of course, when he gradually came over to us and carried Liberal measures, such as University Re- form and Irish Disestablishment, which he had once opposed. We rejoiced when the most distinguished member of the Government which made the Crimean War, not only abandoned, but denounced, Protectorate of Turkey. On the British question of Free Trade Mr. Gladstone was always with us, and we knew how to value his support. Still, there were points of dif- ference. Mr. Gladstone seemed to be unchangeably committed to the principle of English Church Establish- ment. He seemed also strongly attached to hereditary- institutions, and we hardly knew of which party he would have become the leader if Disraeli had been out of the way. Bright left Mr. Gladstone's Government THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 237 on the Egyptian Question, and, as I have said, I know that he felt strongly about it, though he was too chiv- alrous to attack in public the Government of which he had been a member. Our chiefs had preserved perfect independence, and when we went with the sur- vivor of them on the Irish Question, we were being true to personal connection as well as to public principles. Society, as was said before, may be at the opening of a new era and on the eve of a complete reconstruction. Even in that case it may be hoped that the champions of Free Trade, retrenchment, religious equality, peace, and "a government squared to the maxims of common sense and a plain morality," will be held to have done not badly in their brief day. How it will fare with our belief in liberty and property remains to be seen. If coercion and confiscation gain the day and make the world happy, our principles will lie forever in the grave of extinct superstitions. Otherwise, Resurgemus. CHAPTER XIV BRIGHT AND COBDEN Bright's Oratory Cobden His politics Peel Disraeli Peel as a Party Leader. LIBERALISM colonial, economical, an general had early connected me with Bright and Cobden; but the tie was rendered much closer by sympathy and joint action at the time of the war in America between North and South. Few would hesitate to give John Bright the foremost place among the British orators of his day. The ques- tion whether his speeches were prepared has been de- bated. But there can be no doubt upon the point. I have stood by him when he was speaking and seen the little sheaf of notepapers on each of which probably his sentence or his catchword was written and which dropped into his hat as he went on. Nobody can speak literature ex tempore, and Bright's great speeches are literature, first-rate of its kind. He was, however, by no means without the power of speaking ex tempore. I have known him when called on unexpectedly respond very well. If he was interrupted by an opponent in his speech, he was ready with his retort. He told me that when he was to speak at the unveiling of Cobden's 238 BRIGHT AND COBDEN 239 Statue at Bradford he had been greatly at a loss as to what he should say ; but the happy thought had come to him one morning while he was dressing. He had begun as a temperance lecturer with a single address. He had no doubt formed his style on the Bible, which I never heard read so well as when I heard him read it to his household. His delivery was calm and impressive, witKouf gesticulation or appearance of oratorical pas- sion. His enunciation was perfectly distinct, and he thus without straining his voice made himself heard in the largest hall. He confessed to me that after all his practice and success he never got over his nervousness. At Bradford, where his audience was more than friendly, he told me that his knees shook under him when he rose to speak. An orator, however perfect in his art, can hardly be impressive without weight and dignity of character. These John Bright had in a high degree. Nobody could doubt his sincerity or the depth of his convictions. Though he was combative and they caricatured him as the fighting Quaker, he never lost his balance. He gave remarkable proofs of greatness of mind. He long bore in silence slanderous reports about his treatment of his work-people, and when the denial came it was not from him, but from the work-people themselves. When he was opposing the Crimean War and I told him in jest that his life was threatened by the Jingoes, his reply was that a man might come to a worse end. Nor did he ever betray selfish ambition or pique. When he 240 REMINISCENCES left Gladstone's Ministry on account of its invasion of Egypt, 1 though in private he spoke very warmly on the subject, he was too chivalrous to say in public anything which could embarrass his late colleagues. Oratory was his sphere. For business he had not much aptitude. I understood that as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster he was very little at his office. In truth, I should think that he was by nature rather indolent and required strong stimulus, such as the Corn Law agitation, to make him put forth his powers. In his face there is a certain likeness to Pym. Butln Pym's face you see the man of action ; in that of Bright iBjMia-r^^i rrmarm ra"n~^ - " -->*^--^- J ~ --^ |T |-^ T - n | rrir -- J - you did not. Bright probably did not read much beyond the mate- rials of his speeches. He was, however, fond of sono- rous poetry, and once read aloud to me with great gusto a sonorous passage from the "Epic of Hades." 2 Of Milton he was very fond, both on poetical and political grounds. He asked me whom I thought the greatest of Englishmen, and answered his own question by naming Milton, because Milton was so great at once as a man of letters and as a citizen. On his seventieth birthday, when his friends were sending him presents, I got a copy of the Baskerville "Milton" printed at Birmingham, for which Bright was then Member, and wrote his own words on the fly-leaf. He had doffed the Quaker dress and given up the Quaker dialect ; but if you had said anything disparag- f 1 In 1882.] [* By Lewis Morris.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 241 ing of Quakerism before him, you would soon have found that he had not renounced his faith. One of the last conversations which I had with him was about the religious difficulties of our time. He seemed to think that Quakerism or something like it was the true solution; and that we had_only to get rid of forms AU/" which interfered with the freedom of our spiritual life. Bright never was revolutionary or desirous of over- turning any Government which he believed would do justice to the people. It was the class character of the aristocratic and landlord Government that provoked his enmity. In the last years of his life when the com- mercial battle between the New England of the North and the Old England of the South was over, he softened very much towards old institutions, as old institutions did toward him. As he sat on my lawn at Oxford one summer afternoon when the music of bells was floating from the ancient city, I overheard him say, "It would be very pleasant to be eighteen and to be coming here." At a critical moment of the Home Rule agitation there was a dinner party of three at the house of Lord Selborne at which the Irish question was discussed. If Bright's opinion had not been fixed before, I think it was fixed then. What may safely be said is that he had the good of Ireland as much as that of England in view. His wisdom told him where it lay. He was utterly incapable of sacrificing justice or the real interest of any people to British or Imperial dominion. 242 REMINISCENCES 1 Cobden too, I had the happiness of knowing well, and I can bear witness to the truth of Mr. Morley's portrait of him. A man more transparently honest, more single-minded, more truthful, more entirely devoid of selfish ambition and of selfishness of every kind, more absolutely devoted to the service of his country and of humanity, never, I should think, ap- peared in public life. The persuasiveness of his elo- quence was simply the result of his character. In rhetoric he was not great. His kindness of heart, his charity, his candour, had remained unimpaired by all his battles. Wrong and oppression he hated with all his soul : but he had no enmities, any more than he had rivalries. His nature was entirely sweet and sound. He was no bagman, though his enemies called him so, and he freely called himself so in jest. He had not re- ceived a good education at school, but he had educated and not only educated, but cultivated his intellect in gratifying his boundless love of knowledge. He had explored and studied Europe, economical, social, and political, with a curious eye and a comprehensive mind. He was acute and exact in observing the connection of the different influences which form national character with each other, and was a true social philosopher, though without a formal system. His insight into political character and tendency was very keen. In 1849 he foresaw the Tory Suffrage Bill of 1867. p What follows, down to page 271, appeared in The Nineteenth Century for June, 1888.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 243 "May I predict that, if we should succeed to the extent above named, there would not be wanting shrewd mem- bers of the Tory aristocracy who would be found advocating universal suffrage to take their chance in an appeal to the ignorance and vice of the country against the opinions of the teetotallers, Nonconformists, and rational Radicals, who would constitute nine-tenths of our phalanx of forty-shilling freeholders." Nor was he without literary or even without classical inter- ests, notwithstanding his rather economical sayings about the scanty waters of the Ilissus, and the terri- torial insignificance of the scenes of Greek history. He would talk, and talk well, about Greek oratory and the Greek drama, which he had explored as well as he could through translations. He was apparently a little dis- appointed by the absence of passionate rhetoric in Demosthenes. Cobden's style is excellent for its pur- pose, which is that of the pamphleteer. Cobden's favourite poet was Cowper, who touched him morally. For poetry of the deeper and more philosophic kind, he probably did not much care. But he had an eye and a heart for nature. On the whole it may pretty safely be said, that among all those who affected scorn of Cobden's vulgarity and narrowness, there would prob- ably not have been found so rich or so comprehensive a mind. In a striking passage quoted by Mr. Morley, 1 Cobden P "Life of Richard Cobden." London: Chapman and Hall. 1881. Volume I, pages 200-202.] 244 REMINISCENCES says emphatically, that the basis of his own character was religious, that his sympathies were with religious men, and that it was his "reverence" that sustained him through the labours and struggles of his public life. I have no doubt that he spoke the truth. He was not in the least sectarian; he was a devout believer in phrenology, the crude precursor of scientific rational- ism; but he certainly was religious, and always felt that in bravely doing his duty, in upholding righteous- ness, in labouring for the good of his kind, he was in the hand of God. This man was not an un-English man, but, on the contrary, the truest and heartiest of patriots. Na- tional swagger he hated as well as national injustice; but the pages of his life show that he was as proud as any swaggerer of the high qualities and the great achievements of his countrymen, while he had a large- minded and generous appreciation of the special excel- lences and advantages of other nations. England, as represented by him, was a gentleman, and not a bully. He desired for his country the leadership of interna- tional morality, and he believed that her real interest was bound up with the interest of humanity; but he did not disregard her interest ; on the contrary, he always looked to it first, and never without distinct reference to it proposed any plan of cosmopolitan improvement. If he advocated and encouraged a friend to advocate colonial emancipation, it was not because either of them wished to deprive their country of anything that could BRIGHT AND COBDEN 245 bring her wealth or strength, but because both of them were convinced that these distant dependencies brought neither wealth nor strength, but, on the contrary, loss of money and weakness; that, in a military point of view, they entailed a forfeiture of the advantages of an insular position; and that the only bond which could permanently and usefully unite England to free colonies was the bond of the heart. He certainly looked forward to the ultimate junction of Canada with the United States, and the union of the whole English-speaking race on the American continent; but he expected this to take place with the consent of the Mother-country, and believed that it would be greatly to her advantage. Cobden had no sympathy with Repeal. His policy for Ireland was the abolition of the feudal land law, which fosters great estates and, in the case of Ireland, absenteeism. The feudal law ought indeed to have been abolished, by the abrogation of primogeniture and entail, before entering on a course of more violent and equivocal legislation. Mr. Kinglake says that Cobden and his great asso- ciate had no chance of getting a hearing when they strove to keep the peace with Russia, because, as they had declared against war in general, it was impossible that they should command attention when they spoke against any particular war. 1 Mr. Morley replies 2 with I 1 See "The Invasion of the Crimea : its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan." By Alexander William Kinglake. Volume I, pages 270 et seq. New York: Harper. 1880. Volume II, pages 69-71 of the English edition.] [ 2 "Life of Richard Cobden." Volume II, pages 157 et seq.] 246 REMINISCENCES truth that Cobden had not declared against war in gen- eral. But he had attended Peace Conferences, the ob- ject of which was to denounce all war. A demonstra- tion for or against a definite measure or course of policy, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws or the support of the Ottoman dominion, is often useful ; but a demon- stration in favour of a general principle always seems to commit, and usually does in fact commit, those who take part in it to an indiscriminate application. Cob- den's authority on questions of peace and war was weakened in this way. Hardly any mind can escape the bias of its history ; Cobden's had no doubt contracted a bias, and a serious one, from the Free Trade struggle. Absolutely free from any sordid sentiment, from any disposition to be- lieve that man lives by bread alone, from any conscious preference of material over moral and political con- sideration, he yet was inclined to overrate the be- neficent power of commercial influences, and conse- quently the value of commercial objects. This was seen at the beginning of the war between the free and slave States in America, when, though his heart was as thoroughly on the side of political and industrial free- dom as that of any human being could be, he was for a time prevented from raising his voice for the right, if not held in a wavering state of mind, by his strong feel- ing in favour of the Southerners as Free Traders; though he could hardly have helped knowing that with them, Free Trade was not an enlightened principle, but BRIGHT AND COBDEN 247 the necessity of a community incapable of manufactur- ing for itself. The same thing was seen again in the case of the French Treaty. Mr. Morley is mistaken in thinking that anybody objected to negotiating with the French Government on account of its character and origin; we were all ready to do business with Nero; though certainly, if there was a hand which Liberals might be excused for not wishing to take even in the course of business, it was that of Louis Napoleon. The objection which some of us felt was to abetting the Em- peror in an arbitrary use of his treaty-making power for the purpose of overriding, on a question of domestic policy, the well-known sentiments of his Legislature and his people. We thus, for a commercial object, became accomplices in Absolutist encroachment. There could be no mistake about the matter. The Emperor as- sured Cobden that the Legislative Body was irrecon- cilably hostile to every manner of Free Trade, and Cobden himself says that it would be impossible to assemble five hundred persons in France by any process of selection, and not find nine-tenths of them, at least, in favour of the restrictive system. An apprehension, which events too well justified, was felt that Free Trade itself would be tainted in the mind of the French people by association with the violence done by a high-handed stretch of power to national opinion. That the good effects even of commercial prosperity were neither unlimited nor unmixed, Cobden himself had reason to observe. Writing about the rejection of 248 REMINISCENCES Mr. Bright at Manchester, he ascribes "this display of snobbishness and ingratitude " to the great prosperity which Lancashire enjoys mainly through the efforts of Mr. Bright; and predicts that those vices and the political apostasy connected with them will go on in the north of England "so long as the exports continue to increase at the same rate." In another letter he says "the great prosperity of the country made Tories of us all ; " and accuses the middle class, which it was hoped could be independent, of having sunk into the most abject servility from the same cause. "I have never known a manufacturing representative put into a cocked-hat and breeches and ruffles, with a sword by his side, to make a speech for the Government, without hav- ing his head turned by the feathers and frippery ; gen- erally they give way to a paroxysm of snobbery, and go down on their bellies and throw dust on their heads, and fling dirt at the prominent men of their own order." Aristocracy here conspired with the vast growth of wealth which followed the repeal of the Corn Laws; but it cannot be said that the vast growth of wealth had a purely elevating influence in itself. Another fact might be cited in support of the same moral, though Cobden was himself unconscious of its import. The letter of the French Emperor declaring for Free Trade appeared upon a Sunday, and on the Tuesday following, as Mr. Morley following, we presume, the account given by Cobden tells us, at the great market at Manchester, which used to draw BRIGHT AND COBDEN 249 men from all parts of that thriving district, the French Emperor was everywhere hailed as the best man in Europe. He who had not only destroyed the liberties which he was set to guard, but had literally revelled in perjury and rioted in innocent blood, who was not only the greatest enemy of freedom, but the greatest felon in Europe, and who a few years before had been denounced by the universal voice of British morality, had in a moment, to the bribed understand- ings and consciences of all these respectable and reli- gious traders, become the best man in Europe because he had promised to add something to their gains ! It is due, however, to Cobden always to mark that he was a Free Trader indeed ; his heart was with those who proposed absolutely to abolish all import duties, and supply their place, so far as was necessary, by direct taxation. His desire and his hope were to make one commercial community of the whole human race. Thoroughly embracing the principle, he was entitled to reckon on the full effects of its application. In this he differed essentially from those who, calling themselves Free Traders, are in fact nothing of the kind, but merely advocates of a particular tariff, very wisely framed no doubt with reference to British industries and interests, but not necessarily suited to those of all the countries in the world. Peel I did not know; but I lived very much with those who knew him well. I have also had access to information of a documentary kind which helps to 250 REMINISCENCES explain some of the doubtful passages of his long and vexed career. When he fell from power, 1 1 was still at college, and, in common with most of the young Liber- als of the day, I looked up with ardent sympathy to the great statesman who, trying to rise above party and govern in the interest of the nation, was struck down by the blind resentment of a selfish faction and by the dagger of the political bravo. Peel and Cobden, after their long strife and final reconcilement, were in a way united in their burials. Peel lies, not in Westminster Abbey, but in his home ; Cobden lies in a country churchyard. Peel, by his will, specially forbade his son to accept a peerage on account of his father's services. Cobden was essentially a republican. There was a touch of something anti- aristocratic, if not . . . 2 Peel has been called the greatest Member of Parlia- ment who ever lived. A sneer perhaps lurks in the compliment; but, apart from the sneer, the compli- ment belongs rather to Pym or to one of the Pitts. It may more truly be said of Peel that he was about the best public servant whom England ever had. No other Minister ever was so thoroughly conversant with all the interests and master of all the business of the State. This it was that lent such weight to his speeches, and gave him his immense power over the House of Commons. That, so far as the evil system of party for the establishment of which he was not [! June the 27th, 1846.] [ 2 Hiatus in MS.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 251 responsible would let him, Peel was a true patriot, and served his country to the utmost of his power and with all his heart, never sparing himself, but giving the most conscientious attention to all the details of the public business, must be the conviction of every one who really knows his history. His great qualities were rather those of an administrator than those of a legis- lator, and were liable to be rated lower than they de- served under the party system, which counts only leg- islative triumphs. In legislation he was not an origina- tor, at least upon the greatest questions; but, as one who gave practical effect to the conclusions of the time, his record on the Statute Book is immense. When once he put his hand to the work, he was bold, and never stopped at half-measures. His bills were framed with the greatest care, so as to pass with the least possible amendment. For his memorable Budgets, his financial experiments, the creation of the fiscal system under which England has prospered, he had the assistance of first-rate coadjutors, official and non-official; yet the measures may fairly be said to have been his own. Irrespective of the party ties by which in his very boyhood he had been tightly and almost inextricably bound, he was by nature a Conservative ready for any practical reform, but averse from organic change. Such is apt to be the temperament of great adminis- trators, who are satisfied with their tools as they are; and it is a better temperament, at all events, than that of politicians who seek power through great convul- 252 REMINISCENCES sions and use it for small jobs. The weak points of Peel's career are his conversions on Catholic Emanci- pation and the Corn Laws, of which nobody denies either the sincerity or the necessity, but which involved an appearance of infidelity to party; while the desper- ate awkwardness of the position in which, during the process of conversion, a leader is placed, between the impossibility of keeping silence as a private man whose mind was wavering would do, and the danger of pre- maturely avowing conclusions which may shake the State, has furnished malice with materials for imputa- tions of deceitfulness of which unsparing use has been made. To these imputations Peel was too nervously susceptible ; but we have tried effrontery, and can tell which has the best effect on public character. That the intellect of the man who was chiefly responsible for the welfare of the people should not upon such a ques- tion as the Corn Laws have been allowed to act freely for the public good, and that the country should have been compelled to deprive itself of the services of its great administrator because there had been a change in national opinion upon an economical question, have always seemed to me heavy counts in the indictment against the party system, and that constitutional rule which requires that, whenever a new light breaks upon the mind of the legislative body, the executive Govern- ment shall be overturned. Factious things must, in the course of nature, be done by every leader of opposition ; but no leader of BRIGHT AND COBDEN 253 opposition ever did fewer of them than Peel. He never weakened or degraded Government. He played no jockey tricks. He never descended to the tactics familiar to those who supplanted him, of coalescing with the extreme section of the other party for the purpose of upsetting the Ministry. He would have spurned such a suggestion as the utter betrayal of all the ob- sects for which his party existed, as the depth at once of folly and dishonour. Never did he give his followers the signal to turn round and vote against the second reading of a bill when they had voted in favour of the first reading because it appeared that advantage might be taken of a division in the ranks of the Government. Never did he on a great measure belie his recorded con- victions and trifle with the political life of the nation for the purpose of " dishing" his rivals. He avoided rather than sought faction fights ; held back his follow- ers as much as he could from premature attacks ; never attempted to filch office, but waited till his time was fully come, and, instead of climbing over the wall, he could enter by the great gate. In time of public peril he knew that party feeling and personal ambition must be restrained. A man of genius Peel cannot be called. He was not imaginative or creative ; even in appreciation his mind, open as it was, moved slowly. It moved slowly in all things ; and, like Burghley, 1 he used his pen a good deal in the process of deliberation. Nor did he always see I 1 Queen Elizabeth's great Chief Minister. 1520-1598.] 254 REMINISCENCES the limits of a principle; if he had, perhaps he would have perceived more clearly and maintained more firmly that the principle of free competition, however sound as applied to commerce in general, was hardly sound when applied to national works like railways. Still, in the construction of the Conservative party, and in placing it exactly on the right basis after the great change of 1832, his practical sagacity did the work of genius. His moderation in resistance lent no pretext for violence to the progressists, and perhaps perverted * revolution. He was greatly helped in this by his commercial origin and his affinity to the middle class. The same influ- ences were always drawing him towards alliance with such a man as Cobden, wide as the gulf between them might appear. In one respect he stands almost by himself. It would be difficult at least to name any leader who had left the country such a bequest of statesmen. In drawing young men to him he had to get over the diffi- culties of his extreme shyness, and of a manner at first icy, though Lord Aberdeen said of him that when he did open himself he was the most, confiding of mankind. He had also to get over a certain formality of judgment and want of sympathy with anything eccentric or sentimental, natural to him, no doubt, but confirmed by the habits of a life spent in business of State, with little time for reading, intellectual intercourse, or specu- lation of any kind. From the personal jealousy which I 1 Query. Prevented ? or averted ?] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 255 sometimes narrows the choice of associates he was free, as he showed by the eagerness with which he welcomed to his side Stanley, 1 in whose unquiet ambition and aris- tocratic arrogance his sagacity could hardly fail to see the probable source of trouble to himself. The shade of Peel may proudly ask what those who charged him with want of sympathy with genius have left to eclipse his staff. In one instance he has been accused and will, no doubt, be accused again of a fatal oversight. But the accusers must remember that the Disraeli of 1841 was not the Lord Beaconsfield of a later time. The Disraeli of 1841 had announced himself under the name of Vivian Grey as an unscrupulous adventurer, bent on gratifying his ambition, not by the qualities which Peel valued in a public servant, but by skill in intrigue ; he had verified that announcement by seeking election to Parliament, first as a Radical, and immedi- ately afterwards as a Tory ; and he had been denounced for so doing by public men whose confidence and whose names he had, as they thought, abused. He had sig- nified the intention which, in the case of Lord Derby, he, with incomparable skill and knowledge of character, carried into effect, of using his political leader as a Marquis of Carabas. 2 He had presented himself to the House of Commons in raiment which, though symboli- cal by its gorgeousness of a dazzling policy, was not t 1 Afterwards fourteenth Earl of Derby. He was Colonial Sec- retary under Peel from 1841 to 1844.] P The Marquis of Carabas in Disraeli's "Vivian Grey" is, I believe, intended for the Marquis of Clanricarde.] 256 REMINISCENCES likely to fascinate an unimaginative man of sense. He had approached his leader, both in public and in private, with fulsome flattery; and fulsome flattery, however successful it might be in other quarters, was not likely to succeed with Peel. Nor was anything to be gained by disparaging the Duke of Wellington, in whom Peel did not see a rival, and whom, though little guided by his counsels, he always treated with the tenderest respect. After all, there is a tradition that Peel always toler- ant, though not appreciative, of the vagaries of talent, and ever anxious to enlist it for the party wished to give Disraeli place, but was prevented by the opposition of Lord Stanley. When his papers are published, it will be found, I suspect, that he afterwards treated Disraeli with a magnanimity which may be thought by some to have been rather magnanimous hi him than clearly consistent with the public good. 1 To do right in the question between Cobden and Peel while they were in collision, we must remember that Cobden was leading an agitation in the interest of a particular class. The class was large, and its interest on this occasion coincided with that of the community, otherwise it could not have had Cobden and Bright for spokesmen ; but still it was a class. With Cobden and Bright the repeal of the Corn Law was part of a general policy of Free Trade, and Free Trade itself was but a part of a still more general policy of peace and good-will f 1 This was -written before the publication of Volumes II and III of Charles Stuart Parker's Life of Peel. These appeared in 1899.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 257 among nations, economy, and government in the inter- est of the people. But the object of most of the manu- facturers who were members of the League was simply the repeal of a noxious impost, which specially pressed on their own industry. They were not universal philan- thropists; they were hardly even Free Traders in the full sense of the term. Their subscriptions to the League Fund were what Cobden himself called them, in- vestments, which they expected to be repaid to them, and which were in fact repaid to them a hundred fold. Had the same men been landowners, they would prob- ably have been Protectionists. To the general policy of Bright and Cobden their attachment was very equivo- cal, as the sequel showed, and as Cobden himself has told us : "I am of opinion that we have not the same elements in Lancashire for a Democratic Reform movement as we had for Free Trade. To me the most discouraging fact in our political state is the condition of the Lan- cashire boroughs, where, with the exception of Man- chester, nearly all the municipalities are in the hands of the stupidest Tories in England, and where we can hardly see our way for an equal half-share of Liberal representation. We have the labour of Hercules in hand to abate the power of the aristocracy, and their allies the snobs of the towns. " You hint at the possibility of Manchester taking me in case of poor Potter's 1 death. I don't think the offer will ever be made, but I am quite sure that there is no I 1 Thomas Bayley Potter, politician ; founder of the Cobden Club. 1817-1898.] 258 REMINISCENCES demonstration of the kind that could induce me (apart from my determination not at present to stand for any place) to put myself in the hands of the people who, without more cause then than now, struck down men whose politics are identically my own. To confess my honest belief, I regard the Manchester constituency, now that their gross pocket question is settled, as a very unsound, and to us a very unsafe body. "The manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire look upon India and China as a field of enterprise, which can only be kept open to them by force; and, indeed, they are willing apparently to be at all the cost of hold- ing open the door of the whole of Asia for the rest of the world to trade on the same terms as themselves. How few of those who fought for the repeal of the Corn Law really understand the full meaning of Free Trade principles ! " Men may be named, besides Cobden and Bright, who did thoroughly understand the meaning of the principle, and its connection with principles larger still ; but with the rank and file of the movement Free Trade meant nothing but an alteration of the tariff in their own favour. Peel, on the other hand, was the ruler of the whole nation, and was bound to consider not one class or in- terest alone, but all. He was also bound to consider political as well as economical consequences. The aristocracy personally he loved little, and had little cause to love ; it accepted his services without ever for- getting that he was by origin a cotton-spinner; and that he stood aloof from it in heart was shown by his testamentary injunction to his son. But he believed BRIGHT AND COBDEN 259 it to be an essential part of the Constitution, and he saw plainly that its basis was territorial, or, in plain English, that its influence depended on its rents. It was very well for the League to say that the landowners would not suffer by repeal ; the League cared little whether the landowners suffered or not, and the truth is that though the reduction of rents was suspended for a time by the enormous extension of the English market for agricul- tural produce which followed the growth of manufac- tures, it has evidently come at last, and seems likely to bring its political consequences with it. The predic- tion of evil to the landed interest, which events appeared to have belied, has been apparently fulfilled after all; for some time past, at least, the extent of English land under the plough has been rapidly decreasing. There was some force also in the military argument against dependence on the foreigner for food; it seemed that the Island Fortress would lose its impregnability ; and Peel could not accept, and would have been entirely misled if he had accepted, as infallibly true the Leaguers' assurance that Free Trade would be followed by uni- versal peace. Economical fallacies, which experience has now taught us to deride, then fettered strong minds ; r nor would a statesman, when he began to meditate the ' great change, have felt that he had any great force of independent opinion on his side. The sudden conver- sion of the Whigs, was, as Mr. Morley truly says, nothing more than the device of a foundering faction. So long as they had a secure tenure of power, and were able to 260 REMINISCENCES control legislation, they declared that to meddle with the Corn Law would be madness. They even, after the failure of their attempt "to set fire to the house which they were leaving," showed rather faint attachment to their new opinions, and their chiefs declined to vote for for Mr. Villiers's 1 annual motion 2 in 1844. Peel had, however, avowed in the most distinct terms that unless the Corn Law was shown to be good for the whole people it could not stand; and his freedom in dealing with it had already driven extreme Protectionists, such as the Duke of Buckingham, from his side. The general ten- dency of his financial policy was also distinctly in the direction of Free Trade. For a man in his position, and under the party system, the process of change, as has been already said, was desperately difficult, and the utmost allowance ought to be made for anything am- biguous in his utterances or in his conduct. He was the object not only of cruel misconstruction, but of ca- lumnious invention on the part of enemies who certainly could not like him be accused of lacking imagination. It was most circumstantially stated and widely believed, that when he found himself no longer able to defend the Corn Law he had contrived to shirk a debate, and to put forward his young lieutenant, Sidney Herbert, to defend the Corn Law in his place. He was of all men the least capable of such an act of treachery to a friend. P Charles Pelham Villiers, statesman ; M.P. for Wolverhamp- ton from 1835 till 1898 ; held many high posts. 1802-1898.] [ 2 For the repeal of the Corn Law. He brought it in annually from 1838 till its abolition in 1846.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 261 Mr. Morley gives what is probably the grain of truth in the story, if there is any grain of truth in it at all. He says that after a powerful speech from Cobden, Peel was overheard to say to Sidney Herbert, "You must answer that, for I cannot." Whatever construction may be put upon the incident, it clearly involves nothing dishonourable on the part of Peel. When a class in possession of power, as the landlord class was in the Parliament of those days, refuses jus- tice to the community, agitation is the only remedy, and it is better than civil war. But it entails some of the moral evils of civil war. What says Cobden himself? "You must not judge me by what I say at these tumultuous public meetings. I constantly regret the necessity of violating good taste and kind feeling in my public harangues. I say advisedly necessity ; for I defy anybody to keep the ear of the public for seven years upon any one question without striving to amuse as well as instruct. People do not attend public meetings to be taught, but to be excited, flattered, and pleased. If they are simply lectured, they may sit out the lesson for once, but they will not come again ; and as I have required them again and again, I have been obliged to amuse them, not by standing on my head or eating fire, but by kindred feats of jugglery, such as appeals to their self-esteem, their combativeness, or their hu- mour. You know how easily in touching their feel- ings one degenerates into flattery, vindictiveness, or grossness." It would be a relief to him, he says, to know that he should never again have to attend a public meeting. 262 REMINISCENCES If this was true of Cobden, how much more must it have been true of common agitators ! The passions of those whose interest was threatened were of course inflamed to fury by the wordy cannonade, and the difficulty of Peel's task in bringing them round was increased ten- fold. After all, as Cobden admits, the agitation would have failed had it not been for the Irish famine. It was perhaps inevitable that the leaders of the League should be unjust to Peel, as well as wanting in that consideration for his position which wisdom bade them show if they wished to win him to their side. Unjust, however, they were. They refused to recognize what he had done and was doing for the gradual pro- motion of the general policy of Free Trade; they treated with contempt his great budget of 1842, though as a step in economical progress it was second in im- portance only to the repeal of the Corn Law itself ; and they persisted in fixing on him, who least of all men in power deserved it, the entire responsibility and odium of maintaining a system which was paralyzing trade and spreading distress among the people. Hence arose a personal quarrel between him and Cobden, of which it would be painful to speak if it had not been closed by a noble reconciliation. On the fifth night of a fierce debate in the House of Commons, when party passions were at fever heat, Cobden made a very bitter attack on Peel, accusing him of " folly or ignorance" as a financier, treating his fiscal legislation with the most cutting contempt, and pointing to him, with emphatic BRIGHT AND COBDEN 263 and passionate reiteration, as " individually respon- sible " for the lamentable and dangerous state of the country. The recent murder of Peel's secretary and friend, Mr. Drummond, 1 by a bullet, which was supposed to have been intended for Peel himself, was in every- body's mind; and when Peel in his reply pounced angrily on the expression "individually responsible," Protectionist hatred of the great Leaguer burst forth in a fierce shout of denunciation, and a tornado followed in which Peel's anger mounted still higher, all moral bearings were lost and all attempts at explanation be- came fruitless. Peel afterwards positively disclaimed the atrocious meaning which had been fixed, in the fury of the moment, on his words ; and he surely might be pardoned, especially when heated by debate, for fiercely resenting an attempt to hold him up individually to a people exasperated by suffering as the author of their misery. Cobden himself avows that he meant to frighten Peel; he had made up his mind that "when Peel bolted or betrayed the Protectionists the game would be up." "It was this conviction," he says, "which induced me after some deliberation to throw the responsibility upon Peel ; and he is not only alarmed at it, but indiscreet enough to let everybody know that he is so." Surely this goes far to justify anything that Peel really said. Mr. Morley quotes, as the best judgment that can be passed on the affair, a letter written immediately after P Edward Drummond. 1792-1843.] 264 REMINISCENCES it by Cobden, in which Peel is accused of hypocritically feigning emotion, and said to have incurred ridicule as a coward. "Ah! vousgdtezle! Soyons amis ! " cried somebody from the pit, when Augustus in " Cinna " 1 was recounting the vices and crimes of the man whose hand he was about to take. For the charge of simulating emotion Mr. Morley is of course able to cite the author- ity of Disraeli. Yet nobody who knows PeeFs history can doubt that, like other members of his family, he had a hot temper, though it was usually under strict con- trol. It is impossible to suppose that he was "acting the part of the choleric gentleman" in the tempestuous scene which occurred when Parliament was dissolved upon the rejection of the Reform Bill. As little was he open to the imputation of cowardice ; he was sensitive to pain; all men of fine organization are; and there are traces in his correspondence of his having been rather nervous, or of somebody having been nervous for him, about plots ; but I believe I am right in saying that, besides his affair with O'Connell, whom he des- perately strove to drag into the field, he on three other occasions displayed his anachronistic propensity to fight duels. I know that it was with the utmost diffi- culty that, by an appeal to his feeling for the Queen, he was dissuaded from sending a challenge to Lord George Bentinck, who had touched his honour on a point on which it was particularly sensitive, by traduc- ing the integrity of his relations with his friends. It [* Corneille's tragedy.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 265 may be surmised that his equivocal position in the society of those days as a cotton-spinner among aristo- crats made him rather more peppery in resenting insult than he would otherwise have been. What is certain is that, if readiness to look on the muzzle of a pistol is a proof of courage, Peel cannot have been a coward. All soon came right between him and Cobden. The two soldiers of the same cause, under opposite stand- ards and in hostile uniforms, recognized each other and clasped hands. Cobden wrote Peel, whose defeat by the coalition of Whigs and Protectionists on the Coer- cion Bill was then impending, a confidential letter prom- ising him hearty support, conjuring him to dissolve Par- liament, and assuring him, if he would, of an immense victory. He desired Peel to burn the letter. Peel kept it, and, as Mr. Morley says, a question may be raised by those who occupy themselves about minor morals. But Peel in his answer says, "I need not give you as- surance that I shall regard your letter as a communi- cation more purely confidential than if it had been written to me by some person united to me by the closest bonds of private friendship." That is to say, " I have not burned the letter, but I will keep it a dead secret ; " and in this Cobden tacitly acquiesced. Peel must have known very well that the letter would be eminently honourable to the memory of both of them, and espe- cially to that of the writer, who thus buried in a moment all past enmities, forgot all selfish rivalries, and threw 266 REMINISCENCES himself into the arms of the statesman who had brought in the repeal of the Corn Law. 4^ WL. 1ta4 Had Peel taken Cobden's advice and dissolved, no doubt Cobden's prediction would have been fulfilled. There would have been a total rout of the Protectionists, and among others, the Member for Shrewsbury 1 would have lost his seat. But Peel could not, without a scandalous disregard of old ties, have appealed to the country against his own party. Nor could he have vaulted at once from the leadership of the Conservatives to the leadership of the Liberals, which was what Cob- den in effect proposed. It is, in short, difficult to see how he could have done anything but what he did. Those who, like the author of the "Life of Lord George Bentinck," 1 accuse him of " astuteness," and of ma- noeuvring for the retention of his place, are met by the fact that, on finding his Cabinet divided, he resigned, and that Lord John Russell was prevented from forming a Government only by an objection among his own friends to the appointment of Palmerston as Foreign Minister, which no astuteness in Peel could have fore- seen, much less have contrived.* It has been plausibly urged, and the writer of this paper used to think, that Peel ought to have held a meeting of his party: if he was prevented from taking that course in any degree P Benjamin Disraeli.] * The author of the "Life of Lord George Bentinck" calls this an intrigue. Everybody was an intriguer but he. The objector was about the most inflexibly upright and thoroughly straight- forward of public men. [Note by the author.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 267 by want of frankness and moral courage, or even by a punctilious tenacity of his own authority as Minister, to that extent he did wrong; but it was certain that there would be a disagreement at the meeting, probable that there would be a scene of great violence. What Stanley, 1 Disraeli, and their section wanted above all things was to produce a split; and the consequence would have been that the quarrel in the House would only have been made more desperate and scandalous. The result, however, was inevitable, nor was it other- wise than welcome to Peel, who was careworn, exhausted, ill in body, and deeply wounded by the quarrel with old friends. He fell from office, but not from power: he remained the leading man in England; and had not his life been accidentally cut short, the voice of the nation would almost certainly have recalled him to the helm. Peel's failure to make his party turn round with him in 1846 has been contrasted with the success of the Tory leaders in 1867. But Mr. Morley aptly replies that the second was a case of political principle, while the first was a case of pocket. Besides this, in 1867 expedients were used which were quite unknown to Peel; the Tories were not so much persuaded as decoyed ; a Min- ister put up to say that the House of Commons would never grant household suffrage, and the pitfall in which that revolutionary measure lurked was carefully covered [ l Afterwards fourteenth Earl of Derby. He was Lord Stanley of Bickerstaffe at this period of his career.] 268 REMINISCENCES with Personal Payment of Rates. What is still more important, between 1846 and 1867 the party had under- gone a most effective process of education. Still, there is a moral to be drawn. The one man in whom the nation trusted, and had reason to trust, was driven from power because he had carried a measure which was urgently needed to give the people bread, and which was soon to be ratified by universal approba- tion, even those who had most rancorously assailed its author at the time acquiescing as soon as acquiescence became necessary to them as a passport to place. The coalition against the Coercion Bill, 1 by which this was brought about, consisted of three elements; Conserva- tives who had themselves supported the Coercion Bill in its earlier stage ; Whigs to whom coercion was familiar, and who, as soon as they had tripped up Peel, resorted to it again; and Radicals who were then, as they are now, unused to government, hardly conscious of its necessities, unready to avow Republicanism, but ready to make unlimited concessions to all who demanded them, and let Irish insurgents, or any one who would, tear to pieces the heritage of the commonwealth. The one great gainer by the transaction was a man whose motives were purely personal, as he used afterwards very frankly to avow ; who, on a question affecting not a mere political theory, but the subsistence of the people who were starving round him, was taking a course con- trary to his often recorded convictions, and traducing [ l Introduced in June, 1846.] BRIGHT AND COBDEN 269 with laborious virulence the character and career of a statesman whom he knew to be doing right, on whom a little time before he had been lavishing his adulation, and to whom he had been a suitor for place. The pro- gressive domination of such characters is the inherent tendency of the party system. In spite of their conflicts, Peel and Cobden were really united in their political lives, and it may be said that in death they were not divided. Neither of them was buried in Westminster Abbey. Peel lies among his family and neighbours, Cobden lies in a country church- yard. A man who had worked for fame will like to rest in a pantheon ; a man who has worked for duty and for the approbation of the power of duty will perhaps pre- fer to rest by the side of honest labour, and among those whom he has loved. Free Trade still stands pretty much where it stood on the morrow of the reconciliation of Cobden with Peel. Their visions Cobden's visions at least have not been fulfilled. The reason has been already given. England, while she preaches Free Trade, and thinks all the world demented because it will not listen to her preaching, is herself not a Free Trade nation. She raises many millions by import duties, which, though admirably well adjusted to her special circumstances, are not the less interferences with freedom of trade. Every nation has its tariff, every nation will continue to have its tariff so long as money for establishments and armaments is required : and for tariffs, as was said 270 REMINISCENCES before, there is no absolute rule ; each country must be allowed to frame its own. Cobden assumed that the world was a single community ; he could not bring the human race to that far-off goal of philanthropy, though he did something to help it on its way. It seems at the present moment * as if the same thing might be said with too much truth about the Irish Question. It was upon a Coercion Bill that the Peel Government fell, Cobden voting against the Bill, though apparently more because this was the regular line of his political section than in obedience to any strong opinion of his own. His biographer's hostility to such measures is more decided. "The Ministry," he says, " resorted for the eighteenth time since the Union to the stale device of a Coercion Bill, that stereotyped avowal and always made, strange to say, without shame or contrition of the secular neglect and incom- petency of the English government of Ireland." 2 Sir Robert Peel was not incompetent, nor had he neglected the Irish Question; on the contrary, he had studied it for thirty years with all the advantages which a suc- cessive tenure of the Irish Secretaryship, the Home Secretaryship, and the Premiership could afford, and with an anxiety proportioned to his consciousness that, as he said, Ireland was the difficulty of his administra- tion. We must therefore be permitted to believe [ x Written about 1888. The Irish Crimes Bill (a measure of coercion) was introduced in March, 1887.] [ 2 Morley's "Life of Richard Cobden," vol. i, p. 360. London : 1881.1 BRIGHT AND COBDEN 271 that the temporary reinforcement of public justice in Ireland during outbreaks of murderous anarchy caused by agitation or distress, and when the ordinary law has become evidently insufficient, though it may not be the highest pinnacle of statesmanship, is not the lowest depth of ignorance, carelessness, or folly. That force, while necessarily used to restrain disorder, is no remedy for an economical malady, is a truth as certain and as fruitful as that the strait-waistcoat, necessarily used to control madness in its paroxysms, is no remedy for a disease of the lungs. / CHAPTER XV OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 1858-1866 Settling at Oxford Telepathy Halford Vaughan Henry Smith Max Muller Monier- Williams Thorold Rogers Rolleston Waring Coxe Froude Cradock The Great Western Railway King Edward VII Prince Leopold Dr. Acland Gladstone. IN 1858 I was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. This ended my connection with the Saturday Review. The position, while it was wholly unsolicited, was the height of my desire. I thought with pleasure that I was settled in it for life. On the North of the "Parks" I built me a little house which I called Parks End, and which afterwards had the honour of being occupied by Max Miiller l and after him by Professor Osier. 2 I planted my little garden. I laid out my little croquet ground, which in summer evenings was the scene of pleasant little croquet parties followed by pleasant little suppers. The subject of my Profes- sorship was the one for which my lamp had very often been lighted long before sunrise. The future smiled. Mortimer was within easy reach by rail. I could go P See infra, page 276.] [ 2 Regius Professor of Medicine; Honorary Professor of Medi- cine of Johns Hopkins University. Born at Bond Head, Canada, in 1849.] 272 PHOTOGRAPH OF A BUST OP GOLDWIN SMITH Made at Oxford about 1866, by Alexander Munro. OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 273 there now and then for a day with the South Berks hounds. On one of my visits there happened a curious thing, which may interest the Telepathists. At some distance from my father's house I was seized with faint- ness, to which I was liable. After lying some time on the common I got water at a cottage and reached home. There I found at the very moment of my faintness a telegram had been received from my housekeeper at Oxford asking whether it was true that I had died sud- denly. It was another member of the University of the same name. The telegram would have been docu- mentary evidence; which in these cases is generally wanting. Coincidence would as usual have been aided by the working of the retroactive imagination. A story was told by Sir Harry Burrard Neale 1 one of the Bur- rard family with which mine was intimate and I believe was remotely connected. 2 An old couple in Scotland, Cameron, I think, was the name, left their home to seek for their only son who had been carried off by a press- gang. They wandered to Lymington on the Solent. There a kind boatman took them on board his boat bound for Portsmouth, where they would find the men- of-war. A storm came on, and the boat was in danger. Sir Harry Burrard Neale was coming up the Solent in his ship, the San Firenze. He saw the boat in danger, hove to, took the old people on board, and asked them I 1 Second Baronet, Admiral. 1765-1840.] [ 2 Goldwin Smith's mother's aunt, Mrs. Goldwin, had a sister named Mrs. Coppell. Mrs. Coppell's daughter married a Mr. Burrard.] 274 REMINISCENCES what they were doing at sea in such weather. They told him that they were seeking for their son, whose name they gave. " There is a pressed man of that name," he said, "on board this ship; send him up." He was their son. To this, which is certainly fact, but not less certainly mere coincidence, the retroactive im- agination of the two old people would probably lend miraculous colours. It was seldom that we, or anybody, went from home. But my Mother and I stayed with Sir George Burrard, rector of Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. 1 The Burrard family before the Reform Bill had been patrons of the borough of Lymington, which sent two members to Parliament, and Sir George held three livings, two of which he served by Curates. He was a kindly and noble-looking old gentlemen, with knee breeches and powdered hair. In those days was to be seen at Spithead a sight of beauty and grandeur which will never be seen again; that of the great sailing men-of-war. My predecessor in the Chair was Halford Vaughan, 2 whose history was one of genius, mournfully, almost tragically, thrown away. As a student he had shown ["* I went with my two Boys to visit my Brothers at Southamp- ton and Land's End, and also to stay with Mr. Burrard at Yar- mouth, April 15th, [1828]." Extract from Goldwin Smith's mother's Diary. Goldwin Smith's mother paid another visit to Yarmouth in July of the year 1833. Her little son, Goldwin, who was then ten years old, accompanied her on that occasion also.] [ 2 Henry Halford Vaughan. 1811-1885.] OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 275 powers of mind far beyond those of ordinary prizemen. By his father, who was a Judge, he had been destined for the Bar; but his heart was devoted to Philosophy. It was said that the Judge gave him as an exercise a case on which to write a judgment, and on reading the judg- ment wept to think what a lawyer was going to be lost. Vaughan's lectures on the Norman Conquest were ad- mirable and were very well attended. But he took it into his head that regular lecturing was intellectual slavery, not to be endured ; he resigned his chair ; was reinstalled by the efforts of friends; and again re- signed. He had written a work on moral philosophy which was understood to be highly original and of which great expectations were formed; but again and again when his work was on the point of publication some strange accident occurred, or he fancied that it had occurred, and the book never saw light. There can be little doubt that Vaughan in the end became hypochondriac. His last years were passed in retire- ment. His lectures were never published, and the only fruit of his genius ever given to the world was a not very valuable set of critical notes on Shakespeare. Society for any one of my class and pursuits could hardly be more pleasant than it was at Oxford in those days. The Professors of different subjects, with the resident Tutors and Fellows of Colleges, formed a circle with various lines and interests, moderate incomes, so- cially and hospitably disposed. Hospitality, easy and frugal, College kitchens and Common Rooms supplied. 276 REMINISCENCES At the little dinner parties talk was rational yet bright and merry. The old academic rust had departed. Oxford was now within an hour and a half of London, and perfectly in the world. The most eminent of the group was Henry Smith, 1 Professor of Mathematics, and, but for his early death, good judges thought a Newton or a La Place. He was generally cultivated, and sparkled with wit. One of our Professors who was weak in his aspirates voted at an election, at which Gladstone and Hardy 2 were the can- didates, and meaning to vote for Gladstone, in his ner- vous haste said " 'ardy." Trying to correct himself, he said that he had not finished pronouncing the name. "He has not begun to pronounce it," said Henry Smith, who was sitting as scrutineer. As mathematical profes- sor Henry Smith noted a falling off in the brain power of his students which he was inclined to ascribe to smok- ing. At Magdalen when I was there nobody smoked. One of the Dons still took snuff. Another notability was Max Miiller 3 on whose philo- logical glories it is needless to dwell. He ought by rights to have been Professor of Sanskrit. But in rejecting him in favour of Monier-Williams 4 the Univer- f 1 Henry John Stephen Smith. 1826-1883.] [ 2 Gathorne Hardy.] P The Right Honourable Friedrich Max Miiller, Professor of Modern Languages and afterwards of Comparative Philology. Born at Dessau in 1823 ; died in 1900.] [ 4 Sir Monier Monier-Williams, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., LL.D., Fellow of Balliol, 1882-1888 ; Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, 1860-1899. Born in 1819; died April 11, 1899.] OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 277 sity was not so far guilty of bigotry or nativism as Dean Stanley and other angry friends of Max Muller sup- posed. The professorship was a very recent foundation, and the object of the founder had unquestionably been religious. He thought that Sanskrit, as a key to the early mythology of the Hindoos, would be a help to the missionary. There could be no doubt that he would have preferred the orthodox Anglican to the German freethinker. Thorold Rogers, 1 the Professor of Political Economy, was and looked a son of thunder. He was a strenuous worker and really great in his line, though not perfectly judicial. Perfectly judicial he could hardly be, as he was in politics a strong Radical. He sat in Parliament for Southwark. 2 On the hustings he said, as candi- dates always do, that the electors would certainly return him. "They'll see you in hell first," cried a voice in the crowd. ' ' My dear Sir, " replied Rogers, ' ' if that mis- fortune does befall me, you certainly will be there to see it." Rogers was also a writer of satires. Of the two great allies, my successors in the Chair, he said, " So, ladling flattery from their several tubs, Stubbs butters Freeman, Freeman butters Stubbs." To which the persons satirized raised the totally irrele- vant objection that it was untrue. My special friend was Dr. Rolleston, 3 Professor of P See Chapter V, page 84.] [ 2 Also for Bermondsey.] [ 3 George Rolleston, F.R.S., F.L.S. ; Fellow of Merton. 182&- 1881.] I 278 REMINISCENCES Physiology. When overwork laid him in an early grave, I was allowed to put up his portrait in the Com- mon Room of his College. But no portrait could do justice to his enthusiasm in scientific research, his energy, his buoyancy, his humour, the life which he brought into our social circle. I wrote under the por- trait, Sic indefessum facie spirante vigorem, Veri enitebar mente aperire viam; Quum vitae et vultus nimio lux victa labore est, Et vestra abrepta est gloria magna domo. Wilson, 1 Professor of Moral Philosophy, afterwards Presi- dent of Corpus, was full of pleasant wit. So was Mark Pattison, when he was in good humour and at his best. I could give a string of names well remembered by me who am now about the last of the circle. Mentem mortalia tangunt. A wonder, though known to few, was George War- ing, 2 the most universally learned man of all my ac- quaintance. He had graduated late at what was then Magdalen Hall, now Hertford College. He was mar- ried, settled at Oxford, holding no academical office, but feeding his ravenous hunger of knowledge. One eye he had lost, the other was weak so that he had to hold his book close to it. The whole of every day he spent in the Bodleian Library. It would have been hard to say with what subject, saving physical science, he was not well acquainted. Yet he left no work, nor f 1 John Matthias Wilson. 1814-1881.] [ 2 Second son of Henry Waring, of Hereford. Born 1807.] OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 279 any trace of himself except in the way of occasional aid to other students. The University was near giving a large price for what pretended to be a Samaritan manu- script. The Professor of the department was taken in, but Waring detected the imposture. Waring reminds me of "Bodley" Coxe/ the prince of librarians, and soul of the social circle. Pattison used to say that the librarian who read was lost. I think Coxe had read, but at all events he had great knowledge of manuscripts. An impostor tendered the library a manuscript pretending to the highest antiquity. The curators referred it to Coxe. At the subsequent meet- ing, the vendor of the manuscript being present, Coxe was asked what he considered to be its date. He quickly replied, "I should say about the middle of the nineteenth century." There were still some relics of the Oxford before the flood of reform; among them "Mo" Griffith 2 of Mer- on, and Frowd, 3 of Corpus. Each was slightly non compos. Frowd, a Fellow of Corpus, was annoyed at the trampling of grass under his window. He set a man-trap, and watching for the result, presently heard a scream, rushed down and found he had caught the Professor of Moral Philosophy. By way of penance, he condemned himself to attendance on the Professor's lectures for the rest of the term. Lodging in London Henry Octavius Coxe, Bodley's librarian, I860.] (Edward) Moses Griffith. 1767-1859.] John Brickenden Frowd. 1778-1865.] 280 REMINISCENCES when a contested election at Oxford was coming on, he wrote letters to a number of people in the county pro- posing to pair. Before their answers had time to come in, he ran down himself to Oxford and voted. His plea was that he had not received from any of the people to whom he had written their consent to pair. There was an uproar, of course, but the plea of insanity was entered and accepted. A remarkably pleasant house was that of Edward Hartopp Cradock, 1 the Principal of Brasenose. Mrs. Cradock (she was a Russell) had been a Maid of Hon- our. She was very bright, full of anecdote and fun. There we had the genuine Afternoon Tea, a meeting of a few people for real enjoyment, with talk, music, and reading aloud; far different from the social battue of people crowded into a house in which there is hardly room for them to stand, and talking against a hubbub, into which the Afternoon Tea has now grown. It chanced that I had to do a little fighting for the University. Oxford city, which did not fully appre- ciate its advantages and honours as the seat of a great University, wanted to bring the Great Western Railway works to Oxford, where, besides the outrage to the genius of the place, building-land could ill have been spared. The University shuddered, but feared to move, having discredited itself by foolishly using its influence to turn away the line of the Great Western P The third son of Edward Grove, of Shenston, Staffordshire. He changed his name. Died in 1886.] OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 281 Railway. I wrote to the Times. The Times backed my letter. One of the Directors of the railway wrote to me, saying that he was heartily with me and that if I would fight outside the Board he would fight inside. I did fight, got society on my side, and, with the help of my friend in the other camp, won. The city, which had expected great gain from the presence of the works, was very angry, and for some days my house had to be guarded by the police. The works went to Swindon, where they are much better placed in every respect, and peace returned. I almost think I could have gone to Parliament for Oxford. Harcourt, 1 who did go, was in- troduced to the city by me. A seat in Parliament for myself, as I have said, I never desired. As Professor of History at Oxford I had for a pupil the present King, then Prince of Wales. 2 He was a comely youth, like his mother in face, and with a slight German accent, showing, as he had not been in Ger- many, that German was spoken in his domestic circle. His manner was very engaging and he was thoroughly good-natured. I am sure I bored him when I went to examine him in history. A malicious story was current about Prince Albert's death. It was said to have been caused by sleeping in an unaired bed when he had gone down suddenly to Cambridge, where his son then was, to break off a bad engagement. I can say positively [ l Sir William George Granville Vernon Harcourt. See note on page 163, Chapter XI.] [ 2 This refers, of course, to his late Majesty, King Edward VII.] 282 REMINISCENCES that the story was untrue. I was invited to go with the Prince's party to Canada ; but could not leave my Chair. The notion that I wanted anything in Canada was preposterous. I was happily and perfectly settled for life. The King 1 has always shown a kindly remem- brance of his old preceptor. Common Room Society must have been greatly broken up by the marriage of Fellows, which, as I have said, was necessary in order to secure an order of teachers devoted to their calling. But its like will not easily be found. Prince Leopold 2 afterwards came to Oxford, where I was introduced to him and had the honour of teaching him euchre. The weakness of his constitution debarred him from active sports and made him a musician and something of a virtuoso. He played well upon the piano. I was his guest, and, after his death, that of the Princess, his widow, at Claremont. It was curious to see the gentle pair entertaining us with music in the great room carpeted with the sumptuous gift of an Indian Prince, which Clive had probably paced, dis- tracted with agony, in the dark evening of his stormy day. The Duchess was a charming hostess, and has remained a most kind and valued friend. As I write this I mentally kiss her hand. One morning as I was sitting in my library my maid [ l His late Majesty, King Edward VII.] P Duke of Albany. Youngest brother of the late King, Edward VII.] OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 283 came to tell me that there were two gentlemen waiting in the other room to see me. To my surprise one of them introduced the other as the Crown Prince of Den- mark. 1 But I had scarcely got him into my hands as a pupil when he was snatched away by the Schleswig- Holstein War. 2 My excellent friend Dr. Acland, 3 the Professor of Medicine, in whose house many a pleasant evening was passed, went with the Prince to Canada. He was very affable, and not very guarded. At a ball at Quebec he was accosted by a stranger of gentlemanly manner, who drew him into conversation about the Prince. He said that the Prince was extremely amiable, but had not the brains of his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh. When the stranger went away, some one asked Acland whether he knew to whom he had been talking. Acland said that he did not. "That was the correspondent of the New York Herald" A day or two afterwards the Prince came down to breakfast flourishing in his hand a copy of the New York Herald and saying, "Acland, I see that you think I am very amiable, but I have not the brains of my brother Edinburgh." This shows his good nature. In Canada, Oronyatekha, 4 the Great that was to be, was introduced to Acland as a decided proof of Indian f 1 The present King Frederik VIII.] [ 2 1864.] [ 3 Afterwards Sir Henry Wentworth Acland. 1815-1900.] [ 4 Dr. Oronyatekha was afterwards Supreme Chief Ranger of the Independent Order of Foresters. Born 1841 ; died 1907.] 284 REMINISCENCES capacity. Acland, always kind, and apt to be gushing, told Oronyatekha that they must have him at Oxford. Some time afterwards, thanks, I believe, to the liberality of the Prince, when Acland was at Oxford, Oronyatekha appeared. Acland entered him at what was then Mag- dalen Hall and is now Hertford College. It was not likely that academical studies or college rules would suit the aspiring Indian. He at all events left Magda- len Hall for a more practical field without taking a de- gree. Such was the version of the story which I heard at the time. Another version introduces the Prince of Wales. James I. had kindly but unwisely given the Univer- sity representation in Parliament, which involved it in politics. We had some fierce fights, owing to the grad- ual approximation of Gladstone to the Liberals and his consequent estrangement from his Tory friends, who sought angrily to unseat him as an apostate. In those days I was a fervent adherent of Gladstone, and an ac- tive member of his Committee. Our difficulty was in holding together the two sections of his supporters ; the High Churchmen, who clung to him for the sake of his religious opinions, hoping that he would influence Church appointments; and the Liberals, who wel- comed his political advances towards their side. Pal- merston, in whose Ministry Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was fishing, through Lord Shaftes- bury, for the Evangelical vote, and allowed Shaftesbury to appoint Low Church Bishops. This brought our OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 285 difficulty to a head. I was instructed to see Gladstone and explain to him that unless his influence were soon seen in Church appointments, the High Church section would bolt, and his seat for the University would be lost. He began as usual by combating the fact. This was his way, and I could only let it pass. Presently he came round and asked whom they wanted made a Bishop. Probably he addressed the question to himself rather than to me ; the answer at all events was not in my instructions. The upshot of this and probably other representations of the same kind from different quarters was the appointment of Thomson, 1 Provost of Queen's, to the Bishopric of Peterborough, from which he soon afterwards mounted to the Archbishopric of York. The Tories made a grand mistake in ejecting Glad- stone from his seat for the University. They thereby, as he himself said, " unmuzzled" him. It curiously happened that on the day of his defeat the Bible fell from the hand of the statue of James I in the quad- rangle of the Bodleian. It was an omen of the separa- tion of the Church from the State, towards which Glad- stone's abolition of the State Church of Ireland was an important step, and towards which he would have taken another important step had he carried out his pledge of Disestablishment for Wales. I suspected, however, that of that pledge he repented, and that his unwilling- ness to fulfil it was partly the cause of his final retire- p William Thomson. 1819-1890.] 286 REMINISCENCES ment from power. He remained to the last a High Churchman. To the last High Churchmen were his bosom friends, and they clung to him in spite of his political changes. They might bear with equanimity the disestablishment of the Irish Church, which was separate from the Church of England, and, from an- tagonism to the Irish Roman Catholics, Low Church in its doctrine. But the disestablishment of the Church of Wales, an integral part of the Church of England, would have cut them to the heart. The University Reform Bill and Oxford University elections brought me a good deal into contact with Gladstone. I followed him zealously till he suddenly embraced the policy which he had himself described as "wading through rapine to dismemberment." Then, not being able on the spur of the moment to invert my notions either of rapine or dismemberment, I was con- strained not only to leave him, but to do my best in aid of the opponents of his "Home Rule." CHAPTER XVI PUBLIC EVENTS Crimean War The War Passion The War Policy Napoleon III The Chartist Procession. THERE is no use in rehearsing the "Annual Register." We of the Manchester School were against the Crimean War, and suffered by the war fever. The impression which I afterwards gathered from friends who had the best means of information was that the coalition Gov- ernment of Lord Aberdeen, 1 weak from internal differ- ences between Whigs and Peelites, while its chief, Lord Aberdeen, though the best of men, was wanting in firmness, had been gradually drawn to the brink of war by three men, each of whom had personal motives. Palmerston was a fanatical enemy of Russia, as the fatal expedition to tke Cabul proved, and probably not very loyal to Lord Aberdeen, a Peelite and a Minister of peace. Sir Stratford Canning 2 the Czar 3 had refused to receive as Ambassador at St. Petersburg. Louis Napoleon, like his putative uncle, wanted the consecration of glory for his usurped throne, and a recognized place for himself, an upstart of birth not unquestioned, among the crowned heads of Europe, which he gained by being f 1 See page 185, et seq., Chapter XII.] P Afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe. 1786-1880.] [ 3 Nicholas I.] 287 288 REMINISCENCES allowed publicly to embrace the Queen of England. It is possible that the French Emperor had the further design of sowing enmity between powers the union of which might have stood in the way of his ulterior views. He was a political cracksman who with his legs under your table would be meditating a raid upon your strong- box. His friend and confederate, Palmerston, at last awakened to his real character and bade the nation stand upon its guard. Sir Roderick Murchison, the geologist, who, having been invited to explore the mineral resources of the Ural, - had been intimate with the Czar, assured me that Nicholas always spoke in the most cordial terms of Great Britain, which he regarded as the great conser- vative power. His offence and the cause of war, so far as could be made out through the cloud of diplomatic dust, was a premature anticipation of the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, to a partition of which and a share r^JU-*' of the wreck he invited Great Britain. In the case of the Crimean, as afterwards in that of the Lorcha, War was seen the fatal ease with which the war passion is kindled when the means of indulging it, great armaments, are at hand. On the eve of the Crimean War nobody believed that it was coming. Few understood the diplomatic quarrel. But in an instant all was aflame. Bright was burnt in effigy, and every one who talked of bringing the war to an end was a traitor. Tennyson wrote those burning lines in "Maud," assuming that the weaker passions would be PUBLIC EVENTS 289 extinguished by the fiercer; though to the ordinary frauds, such as that of Strahan and Paul, 1 were added the usual frauds of contractors; while if there was a " giant liar" on whom it behooved that the " justice of God " should be done, it was Tennyson's ally, the French Emperor. Yet the grass had barely grown on the graves of Sebastopol before opinion turned against the war. The Lorcha war was kindled by Bowring, 2 the British Resident at Canton, a disciple of Bentham, who had quarrelled with the native authorities and em- braced the opportunity of promoting the greatest hap- piness of the greatest number by throwing bombs into the most densely peopled city in the world. It was practically a war in defence of the opium trade. By the House of Commons it was condemned. But when Palmerston appealed to the people, telling them that an insolent barbarian had trampled on the honour of the Empire by hauling down the flag of an opium smuggler, the flame burst out in full fury. Opponents of the war lost their seats in Parliament. The letters of the good Lord Elgin, who was sent to coerce the Chinese, show his feeling about his mission and the war. 3 So long as there are great armaments on foot, wars of passion will not cease. f 1 Messrs. Strahan, Paul, and Bates, bankers and navy agents, suspended payment on June the llth, 1855.] P Sir John Bowring. 1792-1872.] [ 3 "Letters and Journals of James, eighth Earl of Elgin." . . . Edited by Theodore Walrond. London: Murray. 1872. Pages 212, et seq.] 290 REMINISCENCES During the Crimean War I was much at the house of my very kind and dear friend Mrs. Pearson, 1 the sister of Admiral Lyons. 2 Loss of the Agamemnon, Lyons's ship, was cried by newsboys under her window. To show in what a state was the supply department, the Admiral wrote to his sisters begging them to buy for him some quinine, of which the army was in great want. His sisters, on proceeding to fulfil his request, were told by the War Office that they might spare their pains, since quinine had been bought by the Government till the price of it had greatly risen in the market. It was all the time lying at Balaklava in the hold of a ship filled with other stores. The machine had just been brought into working order when Louis Napoleon stopped the war. The state of things was probably in some measure due to the senile despotism of the Duke of Wellington at the Horse Guards. The Duke's mind was failing in his last years, as he showed by foolish fondness for a woman of fashion, Mrs. Jones of Eant-y-Glass [sic], 3 as well as by f 1 Mrs. Henry Shepherd Pearson, formerly Caroline Lyons.] [ 2 Edmund Lyons, first Baron Lyons. 1790-1858.] [ This was Margaret Charlotte, daughter of Sir George Camp- bell, of Edenwood, Fifeshire, and wife of David Jones, of Pantglas, Carmarthen, Member of Parliament for Carmarthen from 1852 to 1874. She married a second time, after his death. Born 1825 ; died 1871. A selection from the Duke of Wellington's letters to Mrs. Jones were published, with the Duke's grandson's permission, in The Century Magazine of December, 1889 (Volume XXXIX, No. 2, p. 163), by Mary Eleanor, wife of Herbert Davies-Evans, Esq., of Highmead, Llanybyther, South Wales, Lord Lieutenant of Cardi- >I ganshire. Mrs. Davies-Evans is a daughter of Mrs. Jones, and to yV her I am indebted for kindly referring me to these letters.] PUBLIC EVENTS 291 a long and strange though innocent correspondence with another woman. 1 Of the influence of Mrs. Jones of Pant-y-Glass Cobden told me a strange story which he said he had on the best authority. Her name had appeared in the promotion lists. There was an outcry because the allied fleets did not attack Odessa, the Russian arsenal. Absurd suspicions were cast upon as loyal a gentleman as ever lived, Sidney Herbert, who had Russian connections through his wife. When the war was over, I asked the Duke of Newcastle, who had been in the Cabinet, why Odessa had not been attacked. His reply was that the French Emperor would not consent. I have alluded to the French Emperor's birth. I once asked the best authority I knew on social France 2 whether Louis Napoleon was the son of his reputed father, and whether the Prince Imperial, on whose birth also doubt was cast, was the child of his reputed parents. The first question was answered decidedly in the nega- tive ; the second not less decidedly in the affirmative. There seems to be little doubt that Louis Napoleon was the son of the Dutch Admiral Verhuel. Court painters and sculptors struggled in vain to give him the Napo- leonic brow. Perhaps his Dutch phlegm and reticence gave him some advantage over the volatile Frenchmen with whom he had to deal. f 1 This probably refers to " Miss J.," Wellington's letters to whom were published in 1890.] [ 2 1 think this must refer to Lady Verney, wife of Sir Harry Verney.] 292 REMINISCENCES Delane, of the Times, who was with the army on its way to the Crimea, gave bad accounts of the behaviour of the French soldiery. He said that at Varna, a fire having broken out, advantage was taken of it by some Zouaves to violate the beautiful daughter of a Greek baker, and that when complaint was made to the French Commander, he treated it with indifference. The corps of Zouaves, however, was hardly French. Nominally Algerian, it was recruited from waifs of various races. It was said that a British officer in the Crimea addressed a Zouave officer in French. The Zouave answered in good English. "Why," said the Englishman, "you speak English very well." "I should think I did. I was with you at Eton." I saw from the window of the Athenaeum the return of the Guards from the Crimea. They marched with great simplicity, through a crowd rather full of emotion than demonstrative, to their barracks. I have wit- nessed more ostentatious but less impressive ovations. It is with amusement now that one looks back on the alarm felt in London on the 10th of April 1848, 1 and the military preparations made to encounter a phantom of our fancy. We parted on the evening before the dreaded day, imagining that something terrible would happen before we met again. The House of Commons sat surrounded by a cordon of troops. I had the honour to command a squad of special constables posted in Oxford Street. There was a stream of working-men t 1 The day of the Chartist demonstration.] PUBLIC EVENTS 293 eastward, but nothing to excite the slightest alarm. The car containing the monster petition * of the dreaded revolutionists was arrested on its way to Westminster by the special constables, who thought that the crowd had been robbing Astley's. 2 The demonstration, how- ever, was effective in showing that England was op- posed to revolution. P Of the Chartists.] P Astley's Circus, afterwards Sanger's.] CHAPTER XVII ELECTIONS Anthony John Mundella Sheffield Trades-Unionism Nurs- ing a Constituency Election Tactics The Party System. AGAINST the siren voices which lured me to stand for a seat in Parliament I stopped my ears, knowing my total want of oratorical power, and being moreover little disposed to run the gantlet of popular election. The only instance in which I yielded was in the mortal struggle for the integrity of the United Kingdom against Gladstone and Home Rule ; and luckily for me on that occasion I was saved by the delay of a telegram from the consequences of my compliance, and thus cheaply discharged my conscience as a patriot. But I enjoyed acting as bottle-holder to a friend. Mundella 1 asked me to be with him when he first stood for Sheffield. We had to fight Roebuck, justly named "Tear 'em," who having once been the most violent of Radicals had become the most violent of those who are now called Jingoes, the most fanatical enemy of the American Republic, a prominent upholder of the Turk, and the most outrageous of anti-philanthropists, advocating P Anthony John Mundella. He was M.P. for Sheffield from 1868 to 1885 ; and for the Brightside division of Sheffield from 1885 to 1897. The general elections referred to were held in November and December of 1885.] 294 ELECTIONS 295 the extermination of "the wild man." We had, as might have been expected, an exciting time. Sheffield in those days was the seat of trades-unionism in its most sinister form. Not very long before had taken place the Sheffield murders. Mundella was approached by the most violent of the Unions. I asked him whether he could conscientiously give the pledges which the Union required, and on his saying that he could not, I advised him not to palter but to refuse point-blank, and thus, openly breaking with the Union, to win the suffrages of its enemies. The Government Whip, Mr. Sellar, 1 through whom Mundella sent his invitation to me, had believed we should be beaten and questioned the ex- pediency of a contest which would send Roebuck back to Parliament a more violent enemy to the Government than ever. I appealed to Gladstone, who was always for fighting. We won, and by a large majority. At Sheffield we were opposed by the local Union. But I was no enemy to Unions in general. On the con- trary, I maintained that Unions in general were plainly needed to protect the interests of the working-men against the confederation of employers. I bore some hard knocks in that conflict. Keeping to lawful and proper courses, the Unions may do good in other ways besides that of securing fair wages. To violence, intimi- dation, or monopoly, it is needless to say, I never could have been a friend. The Unions, if they take to those ways, will fall into the grave of the Guilds. When I see [ l Alexander Craig Sellar, M.P. from 1882 to 1888. 1835-1890.] 296 REMINISCENCES an exulting announcement that a tradesman has been ruined by refusal to use the Union label, it is clear that there is something very wrong, and sure if it continues to rouse the community to resistance. Two great dangers are the leadership of professional agitators and the ascendency in the Union councils of young unmar- ried men. I took part in several other elections besides that of Sheffield, and saw some lively scenes; for, in spite of reforms, elections retained traces of their old character, and the meeting would sometimes be stormed by the enemy. Going with my excellent friend George Brod- rick, 1 afterwards Warden of Merton, to Woodstock, I had an opportunity of studying the protean character of bribery, which is not exterminated by bribery laws, but only chased from one form into another, and when sup- pressed in the form of money takes that of blankets or other doles. I knew a city in which, of the two seats, one was always fiercely contested, but the other was securely held by a man who had no political qualifica- tions, probably took little interest in politics, and seldom, except at elections, came near the place. He wanted the social grade and opportunities which a seat in the House of Commons then conferred. His method was simple. At Christmas a large sum of money was distributed by his local manager among the poor elec- tors, of whom there were a good many. Not a word Was said about votes, nor was any distinction made on t 1 The Honourable George Charles Brodrick.] ELECTIONS 297 that score. But the recipients were left to conclude that the largess would continue so long as the donor was their Member. The seat probably cost its purchaser less than a yacht, and for his social objects the money was well spent. At a party meeting before a general election at which I was present, the question was raised as to the candidacy for a particular seat. One of those present told us that we need not trouble ourselves about that seat; it was already booked by a local man of wealth. I said the name surprised me, as I thought the man took no interest in politics. " Neither does he," was the reply. "Then why does he want the seat? " "He does not want it." "Then why does he take it? " "Because his wife does." I think I could have pointed to a wealthy and titled pair whom any Minister might have made his own by getting them an invitation to a Court Ball. Nursing boroughs, it seems, has now become a system. It, at all events, like bribery of the old style, costs the State nothing, and the corrup- tion is limited. Demagogic bribery by the sacrifice of public interests corrupts the community at large, and costs the State a good deal. Witness the American Pension List. At elections you must have mass meetings to beat the big drum. But being attended only by your own party, they do not bring votes. For bringing votes, ward-meetings, with attention to the particular inter- ests or fancies of the district, seemed more effective. I was in England during the great fight for the Union 298 REMINISCENCES in 1886, and being a zealous Unionist put myself at the service of the Unionist Committee and under its aus- pices took an active part in several elections. At one of them I went to the Committee-Room just before the polling day, and on asking what they were going to do on that evening, was told that they were going to hold a meeting in a certain quarter, in which, however, they could not hope to get votes, the people being mechanics or railway men who hated the Irish as competitors for employment, and had been convinced that if Home Rule was carried the Irish would be happy in their own island and would stay at home. I went to the meeting ; the evening was fine ; and the people from curiosity had filled the hall. I opened the meeting and soon found that I had before me an adverse audience. Then I called to mind what I had heard in the morning. I said that there was one question of the highest impor- tance which seemed to me not to have received suffi- cient attention; which policy, Home Rule or Union, would have the greater tendency to keep the Irish at home? I argued that Home Rule would frighten capital away from Ireland; that employment there would consequently be diminished, and more Irish than ever would come over to England and particularly to that city. This I turned backwards and forwards for half an hour. From the moment at which I touched that chord I was heard with attention; and though I concluded without a cheer, I understood afterwards that we polled a number of votes in that district, sufficient, y 4t~ Ot^i^/Vwo ELECTIONS 299 the parties being nearly balanced, to turn the election. I may say this without breach of modesty, since the effect was due not to my eloquence, but wholly to the hint received in the morning, on which I mechanically acted. Such are the things which turn popular elec- tions. In the campaign against Home Rule the great difficulty and the object of my mission was to get Liberals who had always voted Yellow to give a Blue vote on the grand issue. At one place to which I went there was a leading Liberal whose presence at the meeting was thought very important, but who was hanging back. I was sent to persuade him. He pleaded weakness which prevented his attending a public meeting. But I noticed in the room a young gentleman evidently listening eagerly. I asked the gentleman whether that was his son, and^ j being told he was, I said, "Then perhaps he would come I to represent you." The youth eagerly caught at the proposal, his father was caught, and we had the satis- faction of placing the son in the front of the platform as the representative of his father unfortunately de- tained by ill-health. Let me say that my experience of elections deeply impressed me with the evils of the party system. A great issue like that of the Union may raise it for the moment above itself. But as a rule it is immoral and indefensible. Chatham was trying to govern without it when disease smote him down. Burke's attack on Chatham's government is mere sophistry, however 300 REMINISCENCES rhetorically brilliant. His object was to get the Rock- ingham clique, with himself as its manager, into power. What is the special " principle " on which he supposes his party to be founded ? 1 It is nothing but a special question with the settlement of which the moral and rational foundation for his party will come to an end. The eloquence of Burke is unquestionable; so is his patriotism ; so is his political wisdom when his passions are not moved as they are to the total ruin of his sagacity and regard for fact in his Essay on the French Revolution. [ x I think the reference is to "Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents." Burke's works. London: Rivington. 1826. Vol. II, p. 335.J , CHAPTER XVIII IRELAND 1862 ; 1881 Cardwell as Irish Secretary The Irish People Irish Liberals Crime in Ireland Education Social Life Robert Lowe Second visit to Ireland Lord O'Hagan Royal visits to Ireland W. E. Forster Gladstone's Irish Policy. THE summer of 1862 1 spent in Ireland with Cardwell, 1 then Irish Secretary, at The Lodge in Phoenix Park. Of all parks that I ever saw, the Phoenix, with its view of the Wicklow Hills, is the most beautiful. Yet it was little frequented by the citizens of Dublin, who seemed to prefer the streets, and left their Park in a solitude which fitted it to be the scene of the Murders. 2 Card- well, being a Cabinet Minister, was the real ruler. The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carlisle, 3 a most amiable and popular man, was happy in displaying his admirable social qualities by making the after-dinner speeches in which, thanks to his unique flow of heartfelt flum- [ l Edward Cardwell, Viscount Cardwell, Secretary to the Treas- ury, 1845-1846; President of the Board of Trade, 1852-1855; Secretary for Ireland, 1859-1861 ; Colonial Secretary, 1864-1866 ; Secretary for war, 1868-1874. Born 1813 ; died 1886.] P The reference is to the murder of Lord Frederick Charles Cav- endish and Thomas Henry Burke on May the 6th, 1882.] [ 3 George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carlisle. 1802-1864.] 301 302 REMINISCENCES mery, he was unrivalled, and by occasionally scoring at cricket. The general impression, I believe, was that Cardwell had failed as Irish Secretary. It is certain that he was the reverse of a typical Irishman. To give him an in- sight into Irish character I had persuaded him before he came over to see the "Colleen Bawn," I fear with no good effect. But I do not believe that he failed. His patience, industry, justice, and impartiality were ap- preciated by the best Irishmen ; my inquiries led me to believe that they were appreciated by the people at large; and I came away disabused of the belief that roistering misrule is the only thing for Ireland. That there is a tendency of that sort in the Irish character may be true, but it calls for an antidote, not for in- dulgence. On Cardwell's arrival at Dublin, a list of promises which had been made to supporters of the Government was laid before him. The staid English official stood aghast when he saw how much their number exceeded the possibilities of performance. He was told that he need not be uneasy. A promise, even though it could not be fulfilled, was preferred to a refusal. The angler prefers a bite to a perfectly blank day. I was deeply impressed with the pensive beauty of Ireland and the weird melancholy of its relics, the Round Towers, the Seven Churches of Glendalough, the Hill of Cashel, the ruins of the primeval seat of learning at Clonmacnois. With the historic pathos IRELAND 303 mingled the comic traits of Irish character; a field with grand iron portals and no fence; a house with three windows and a flight of marble steps fit for a mansion a magnificent chimney-piece with filthy walls; a fine lodge with two pieces of timber laid across each other for a gate ; excellent wines and execrable cookery. One could faintly realize the old roaring and reckless days. I had supposed the pig in the family to be a satire, but found it a reality. The people in their pen- ury were light-hearted. But I am told they are chang- ing their mood as well as ceasing to be attached to their social chiefs. It is said that their simplicity of character, their love of fun, and the wit, which over-leaping itself produced their bulls, have since these stern political struggles been passing away, and that a more sombre hue is coming over the whole scene. At the time of my visit even, "ould Ireland," with its factions and feuds, the relics of the clan, was hardly extinct. Not long before, the Government had been called upon to stop the annual faction-fight between the two-year-olds and three-year-olds, the origin of whose feud was lost in fabulous antiquity, but was sup- posed to have been a dispute about the age of a steer. In another place two factions fought annually for a mystic stone. The magistrates, by direction of the Government, sank the stone in the river. The two factions combined in fishing it up, and then fought for it. Donnybrook Fair, however, had ceased to exist. Before I left Ireland I came distinctly to two con- 304 REMINISCENCES elusions. One was that the Irish character, with all its defects, its unthrift, recklessness, lawlessness, and love of conspiracy, was largely the product of Irish history. The other was that Irish history, with all its calamities and horrors, was the product of untoward accident more than of anybody's crimes. I embodied these conclusions in an essay on " Irish History and Irish Character " * which, though now superseded and for- gotten, had some novelty and some vogue at the time. I drew my inspiration from some of the last of the Irish Liberals, constant intercourse with whom I en- joyed, such as Lord O'Hagan, 2 Sir Alexander McDon- nell, 3 the head of the Education Department and the organizer of national education; Dr. Russell, 4 the Prin- cipal of Maynooth, a most excellent, liberal, and lovable man; Professor Simpson of Belfast; 5 and a member of the Catholic Hierarchy whose name has escaped my aged memory. All these men, while they were thor- oughly patriotic Irishmen, were firmly attached to the [ l Oxford and London : J. H. and Jas. Parker. 1862.] [* Thomas O'Hagan, first Baron O'Hagan, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 1812-1885.] [ 3 Sir Alexander McDonnell, first Baronet, Chief Clerk in the Chief Secretary's office, in Ireland ; Resident Commissioner of the Board of Education, Ireland, 1839-1871. Born 1794; died 1875.] [ 4 Charles William Russell. 1812-1880.] [ 5 So the MS. But Mr. J. M. Finnegan, Secretary of the Queen's University of Belfast, writes to me : " I am afraid there must be some error, as there was no Professor of this name in Queen's Col- lege, and, as far as I can make out, none of that name in Belfast." Perhaps the author means the late Dr. Maxwell Simpson, F.R.S., who was Professor of Chemistry at Queen's College, Cork.] IRELAND 305 Union. They desired Disestablishment, and such im- provement in the land law as could be made without impairing the faith of contracts, as well as certain sec- ondary reforms, including better facilities for private- bill legislation and perhaps for legal appeals. But from the thought of dissolving the Union they all recoiled; and they rebuked me if I said anything the least tending that way. What is certain, to my mind, is that the choice lies between Legislative Union and Independence. A vassal Parliament such as Gladstone proposed would presently struggle for equality and freedom. Before the Union, when there were two Parliaments, the con- nection between the two islands, and the subordina- tion of Ireland to England were maintained by undis- guised corruption. That state of things nobody would desire to revive. What the people wanted, as I always believed, was the land, which had been the object of contention in every crisis of Irish history; and had security of tenure, like that of the English copyholder, been given them, the political agitation, it seemed to me, would have subsided ; it never showed much force apart from the agrarian movement. But I would not undertake to say how far the spirit of nationality has been evoked by the long struggle, or what concession to it may have become unavoidable. The worst of all policies, however, it seems to me, is Home Rule, if Home Rule means a vassal Parliament. Agrarian murder, in other words the war of assassi- 306 REMINISCENCES nation against the landlords, had barely ceased. Land- lords were too often absentees ; grinding the people through their agents. Some of the absentee estates, the Lansdowne estates among the number, were liber- ally managed ; but this did not make up for the absence of the proprietor and the non-performance of his terri- torial duties. It was said that, an agent having com- plained to his absentee employer that his life was in danger, the employer replied, "Tell them that they need not think to intimidate me by shooting you." The people were one vast agrarian conspiracy, so that conviction was impossible. The Attorney-General could give the Council an exact account of an agrarian murder with the names of the murderer and of those who had been present. But when it was proposed to him to prosecute, his answer was, that every one of the witnesses would forswear himself, and thus his only chance, that of getting one of them at a later day to turn King's evidence, would be lost. There is risk in the employment of detectives. An agrarian murder had been committed, and a large re- ward was offered for conviction. Part of the cartridge was picked up and proved to be a leaf taken from a common school-book. Suspicion fixed on a man in the neighbourhood who kept such books for sale. A detective got admission to the house and reported that the book was there and that the fatal leaf was missing. The police entered the house and brought away the book. The proof seemed clear. But before proceed- IRELAND 307 ing, the Attorney-General suggested a reference to the publisher of the book. The publisher's reply was that it was the right book, but not the right edition. The detective had torn the leaf out of the book which he found in the house of the suspected man to get a con- viction and pocket the reward. I visited Dr. Russell at Maynooth, and witnessed the perfection of that system of mental drill and of isolation from every breath of free opinion by which, carried on through a course of seven years, an Irish peasant is turned into a priest with no ideas but those instilled by authority, and no aspiration but devotion to his Church. The text-book was Suarez, even the comparatively liberal Aquinas being disused. When, to such a training, celibacy and corporate influence was superadded, it was easy to understand how the Church kept so complete a hold on her clergy and why apostasy was so rare. Sir Alexander McDonnell and all my Protestant friends bore emphatic testimony to the purity of the Irish priesthood. A peasant clergy sympathized with the peasantry in political and agrarian struggles. The Hierarchy, mingling socially with the upper classes, were more conservative, and it seemed to me would have dis- countenanced Fenianism altogether if they had not been dependent on their people for their incomes. The policy of payment, ascribed to Pitt, would no doubt have had its effect. The people, however, could keep their secrets from the priesthood. Dr. Russell told 308 REMINISCENCES me that they had no idea they had any Fenians in the village of Maynooth till, one of the abortive risings having taken place, a number left the village to join it. At the time of my visit the issue was national educa- tion, which afforded a field for the liberalism of Bishop Moriarty * and Catholics of his school. Of the Catholic laity not a few were at heart with the Government. Some would come up the back stairs and promise their support so long as the Government showed perfect respect for their Church. The religious war between Catholics and Protestants was not over. The two denominations of Christians were still breaking each other's heads at Belfast. Protestant challenges to controversy uncomplimentary to the Virgin and the Saints were posted on the walls. In making up dinner-parties at The Lodge it was neces- sary to take care how members of the hostile Churches were confronted with each other. The mainstay of order was the Constabulary, a noble body of men, whether the policy of which they were the bodyguard was wise or not. The Constabulary was Protestant ; but the ordinary police was largely Roman Catholic. Yet it was trustworthy ; loyalty to the corps prevailing over religious feeling. The Irishman seems to be fond of Government service and faithful to its uniform. There were some relics of the old convivial days. At the dinner parties in the Vice-regal Lodge, when the I 1 David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry. 1814-1877.] IRELAND 309 ladies left the room, the servants remained, and as soon as you put down your glass they refilled it. I thought I saw some effects of this generous hospitality. The Horse Fair at Ballinasloe disappointed me. So did not the Cashel steeplechases, to see which I unsenti- mentally gave up Killarney. Tipperary trooped into Cashel with its swallow-tail coats of frieze, its tall hats, and shillelahs. The races were excellent, and the course was so chosen that from a rising ground you could see them well. The enthusiasm of the people was delight- ful. Mounted police were riding about to keep order, and late in the day there seemed to be some need of them. Has the chilling influence of politics now been cast over the race-course at Cashel ? There were guests at The Lodge in Phoenix Park, among them was Sir John Lawrence, 1 afterwards Governor-General of India, in all the simplicity of true greatness. I asked his opinion of the competition- wallahs, the nickname given to the civil servants appointed under the then new system of competitive examination. Of all men I thought he was the least likely to put literary above practical qualifications. He gave sentence, however, in favour of the wallahs, saying that when another officer of Government wrote to him about them in a disparaging strain, his reply was, that he would be glad to exchange. Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, 2 was p Afterwards Baron Lawrence. 1811-1879.] [ 2 Robert Lowe, first Viscount Sherbrooke, a politician in New South Wales, 1843-1850; M.P. in England, 1852-1874; held many high political posts. Born 1811 ; died 1892.] 310 REMINISCENCES there for some time with his wife. Plim I had already known well. There is a memoir of him written under the auspices of the second wife, 1 whose affection soothed his spirit in his old age. The fame of the man who made the last great stand in favour of middle-class government against democracy can hardly have died away. It was not for aristocracy that he fought; though an intense aristocrat of intellect, he was in nothing else aristocratic; but for government by the educated against government by the masses. He had perhaps seen the rough side of democracy in New South Wales, where for some years he had practised Law at a time before the convict taint had been thor- oughly worked off. I forget whether it was he or one of his friends who at a Ball at Government House had the misfortune to tread upon and tear the gorgeous dress of a lady. The fair wearer turned upon the cul- prit with an expression of her wounded feelings which cannot with any approach to decency be repeated. It was a bitter moment for Robert Lowe when, Glad- stone's Reform Bill having been thrown out mainly by his efforts, and the Liberal Ministry having thus been overturned, Disraeli brought in a Bill 2 not less demo- cratic than that of Gladstone, and the Conservative f 1 This must refer to the "Life and Letters of the Right Honour- able Robert Lowe Viscount Sherbrooke, G.C.B., D.C.L., etc. With a Memoir of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, C.G.B., Sometime Gov- ernor-General of Canada." By A. Patchett Martin. London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1893 ; for it is dedicated to Caroline, Viscountess Sherbrooke.] [ 2 March 18, 1867.] IRELAND 311 rank and file, who had rapturously applauded Lowe's anti-democratic speeches, sat, under the rod of party discipline, sullenly supporting the Bill and deaf to the passionate appeals which Lowe made to them. It was said that he was moved to tears. Lowe was an albino, with eyes so weak that when he was reading his nose literally touched his book. He took high honours at Oxford, and it is said would have taken higher if he had not rubbed out with his nose what he had written with his pen. Yet I have been driven by him in a phaeton at a rattling pace through crowded streets. In public, Lowe affected a utilitarian contempt for classical education; in private he was always reading the classics. When I was staying with him at Cater- ham he asked me what I thought was the best history of the Roman Republic. I told him Mommsen's, 1 which had just appeared. A few days afterwards an editorial in a leading newspaper for which he wrote- began, "In Mr. Thompson's history of the Roman Republic, which appears to us to be the best." I wonder whether booksellers received orders for the book ! Lowe was the most naturally and spontaneously brilliant talker that I ever knew. Other great talkers wanted an audience. Lowe did not. He was not less [^'Romische Geschichte." By Theodor Mommsen. An Eng- lish translation (in five volumes) was made by the Rev. William P. Dickson, and published by Richard Bentley, London, in 1867.] 312 REMINISCENCES likely to say a good thing to you as you sat by him on the driving-box than to say it to the most appreciative circle. Touch him when you would, he gave out the electric spark. His talk was rather cynical and sar- donic in form; but he was not really- a cynic; he was a Democritus who laughed at the world ; though rather too impatient of honest stupidity. "Look at that fool throwing away his natural advantages ! " he exclaimed when a deaf member of the House of Com- mons put up his ear trumpet. Mrs. Lowe was a fat, good-natured lady, clever in her way, for she painted well, and an excellent wife, but rather a joke among her friends. Her husband, though he loved her dearly, sometimes could not help making fun of her. One morning at breakfast he was railing in his dashing way at the marriage service of the Church of England: "It made me" -turning to his wife "say 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow/ when I had no worldly goods to endow you with." "Ah! Robert; but then there were your brains." "Well, all the world knows I did not endow you with them." Spreading his arms to help her spacious person down from a jaunting-car, he exclaimed, "Descend, ye Nine ! " Combative he certainly was, and he had at least his fair share of foes. The "Whitehead torpedo" was his nickname. 1 A party of us, including the old Lord [ l "Lord Beaconsfield's mind being now exclusively turned upon military matters, there has occurred to him a new and happy name IRELAND 313 Chancellor Cranworth, 1 went to see Powerscourt water- fall. Our cars brought us back to the station some time before the arrival of the train. To fill up the time Lowe said, "Let us have a row with the car-men about the fare." A row it actually became, and the Lord Chancellor looked the picture of dismay. Lowe prized intellect above all things, in others and in himself. At the time when his own powerful mind was giving way, and had painfully betrayed its decadence in the House of Commons, we met at an Academy dinner. Lowe took me to see a picture at which he had just been look- ing and admired. He failed to identify it, and he burst into tears. Twenty years afterwards 2 I was in Ireland again, presiding over a section of the Social Science Associa- tion at Dublin. This time I was the guest of my friend the ex-Chancellor, Lord O'Hagan. If the Irish ques- tion could only have been put into the hands of a few men like him for quiet settlement, instead of being made the prey of demagogism and the football of party, how much better would the result have been, and how much less the public morality and the faith of contracts have suffered in the process ! Lord O'Hagan's political saint was Arthur O'Leary, 3 for his old adversary, Lowe. He alludes to him in private conver- sation as 'The Whitehead Torpedo.' " "A Diary of Two Parlia- ments." By Henry W. Lucy. The Disraeli Parliament. 1874- 1880. Second edition. Cassell and Co. 1885. Under date April 16, 1878.] f 1 Robert Monsey Rolfe, Baron Cranworth. 1790-1868.] P October, 1881.] [ 3 Irish priest and politician. 1729-1802.] 314 REMINISCENCES whose portrait hung in his study, and whose policy was union with justice. It has recently been discovered that O'Leary was in communication with the Govern- ment, and received money from it. This would have been a shock to O'Hagan. But there is no reason to suspect the sincerity of O'Leary's convictions or to reverse any opinion as to the soundness of his views. Nothing that has transpired warrants us in calling him a spy. There was no excuse for the neglect of Ireland by the Court during the late reign. 1 The Queen, when she paid a brief visit, was received as enthusiastically as she could desire. That the probable effect of her presence has been somewhat overrated is not unlikely, but her persistent absence was felt as a standing affront. Royalty must be charitably judged, since it is inevitably nursed in delusion. The claims of duty are never brought home to it. It is made to feel by flattery that the gratification of its own whims is a public duty. There was, however, in this case an uneasy conscious- ness of the omission. I believe I heard it on good authority that an Irish Lord-in- Waiting who had rashly touched the tender point received a message which caused him to resign. At the close of the Convention I had to propose a vote of thanks to a scientific society which had given us a breakfast in the Phoenix Park. I said that the Phoenix Park seemed to me by its beauty to be not less I 1 That is, the reign of Queen Victoria.] IRELAND 315 worthy of the occasional residence of Royalty than Osborne or Balmoral. The sentiment was cheered. In the evening there was a banquet at the Mansion House at which the Lord-Mayor echoed what I had said in the morning. Prince Teck, 1 who was a guest, followed suit, with a strong expression of his regret that the Royal family did not come more to Ireland; "and why they do not, I don't know why." This of course made a sensation, and was echoed by the morn- ing papers. The Prince then knew that he had of- fended, and an attempt to mop him up was made, I believe, in one of the evening papers, but with the usual result. Presently out came a long editorial, evidently inspired, in the Times, taking me, poor inno- cent as I was, to task for having given expression to what was called the paradoxical notion that it would be a good thing for the Court to visit Ireland, and demonstrating by arguments which seemed to me rather paradoxical that such a step would be most unwise. Afterwards the Prince of Wales 2 referred to the question in a public speech, though in language per- fectly kind towards his old teacher, showing thereby how sore the subject was. Among the Company at O'Hagan's was a very pleas- ant and well-informed man whom I did not know, but who, I afterwards learned, was a leading writer in p H. S. H. Francis Paul Charles Louis Alexander, Prince and Duke of Teck, son of Duke Alexander of Wiirtemberg, born 1837. Father of Her Majesty, our present Queen.] P Afterwards King Edward VII.] 316 REMINISCENCES the Times. As he and I strolled in the grounds one morning, our conversation turned on the subject of the Royal neglect of Ireland, and I spoke of George IV's visit as a redeeming point in his unedifying career. My companion heartily concurred. It may have been \s my fancy, but I thought that in the editorial taking the other side I identified a phrase which had been used in that morning's conversation. This was the time of the struggle with Parnell and his Nationalist following. Things had come to such a pass that some who did not sympathize with the League were joining it to obtain for their callings the protec- tion which the Queen's Government could no longer afford. The Irish Secretary and the occupant of The Lodge was another friend of mine, W. E. Forster, 1 an able, honest, solid, and most industrious, though rather uncouth man, who, it was thought, with a little grace and polish might have achieved to the highest place. In grace and polish, however, he was totally wanting. I have seen him in speaking stand for some time on one leg holding up a glass of water in one hand as if he were going to drink it to the health of the audience. He was fighting the Parnellites with a Coercion Bill in hourly danger of assassination, as was subsequently proved. I wrote something in defence of Forster's application of the Coercion Act, saying that one of three things f 1 William Edward Forster ; liberal M.P. for Bradford, 1861- 1886 ; held several high political posts. 1818-1886.] IRELAND 317 had to be done; either the Coercion Act must be applied; or the troops must fire; or the Queen's Government in Ireland, as it could no longer protect people in their lawful callings, must resign. Forster soon after came over to England. When we met he thanked me for my defence of him, but said that a dif- ferent policy had prevailed. From his tone I augured that he was about to resign, as a day or two afterwards he did. Peel, when he changed, averred his change, and gave credit to those who had converted him. Gladstone set his retrospective imagination at work to make out that he had always been consistent. If, as he pre- tended in his " Plistory of an Idea," 1 his mind had many years before been turning towards Home Rule, how could he justify himself in continuing to lead the nation on what he had begun to suspect was a wrong line, in denouncing Parnell as "wading through rapine to dis- memberment"; in proclaiming his arrest to a shouting multitude at Guildhall; in throwing him and his fol- lowers into prison; above all in allowing his own col- leagues, especially his Home Secretary, to rise at his side night after night and denounce the Home Rule movement and its leader in most scathing terms? Is it possible by any stretch of charity to doubt that Gladstone's failure in 1885 to obtain a majority inde- pendent of the Parnellites was the proximate cause of his sudden accession to Home Rule ? That he should I 1 Published in August, 1886.] 318 REMINISCENCES have persuaded himself of the contrary is only one of the many proofs that his power of self-deception was unbounded. It is not less true that his emotions were generous and that his enthusiasm when once he had espoused any cause was perfectly real. CHAPTER XIX AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 Secession Its True Character Lincoln's View The Alabama Claim Attitude of the British Government British Liberals Visits to the United States Friends in the United States J. M. Forbes Emerson Lowell Bancroft The Attitude of the North Finance General Butler The Opposing Forces General Grant Sherman General Meade Lee General Butler again Washington Seward Abraham Lincoln. IN 1861 came Secession, and what was taken to be the death-knell of the American Republic. The aristocratic and wealthy classes in England generally, exulting in the downfall of democracy, at once em- braced the side of the South. A short time before they had given an ovation to the authoress of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." But that was when slavery was the reproach of the Republic. Classes will be classes. The success of American democracy had always been a threat to aristocracy in England. But the people in England generally would not have been without excuse if they had gone wrong. Slavery was accursed ; it was under the ban of human- ity; England had made great efforts and sacrifices for its extinction. Its extension, which would probably have ensued on the slave-owners' victory, would have 319 320 REMINISCENCES been the bane of moral civilization. On this account, and on this account only, was any one bound to take the side of the North. With a war for the reconquest of a new-born nation, severed from the Northern States by a natural line of cleavage after a long period of internal strife, we should in no way have been called upon to sympathize. But on slavery Congress, Lin- coln, and Seward had disclaimed any intention of making war, and Congress had offered to perpetuate its constitutional existence if the Slave States would return to the Union. We who took the side of the North had to contend that the formal was not the prac- tical issue, and to make the masses see this was not easy, especially when the masses, by the cutting off of cot- ton, were being stinted of their bread. Mr. Spence, 1 in his cunning book, had propagated the notion that the real issue was economical, and that the South was for Free Trade ; as it was, though not from enlightenment, but because slavery could not manufacture. Cobden, as I have said, wavered at first, though he soon came round to the truth. Bright came out at once for the North, and delivered in St. James's Hall the best speech I ever heard. All things considered, the conduct of the British people was surely good. The partisans of P James Spence, of Liverpool. "The American Union; its Effect on National Character and Policy, with an Inquiry into Secession as a Constitutional Right, and the Causes of the Disrup- tion." London. 1861. Also, "On the Recognition of the Southern Confederation. ' ' London. 1862. Also ' ' Southern Independence : an Address." London : Bentley. 1863.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 321 the South, though they spat a good deal of fire and had the mighty Times on their side, never ventured, in Parliament or elsewhere, to make a decided move in favour of intervention. Lincoln, with all his wisdom and goodness of heart, never took or at least never showed that he took a right view of the case with which he had to deal; if he had, perhaps there would have been no war. He viewed and treated as a rebel- { lion that which was in fact a natural disruption, post- poned for some time by uneasy shifts and compromises, but inevitable in the end. This same error pervaded Reconstruction. It led to the fatal exclusion of the Southern leaders from the work of Reconstruction, to Carpet-bagging government, to the Ku-Klux, and to the almost desperate situation which has ensued. It is true that Lincoln's personal character and history were, to those who knew them, a pledge for the adop- ^ tion of the antislavery policy if victory rested with his 1 party; but by us in England Lincoln's character and ? history were unknown, and his official utterances were ) naturally taken as decisive. The great writers having generally gone with their class, my pen was in requisition on the side of the North. It is true, as J. M. Forbes is recorded in his daughter's Memoir l of him to have noted, that I somewhat hesi- tated at first. It seemed hardly our business to fan the flame of civil war in another nation. But I also [ l " Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes." Edited by his Daughter, Sarah Forbes Hughes. Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin Co. 1899. Volume II, page 108.] Y 322 REMINISCENCES felt a doubt, which in the sequel has proved not base- less, about the policy of reincorporating the Slave States. The first ground of hesitation was removed by the efforts of the South to draw us into the quarrel. JThe second was swept away by the progress of the war, which left us practically to choose between the victory of freedom and that of slavery. My first appearance on a platform was at a great meeting in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, called, upon the escape of the Alabama, to protest against the fitting out; of "cruisers for the South. The meeting was called by the Union League, an organization at the head of which was Thomas Potter, 1 one of the leaders of Manchester commerce, and a brand plucked from the burning; for Manchester magnates generally leant to the other side. At that moment we were seriously alarmed. Other cruisers were being built in Laird's yard, and a party, of which the present Lord Salisbury, 2 then Lord Robert Cecil, was an active member, were working to prevent their arrest. Too strong language was used by me and others at that crisis. When all was known, the Government was seen to have been guilty only of allowing the papers to lie too long before the Queen's Advocate, who it did not know had been suddenly stricken with illness. The order for the arrest of the Alabama was on its way when she sailed, without t 1 Thomas Bayley Potter. 1817-1898.] [ 2 This, oiiMifMMe, refers to the third Marquess of Salisbury, father of the present Marquess.] AMERICAN CIVIL^WAR 323 a clearance, on a pretended trip of pleasure. She took on board her armament from a tender at the Azores. There was one seaman of the Reserve in her crew, but Government had no general control over the engagements of those men. Allowance must be made for a Government responsible for very scattered pos- sessions and exposed for four years to the strain of maintaining a neutrality which the South was always trying to break. Nations which, instead of settling their differences by negotiation or arbitration, disturb the neighbourhood by going to war, must be content with reasonable maintenance of an honest neutrality. The Government of the United States had no shadow of justification for making war on Spain other than the trouble to which it was put in maintaining the neutrality between the Spaniards and the insurgent Cubans, though the enforcement was not very strict, filibuster- ing expeditions having escaped, and Cuban revolution having been allowed freely to operate at New York. I was glad when the indemnities were paid by the Brit- ish Government, because the payment plucked out a thorn. But I doubt whether they were due ; I feel sure that, in any case but that of the Alabama, they were not. I lived with those who could not be misinformed, and my conviction is that the British Government remained throughout unshaken in its neutrality, and never for a moment gave ear either to the solicitations of the South or to the promptings of the Emperor of the 324 REMINISCENCES French. Palmerston was a Tory, and his heart may have been with the Southern oligarchy. On the Trent affair he drafted a despatch, instinct with his overbearing temper, which was happily modified by the Prince Consort. But he was deeply pledged to the extinction of slavery. About the course of the Duke of Argyll, Cornewall Lewis, or Cardwell, there could be no doubt. Of Gladstone's course and his motives for it I have already spoken. In him there may have been a tincture of Liverpool. 1 But he sympathized with all struggles for independence. In a letter to me he suggested that if the North would let the South go, Canada might afterwards be allowed to enter the Union. I suppressed the letter, which I thought would be of little use at the time and might afterwards do him harm. Though he said, and had the fact on his side in saying, that Jeff Davis had made a nation, it did not follow that he voted for intervention in the Cabinet. I feel sure that he did not. For mediation the British Gov- ernment was always ready, as well it might be, con- sidering the loss and suffering to which the war was exposing its people. The British Government was upbraided for recogniz- ing the belligerency of the South. Did not the North from the outset recognize the belligerency of the South and treat its soldiers as entitled to all the laws, human- ities, and courtesies of war ? It called the South rebels ; 1 Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool. 1770- / AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 325 but did it, during the war, ever treat a single South- erner as a rebel ? Had the French Emperor chosen, in pursuance of his own designs, to intervene on the side of the South, England could not have been permitted to intervene on the side of the North. The opposition would have been far too strong. It is not unlikely that the North owed a good deal to the attitude of Russia, whatever the motive of that attitude may have been. At this critical time we were unlucky in our Foreign Minister. Lord Russell's diplomatic manner was as bad as possible. It was haughty, unconciliatory, and brusque. His appointment to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a striking instance of the tendency of party Government, in distributing the high offices among the party leaders, to put the square man in the round hole. He apologized for his want of courtesy frankly, but late. We were lucky, on the other hand, in having, as the American Ambassador, Mr. Adams, 1 whose bear- ing throughout was excellent, and who, to the pride of aristocracy, could oppose the dignity of an illustrious line. Mr. Adams' temper must have been tried. He certainly was not exposed during those years to the social allurements, under the sweet but emasculating influence of which American Ambassadors to England are apt to fall. In the course of the struggle I spent some pleasant [ l Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister to England. 1861-1868.] 326 REMINISCENCES days with Thomas Potter at his house, Buel Hill, near Manchester, and enjoyed the advantage of seeing the life of a great centre of industry and of intercourse with Manchester men. Potter in those days was very opulent. His grapery was famous, and on New Year's Day we eat the grapes of the old and those of the new year off the same dish. He stood nearly alone among the magnates of Manchester on the side of the North. With most of them Cotton was King. My acquaintance with the land of manufactures extended. I saw a good deal of it at Bradford, as the guest of my very dear friends Robert and Samuel Kell, 1 and afterwards at Rochdale, where Bright's home and works were, Nottingham, and Leeds. Machinery has added vastly to the wealth, would we could say with confidence to the happiness, of the world. Factory hands are human hammers and spindles ; they can feel no interest in their work ; they do not even see it in its p Robert and Samuel Kell were prosperous cloth manufacturers of Bradford, their firm's name being Schwann, Kell, and Company. Mr. Frederic Harrison tells me that they were "ardent Radicals, Free Church and Social Reform enthusiasts ; men of great weight and high character amongst the Yorkshire Reformers of the sixties and seventies ; stout supporters of Edward Miall, Alfred Illing- worth, etc." Samuel Copeland Kell, the elder brother, was born in 1812 and died at Bradford on May the 20th, 1869 ; Robert died on December the 13th, 1894. They were sons of the Rev. Robert Kell, a Unitarian minister. The Bradford Observer of December the 14th, 1894, contains a long and sympathetic obituary notice of Robert, who seems to have been the more prominent and influential. For much of this information I am indebted to widespread inquiries instituted through the courtesy of Mr. J. Rankine Finlayson, of Manchester.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 327 finished state ; their abodes are dismal ; their lives are monotonous. They can hardly be blamed either for addiction to sensual enjoyments or for readiness to listen to any Karl Marx who tells them that they ought to have more pay. Socially they are quite cut off from their employers, whose mansions, perhaps, in their Sunday stroll in the suburbs, they see with no friendly eye. Anything that could create a feeling of partnership between employer and employed would be the greatest of blessings, but nothing in that way as yet seems to have had much success. The master looks for his gains to the future; the mechanic wants his wages to-day. Saltaire, 1 in which I for a time held an honorary office, was not successful. It was furnished apparently with everything that could make its denizens happy. But they kicked against every restriction and seemed to feel that they were not free. It was the same with Pullman, the model factory village near Chicago. Some sort of partnership giving the men an interest in their work seems alone likely to be the cure. In 1864, when the war was drawing to a close, I paid a visit to the United States charged with the sympathy of Bright, Cobden, and other British friends of the North as a little antidote to the venom of the too powerful Times. I was desired at the same time to report on the real state of affairs. Those were the [! A little socialistic town in the West Riding of Yorkshire three miles from Bradford, founded by Sir Titus Salt in 1853.] 328 REMINISCENCES days before the cable, and we were still imperfectly informed, especially on the vital question whether the West was acting heartily with the North or, as the friends of the South averred, was a reluctant partner in the struggle. I was also curious to see the Civil War. The first thing that struck me was that there was no civil war to be seen. The war was between two nations, formed by an inevitable disruption, and in the Northern, which was the invading nation, though war was visibly on foot, and all minds and papers were full of it, life was undisturbed. In the Border States alone, which were the borderland between freedom and slavery, was there anything like Civil War. Social intercourse, therefore, went on as pleasantly as usual, and my enjoyment of it was complete. My introductions were very helpful to me. I saw and heard all that there was to be seen or heard, and met eminent men not a few. I landed at Boston, after what was thought a good passage of thirteen days, under the kind command of Captain Anderson, who afterwards laid the Atlantic Cable. I was at the Tremont Hotel. The card was sent up to me of Mr. Loring, 1 the name of a U. E. Loyalist family connected with my family by marriage. 2 The parlour of the hotel [ l Charles Loring, a well-known member of the Boston Bar. Born in Boston, 1794 ; an orator and an author. Died in 1868.] [ 2 Ann Smith, sister of Dr. Richard Pritehard Smith (Goldwin Smith's father), married Major Robert Loring on the 19th of July, 1828. They sailed for Canada on August the 26th of the same year.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 329 I found full of people, among whom I at once identified Mr. Loring by his striking likeness to my connections. Going up to him, I thanked him for his call, which I presumed had been made at the suggestion of my relatives. To my surprise, he had never heard of them. The family had been divided by the Revolution, the Whig branch remaining at Boston, the Tory branch emigrating to Canada. So lasting are family features. I afterwards saw in the house of Commissioner Loring at Washington what I should at once have taken for the portrait of my cousin had I not been told that it was the beautiful Mrs. Loring who won the heart of General Howe. I was once introduced to a Cecil whose likeness to my old comrade 1 on the Saturday was so strong as to make me say that introduction was almost needless. He replied that he was not of the Salisbury but of the Exeter branch of Cecil, and that there had been no intermarriage between the branches since the time of Elizabeth. My friendships are, saving my marriage, the great events of my life ; and of my friendships none is more dear than that with Charles Eliot Norton, 2 who was my host, more than hospitable, at Cambridge. He com- bined the highest European culture with the most fervent love of his own country. That his patriotism P Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards third Marquess of Salisbury.] [ 2 Charles Eliot Norton, born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1827 ; editor (with J. R. Lowell) of the North American Review from 1864 to 1868 ; Professor of History at Harvard University ; author of many works. Died October the 21st, 1908.] 330 REMINISCENCES was of the best brand he has since shown by doing his best to save his country from the gulf of Imperialist folly and wickedness towards which evil men have been dragging her. 1 Other Boston friends, never to be for- gotten, were Mr. Charles Loring above mentioned, and Mr. J. M. Forbes, 2 both of whom showed how in a Re- public a man might be a great citizen without being a professional politician. Of this, Mr. Forbes especially was a striking example. He was one of the leaders of Boston commerce. He went as an informal envoy of the North to England during the war. He did not go into politics, which, as they are managed, would have been repellent to his honest and generous nature; but he did go with all his heart and soul into every great public cause. Whenever public good was to be pro- moted or public evil to be combated, he exerted him- self with an ardour which could not have been exceeded if a Prime Ministership or a Dukedom had been his prize. He was a great citizen; a character within the reach of some who could not succeed in politics if they would and would not if they could. Forbes was one of the liveliest and most entertaining of hosts and com- panions. Bright were the days I spent with him in his house with his family circle at Milton Hill or at his hunting-box in the island of Naushon. He had a I 1 Referring, I suppose, to the American war with Spain, and the annexation of the Philippines.] [ 2 John Murray Forbes, born in 1813, engaged in mercantile pur- suits, ship-building, and in railway and financial interests; died in 1898.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 331 deer forest on the island of Naushon, where I shot a deer. I did not kill it ; it had to be killed, and I never would shoot another. Under Mr. Forbes' roof I met Emerson. I of course looked with interest on a man whose name and influence were so great. Emerson's character was undoubtedly fine and his influence was very good. But I cannot honestly say that I ever got much from his writings. I can find no system; I find only aphorisms ; an avalanche, as it were, of uncon- nected pebbles of thought, some of them transparent, some translucent, some to me opaque. Carlyle intro- duced Emerson to the British public as one who brought new fire from the empyrean. But the two men in genius were leagues apart, and Carlyle at last found the new fire a bore. George Venables, calling one evening on Carlyle at Chelsea, found himself received with extraordinary warmth, the reason of which Mrs. Car- lyle explained by exclaiming, "Oh, we were afraid it was Emerson." I heard Emerson lecture. Now and then he shot a telling bolt. The rest of his discourse to me was almost darkness. I heard him read his own poetry aloud, but it remained as obscure to me as before. Certain, however, it is that, by whatever means, he was inspiring and an elevating influence in his day ; which was the critical tune, when, New Eng- land Puritanism having lost its power, there was press- ing need of something to maintain spiritual life. Long- fellow also I met, of course, with interest, and he was most attractive as a man, though I can hardly credit 332 REMINISCENCES him with anything more than sweetness as a poet. Bryant lives by his "Waterfowl," and almost by that alone. Poe had poetic genius if he had only taken more care of it and of himself. Excepting him, can it be said that America has produced a poet? Perhaps America might ask whether at this time there is such a thing as a true poet in the world. Lowell, whom I also met, was in those days very anti-British. We could not greatly complain, if the feeling of the ruling class in England was taken to be that of the nation, and resented as such. The Times, from its immense ascendency as a journal, was naturally regarded as the great organ of British opinion, and nothing could be more galling to American patriotism than its attacks. From their English visitor the cour- tesy of the Americans concealed any feeling they might have against his country. However, among the best of them there was still a lurking affection for the old land, and sorrow rather than anger at her defection from the good cause. At Mr. Loring's on Thanksgiving Day, our host, though one at least of his family was a soldier on the Northern side, gave as a toast "The President of the United States and the Queen of England." Pleasant and instructive too were the days which I spent with Bancroft, 1 the historian, in his Newport I 1 George Bancroft, the American historian, statesman, and diplo- matist ; tutor of Greek at Harvard ; Secretary of the Navy, 1845- 1846 ; United States Minister to England, 1846-1849 ; Minister at Berlin, 1867-1874. Wrote a " History of the United States " in ten volumes. Born in 1800 ; died 1891.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 333 villa. He had been long in public life, and had known Jackson, whom he described, to my surprise, as mild by nature and putting himself into a rage only when it would serve a purpose. I went with Bancroft to a festival at Brown University in Providence. The ban- quet was in a marquee ; there was a high wind ; the canvas flapped; and the speeches could not be heard. I was green enough not to foresee that I should be called upon for a speech. Otherwise the speech would have been written. Called upon I was, and when I had done a reporter told me that I had been inaudible, and asked me for my notes. I had no notes to give him. The boat was waiting. The reporter made a speech for me which I dare say was better than my own, but certainly was not my own, and took me considerably aback when I read it in the paper next morning. The demand for speeches, which I was by nature wholly incapable of supplying, was the one serious drawback of my American tour. With Bancroft I renewed my acquaintance at Wash- ington in his last days, and made up his whist-table. As a politician he was said to have rather overrated democracy and too much idolized "the dear people." His " History of the United States" is in somewhat Fourth of July style, as was to be expected in that day; but it is a considerable work ; easy reading, and not unfair or in bad taste for its time. Any doubt as to the hearty participation of the Western States in the struggle for the Union was soon 334 REMINISCENCES set at rest. If the North had hung back, the West would have gone on. By the stalwart yeomen of the Western States under Grant the tide was first turned in favour of the North and victory was in the end mainly won. Patriotic enthusiasm and the spirit of self-sacrifice were certainly intense and general. The national character at that time rose to a moral height which has not since been sustained. The Republican party, as a body, remains the same, with the name unchanged. But how changed is the spirit ! How unlike is this league of log-rolling monopolists to the patriot democracy headed by Lincoln in the days of the War ! It was for the Union rather than against slavery that the North in general appeared to me to be fighting. When the people were asked the cause, the usual an- swer was "to uphold the law." Slavery was the object of hostility chiefly because it was the cause of disrup- tion. This was the case especially with the officers of the army, among whom the feeling against slavery was not strong. It was partly a sense of this, I believe, which caused Lincoln to hesitate in proclaiming eman- cipation. Garrison, 1 on the other hand, and the thor- ough-going Abolitionists before the war would have been glad to renounce the "covenant with hell" and let the Slave States go. This, however, was Garrison's I 1 William Lloyd Garrison, born in 1805 ; a printer and journalist ; founder of the first Abolition Society ; President of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Died in 1879.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 335 hour of victory after a life of devotion and martyrdom. Soon he was to stand at Charleston triumphant at the grave of Calhoun. A sudden change is a shock, even though it be from persecution to popularity. When a complimentary watch was presented to Garrison, he said that he felt at a loss for appropriate words ; had it been a rotten egg, he would have known exactly what to say. Other men probably have had the same feeling. It seemed to me that at the North generally there was a remarkable absence of truculence. The deter- mination was fixed to subdue the South and restore the Union. But I heard few expressions of thirst for revenge such as were heard the other day from Loyalists at Cape Town. 1 Prisoners of war were well treated. I visited the prison-camp at Chicago and saw that its inmates were well fed and were suffering no hardships beyond that of confinement. If they died under im- prisonment, it was as the caged eagle dies. I visited the prisoners' hospital at Baltimore, went through every part of it, and satisfied myself that the treatment was good. My visit was unannounced. On Thanks- giving Day the table was spread with the good things of the season. I record this as an answer to the charges of cruelty rife at the time in England. It was the more notable as the treatment of Federal prisoners in some of the Confederate prisons was known to be most inhuman. In the Andersonville prison-camp it was devilish, and such as no want of resources on the part [i An allusion, of course, to the Boer war.] 336 REMINISCENCES of the captors could excuse. I saw at Annapolis the first batch of prisoners exchanged from Andersonville. They were living skeletons. I put my finger and thumb round the upper part of a large man's arm. It must be said that Grant was partly responsible, if, as was understood, he refused to exchange prisoners. No laws of war surely can warrant the retention of prisoners whom a captor cannot feed. They ought to be released on parole. Nor did it seem to me that internal repression was carried by the Washington Government beyond the real necessities of the case, considering that there was at the North a party openly sympathizing with the South and doing its best to weaken the arm of Govern- ment in the war. Great liberty was allowed to the press, and the elections were perfectly free. I was at Boston at the time of the second election of Lincoln. Party feeling of course ran very high, yet the Demo- cratic minority was allowed without molestation to hold its meetings, hang out its banners across the street, and march in its torchlight processions. Nor on that day was there serious disturbance, so far as I could learn, in any one of the Northern States. When the Irish rose against the draft in New York and filled the city with murderous outrage, they no doubt were ruthlessly put down. Even social ties were less broken than might have been expected. At Boston I met men of opposite par- ties under the same roof. At Baltimore, which was AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 337 close upon the scene of the war, and had in it a strong pro-slavery party, by which Lee, if he had conquered at Gettysburg, would have found the banquet spread for him, the feeling was more bitter, and the social severance was complete. Yet Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, whose guest I was, though ardent Unionists, interested themselves actively in obtaining pardon for a lady who had been convicted, not for the first time, of corre- spondence with a Confederate raider. My visit to the prison-camp at Chicago was paid under the wing of the Roman Catholic Bishop, with whom I had some intercourse. A most highly culti- vated and very attractive man he was. His gifts had made him a Bishop at the earliest possible age. His liberality surprised and almost startled me. Inquiring for him when I afterwards came to America, I was told that mental illness had caused his retirement from his See. His brain had probably been overstrained. Had his Liberalism led him too far? The greatest sign of disturbance was the depreciated paper currency. The issue of this was probably a breach of the Constitution, which withholds from the Federal Government all that it does not give, and does not give the power of issuing paper money. It would have been better and cheaper to borrow at the current rate, whatever that rate might be. The return to specie in the end probably cost a good deal more than the loan would have cost, besides the disturbance of commerce and industry. I had a talk on the subject with 338 REMINISCENCES Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, on whom I totally failed to impress the orthodox doctrine. He must have understood the question better than I did. Perhaps he saw the truth, but held that financial prin- ciple must give way to urgent necessity. Fluctuation of wages could not fail especially to be felt. I believe there had been no very serious strikes before that time. Lincoln was comically ignorant of economy. He is said, when there w r as lack of money, to have asked whether the printing-press had given out. But it is surprising how many people have a lurking idea that the bank bill is money, not clearly seeing that it is a promissory note, and that when it changes hands specie passes at the bank of issue from the credit of the giver to that of the taker. The illusion is helped by the ambiguous word " currency." One consequence is that the Government, whose proper business is only to stamp the coin, fancies that it is specially concerned in the banking trade, and entitled to the profits of the paper circulation. Let me say, however, that I never doubted that the paper promises of the United States would be redeemed. After my return to England, I found myself in a large party alone maintaining that the Americans would pay in gold. I had a higher opinion of their honesty than the rest of the company ; but I felt sure that their commercial instinct would f 1 Salmon Portland Chase, United States Senator from Ohio, 1849-1855 ; Governor of Ohio, 1856-1860 ; Secretary of the Treas- ury, 1861-1864 ; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1864-1873. Born 1808 ; died 1873.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 339 preserve them from a ruinous forfeiture of their credit. Had my works been like my faith, had I invested largely in American paper when it was down to forty, my visit would have been profitable as well as instructive. Gettysburg had been fought, Vicksburg had fallen, the murderous campaign of the Wilderness had come to its close. Grant was before Petersburg, and the Confederacy was in its last ditch. I was taken to the scene of war by General Benjamin Butler, 1 to whom I, at all events, owe gratitude. We went up the Potomac from Washington, starting coveys of ducks which had enjoyed a respite from shooting while the sportsmen were shooting each other. Landing, we got on horse- back to ride to Butler's quarters. On the way we espied some men in the bush, pretty near at hand, who were pronounced to be Confederate riflemen. One of the party, a military man, was inclined to retire and re-form. But there was no danger. I afterwards found that where nothing particular was going on, I could safely get upon the parapet and look down upon the Confederates changing guard. The humanities and chivalries of war were well observed on both sides, except perhaps by the Southerners towards negro soldiers. This proved to me that there was a sun behind the cloud, and that the strife, bitter as it was at the time, would end in reconciliation. I was confirmed in this forecast by hearing that a "sesesh " lady at Balti- more had eloped with a Yankee trumpeter. f 1 See note on page 348, infra.] 340 REMINISCENCES A Federal commander with the local forces found himself in a very tight place. It was a question whether he should waste blood by fighting or surrender. He surprised the Confederate by paying him a visit under a flag of truce and asking him for his candid opinion upon the case, saying that he could make a good fight, but did not wish to sacrifice the lives of his people in vain. The Confederate showed him round the position and then gave him his candid opinion, which was that if his command formed part of a general plan of opera- tions, he was bound to fight; otherwise he might with propriety surrender. I had this story with names of persons and place, which I have forgotten. I can only say that it was likely and illustrative of American character and of the feelings of the military men on the two sides towards each other, which never was so bitter as those of the civilians. If the military leaders of the South, after their defeat, instead of being treated as rebels could have been taken into counsel in the work of reconstruction, the result, though it could hardly have solved the desperate negro problem, might have been far better than it was. But, as I have said, neither Lincoln nor any one else seemed at that time to understand that this was not a rebellion, but the inevitable parting of two groups of States, radically antagonistic in their social and political structure, which had been long held together in uneasy union by hollow compromise, but had obeyed -their natural impulses at last. AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 341 When I was in the camp the two armies lay facing i each other in lines at Petersburg. Richmond could 1 almost be seen through a telescope, and the last move on the chess-board was evidently at hand, though the correspondent of the Times kept assuring his employers i that Confederate victory was near. Sherman was ' setting out on his famous march througn the heart of the Confederacy; Sheridan was ending the business in the Shenandoah Valley; and overwhelming forces were presently to close upon Lee. Against Grant alone Lee might probably have maintained himself. His lines were strong; an attempt to storm them after mining failed; nor were his supplies either of food or ammunition exhausted. Prisoners and deserters who came in were in good case. They had bread enough, though not coffee. Confederate batteries were pretty lavish of shot and shell, notwithstanding that the Confederacy could not manufacture and that its trans- portation had broken down. The Federal army was evidently sound and abun- dantly supplied. Stories of large foreign and Indian enlistments were fictions. There were Germans and other immigrants, no doubt; but they had made the United States their country. There was one Indian, not with a tomahawk, but with the usual side-arms of an officer. In the course of the war there were, as Sir John Macdonald ' told me, forty thousand Canadian enlistments. But of these men, again, many probably [i Prime Minister of Canada, 1867-1873; 1878-1891.] 342 REMINISCENCES adopted the United States as their country. Bounties were high, and under the draft system there were a great many substitutes, giving occasion for not a few jokes. A party of returned soldiers, it was said, were recounting their deeds and sufferings in the national cause, when a voice broke in with " Ah ! you boast of your deeds and sufferings, but after all you returned. I did not return. The bones of my substitute are whitening the bank of the James River." The country was thickly wooded and blind. Grant told me that in action he could not see the length of a brigade. A charge or even a formation of cavalry would have been impracticable. There could be no sweeping up of prisoners at the end of a battle. The defeated army fell back through the woods, and thus battles were comparatively indecisive. Grant l was a silent, somewhat saturnine man, very simple in his demeanour and habits. His quarters were a common tent, in which was a chest with his kit marked "U. S. G., U.S.A." He was said to dislike military parade and even military music. He seems to have been less of a strategist than of a sledge-hammer of war, pounding his enemy by his blows, with little regard for the expenditure of life. He may be almost said to have professed the strategy of attrition. Of this the bloody battle of Cold Harbour, fought in a blind country, was a signal instance. Why the battles of the Wilderness were fought at all, when the plan apparently was to hold t 1 The great Northern General. 1822-1885.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 343 Lee in the North while Sherman pierced the Confed- eracy to the heart, was a question to which I never could get a clear answer from a soldier. But there can be no doubt as to the inestimable service which Grant by his iron resolution and inflexible tenacity did the cause. His great victory at Fort Donelson was the first light of hope in a darkness which seemed almost that of despair. He also rendered a great service by firmly taking the whole war into his own hands and out of those of the politicians, whose meddling had done much mischief. A remark to the contrary in an article of the New York Sun on "The Political Element in War-Power" was from the pen of the editor, not that of the writer. 1 His generosity Grant showed by handing back to Sherman, when the attack on Vicksburg had succeeded, the pro- test which at the Council-of-War Sherman had put in against the attack. His chivalry was shown by his demeanour to Lee after the surrender at Appomattox, when he treated Lee at once as a friend and refused to receive his sword. His good feeling and his good sense together he showed by at once paroling the beaten army, providing for their wants, and giving them back their horses "for the Fall Ploughing." He nobly de- clined to enter Richmond as a conqueror. Pitchforked into the Presidency by the passion of the Americans for military glory, Grant, being totally without political experience, of course failed. The only political quality which he had was resolution, which he I 1 See note on page 356.] 344 REMINISCENCES once at least opposed, under good advice, to his honest and mischievous legislation. He had a fatal notion that supporting public delinquents of his own party was standing by comrades under fire. Between this rough soldier and such a man as Charles Sumner, 1 with his high-stepping culture and lofty self-esteem, antipathy was sure to be strong. Some one, to please Grant, was decrying Sumner to him, saying that Sumner was a Free-thinker and did not even believe in the Bible. "Well," said Grant, "I suppose he didn't write it." Wellington, between whom and Grant there was some resemblance, also once in his life said a good thing. When he appeared at the Court of the Restoration the Marshals of the Empire turned their backs on him. The King apologized to him for their rudeness. "N'importe, Sire, c'est leur habitude," was Welling- ton's reply. I met Grant and Mrs. Grant some years afterwards at a garden party at Lambeth Palace. 2 A curiously rustic couple they looked in that assemblage of fashion. Grant was then touring under the auspices of politicians who wanted a third term for him and thought it might be secured by presenting him to the world's homage. No showman could have had a worse lion. Stanley, who showed Grant over Westminster Abbey, said that of all men of rank whom he had met Grant "was the P Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1861-1871. He was removed from it for his opposition to Grant's policy regard- ing the Annexation of San Domingo.] [ 2 The residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 345 most boorish." Grant was no doubt unappreciative of antiquities, and Stanley had no opportunity of diving into the character of the man. Sherman, who was accounted the greatest strategist on the side of the North, though some put Thomas 1 first, I met some years afterwards at a dinner of the Chamber of Commerce at New York. He was then, I thought, showing the effect of years. I may mention in passing that I did not, as the Quarterly Review stated, at that time or on any other public occasion in the United States, talk annexation, and that Sherman, whom the Quarterly gleefully represented as having rebuked me, spoke before me, so that nothing he said could have reference to my speech. Nor, in a conversa- tion which I had with him afterwards, did he take the slightest exception to anything I had said. The subject was Reciprocity, to which my remarks were confined. 2 t 1 General George Henry Thomas, the defender of Chickamauga. 1816-1870.] [* Mr. Goldwin Smith's speech was delivered at the banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, on the 20th of November, 1888, in response to the toast "Our Relations with Canada May all our differences be amicably adjusted, and our intercourse become increasingly reciprocal and profitable." In the course of this speech occur the following remarks: "There are some of us, however, who look forward to a more complete and lasting settlement of all commercial questions between Canada and the United States than any Fisheries Treaty can afford. . . . The Fisheries dispute will be at rest forever, when the fisheries and the coasting trade are common to us all ... there are . . . who be- lieve that the English-speaking race upon this continent will some day be one people." It was afterwards printed in pamphlet form, with the imprint: "New- York: Press of the Chamber of Commerce. 1888." 346 REMINISCENCES I also some years afterwards at Philadelphia made The animadversions of the Quarterly Review (Vol. 170, No. 340, Art. X, pp. 537 and 538) are as follows : "There are two distinguished British subjects residing in Canada, who, from the prominence given in the English press to then* ut- terances, have a certain notoriety on this side the Atlantic as favour- ing the annexation of Canada to the United States. Mr. Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Honore Mercier, the French Catholic Premier of Quebec, not unfrequently deliver sentiments which, in the days when the term was in usage, might have qualified them for the title of rebels ; but we are perfectly certain that either of those eminent personages would much prefer to be called a rebel than to be coupled and associated in the minds of men with the other. Of Mr. Goldwin Smith we would at once say that his motives are as disinterested as they are mischievous ; but though mischievous his motives, the mischief he effects is infinitesimal, that is to say, it amounts to the harm which ensues from the printing in large type of his letters, advocating the disruption of the Empire, in London journals which profess Imperialism. Though we reprobate his views, we think that the old Regius Professor is often unjustly treated. People who do not know him derive their impression of the man From Mr. Disraeli's rancorous portrait of him in 'Lothair'; he is there de- scribed as talking a language of 'ornate jargon' ; as a matter of fact his diction is severe compared to Mr. Disraeli's, and we regret that his plausible sentiments are not veiled in jargon, but are on the contrary expressed in admirable and forcible English. He has lately had his revenge on his limner in a recent oration at New York, when he emphasized his offer of Canada to the American nation by an unearthed quotation from an ancient letter of Lord Beacons- field, who once seems to have written mysteriously that 'the Colo- nies, and Canada in particular, were millstones round our necks, but that they would soon be independent.' It is, moreover, unjust to ascribe Mr. Goldwin Smith's disaffection to any disappointments he may have encountered in his Canadian career, as we find Sir George Bowen describing in 1862 his schemes for the emancipation of Australia. It ought, however, to be put on record, for the benefit of those who are perturbed by his letters to the English papers, that Mr. Goldwin Smith has no following whatever in Canada, and no disciples across the frontier of his unpatriotic propaganda. Around his home in Toronto he has hosts of personal friends and not one political ally. In the United States an ungrateful lack of warmth greets his harangues, in which he inveighs against the un- AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 347 the acquaintance of Meade, 1 who appeared to me a high- minded soldier and a thorough gentleman. I could well believe that he had done good service in restoring the tone of the Army of the Potomac when it had been run down under Hooker. 2 Of Meade's generalship I am of course incompetent to form a judgment. It may be that after the repulse of Lee's attack at Gettysburg, he ought to have ordered his line to advance. Had he attacked Lee in the position which Lee afterwards took up, he might have lost what he had won at Gettysburg, so great had become the superiority of the defence over the attack. He was very candid in saying that at Gettysburg Lee had thrown away his chances, and that had he manoeuvred instead of rushing against a strong position, the result would not have been so sure. He said not a word against Grant, but showed, I thought, that he did not admire the strategy of attrition. Lee 3 has been pronounced a great strategist by those natural division of a continent which Providence destined to be one. Not long ago he was about to discourse in this wise to an American audience at a banquet, when the veteran General Sherman, perhaps anticipating, arose and said : ' The American people want not an- other rood of bad land in Mexico or of good land in Canada.' After that, Mr. Goldwin Smith's customary periods about 'one flag, one language, one literature,' lacked a little of their usual sonority."] [* General George Gordon Meade, Commander of the Army of the Potomac from June, 1863, till the close of the war. 1815- 1872.] [ 2 General Joseph Hooker was appointed to the command of the Army of the Potomac in January, 1863 ; he was relieved of his com- mand in the following June.] [ 3 Robert Edward Lee, the great Confederate General. 1807- 1870.1 348 REMINISCENCES whose judgment cannot be disputed, though only by an American writer has he been put above Marlborough. He can scarcely be said to have encountered an op- ponent worthy of him before Gettysburg. His two offensive movements were unsuccessful ; the first end- ing with Antietam, the second with Gettysburg. But he was constrained to make them by the nature of the war, which was a monster siege of the South by the North. Lee sallied in hopes of shaking off the besieger, gathering supplies, and at the same time calling forth political sympathy and support at the North. It seems to be admitted that he did a desperate thing at Gettys- burg in ordering the advance of his infantry over more ttian half a mile of open ground against a formidable position with a powerful artillery. He had done some- thing of the same kind at Malvern Heights, with the same disastrous result. General Lee seems to have fought, not against the Union, nor for slavery; but simply as a liegeman of his State. His character evi- dently was fine, and well would it have been both for South and North if in Reconstruction his voice could have been heard. The name of General Benjamin Butler, 1 whose guest I was at the Camp, had been execrated because he was supposed, as Commandant of New Orleans, to have put forth a proclamation threatening to give up the women of that city to the license of his soldiery. The charge P Benjamin Franklin Butler, commanded the Army of the James ; military governor of New Orleans. 1818-1893.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 349 was unfounded. Butler was commanding the Federal garrison of a great city with a population noted for violence, turbulence, and fanatical devotion to the cause of slavery. The women, whose passions, as usual, were the fiercest, insulted his men on the streets, and there was constant danger of an affray which would have led to bloodshed. To avert this, Butler threatened * the women, if their insults were repeated, with being sent to the lock-up house like common women of the 1 town. His proclamation was coarse, as anything of ^ his was likely to be ; but it did not bear, nor would any unprejudiced reader have taken it to bear, the odious sense ascribed to it. Butler was a curious personage. He was exceedingly ugly, and squinted horribly; but his face and figure were an incarnation of rude force, and reminded you of a steam ram. Unscrupulous he was in the highest degree. But I believe his ruling passion was notoriety rather than gain. Those who were put on his track at New Orleans found, as I was told at the time, no trace of his stealing for himself, though he had winked at the doings of subordinates. He was evidently a loving husband to his amiable wife and a loving father to his beautiful daughter. He was evidently popular with his aides and with his men. He I wanted to be President. This was his motive in his t attack on Andrew Johnson * and in his advocacy of repudiation. In his advocacy of repudiation he was P Andrew Johnson, seventeenth President of the United States. 1808-1875.] 350 REMINISCENCES misled, as the unscrupulous are apt to be, by under- rating the general honesty of the world. Butler was a very sociable and amusing companion. He had stories to tell of himself. When he was com- manding at New Orleans, to prevent an outbreak, he had issued a general order requiring all citizens in pos- session of arms to deliver them up at headquarters. A citizen was found possessing arms in contravention of the order, and with his arms was brought before the General. He pleaded that the arms were only family relics. "That, General, was my father's sword." "When did your father die, Sir?" "In 1858." "Then he must have worn the sword in hell, Sir, for it was made in 1859." Ben had been a first-rate criminal counsel Old Bailey counsel, as the English would say, and he brought his sharp practice to bear upon the question as to the principle on which the negro should be treated by the Northern armies; emancipation having not yet been proclaimed. Ben astutely advised that the negro, as his labour sustained the enemy, should be treated as contraband of war. As a General, Ben was not a success. Grant said that he was "bottled up" in the bend of the James River where he was carrying on some engineering operations suggested by his restlessly inventive genius. He did me the honour to impart to me his plan for blowing up Fort Fisher, which had obstinately resisted Federal attack, by running ashore under it a gunboat loaded AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 351 with powder. I could not help venturing to suggest the general ineffectiveness of powder fired in the open air. But Butler thought he had scientific proof that the displacement of air would be so great that Fort Fisher would cease to exist. The experiment was afterwards made, and the breaking of two or three windows in the Fort was the only result. I had first fallen in with Butler at New York, whither he had been summoned at the time of Lincoln's second election with troops to prevent a second rising of Irish against the draft. He did not land his troops, but came ashore himself with his staff, called the leaders of the Irish before him, told them that he was glad to have the pleasure of meeting them, and that if any dis- turbance took place he would hold them personally responsible. No disturbance took place. The grateful city planted Butler for an evening in a hall of the Fifth Avenue Hotel while an endless train of citizens filed past him, each of them taking him by the hand. His hand must have been surfeited with public gratitude. The soldiers of the North were not only well but lavishly supplied. On that side the war exceeded all wars in its cost. It is perhaps fortunate for democracy that, as it is bound to treat every man well, it must find the luxury of war expensive. Confederate prisoners seemed in pretty good case, and said that, though they had nothing but bread, of bread they had enough. How they managed to supply themselves with ammuni- tion, of which they were lavish, in their exhausted state 352 REMINISCENCES and with their railroads all dilapidated, was a mys- tery. I saw but little fighting ; only just enough to impress me with the belief that cannon-balls and shells in the open field were rather ineffective, and that the rifle aimed at you was the really formidable weapon. The range of artillery, however, has greatly increased since that time. I saw the wounded in a field hospital ; and I venture to say that nobody who had done the same would ever speak lightly of war or gloat over the reports of carnage. The hospital arrangements seemed to me to be excellent. The plan adopted was that of isolated pavilions to obvi- ate infection. I thought of that field hospital when our gentlemen and ladies at Toronto were exulting over the slaughter of Boers in the South African War. From the camp on the Potomac I went back to Wash- ington, which in 1864 was a different place from the I^Q bright and beautiful city now becoming the social capi- tal of America. The northwestern quarter with its gay mansions had not been built. There was scarcely a house of any pretensions except the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue looked like a string of shabby villages. The sidewalks were unrepaired; the roads were mud-holes. Frequent on the houses were the advertisements of embalmment of the dead, thirteen thousand of whom lay in a provisional cemetery near the city awaiting, most of them, removal to their own States. For my own part, I cannot understand such care for the cast-off weeds of humanity. Immediate AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 353 return into the general frame of Nature seems to me the only agreeable idea connected with death. But the care taken for the relics of these soldiers showed that the army was not one of hirelings ; few of the head-boards bore the inscription " Unknown Soldier." At Washington I had the honour of being the guest of Mr. Seward l and saw the diplomatist unbend in his social hour. He did indeed unbend in his social hour, and there was no limit to the freedom of his talk. In those days happily social confidence was still sacred, and Seward might unbosom himself with the certainty that of his guests there was not one who would not deem himself degraded by repeating anything that was said at the social board. Seward was at the same time the least cautious of diplomatists, and some tunes star- tled the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, 2 who was accustomed to the reticence and impassiveness of diplo- matists in the Old World. He now and then risked a joke, which was liable to be misunderstood. One of these jokes, something about bombarding Liverpool, had been made to the Duke of Newcastle, who was rather dry and touchy, and, being recalled at a time when there was gunpowder lying about, came near to producing an explosion. Crossing the mud-hole between Seward's house and [ l William Henry Seward, Governor of New York ; United States Senator ; Secretary of State, 1861-1869. Born in 1801 ; died in 1872.] [ 2 Richard Bickerton Pemell, second Baron and first Earl Lyons, British Minister at Washington. 1858-1865.] 2A 354 REMINISCENCES an official building, I presented my card and found my- self in the presence of Abraham Lincoln. The notion formed of Lincoln in England had been that of a Yankee rail-splitter with an ungainly and grotesque figure, dis- playing an unfeeling levity by the utterance of rather coarse jokes, from which he did not abstain even among the relics of the battle-field. Ungainly and grotesque the figure, with its gaunt height, its shock of unkempt hair, and its large hands and feet, undeniably was; but on the face, instead of levity, sat melancholy and care. The little stories, in which Lincoln often wrapt up his reasonings and of which he told me one or two during our interview, were the indulgence of a Western habit and perhaps a relief of the overstrained mind ; as it were, pinches of mental snuff. Lincoln since his death has been deified. He has been styled the greatest statesman of the age. The American mind is never sparing of superlatives in either extreme. He had the wisdom which happily belongs to a perfectly honest and simple character. He never was misled by cupidity, vanity, or selfishness of any kind. He had also, as the result of a naturally sympathetic nature, improved by campaign practice, a remarkable power of reading public sentiment and keeping himself in touch with what he called the plain people. His addresses and State papers are admirable; the simplicity and clearness of their style bespoke the integrity and sin- cerity of their author. But, as I have said, Lincoln, if he saw, never showed that he saw the fundamental AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 355 character of the situation with which he had to deal. He always spoke and wrote as if he took Secession to be a rebellion, whereas it was a natural severance of the slave-owning South from the free North, social struc- ture having, as usual, asserted its ascendency over political organization. How he would have dealt with Reconstruction is a secret Buried in his grave ; more wisely, it may safely be assumed, tHan did Charles Sumner and the other fiery and revengeful politicians into whose hands, after his death, the question passed. His character, whatever his theory, would have guided him and the State aright. In resolving to despatch supplies to Fort Sumter Lincoln may perhaps be said to have brought on war; and supreme statesmanship would hardly do that which in itself is little worth do- ing if tremendous consequences are to follow. But if Lincoln had any share in the failure to avert war, his responsibility is fully balanced by that of the Southern chiefs. Had Jeff Davis and his colleagues, scrupulously abstaining from anything like violence or insult, put forth a temperate and respectful manifesto, setting forth the proved impracticability of a political union between communities radically different in social structure, and appealing to the people of the North for acquiescence in a friendly separation, with full security for debts and as much of reciprocal privilege as national independence would permit, the Northern people would scarcely have called on the Government to go to war. No one could have failed to be struck by Lincoln's 356 REMINISCENCES unguarded state, there being even then threats of assassination in the air. A desperado might easily have rushed past the sentinel who paced outside the door. When, therefore, a report of the assassination reached us in England, I felt at once that it would prove true. Let me with others bear witness that, in spite of the anti- American feeling which prevailed in certain classes, the news was received in England with general sorrow. Note by the Editor. The article on " The Political Element in War-Power " in the New York Sun, referred to on page 343, appeared on Sunday, March the 15th, 1896. It was written by Mr. Gold- win Smith. In it occurs the following sentence: " Party politics are said to have interfered in some degree -with military appointments and operations ; and it has even been said, though without the least grain of truth, that at one time Gen. Grant manifested a resolute determination to cut loose from Washington and keep the conduct of the war in his own hands." In the copy preserved at The Grange, a pen has been drawn through the words I have Italicized, and against them has been written, " Interpolated by Dana probably." CHAPTER XX JAMAICA 1866 Conflict of Races Outbreak Governor Eyre's Action The Jamaica Committee Chief Justice Cockburn's Charge John Stuart Mill Woman Suffrage Thomas Hughes Frederick Denison Maurice Manchester Liberals. A SORT of corollary of the question between slavery and freedom in America was that caused by the conflict of races in Jamaica. The ex-slaveholder's hatred and fear of the emancipated slave, after long brooding, broke out in 1865 with terrible violence. A local and acci- dental affray caused by the unpopularity of a district magistrate was seized upon by the whites as a pre- text for a reign of terror, Governor Eyre 1 sharing and giving the reins to their panic rage. Altogether four hundred and thirty-nine men and women were put to death, and the number flogged could not have been less than six hundred. The hangings went on for nearly five weeks after the outbreak. Men received one hundred lashes; women thirty. Many of those who were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails were women on the simple charge of stealing. Wire was twisted round the cords of the whip. There had been enmity, [ l Edward John Eyre, previously Lieutenant-Governor of An- tigua.] 357 358 REMINISCENCES personal as well as political, between Governor Eyre and William Gordon, the political leader of the blacks. Eyre arrested Gordon at Kingston, where martial law did not prevail ; carried him into a district where mar- tial law had been proclaimed and a court-martial w r as sitting; packed the court afresh; and when even that packed court hesitated to put the man to death without evidence, himself ordered the execution. "Murder," said John Bright, "is foul; and judicial murder is the foulest of ail." A Committee was formed in the interest of humanity and justice. We were not bloody-minded ; we did not want to hang Governor Eyre or care to punish him, otherwise than by dismissal from his Governorship, from which in fact he was removed. But we did wish, by bringing him to the bar of justice, to prove that all British subjects, black or white, were under the protec- tion of British law. We did want to vindicate human- ity. In this we were defeated by the sympathy of the Tory upper classes with arbitrary and sanguinary violence. A member of the House of Lords told Gov- ernor Eyre publicly that if his case came before them he would find them a friendly tribunal. The Anglican clergy played their usual part, confirming and strength- ening my opinion of them. Such was the natural consequence of Establishment. Carlyle, Kingsley, and Ruskin were of course for violence, which they took for strength. The calls of sentimental eunuchs like Ruskin for blood on this occasion, and at the time of the Indian JAMAICA 359 Mutiny, made an indelible impression on my mind. The best fruit of our movement was a memorable Charge of Chief-Justice Cockburn against the abuse of martial law. 1 The Chief- Justice weakened in his practical conclusion, but to his declaration of principles justice and mercy could always appeal. On the Jamaica Committee I met John Stuart Mill, 2 the most strictly conscientious man, I think, that I ever knew. In an unhappy moment he allowed himself to be elected to the House of Commons, and sat night after night, like an image of patience, listening to debates on which the time of the great philosopher and economist was miserably wasted. His conscientiousness was car- ried into his habits as a speaker. His speeches were prepared, and he sometimes lost the thread. But he would not, like less scrupulous speakers, fill the gap with mere words; he would wait, however awkward the pause might be, till the thread was recovered. I have always looked upon him as a notable instance of the division which is taking place between the dogmas and the ethics of Christianity ; the dogmas remaining with the orthodox, the ethics often going to the infidel. P This Charge was afterwards printed in pamphlet form. See "Charge of the Lord Chief Justice of England to the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Court in the case of The Queen against Nelson and Brand. Taken from the Shorthand Writer's Notes, Revised and Corrected by the Lord Chief Justice. With Occa- sional Notes." Edited by Frederick Cockburn, Esq., of the Crown Office. London: William Ridgway. 1867.] P Author of "A System of Logic"; "Principles of Political Economy" ; "Representative Government" ; "Utilitarianism" ; etc. 1806-1873.] 360 REMINISCENCES Upon the ethics it is to be hoped Christendom will re- unite. It was partly, I think, from respect to Mill that Bright and I signed his first petition in favour of Woman Suffrage. Afterwards we both withdrew; and I be- lieve on the same ground, because we found that the best representatives of the sex among our acquaintance were opposed to the measure. Mill's enthusiasm on this subject, I have always suspected, had its source in his personal history. He had received from his father an arid and heart-withering education which developed his intellect intensely, at the expense of his affections. Later in life the affections asserted a power increased by their long suppression. He fell platonically in love with the wife of his friend Mr. Taylor, and consorted with her in a way which he sincerely supposed her husband to approve. His fancy invested her with ex- traordinary genius. But those who knew her told me that her genius consisted in the faculty of readily imbib- ing Mill's theories and giving them back to him as her own. In the parts of his works which he ascribes spe- cially to her inspiration, no extraordinary power is shown. Had his book on the Subjection of Women 1 taken full effect, its exaggerations might have disturbed the peace and happiness of many homes. He did not know, or at least did not lay it to heart, that of the two unions that of the State and that of the family, that of the family is as essential and as sacred as that of the State. [ l Published in 1869.] JAMAICA Another leading member of the Jamaica Committee was Thomas Hughes. It is needless to say that he was Tom Brown grown up. Well did he deserve his statue at Rugby. In him all the manly, the robust, and even the fighting qualities of which Englishmen are proud were combined with perfect gentleness, tenderness, and humanity, as well as with the broadest liberality of mind. With all his vigour and courage, there was not the faintest odour of Jingoism about him. We became great friends, and I was his guest at Chester, when we were fighting together for the Union against Gladstone and Home Rule. Hughes had been one of the Christian Socialists, who, sympathizing with the Socialist desire of substituting co-operation for competition, tried to give it effect on Christian principles, while the ordinary Socialists were agnostics. Their attempts to set on foot co-operative production were failures, labour not proving able to dispense with the guidance or the support of capital. Whether they had much to do with the brilliant suc- cess of co-operative distribution I cannot say. But they certainly did something towards the mitigation of class bitterness. Hughes towards the end of his life was led by his philanthropic zeal to become the founder of a model colony in Tennessee. It appears that he was deceived in the purchase of the land. But all model colonies, like model villages, such as Pullman and Sal- taire, have failed. The people do not enter into the spirit of the foundation; their object is to make their 362 REMINISCENCES bread, and they fret under regulations. The matter caused Hughes some trouble for a time. In the Jamaica case, as in the case of the Indian Mu- tiny, when the savage passion ruled the hour, it was not men like Thomas Hughes, but the weak and hysterical, that were clamouring for violence and blood. The leader of the Christian Socialists was Frederick Maurice, 1 a most sincere lover and no mean benefactor of his kind. He formed a circle round him by his trans- parent sincerity of aim and goodness of soul. His excellence was practical and social. As a thinker he lacked clearness. I have heard him in Lincoln's Inn Chapel preach with the utmost fervour a sermon of which I could hardly understand one word. He was liberal in theology, and proscribed by orthodoxy ac- cordingly. But he managed to persuade himself that the Anglican Articles and Creeds were in reality sym- bols of freedom. The Honorary Secretary of the Jamaica Committee was Mr. Chesson, 2 now no doubt forgotten, yet not un- worthy of remembrance. His life had been devoted to the protection of the aborigines, clients who could not pay their advocates either in money or in fame, and of I 1 Frederick Denison Maurice. 1805-1872. Founded, with Sterling, the Apostles' Club at Cambridge ; inaugurated, and Principal of, Working Men's College, London. Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, 1866; Incumbent of St. Edwards, Cambridge, 1870-1872.] P Frederick William Chesson was "for many years the inde- fatigable Secretary to the Aborigines Protection Society." He died on April the 30th, 1888, aged 54.] JAMAICA 363 whom the vast majority probably never heard of his existence. Instead of being rewarded or honoured, he had to undergo much obloquy and ridicule. Here he certainly received no crown ; if the world is under moral government, he may have received a crown elsewhere. The Corn Law question, the American question, and the Jamaica question threw me a good deal among the Liberal manufacturers of the North, and enlarged my political experience. In Bradford, especially, as the guest of the two Kells, I learned much that no books could have taught me. But moderate Liberalism with perhaps an occasional turn or jerk one way or the other remained my creed. I was in no danger of becoming a demagogue, for I never could speak. In that I had neither genius nor tongue. Will oratory ever lose its power? Shall we ever get back in this respect to the days of Burley and the Council-board ? Popular ora- tory almost inevitably involves exaggeration, which must surely affect the soundness of the mind. I saw also a good deal of the mechanic on his political side. He is very sharp-witted, but very open to novel opinions, especially of course to such as exalt his class. It has been said of him that he is a Socialist at home and a Jingo abroad. A Jingo abroad unhappily he is apt to be. He was for the Crimean War, burning Bright in effigy for opposing it. He was for the Lorcha War, un- seating Bright and Cobden for voting against it. He was for the infamous Boer War, than which there never was a more flagrant breach of humanity or a fouler 364 REMINISCENCES stain on the character of any nation. Extreme excita- bility is his danger, and the danger of the State in which he has so large a vote. Among my dear friends and instructive companions in those regions were Mr. and Mrs. Winkworth of Bol- ton. Mrs. Winkworth was the daughter of Mr. Tho- masson, 1 a great manufacturer and I should think about the last of those who lived close to his works and among his men. Now, the master, if he is a man and not a company, lives in a suburban villa, on which the work- ing-man, going out for his Sunday walk, looks perhaps with a sinister eye, thinking, as his Socialist prophet tells him, it is all the product of his labour. This com- plete separation, local and social, is a bad element in the case. The great problem, however, is that of giving em- ployer and employed if possible a common interest in the gains. He who brings this about would be one of the greatest benefactors of his kind. I 1 Thomas Thomasson, chief promoter of the anti-corn law agi- tation. 1808-1876.] GOLDWIN SMITH AT ABOUT FORTY-FIVE YEARS OP AGE. Photograph by C. H. Howes, of Ithaca, N. Y. CHAPTER XXI CORNELL 1868-1871 Resignation of Oxford Professorship Invitation to Cornell Ezra Cornell The University Cornell's Ideas Arrival at Ithaca Fellow-Lecturers Life at Ithaca The Oneida Community Friends at Cornell. IN 1866 I had to resign my Oxford Professorship and take up my abode in my father's house at Mortimer. In 1868, 1 after a long and most painful illness, my father came to a tragical end, in consequence of a malady which had its source in an injury received in a railway accident. I was greatly broken by this, and was some time in recovering mental health and tone. Having then no very definite object in life, and having an inde- pendent income, I thought of returning to America and further studying American history and institutions. P So the MS., but the date was certainly 1867. See The Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1867, New Series, Volume IV, page 689: "At Mortimer House, Reading, aged 72, Richard Pritchard Smith, esq., M.D. . . ." See also "A History of the Reading Pathological Society." By J. B. Hurry. London : Bale, Sons, and Danielsson. 1909. Page 55. Besides, in a letter in Mr. Goldwin Smith's own hand (since received), dated " Mortimer House, Reading, Oct. 13, 1867," and addressed to " Sir Chas. Russell, Bart., M.P., Swallow- field, Reading," occurs the sentence, "My father was buried on Friday." (The letter was kindly lent me by Lady Russell, of Swallowfield, widow of Sir George Russell, Baronet, brother of its recipient.)] 365 366 REMINISCENCES Just then I had the good luck to come across Andrew White, 1 who was looking out for Professors for the new Cornell University, of which he had accepted the Presi- dency. Ezra Cornell, 2 the founder of the University, had been a labourer and had laid telegraph poles with his own hands. Having by a fortunate investment be- come a millionaire, he at once asked what he could do with his wealth for the public good. The Federal Gov- ernment was giving each State an allotment of landscrip to be employed in founding a place of education with special reference to the improvement of agriculture, and at the same time of military training. Cornell, advised by Andrew White, offered, if the grant for the State of New York were put into his hands, to meet it with half a million of his own. Other States sold their scrip; Cornell located that of New York in pine lands, which afterwards became very valuable and formed the chief endowment of the University. This investment was the great service which in the pecuniary way he ren- dered to the enterprise. Equal to Ezra Cornell in merit and in his claim on the gratitude of Cornellians is Andrew White, a wealthy citizen of Syracuse, a man of the highest attainments [ l Andrew Dickson White, first President of Cornell University ; American Minister at Berlin, also at St. Petersburg ; afterwards American Ambassador at Berlin ; and has held various other high posts. Born in 1832.] [ 2 Ezra Cornell, born at Westchester Landing, New York State, in 1807, of Quaker stock. He was President of the State Agricul- tural Society, and a Trustee of the State Agricultural College. He died at Ithaca in 1874.] CORNELL 367 and culture, who devoted to the foundation not only much of his wealth, but labour, which was of higher value and bestowed at a greater sacrifice. American wealth has a bad side. It has also a good and noble side, which showed itself here. Andrew White has since been transferred to another sphere, and has shone as a diplomatist at St. Petersburg and Berlin. He has also shone as a writer. 1 Cornell's special object was to put within the reach of poor youths the University training which in his own case poverty had denied. He thought that a young man might maintain himself by the labour of his hands while he was undergoing a University education. This part of his scheme, after fair trial, failed and was aban- doned. Mental and intellectual labour draw on the same fund of nervous energy, which in ordinary cases cannot supply both. Ezra Cornell himself was a man of extraordinary vigour and power of work. In the early days of the University notices were put up for students of employment in tending masons. But this soon came to an end. I am afraid I rather offended the good man by cautioning young English mechanics against a too hasty acceptance of a general invitation which he had sent them. I thought I knew better than he could what effect his invitation would have upon the imagination of P Among Mr. White's works are, "The Warfare of Science," 1876; "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Chris- tendom," 1897; "Autobiography," 1905; "The Warfare of Hu- manity with Unreason," 1906; "Seven Great Statesmen," 1910; also Essays, Addresses, and Speeches.] 368 REMINISCENCES my young fellow-countrymen, who would fancy that in being admitted to a University they were going to be raised at once socially to the level of Oxford and Cam- bridge. The rush might have been overwhelming. Cornell, however, retained so much of its original character as to become a school of practical science more than of literary culture ; though the student of practical science probably takes away that which raises him in- tellectually above the mechanic, and enables him if he rises in life, as so many of them do, to fill his place well. The goodly Chapter Houses of some of the Greek Letter Societies and the general habits of a large class of the students are proofs that Cornell is not limited to the poorer class. Still, I imagine that there is nothing like the luxury of the sons of millionaires at Harvard and Yale. The extravagant and costly passion for athletics, which had its source in the Universities of the English gentry, has invaded in full force the American Univer- sities, and Cornell among the number. University authorities ought to have the courage and integrity to control it. University education is already challenged by commercial men as interfering with a youth's start in business life. To this challenge, if the student is to spend his time and his father's money in training his muscles, there will be no reply. After all, no excellence that he can gain in that way will put him on a level with many a negro porter. I have, in fact, seen a negro porter who was physically a finer man than any Col- lege athlete. The model of perfect human form in the CORNELL 369 London Museum of the College of Surgeons is or was a negro, who we may be sure was as nature had made him. A lower level still is reached when the student becomes a professional performer and gate-money is the object of the game. A University which permits this suffers absolute degradation. My intercourse with American students was very in- teresting and pleasant. They are, of course, more in- dependent than the English students, and would hardly submit to the same discipline, though it did not seem to me that the Faculty feared to use its authority at need. The political tendencies of the Americans show them- selves in the contests for the election of the officers of the Classes and the Editors of the College Journal, as well as in a pervading addiction to rhetoric. Their weakest point is their strange and worse than strange addiction to hazing, and to the bullying of freshmen, which was sometimes carried to a disgraceful extent. It will be curious to see how the large body of American students to be imported into Oxford under the Rhodes- ian bequest will adapt themselves to the spirit and the habits of the place. I cannot say that I saw with pleas- ure my old University made a pedestal for the statue of such a man as Rhodes. Nor can I think that, unless the object is some special branch of knowledge, it can be a good thing for a youth to be brought up in a social ele- ment different from that in which his life is to be passed. The Greek Letter Societies seemed to me in some measure to fill the place filled in English Universities 2s 370 REMINISCENCES by the College, as social bonds in a University too large for anything like general association. Probably they vary in character, some being more expensive and ex- clusive than others, but I cannot think that they are otherwise than wholesome in the main. The records which they keep of the lives of their members may help in sustaining fidelity to the path of honour. I was myself a member of the Psi Upsilon, and among my brethren were Professor Willard Fiske * and Andrew White. Ezra Cornell could know nothing about Universities. His ideas were derived from the establishment of facto- ries and sawmills. Without the guidance of Andrew White he might have failed. As it was, he imperilled the success of his enterprise by placing his University at Ithaca, then a village with no advantage for the purpose. Ithaca had been his home in his early days ; he was at- tached to it, and perhaps was not insensible to the pleas- ure of seeing his University rise on the hill above the spot on which his lowly abode had once stood. "There is no enjoyment," says an Italian writer, " keener than that of being great where once you were little." That in attracting Professors intellectual exile would be a drawback, Ezra could not understand. He had been conjured by White to place the University at Syracuse. But to Syracuse he had a special antipathy. He had P Daniel Willard Fiske, Librarian and Professor of North-Euro- pean Languages in Cornell University from 1868 to 1883. Born at Ellisburgh, N.Y., in 1831 ; died at Frankfurt, Germany, in 1904.] CORNELL 371 once stood on the bridge there for a whole day to be hired. At evening he was hired, but by a man who cheated him of his wages. He had an extremely strong will, and hardly anybody, but White, could have in- fluenced him on any subject. Here even White failed. However, thanks to a most happy choice of President and staff, all had ended well and the shade of Ezra Cornell may rejoice. The University is now 1 a large society in itself, Ithaca has grown into a little city, and is a healthier place than a great city for young men taken from their homes. It was on a dark November morning amidst pouring rain, that, having come by the night train from New York, I descended upon Ithaca. I was met at the Clin- ton House by Andrew White. After breakfast, Ezra Cornell took me out in his buggy on the hill, the site of the University that was to be. Nothing could be less cheering or promising than was then the aspect of things upon that hill. The University was represented by a single block of building, much the reverse of beautiful, and looking particularly grim on that dreary morning. But I knew that there was sun behind the cloud. That sun has since shone out with full lustre. On that hill now cluster, on and round the fair Campus, the various academical buildings, and the numerous professorial residences of the great Cornell University. So rapid is the growth of American institutions. The site, a pla- teau looking over Lake Cayuga, is one of the finest I P This was written in 1899.J 372 REMINISCENCES ever saw. Unluckily among Ezra Cornell's gifts was not architectural taste ; or perhaps in arranging the group of buildings more advantage might have been taken of the excellence of the site. The opening of the University had taken place a few days before my arrival. I have always been sorry that by those few days I missed being a pioneer. In my chequered passage through life there is no happier in- cident than my connection with Cornell. I was one of a set of non-resident Lecturers or Pro- fessors, which included Agassiz, 1 Lowell, 2 George Curtis,* and Bayard Taylor. 4 Agassiz was lecturing when I arrived ; we boarded together in the Clinton House, and for some weeks I enjoyed his society. Eminent as a man of science, in character and habits he was simple as a child. He never used a bank, but, as he told me, car- ried his money in his pocket, and when it was spent went lecturing to get more. I was amused by his at- tempt in one of his lectures, in deference to what he no doubt deemed a religious audience, to reconcile with f 1 Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, a Swiss, born in 1807, went to America in 1846 ; of wide scientific reputation in his day. Died in 1873.] [ 2 James Russell Lowell, an eminent poet, essayist, scholar, and diplomatist; born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1819; for twenty years Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Harvard. Died in 1891.] [ $ George William Curtis, a noted journalist, orator, publicist, and author. Born at Providence, R.I., in 1824 ; died in 1892.] [ 4 Bayard Taylor, a poet, a traveller, a writer ; author of a long list of books. Born in 1825 ; Professor of German Literature at Cornell ; died in 1878.] CORNELL 373 geological fact the account in Genesis of a universal flood. "If there is an overflow of the Mississippi/' said he, ' ' what do we hear ? We hear that the whole country is under water." He had refused to receive the Dar- winian gospel of evolution. In this he was unhappy; though perhaps the account between him and Darwin may not yet be quite settled. We are living too much under the immediate influence of Darwin's mighty discovery to think of its possible limits and qualifi- cations. Another of the set of Non-resident Lecturers was Wil- liam Curtis, an admirable lecturer and speaker as well as writer on public subjects and one of the best of American citizens. On the platform and as a journalist, he was always a staunch defender of the right and a terror to the evil-doer. Largely to his efforts was due the reform of the Civil Service. Unfortunately he lived in an elec- toral district where the opposite party had the majority and thus by the fatuous localism which the Americans have imposed upon themselves he was debarred from doing his best for the country. Democracy, we must sorrowfully confess, is not yet large-minded. Lowell was also one of the ten. His anti-British prejudice was at that time still rather strong. I found him more sociable when I afterwards met him as Ameri- can Ambassador in England. He was not only cured of his anti-British prejudice, but largely Anglicized, as American Ambassadors to England are apt to be. It is hardly wise to make them afterwards American Secre- 374 REMINISCENCES taries of State. Mr. Adams l of course escaped the influence, his great natural strength of character being aided by the circumstances of a mission which he dis- charged with incomparable skill. Accommodation at Ithaca at first was scanty. The mass of us, Professors and students, were quartered in Cascadilla, a huge building which had been intended for a water-cure, but was so ill-ventilated that as many patients probably would have been killed by the air as would have been cured by the water. I had rooms on the ground floor at the South- West Angle, from which I could step out upon the platform to see the sunsets, and, now and then, an eagle hovering over Lake Cayuga. We had some material discomforts to endure. But our life was social and merry. The people in the village, city, as Ithaca is now, were kind. I look back upon those days with pleasure. No years of my life have been better spent. My only regret, at least, is that having not then fully recovered strength and tone, I was below my proper mark as a teacher. None of us had anything to endure like the load of anxiety and trouble which was nobly borne in those early days by Andrew White. There was serious financial difficulty for a time, the fund having been invested in the pine lands, which it would have been ruinous at that time to sell. The country round the head of the two Lakes, Cayuga [ l Charles Francis Adams, appointed by Lincoln Minister to Great Britain, where he represented the United States during the Civil War.] CORNELL 375 and Seneca, is very beautiful. I indulged in excur- sions on foot. This British habit the people could not understand. A farmer, if he overtook me on the road in his buggy, would kindly offer me a ride, thinking that it was only for want of a horse that anybody could be going on foot. A farmer with whom I had fallen into conversation said something that led me to think he took me for an American. I told him I was an Englishman. "Yes," he said, with a strong nasal twang, "I knew you to be an Englishman by your brogue." A summer vacation of the University which I spent in Cascadilla was not an unpleasant time, for I had every evening the society of the kindest of friends, Professor and Mrs. Sprague. 1 The Professor, who fought for the Union in the war, was an American indeed, true to the principles of righteousness on which the Republic was founded. From Ithaca I visited the Oneida Community, and through the courtesy of Mr. Noyes, 2 its founder and dictator, spent two interesting days there. A glance was enough to show that the social problem had not been solved for the world at large. The Community had grown rich ; was the owner of three factories, which were run on the ordinary footing with hired labour; and t 1 Homer Baxter Sprague, at one time Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Cornell; a well-known Lecturer. Born at Sutton, Mass., in 1829. He married Antoinette E. Pardee, of New Haven, Conn.] [ 2 John Humphrey Noyes, born in Brattleboro, Vt., in 1811 ; a theologian, preacher, and writer.] 376 REMINISCENCES was sitting at its ease with a very comfortable residence with every convenience and luxury that opulence could afford. For those who were learning the piano there was a little Kiosk in the grounds that their practising might not annoy. Celibacy had been the rule; but when the community grew wealthy, Noyes introduced, not marriage, but temporary unions of couples, paired by him on biological principles ; an institution that ex- cited the marked displeasure of a moral neighbourhood. There was a set of nurseries in which the offspring of these unions were reared as children of the Community. With the acquisition of wealth there had been an end of proselytism ; and the Community was, in fact, a Utopian club with the prospect, supposing the last survivor was to inherit the estate, of becoming a tontine. Celibacy, it seemed to me, had been the secret of success, if success other than material this could be called. It enabled the Community to save, and it removed the separatist influence of the family, which was the rock upon which the Socialist enterprise of Owen 1 and other Utopias had split. The same thing accounts for the temporary prosperity of the Shakers. Another necessity seems to be a religious dictatorship such as was that of Dr. Noyes. You are lucky if your dictator is not an im- postor. I attended a great Camp Meeting. It seemed to me quite as much a social gathering as a religious commun- ion. Preaching of a vehement kind was going on all the p Robert Owen. 1771-1858.] CORNELL 377 time, and people were coming up to the preacher's stand and declaring themselves converted. But there were ice-cream establishments, and there was a good deal, evidently, of social enjoyment at the same time. The effect of "Rock of Ages," however, sung by the multi- tude among the pines and under the stars, was very fine. Most Englishmen who visit the United States see only the cities, and all that is worst in American society and institutions meets the eye. At Ithaca I associated with the inhabitants of a country town, and the infer- ence to which my experience led me was entirely hopeful and reassuring. I have ever since felt, when things looked worst, that there was a reserve of sound and in- telligent patriotism, though it might be somewhat slow in coming to the front. Of respect for law the little community was a model. For police a single constable sufficed. When people went away from home, they merely locked the doors of their houses. If in those days there were occasionally lynchings in Northern or Western States, they were, paradoxical as it may seem, proofs rather of respect for law than of lawlessness. There was usually no need of a rural police, and when the district was raided by train-robbers or horse-stealers, probably a gang of foreigners from New York, the people were compelled to take up arms in their own defence. The fear now is that the American blood may be fatally diluted and the American character, with its love of law and spontaneous attachment to order, may be impaired by a vast and miscellaneous immigration. 378 REMINISCENCES The public schools may do much in the way of assimila- tion. They cannot do all. They cannot at once assimi- late character, political or moral. It has been always a great pleasure to me to revisit Cornell, and meet again my old friends in the Profes- sorial Staff, such as Professors Wilder 1 and Corson. 2 Professor Wilder has made me promise to bequeath my brain to his physiological collection. Whatever he de- sires I do with pleasure. 3 This will be my only contri- bution to science. When I am cremated, as I hope to be, I shall be obliged to the wind if it will waft a grain or two of the ashes to the Campus of Cornell. I 1 Burt Green Wilder, B.S., M.D., Professor of Neurology and Vertebrate Zoology, Emeritus.] [ 2 Hiram Corson, A.M., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor of English Literature, Emeritus.] [ 3 But in the New York Tribune of October the 2d, 1910, Professor Wilder writes as follows : "Sir, The second instalment of the 'Reminiscences of Gold- win Smith ' in the October number of McClure's Magazine contains the following sentence : ' Professor Wilder has made me promise to bequeath my brain to his physiological collection. Whatever he desires I do with pleasure.' " The opening words must have been written by my dear friend in forgetfulness of the following circumstances : During the even- ing of April 20, 1891, in my rooms in Cascadilla Place, Ithaca, N.Y., in the presence of the late Henry W. Sage, and Douglas Boardman, both trustees of Cornell University, after I had stated the desirability of studying the brains of orderly and educated per- sons, Goldwin Smith said : ' Wilder, I would as soon you had my brain as my old hat, and I wish I had ten of them for you.' " The substance of this declaration was recorded by me on the 26th, and it is probable that a copy was sent to him, but neither then nor subsequently did I depart from my rule never to make a direct request for a bequest of brain. That he viewed the matter seriously appears from the fact that, eight months later, on January CORNELL 379 Since my parting from Cornell my name has been given to a new Hall. A generation hence perhaps will ask what the owner of that name was and what he had done to merit the honour. The professor who is showing him over the Hall will have some difficulty in finding the answer. Canada, or rather be it said Ontario, cooped up as it is and severed from the great literary and publishing centres, is not a field in which literary distinction is to be earned. But if hearty attachment to the University and sincere gratitude for the relief that its service gave him in a dark hour, the name of Goldwin Smith is not ill placed there. 1, 1892, he sent me a holograph note accompanying a holograph copy of a letter to his executors, directing them to deliver his brain to me promptly after his death ; that spontaneous references to the subject occur in his letters of May 3, 1896 ; November 6 and 17, 1902, and September 26, 1906 ; and that on November 21, 1902, he filled out the regular ' Form of Bequest of Brain,' witnessed by T. Arnold Haultain, then his private secretary, now, I understand, his literary executor [*]... "BuRT G. WILDER. "Siasconset, Mass., Sept. 29, 1910."] * Yes, I possess a duplicate copy of this form, signed and witnessed as the writer avers; but as no instructions were delivered to me, I could not act. Ed. CHAPTER XXII VISITS TO EUROPE 1 Reading Magdalen Oxford Spiritualism Ignorance of Can- ada Knaresborough Curious Crimes Italy Florence Venice Ravenna Second Visit to Italy Sicily The Mafia Pizzo Italian Cruelty Amalfi The Papacy Capua Rome Florence again. FROM time to time I re-visited England. Re-visiting the scenes of one's youth in age is a rather melancholy pleasure. You find yourself unknown and knowing nobody where once you knew everybody and everybody knew you. Reading, from the quiet old place of my childhood, had grown into a bustling city, while the Reading and Basingstoke Railway had made Mortimer, once so rural and secluded, almost a suburb of Reading. I was there the guest of my old friend Sir John Mow- bray, 2 a political veteran stored with reminiscences of the House of Commons. At Oxford a few of my con- temporaries still lingered, while some of my old pupils remained as Heads of Colleges or Professors. But the character of the place, by the work of two reforming Commissions, the abolition of tests, the introduction of P These were made in 1876-1878 ; 1881-1882 ; 1893-1894 ; and 1899-1900 this last was to Italy.] [ 2 The Right Honourable Sir John Robert Mowbray, Baronet, P.O., J.P., D.L., M.P. for the University of Oxford ; also for the city of Durham, etc. Born 1815 ; died 1899.] 380 VISITS TO EUROPE 381 science, and the general progress of the times, was changed. At Magdalen, instead of a little party of Demys which in my time encircled the fire in the junior Common Room after Hall, there was a full complement of undergraduates. New buildings had been added. There was a new President's Lodge, and in it, in place of the centenarian and faineant Routh, lived and ruled the very active and highly efficient President, my friend Warren. 1 This was well. The wealth and beauty of Magdalen, instead of being largely wasted, were being put to their right use. Yet I could not refrain from mentally wafting a sigh to the memory of the unre- formed Magdalen, and feeling a slight compunction at having taken an active part in letting the stir of a progressive age into that little nook of unprogressive felicity. The University had largely increased in numbers. The statute regulating the admission of non-collegiate students, drawn long ago by my hand, had taken full effect. Partly as one of its consequences, there had grown up in the north a new town, on which I could not help looking with some jealousy, as an irruption of the common into the uncommon with a probable disturb- ance of the circle of academic society which used to be so pleasant. The abolition of tests had also done its work. There had grown up two Non-conformist Col- leges, while Non-conformists were everywhere freely admitted. But what I had predicted when the battle f 1 T. Herbert Warren, Vice-Chancellor, 1906 to 1910.] 382 REMINISCENCES for the abolition of tests was being fought appeared to have come to pass. The Non-conformists had not, as the defenders of tests feared, swallowed up old Oxford ; old Oxford had rather swallowed the Non-conformists. The spirit of the place, aided by its aesthetic and his- toric influences, had prevailed. On the other hand, science and intellectual freedom had produced their effect on the Anglicans themselves. The removal of the clerical restrictions had largely transferred teaching and influence from clerical to lay hands. Not that the medievalizing movement of Pusey and Newman had by any means expired in its native and most congenial seat. One could not enter a church without seeing that the movement still prevailed. It had, however, as- sumed a new guise and one indicative of waning force. It had become literally Ritualist, sustained largely by aesthetic influences, whereas under Pusey and Newman it had been theological and was finding its adherents in a weaker class of minds. Newman was not Ritualistic. I never saw his Oratory, but it was said that everything was very plain. In one of our visits to England we found ourselves in a boarding-house with a pair of highly cultivated and pleasant people who were believers in Spiritualism ; had in fact adopted it as their religion and went to seance as to Church. I was a sceptic, remembering as I did the beginning of the movement in table-turning and the turning of hats. Our friends were anxious for my con- version. They proposed to me a seance with the first VISITS TO EUROPE 383 Medium of the day, who was then in London. My curiosity led me gladly to assent to the proposal. Going to the Medium's abode, I paid a guinea, as I should to a physician, and was shown into a room where I waited for some time. Presently the Medium appeared, an American with a strong New England accent. He entered into a desultory conversation with me, probably with fishing intent. Then he announced that the spirit Winona had entered into him and that thenceforth it would be she that spoke to me. In compliment to her Medium, however, she spoke with a strong Yankee accent. She launched into a maundering discourse, to which, growing impatient, I put an end by asking her whether I was married. That I seemed alone in the material world, yet not alone, was the luminous reply. Further maundering followed. The spirit condoled with me on the ill luck which had befallen my nephew. "What misfortune?" I asked, feigning surprise at the accuracy of her information. She proceeded to give me an account of my nephew's misfortune in missing a Government appointment. As I never had a nephew, I went away perfectly satisfied with the interview. I could not help suspecting that Winona had received a tip, and that her prompter had made a mistake. How otherwise could this story have come into her head? What fantastic tricks will not pious self-deception play ! Again, I was breakfasting with a friend, a shrewd and successful man of business, and his wife, a clever woman. There was a third person present whom I did not know. 384 REMINISCENCES The Court of Chancery had just compelled Home, 1 the Medium, to disgorge a large sum out of which he had swindled an old woman by personating the spirit of her dead husband. I referred with pleasure to the incident. My friends looked displeased, and at last disclosed the fact that they were friends and disciples of Mr. Home, to whom they had been introduced by Gully, 2 of the Water Cure, who afterwards figured rather equivocally in a famous criminal case. I had then to beat a partial retreat. I said that I was not sceptical by nature, and that I was prepared to accept facts foreign or even opposed to my own experience on trustworthy evidence. "Will you then believe us if we tell you that Mr. Home held a seance in this room last evening and that we saw that heavy arm-chair advance at his bidding from the corner in which it now stands to the centre of the room?" "Certainly," was my reply; "knowing you as I do to be perfectly trustworthy witnesses, I will on your evidence accept the fact. But I have two ques- tions to ask. Did the chair move away from Mr. Home as well as towards; and was there anybody between him and the chair when it moved?" Both questions f 1 Daniel Dunglas Home, born near Edinburgh in 1833 ; died at Auteuil in 1886. He is the "Sludge" in Browning's "Sludge the Medium" (published in 1864).] [ 2 James Manby Gully. He and James Wilson introduced the hydropathic treatment of disease at Malvern about 1842. He is the "Dr. Gullson" of Charles Reade's "It is Never too Late to Mend." The case referred to was known as the " Bravo case." A Mrs. Bravo was suspected of poisoning her husband. Disclosures showed Gully's intimacy with the lady. Born 1808 ; died 1883.] VISITS TO EUROPE 385 had to be answered in the negative. The impostor no doubt pulled the chair to him with a horse-hair line. The light was imperfect, and the witnesses, blinded by their faith, and by the solemnity of the quack, allowed themselves to be imposed upon by a trick which they would at once have detected had it been played by a common conjurer. I saw another case of spiritualism in which I thought the illusion was evidently produced by a yearning for intercourse with the dead. In connection with this case I was brought into contact with a female Medium who was evidently the coarsest of impostors and whose juggling apparatus could deceive no cool-headed ob- server. But before these pages are in print Spiritual- ism will have passed away. In those days one encountered curious proofs of British ignorance of Canada. On the door of Knares- borough Church I read a proclamation by the Privy Council relating to the Colorado Beetle, a visitation of which was expected, beginning, "Whereas intelligence has been received from Ontario, Canada, that the coun- try round that town, etc." Within a few days after- wards I fell in with three Privy Councillors, and when I next went to Knaresborough Church the proclamation had disappeared. At one place our landlady, a well- educated woman, could hardly be brought to believe that my wife's maid was a Canadian, as she was not red. I was invited to an emigration meeting at a city remark- able for intelligence. The Alabama question had just 2c 386 REMINISCENCES been settled by the treaty of Washington. 1 I spoke, dwelling on the good feelings of Canadians towards the Mother-country. I was followed by a gentleman, evidently well-educated and a good speaker. He said that he had listened with particular pleasure to what I had said about the feeling of Canadians towards the Mother-country, and that he hoped, now that the Ala- bama question was settled, there would be nothing to divide the two countries from each other. The audience showed no surprise. A considerable change has since that time been made by assiduous " advertising" of Canada, and still more by the South African war. Yet it seems more than doubtful whether the masses in the two countries can ever be brought to know each other and to think and act together sufficiently for the pur- pose of Imperial Federation. Knaresborough is the scene of the story of Eugene Aram, whose character has been sentimentally trans- figured by Bulwer, 2 but who was really a mercenary murderer, though he was cultivated and literary, as he showed in his defence. We had something like a coun- terpart of him at Ithaca in the person of one Ruloff, who in a remarkable way combined criminal propensi- ties with literary tastes, being a great philologist, and engaged in the invention of a universal language. Ru- loff committed a series of robberies and murders, the series of murders beginning with those of his wife and P February the 9th, 1871.] [ 2 Bulwer Lytton's "Eugene Aram" was published in 1832.] VISITS TO EUROPE 387 daughter. On that occasion he escaped justice through the absence of a corpus delicti, Lake Cayuga, into which he had thrown the bodies, being undredgable. He wandered into Virginia, where he committed other crimes, all the time working at philology and his univer- sal language. Returning to his old haunts, he again committed robbery and murder, and again fell into the hands of justice. The opponents of capital punishment petitioned against his execution on the stock plea of insanity, and on the somewhat inconsistent ground that he had invented a universal language and that by hang- ing him a light of science would be put out. The Gov- ernor of the State issued two Commissions of Inquiry, one to report on each plea. Both reported in the nega- tive, and Ruloff was hanged. His forehead, in the cast which was taken, bespeaks intellect, but the width of the head between the ears gives it the aspect of that of a bull. My early Alpine tours embraced the Southern slope of the Alps. Otherwise I did not see Italy till late in life, when I had settled in Canada. Then I unspeakably enjoyed it. I hardly needed a guide; every object was already familiar. The greatest surprise was the ancient sculpture, which I found I was far from having seen in seeing the casts. The tact of my courier just saved me from entering Pompeii with a "caravan" of German "tourists," whom we found drinking beer in the restau- rant. What you bring back from a tour depends on what you take to it, and probably most of the people 388 REMINISCENCES of that caravan brought little with them to Italy. Does the touring which is now the universal rage do the mass of tourists more good by enlarging their ideas than it does them harm by taking them away from their duties in life ? At the lovely Carthusian Monastery near Florence I was received by a monk with a figure so austere and venerable that I was ashamed to use him as a showman. He bowed at all the altars, and appeared to be a model of devotion. He showed me cells in which the Brethren were immured, with orifices through which their meals were passed to them. At last he pointed to a door, telling me that on going through it I should see a view, with an air which seemed to imply that views might have their attractions for children of this world. The view was lovely. But as I was looking at it, what was my surprise to hear behind my back the moiik and my man chaffing each other about the quality of the liqueur made at different monasteries. When I turned round, the monk's austerity had vanished. We went to the pharmacia and " liquored up." Coming away I said to my man, "You seem to know that monk." "Yes, he was once a brown begging friar at Rome." "But is that man going to be shut up in one of those cells and to have his meals passed to him through a hole in the wall?" "Oh, since the Monastery has been reduced, they have relaxed the rule." The monks and nuns from the dissolved or reduced monasteries, I was told, had generally been glad to get VISITS TO EUROPE 389 back to domestic life ; a fact which threw some light on the dissolution of the monasteries in England. Lovely homes of monasticism, such as the Benedictine Monas- tery at Bologna and that of San Martino at Naples, remained, when I was last in Italy, on the hands of the Government. Will a new spirit ever take up its abode in them and struggle against the ascendency of material- ism as monasticism in its way and measure struggled against the ascendency of brute force in the feudal era? To be for the first time in Venice when your mind and knowledge are mature is the realization of a dream. I fortunately got there before a steamer had begun to run upon the Grand Canal and some time before the fall of the Campanile; a catastrophe which is irrepa- rable, for the old memories will never gather round the new building. This will not be the tower from which Antonio scanned the horizon for his over-due argosies, or the sight of which greeted the eye of the Venetian mariner returning from Oriental trade or Turkish war. The Dogana and St. Mark's seem to be imperilled. The piles surely must give way in time. Venice "rose like an exhalation from the deep." Into the deep like an exhalation she may return. Better almost this than that she should become a vulgar trading town. Ruskin was there sketching. Are we bound to share his present admiration for St. Mark's? To me, I confess, it seemed more interesting as symbolic of the half Oriental piety of a race of commercial 390 REMINISCENCES adventurers than transcendently beautiful. It surely is too dark. The piombi are the grim memorials of that wonderful oligarchy which for so many centuries, while it deprived the people of political life and thought, gave them free- dom from the political convulsions of Florence and the other democratic republics, with security for the life of trade, literature, art, and the brothel. Another vision of the past was Ravenna, a city of ancient history preserved in its antiquity and silence by the silting up of the harbour, where once the Roman fleet rode at anchor, and by the malarious rice grounds. Byzantine work is that of a decadence. Mosaic is not art. Yet the churches have a certain magnificence, besides the intense interest of their antiquity. The portraits of Justinian and his court are apparently genuine, though barbaresque. Here is a Roman Em- peror, though one of the lowest decadence, in his own tomb. A Roman Empress was actually to be seen in hers till some profane urchins threw in a lighted match. "Old Ravenna's immemorial wood" of Italian pines was also profoundly impressive when I was there; I believe it has since been decaying. Ravenna, if it was in Dante's time anything like what it is now, must have been a suitable place of exile for the writer of "Purga- tory" and "Hell." I admire, but I never could love, the poet who had painted God as the creator and keeper of a torture-house unspeakably worse than that of the most execrable of Italian tyrants. VISITS TO EUROPE 391 Ravenna by this time no doubt swarms with tourists " doing" its antiquities. Though the spell might be impaired by the crowd, one might be glad that the en- joyment was shared, were it certain that it was real, not a formal course of sight-seeing from which no idea or impression is carried away. My visit to Italy was repeated in 1899 when I went in company with my dear wife and our friend Miss Crooks, now Mrs. Burns. 1 Then it took in Sicily. I saw the Temple of Concord at Girgenti standing on the silent shores, a lovely mourner over the grave of the mighty Agrigentum. I saw the great harbour of Syracuse where Athenian Imperialism had met its doom, and the quarries which had been its tragic prison-house. I saw the divine Landscape of Taormina. I saw Pa- lermo with its broad valley lying among the hills, a dark green expanse of orange and lemon groves, with its ravishing Chapel Royal, and still more ravishing Church of Monreale. On the night when I was at Palermo took place, amidst a scene of the greatest popular excitement, the arrest of Palizzolo, a local magnate and chief of the Mafia, for the murder of his enemy Notabartolo. 2 The murder had been committed several years before, but the murderer's political influence had prevented the [ l A daughter of the late Robert Pilkington Crooks, of Osgoode Hall, Toronto, and widow of Captain A. Norman Burns, of the 49th (late Princess Charlotte of Wales's) Regiment.] [ 2 In 1893 Signor Notarbartolo, a Governor of the Bank of Sicily, accused Palizzolo, a brother-Governor, of fraud. A week or two afterwards his dead body was found, covered with wounds.] 392 REMINISCENCES passing by the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was a member, of the resolution necessary to put a Deputy on his trial. Thus for years murder had stalked the streets of Palermo, defying justice, while those streets were full of soldiery. At last a strong Prime Minister carried the resolution, stopped the post and telegraph, and pounced upon Palizzolo. The venue was changed to Milan, conviction in Sicily being hopeless. But when I left Italy, the court had got no further than committing twenty witnesses for refusing to give evi- dence against the Mafia. Matters were not much better at Naples where the Camorra domineered. Miss Crooks was robbed of her reticule in one of the principal streets at midday by a man who then jumped into a cab and was going off when he was collared by a bersaglieri. We received a friendly hint that we had better leave Naples. Had there been a trial, there might really have been some risk. Luckily the robber proved to be a ticket-of-leave man and was remanded to prison on his former sentence. The career of Mussolino and the sympathy felt for the savage, show how, when the law has been for centuries the enemy of the people, the people become the enemies of the law. Nor, when I was at Naples, had the law, or at least the Government, become the people's friend. Half the morsel of coarse bread and the cup of meagre wine were being taken from the lips of poverty to pay for the share of Italy in the Imperialist and Militarist craze. The squalid misery in Naples was frightful. VISITS TO EUROPE 393 On my way back from Sicily, through the irregularity of the Italian railway service, I found myself stranded for the night at Pizzo in Calabria, the place where Murat, landing with revolutionary designs, got himself shot; a late sacrifice to the manes of the thousands whom the ruffian had massacred at Madrid. A darker or more sin- ister-looking place I had never beheld than that little Calabrian town. The filth of the inn was unspeakable. But the courtesy of the people whom I found at supper in the saloon, probably the heads of Pizzo society, nothing could exceed. In the morning I heard under my window a noise which reminded me of the chorus of frogs. Looking out, I saw all Pizzo gathered in the square and holding its early conversazione. Ragged and dirty in the highest degree the company were. But they seemed, and let us hope that they were, as merry as multi-millionaires or crickets. The Italians are the worst of horse masters. Nothing can exceed their cruelty. There is no use in remon- strating. There might be some danger; for they are not less peppery than courteous. In fact, an envoy of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who pulled up a savage at Naples was thrashed within an inch of his life. I was told that the Pope, when they appealed to him on the subject, said that Christians owed no duty to brutes. This was scarcely credible of Leo XIII. He would have known that even if Chris- tians owed no duty to brutes they owed some to them- selves. In Sicily I saw a goat hitched up to a wall so 394 REMINISCENCES that it could only touch the ground with its hind legs. If I had rebuked the barbarian, he would very likely have drawn his knife. The poor little Italian horses do not deserve the treatment which they get. A pair of them trotted with me and my courier from Salerno to Sorrento, eight hours, with little more than an hour of rest, and came in as lively as they went out. I longed to give the poor little fellows an extra feed, but I knew that I should be only giving an extra feed or drink to the driver. Amain is now a petty town, and could never have been a large city. But romantic interest attaches to it as the cradle of scientific navigation. 1 " Empire," which we are now told is political bliss, was then happily far away in Germany, and a chance was given for that free and emulous development which produced the Italian Republics. On the day when I halted at Amalfi preparations were being made for an annual miracle, an exudation from the bones of St. Andrew, which Amal- fian mariners had been so fortunate as to secure, prob- ably from some Byzantine relic-monger, in the Middle Ages. This is a counterpart of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. A terrible millstone these an- nual thaumaturgies must be round the neck of the Cath- olic Church, which cannot go on performing them with- out forfeiting the allegiance of the educated or discon- tinue them without forfeiting the allegiance of the people. P The introduction of the mariner's compass has been attributed to Flavio Gioia, a citizen of Amalfi, in 1307.] VISITS TO EUROPE 395 Of the allegiance of the educated, it is true, there is not much left to be forfeited. The tone of the drawing- room, I was told, was almost universally sceptical. A few old families, mostly of Papal creation, are rather politically than theologically devout. Yet the position of the Prisoner of the Vatican, if he could only see it, is one of far greater influence, as well as far more respect- able, than was that of the Temporal lord of Rome. It bears a certain resemblance to the Papacy of the Middle Ages, though Democracy and Science do not go to Canossa. It is in fact a crucial proof of the elevation which, as well as freedom, a Church gains by separation from the State. Passing Capua, I thought I could mark the spot on the hillside where Hannibal must have stood with his staff looking down on the besieged city and thinking how he could relieve it. The result was his ineffectual march on Rome. Why had he not marched on Rome after Cannae? He could not have besieged the city, as he had no siege-train ; but he might have starved it. His own army could well have subsisted on the country ; and he would have paralyzed the confederacy of which Rome was the head. But his judgment was that of the greatest captain, probably, as well as the most striking figure in military history. It might be conjectured that after Cannae his mercenaries grew riotous and demanded immediate reward ; but never, not even in his passage of the Alps, in his terrible march through the floods, or at the end of his fortunes, does he seem to have lost control. 396 REMINISCENCES "Rome, Rome, thou art no more!" I believe says the song. Classic Rome really is no more. It is over- laid and dwarfed by Modern Rome. Why cannot his- toric places such as Rome and Venice be kept historic ? Why must we have a London quarter on the Quirinal and steamboats on the Grand Canal? Who now can meditate upon the ruins of Rome? The ruins are lost in the modern city. The aqueducts, the roads, and the tombs beside the roads alone speak of ancient Rome. Rome never was the capital of Italy. She was the capital of the world. For a capital of the world her position was good. For a capital of Italy it is not. I can sympathize with Hare's jeremiads, * though not from his ecclesiastical point of view. New Italy is the newest of nations. She should have had a new capital. A fine site for one would have been the Alban Mount. To Thomas Arnold the moment on which he first caught sight of Rome was about the most solemn in his life. I ought to have shared that great man's feelings, but I did not. If ever the Papacy was a blessing, or other than a curse, it must have been in the Middle Ages, when it balanced, if it did not much temper, feudal force. But of medieval Rome there is scarcely a trace. For the ecclesiastical Rome of later days I feel no re- spect. Nor do the hundred temples of its sacerdotalism and wafer- worship, with their somewhat meretricious splendour, greatly impress me. St. Peter's, with its [ l See Augustus J. C. Hare's " Walks in Rome," passim. London : George Allen ; New York : George Routledge & Sons.] VISITS TO EUROPE 397 vast and luminous grandeur, must impress every one; but hardly in a religious way. Besides, here also you are confronted with false relics and other lies. It was ancient Rome, I presume, the centre of conquest and the seat of empire, that stirred Arnold's feelings most and filled him with almost religious ec- stasy when he first caught sight of the city. I do not love conquest ; I believe in nationality ; in the emulous variety of nations ; and I doubt the beneficence of any Empire, even of that of Rome, though of what history would have been without the Roman Empire we can hardly form an idea. There had been one very remarkable addition to the sights of Rome between my first visit and my second. Not very far from the Church where, in his shrine of lapis lazuli and gold, rests the founder of the Society of Jesus, now stands the statue of Giordano Bruno, with the inscription "To Giordano Bruno, on the Spot where he Suffered Death by Fire, the Age which he Foresaw." The erection of that statue cut Papacy to the heart. Nor can "Baptist Church," flaunting in large letters on a building in a Roman street, be agreeable to the Papal eye. Roman Catholicism is dead at the root as a system of belief, besides being weighed down by its load of historic crime. To its pretensions as a system of morality, the moral state of Catholic countries of Italy, its centre, above all, is the decisive reply. Yet it is still, to use Macaulay's happy phrase, an august and fascinating 398 REMINISCENCES superstition, and, to simple multitudes, it is the only spiritual influence and the only poetry of life. I feel more interest in Florence, that miraculous city, which with a population never amounting to a hundred thousand and perpetually torn by faction, produced such wealth of literature and art, to say nothing of manufactures and finance. Happy Florence to have escaped being a political capital of Italy! Happy Florence in having no coal or anything to turn her into a manufacturing city! Art is her proper in- dustry. Her dower is the sense of beauty which shows itself in the commonest objects; in the flower-market, in the very arrangement of goods in the stores. Some very pleasant days were passed in the Villa Landor, where, in what was once the abode of that eccentric and crabbed genius, 1 my Cornell friend, Professor Fiske, was living in elegant luxury and entertaining with Medicean grace. Pleasant and instructive hours were passed with Signer Pasquale Villari, 2 the eminent Pro- fessor of history and member of a Senate which is chosen for personal distinction in the different lines. Should the crash come which prodigal misgovernment on one side and the consequent growth of Socialism on the other seem to threaten, the Senate might prove the anchor of the storm-tossed State. ['Walter Savage Landor, author of " Imaginary Conversations," etc. Born 1775 ; died 1864.] [ 2 Signor Pasquale Villari, honorary D.C.L. of Oxford ; honorary Doctor of Edinburgh and Halle ; Vice-President of the Senate of Italy ; author of several historical and social works. Born in 1827.] GOLDWIN SMITH AT SEVENTY- FIVE YEARS OF AGE. Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. CHAPTER XXIII VISITS TO WASHINGTON Settling in Canada Washington Bancroft Bayard The Pensions Bill The Capitol American Oratory American Statesmanship Washington Society The Party System Newspaper Reporters E. L. Godkiii. Two years were spent happily at Cornell in lecturing to my class in history, watching the vigorous growth and happy promise of the young University, and en- joying the society of its good Founder, Ezra Cornell. Then my strong domestic tastes carried me to Canada where three branches of my family were settled, and where I should still be near Cornell. From time to time, when settled in Canada, I, with my wife, visited Washington, which was always growing in brilliancy, architectural and social. It is the only great city on this continent that is permanently and securely well governed. Instead of being under an elective Council of ward politicians, it is under three Commissioners appointed by the President of the United States. Here the problem of municipal gov- ernment, supposed to be insolvable, is solved if other cities would accept the solution. They will never get out of the slough of mal-administration and corruption 399 400 REMINISCENCES in which they are all wallowing while they hug the elective system and government by ward politicians. A thing that strikes one in the new city is the predominance of the military element in the statuary of the squares. Why is it that the Americans, an industrial people, are such worshippers of military glory ? Why was the figure chosen to stand in front of the White House the victor, if it could be called a victory, of New Orleans, ramping on a war-horse when he ought to be crouching behind a cotton-bale? 1 Why have there been so many military Presidents and nominees for the Presidency, while England, an old war-power, has had only one military Prime Minister, and that one chosen, not on military grounds, but because he was one of the leading statesmen of Europe ? 2 I was elected a member of the Cosmos Club, and there had pleasant and instructive talks. My old friend Mr. Bancroft had taken up his winter abode in the city, and I often dropped in to make up a rubber for him in the evening. Why cannot Progress let whist, the solace of old age, alone ? Why turn it into bridge whist, or destroy by the intrusion of mechanical science the in- terest of planning your own game ? My private con- viction is that whist, as it was played in my youth, and as Sarah Battle played it, with ten points and honours, was really the best of all. It was a happy mixture of P Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States. He defeated the English under General Sir Edward Pakenham at New Orleans in 1815.] [ 2 The Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister 1829-1830.] VISITS TO WASHINGTON 401 skill and luck, and gave room for interesting vicissitudes of fortune in the course of a game. Bancroft had preserved his health and his powers of work into old age by a careful regimen. Like Bethell, he worked early in the morning. He took regular horse- exercise till very late in life. When he could no longer ride, he took to driving, which, as he was apt to let the reins drop, was rather perilous to himself and to his companion. When he took my wife out for a drive, I was glad to get her back safe. One of my great friends at Washington was Mr. Bayard, 1 a thoroughly high-bred and honourable poli- tician. He was not the less admirable in my eyes for having at the outbreak of Secession bravely spoken against war ; though his voice had been drowned in the roar of onset and he had long suffered in popularity as having been unpatriotic, when in truth he had behaved like the best of patriots. One of his claims to my esteem was that he was a sound free-trader. He was afterwards Ambassador to England, and there dis- tinguished himself as an envoy of peace and friendship. It might be ungracious to say that with the highest of motives he somewhat overdid the part. An American Ambassador to England should be cautious how he allows himself to be brought under the spell of London Society. He should remember that he is an ambassa- I 1 Thomas Francis Bayard. He was Secretary of State from 1885 to 1889; appointed Ambassador to Great Britain in 1893. Born in 1828.] 2D 402 REMINISCENCES dor, the representative of a separate and occasionally conflicting interest. I have touched on this point al- ready in the case of Lowell. I think it was Bayard that invited me just after the inauguration of the President to accompany him in a call at the White House. I demurred, saying that I had no business or right to intrude. My friend assured me that the President would be glad to see me. I really believe he was. The White House absolutely swarmed with office-seekers, some of whom had come not alone, but bringing with them a local tail to press their claims, and the distracted victim of their importunities may very likely have found relief in turning aside for a few minutes to talk to a visitor about Canadian weather. A terribly seamy side of American democracy is the place-hunting. We all know how Lincoln at the su- preme moment of national peril was distracted by the ravenous importunities of the place-hunters. "Ah! It's not the Civil War, it's that Postmastership at Ped- lington," he cried in his anguish. For ever blessed is the memory of George William Curtis, the principal begetter of civil service reform! It is, however, not wonderful that civil service reform should have a hard life, as it evidently has, under the party system of Gov- ernment. Party must have workers, and the workers must be paid. British Ministers were willing enough to give up their petty patronage, which was always a great plague and nuisance to them, while they retained the great patronage and that which wins the support of VISITS TO WASHINGTON 403 powerful men, the appointments to Peerages, Baron- etcies, Knighthoods, Bishoprics, Deaneries, Colonial Governorships, Indian Viceroyalty, and Irish Lord Lieutenancy, besides the social grade which hitherto at least it has been in their power to impart, and the much- coveted admission to Royal Balls. I was at Washington when the Pension Arrears Bill was going through Congress. I was lunching with my old acquaintance Butler and a party of Congressmen. I ventured to ask them what they thought would be the cost. I think they said twenty-five millions of dollars with a prospect of a speedy decrease. Admira- tion filled the world when, after the war, the army, instead of overturning the Constitution and making its General a dictator, as it had turned its ploughshares into swords, turned back the swords into ploughshares and returned generally to the employments of peaceful life. Nobody could foresee that out of the grave of the military organization would arise a political organ- ization styling itself the Grand Army of the Republic and plundering the nation on a gigantic scale. Thirty- five years after the end of the war, the country was paying one hundred and forty .millions in pensions, of the claims for which a large proportion were notorious frauds. Compared with this, what are the worst cases of monarchical wastefulness? What was the cost of that paragon of monarchical wastefulness, Ver- sailles? Nor was the expense the worst of the evil. The worst of the evil was the demoralization. Yet not 404 REMINISCENCES a politician dared say a word, while the platforms of both parties paid a cowardly homage to the Grand Army vote and promised a liberal construction of the Pension Law, that is to say, increased license of public pillage. There are few things more shameful in the annals of any nation. The total cost of the war of Secession, when to the enormous outlay on the war itself, including bonuses and payments to substitutes, is added the pension, beggars experience and almost defies calculation. Per- haps, as I said before, for a Democracy inclined to Jingoism the cost of war may be a wholesome correc- tive. Still, the waste is appalling. Of course I frequented the galleries of the Capitol. In the Senate you can hear the Debate, which is some- times worth hearing. In the House, so bad are the acoustics, so incessant is the noise of talking, moving about, slamming of desks, and calling of pages, that hardly any speaker can be heard. It is a babel with a gavel accompaniment. Order there is none. I have seen a number of Members leave their places and group themselves, standing, round a speaker whom they particularly wished to hear. Mr. Reed's 1 sten- torian voice prevailed over the din. So did that of Mr. Bryan. 2 It may almost be said that a voice of thunder is a condition of political eminence. No ordinary organ will fill the House of Representatives P Thomas Brackett Reed was Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives from 1889 to 1891.] [ 2 William Jennings Bryan, Member of the House of Representa- tives from 1891 to 1895 ; Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1896 and other dates.] VISITS TO WASHINGTON 405 or the Hall of a Convention. Political influence thus comes to be measured by power of lungs. An Ameri- can to whom I made this remark answered that it was the shrill not the loud voice that was best heard. That may be ; still the power of sound, whether the sound is that of the drum or of the fife, predominates over that of sense. The average of speaking, however, in America, both in Congress and elsewhere, is far higher than it is in England. Rhetoric and elocution are parts of American education. Nor is American oratory in general any longer vitiated by spread-eagle. In this, as in others, Americans have found out their weak point. You must now go very far west, or perhaps south, to meet with an Elijah Pogram. 1 The training, however, has one bad result, the orator seldom gets rid of the air of speaking for effect. The great English orators, nature's elect and pupils, such as Gladstone and Bright, speak in the accents of nature and to the heart, though practice in debating societies had marred the freshness of Gladstone's style. I once heard Everett, whose platform oratory was the acme of American art. His language was unimpeachable. But his every word and not only his every word, but his every gesture, was unmistakably prepared. He seemed to gesticulate not only with his hands, but with his legs. He even planned scenic effects beforehand. Having to deliver a Fourth of July oration, he introduced a veteran of I 1 In Dickens's " Martin Chuzzlewit."] 406 REMINISCENCES 1812, put him in a conspicuous place, and told the old man to rise to him at his entrance into the Hall. The old man did as he had been bidden. Everett apos- trophized him with, "Venerable old man, sit down ! It is not for you to rise to us, but for us to rise to you." The veteran said afterwards, "Mr. Everett is a strange man; he told me to rise when he came into the Hall, and when I did rise he told me to sit down." I have always had a poor opinion of American states- manship. In the United States the grocers are states- men ; the statesmen are grocers. The level of political intelligence among the people is probably higher than it is in any other country. The aims of the statesmen are for the most part miserably low and narrow. Their treatment of the Canadian question, among other things, is a proof of this. Their attention and energies have been greatly absorbed by a struggle among a set of corrupt interests for the bedevilment of the Tariff. The interests being largely local, politics become pa- rochial as well as low. The term of the Member of the House of Representatives is too short for political train- ing, and that House is a chaos led, if at all, most incon- gruously by the Speaker, who acts as the head of a party when he ought to be perfectly impartial. The exclusion of the Ministers of State from the Legislature deprives legislation of guidance and divests the Minis- ters of responsibility. The Ministers are creatures of a day, going out of office with the President, and seldom afterwards remaining in public life, so that VISITS TO WASHINGTON 407 there can be no continuity of policy in the Department of Foreign Affairs or elsewhere. The Senate being comparatively permanent, as well as composed of a rather more powerful class of men than the House, power gravitates to it, and it seems likely to become paramount, while it is itself becoming a representation of log-rolling monopolies. Men whose private business is important are giving up their places in the House of Representatives, feeling that their time spent there is wasted. The weak points of the American Constitu- tion are beginning to appear. Deference to the false diagnosis of Montesquieu entered into its construction and is now interfering with its working as a republican counterpart of the Constitution of Great Britain. Such faith as I have in the political future of the American people was formed by those two years' residence in a little American town. Ithaca, if a fair appeal could be made to its good sense, would settle aright questions in the treatment of which Washington, under the influence of sinister intents and slavery to party fails. The tendency of society at Washington, of Official and Congressional society particularly, to dress itself after European Courts and to mimic their etiquette is manifest and amusing. Still, when I was there, Demo- cracy continued to assert itself, especially in the famil- iarity of the people with the head of the Republic. I attended one of the Presidential receptions at the White House. It was in the evening. There was an 408 REMINISCENCES immense attendance of people all in their common dress. From the time when I fell into the line it took three quarters of an hour to reach the White House. It took the same time to get from the entrance to the White House to the Reception Room, where the name of each visitor was called by the Marshal, and the Presi- dent took each in turn by the hand. Sad the plight of his hand at last must have been. Nothing, however, could be better than the behaviour of the people- They moved on quietly in line, showing not the slight- est sign of impatience. It is doubtful whether a crowd of the aristocratic society at London would have be- haved quite as well. We used to hear of scuffles and of torn dresses in the ' Crush Room' at St. James's. I was at Washington in 1885 when, in consequence of the Penjdeh incident, 1 Great Britain was on the brink of a war with Russia. Authentic information came to me concerning a new military invention which had been tried in presence of the Russian Ambassador with success and seemed to be important. I at once wrote to the Governor-General of Canada 2 offering, if it was deemed worth while to inquire, to bear any necessary expense. I communicated also with a mem- ber of the Government in England who certainly gave serious attention to the matter. I may mention this, as this page will meet no eye but my own while I live. I have not been regardless of my British Citizenship, t 1 An attack, in March, 1885, by the Russian General Komaroff on a fortified Afghan post.] [ 2 Lord Lansdowne.] VISITS TO WASHINGTON 409 though, living long away from my own country in a country not my own, I have naturally become more or less a citizen of the world. In Canada I was the President of the Loyal and Patriotic Union formed at the time of Mr. William O'Brien's incursion, 1 to up- hold the integrity of the United Kingdom, while the Dominion Parliament and the Ontario Legislature, with all their loyalty, had been courting the Irish vote by resolutions in favour of Home Rule, as the Dominion Parliament has again done. When Summer traduced England, I, being then in the United States, answered him, 2 and I hope I have never failed in dealing with t 1 1886.] P Through the kindness of Mr. R. C. Edlund, of Cornell Univer- sity, Ithaca, I learn that : "In Volume XIII of the Works of Charles Sumner, published by Lee and Shepard, Boston, 1880, on pages 53 to 93, there is an address entitled 'Claims on England, Individual and National,' with the sub-title 'Speech on the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, in Executive Session of the Senate, April 13, 1869.' Although this speech was made in Executive Session, it appears that the Senate removed the injunction of secrecy that is usually placed on speeches so made and reports of it were extensively printed and circulated." To this Goldwin Smith replied in a speech at Ithaca on the 19th of May, 1869, on "The Relations between America and England." This speech was afterwards printed in pamphlet form by "G. C. Bragdon, Publisher, Ithaca, N.Y., The Ithacan Office." In a Preface to this are the following paragraphs : "The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations seemed to speak the mind of the Senate and the nation; and had his speech been followed by action in the shape of a pressure of his demands, as the answer of Great Britain could not be doubtful, the danger of a rupture of friendly relations between the two coun- tries would have been serious. "An Englishman resident in America may be an imperfect judge of the indications of American feeling ; but he has the advantage of 410 REMINISCENCES history to plead the cause of my country where I be- lieved she was in the right. I could never have said with Decatur, "My country, right or wrong." A curious structure is the party system of the United States. There are two great organizations always on foot and now recognized by constitutional law, which, for example, provides that the two parties shall be equally recognized in the appointments of the Civil Service Commission. But the principles of each organ- ization are ambulatory, and a fresh platform is con- structed before each Presidential election, the planks being selected with a view to the attraction of votes. It is possible to trace a connection, though of a very tortuous kind, in the principles of the Democratic party, which having in the time of Jefferson been, though under a different name, ultra-Democratic, became that of the slave-owning Oligarchy of the South, the medium of transformation being the ultra-Demo- cratic theory of State-right, which sheltered slavery. The changes, nevertheless, are vital. Nobody would recognize the identity of the plutocratic Republican of the present day with the patriotic Republican of the struggle for the Union. A journal which was for- merly the Democratic organ of the slave-owning interest is now the Republican organ of the plutocracy without feeling the change. knowing something of both sides : and the danger was to be meas- ured, not by the feelings or intentions of the American people alone, but by these combined with the general temper and present mood of the powerful nation against which Mr. Sumner's speech was made."] VISITS TO WASHINGTON 411 I was at Washington at the time of the Half-Breed rising in the Canadian North- West. 1 There was afloat in the United States a belief that not only the Half- Breeds but the Indians in Canada had been oppressed and goaded to rebellion. I was accosted by a reporter, a young man of gentlemanly manner who introduced himself as a graduate of a first-class University, and desired that I would allow him to interview me on the North- West question. I thought there would be no harm or danger in telling him that the case of the Half- Breeds was under investigation, but that to the Indians the conduct of the Canadian Government had cer- tainly been just and kind. Next morning, taking up his paper, I found that I was made not only to say the opposite of what I had said about the Half-Breeds and Indians, but to bring forward a fresh charge of mal- treatment of settlers against the Canadian Govern- ment, and to quote a letter in support of it; I never having heard either of the charge or of the letter. After a Presidential election it was wired from New York to Canada that I had declared my intention of calling upon the President-elect and urging the imme- diate annexation of Canada to the United States. I had not been in New York for weeks, and it is needless to say that I never thought of being guilty of such an impropriety as approaching a President of the United States on any subject whatever. The British Associa- [ l 1884-1885. This was the rebellion that was led by Louis Kiel and quelled by General Middleton.] 412 REMINISCENCES tion, when it first visited Canada, brought with it a number of trippers whose behaviour was not entirely worthy of science. Some of these men went to Phila- delphia, where there was an exposition going on, and there also got into an altercation with the natives. The consequence was that, taking up an American journal, I read that I had written a letter to a Toronto paper denouncing these people for their behaviour and branding them as bagmen. I at once sent in a correc- tion, saying that I had not written or thought of writ- ing any letter of the kind, and that when the British Association was in Canada I was attending a Convention at Chicago. After a long delay, the correction ap- peared. I sent a disclaimer to Tyndall, who in his reply said that a thing of the same kind had happened to him in New York. He had been made to pass a severe stricture on the fire service, when he had never said a word upon the subject. I heard of a case in which, complaint having been made of a totally fictitious ac- count of an affair of which a reporter had written in absolute ignorance, the editor's answer was that the reporter had done his best under trying circumstances. Let me say for my old friend Mr. Charles Dana, 1 of the New York Sun, that whatever might be his faults, prone as he certainly was to extreme prejudices and a violent expression of them, he had the feelings of a gentleman with regard to the social honour of the press. P Charles Anderson Dana became editor of the New York Sun in 1868. Born at Hinsdale, N.H., in 1819.] VISITS TO WASHINGTON 413 I had occasion once to appeal to him on this score, and he responded most promptly and heartily to the appeal. If anybody had brought Charles Dana a report of what had been said at a private dinner-table, I think Dana would have kicked him downstairs. The Press surely ought to have, and to enforce by common action, its professional rules of honour. It is needless for me to add to the flowers of praise deservedly strewn on the tomb of my friend E. L. God- kin. 1 In days in which the question what is behind the press was of all questions not the least dark or the least formidable, we always knew that strict integrity and perfect independence were behind the Nation. Master of a most telling style, and using it fearlessly in the cause of what he deemed, and was very seldom mistaken in deeming, right, he was one of the very best antiseptic elements in American public life. He of course received from all wrong-doers an abundant tribute of hatred and abuse. There never was a more genuine patriot. Party, popular passion, and advertisers, all of these he could defy in the interest of the country. He has left few behind him who can do the same. [ l Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born in Ireland in 1831 ; became editor and proprietor of the New York Nation in 1856, and of the New York Evening Post in 1881.] CHAPTER XXIV VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 1870, 1888, 1889 The North- West Winnipeg Skye Crofters Immigration Annexation The Canadian Pacific Railway The Rocky Mountains British Columbia. I PAID two visits l to that land of miraculous promise, the North- West. Very impressive was the view of that unbounded plain, its expanse stretching out like a sea purpled by the twilight and set off by an electric light upon some tower in the distance. Very lovely no doubt is the prairie in the season of flowers. But it must be trying to the spirits to live in a country without a hill or a tree, especially on a lonely farm. Fortunately the pioneer is not afflicted with morbid sensibilities. The fruitfulness of the soil is extraordi- nary, and apparently it is inexhaustible. I found no falling off in the vegetables of a garden which had been worked for thirty years. But the fertility of the soil is balanced by the severity of the climate. In harvest time everybody is trembling for fear of an early frost. f 1 In 1870 he went to Winnipeg ; in 1880 to the Pacific coast. A third journey was made in 1889, but to what point, I do not know.] 414 VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 415 The intensity of the cold is no doubt mitigated by the dryness of the air. But it is in vain that the people conspire as they do to make you believe that forty below zero is pleasant. The inconvenience, if not the suffering, must be great. You will not persuade me that you are in bliss when your breath freezes on your sheets, or when, after keeping several stoves burning in your house all night, your bread is frozen till twelve o'clock next day. Most of the settlers are young, and their blood is warm. I had been curious to see the North- West, partly because I thought that farm-life there would be likely to change its character. The prairie is specially adapted to machine farming. It seemed probable that large farms would pay, while in the long winter and the great solitudes there would be social cheerfulness in the staff. The system was tried, and at the Bell farm, where I was most kindly received, I saw 1400 acres of wheat in a single field. But the experiment failed, principally, I believe, owing to the cost of keeping the staff during the winter. Young Englishmen of the upper class seemed as a rule to fail as farmers in the North- West, though they did better in the ranches. It was said that their har- vests were remittances. Many of them had drifted into the Mounted Police; many of them afterwards drifted into the [South African] Contingent. A farmer in Canada must work hard, live hard, and bargain hard. A young English gentleman may do the first at 416 REMINISCENCES a pinch; the second he does less easily; the third he cannot do at all. When I first saw Winnipeg it was in its pioneer phase, and at the same time in its fit of sickness after the "boom." In the boom of course sharks had thriven. One of them played a cunning trick to pass off a lot upon a greenhorn for many times its value. The green- horn at first was shy and went away. But he was followed by a confederate who contrived to speak, not to him, but in his hearing, of the immense value of the lot, pretending that he was himself trying to raise the money to buy it. The dupe slipped away in a hurry and closed the bargain. Speculation with- out capital is a walk of industry which many take in booms and which leads to ruin and disgrace. On the other hand, there was not the slightest symptom of anything rowdy or lawless. I attended the opening of the new-born Legislature at Winnipeg. The approach of the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor 1 was announced by a series of explosions intended to represent the firing of cannon, but made, I under- stood, by the letting off of gunpowder with a hot poker. There being one or two French Members, I am not sure which, the Lieutenant-Governor read his speech from the throne in French as well as in English. I suspect the I 1 The Hon. Adams George Archibald, of Nova Scotia. The pro- clamation for the admission of the new Province of Manitoba into the Dominion of Canada was issued on the 23d of June, 1870 ; Mr. Archibald arrived at Winnepeg and assumed the functions of Lieu- tenant-Governor on September the 3d of the same year.] VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 417 effect upon the French ears was like that of the Irish Major's address upon Prince Napoleon, who in reply deplored his ignorance of "la belle langue Irelandaise." As an offset to the French of the Irish Major, I may say that the Prince de Canino l at a dinner of the British Association, having to propose the toast of ' Science/ said, "I shall give you one to-ast : May de tree of science flourish for ever and shower down peas upon the nations." I visited the settlement of Skye Crofters. Evidently it was a miserable failure. The home of these people had been in a climate mild though moist, and they had not been farmers but herdsmen, boatmen, fisher- men, tilling a plot of oats or potatoes with the spade. Probably they had never handled a plough; a binder they had never seen. A benevolent lady had sent them out, as she fondly thought, to the happy land. The Icelanders, by all accounts, did well. The Men- nonites, as farmers, better still ; but in their habits of living they were rather troglodytic, and since they have got the franchise their votes are said to come to market in the lump. As I write 2 settlers from the United States are pouring into the North- Western Territories, which they were sure to do when in Minne- sota and Dakota land became dear. The North- West will be American. f 1 Louis Lucien Bonaparte, the fourth son of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino. A French philologist. After 1870 he lived chiefly in England. Born 1813 ; died 1891.] [ 2 This was written in 1903.] 2E 418 REMINISCENCES Fear of the vast influx of an alien population is expressed. Fear of a vast alien population will speed- ily subside when it is proved that the inflowing popula- tion is not alien, but is identical, to say the least, with the Canadian, as the population of Scotland has proved to be with that of England. " Annexation," so much dreaded and denounced, what is it, I ask once more, but the reunion of two great sections of the English-speaking race ? In the grounds of the Winnipeg Penitentiary were to be seen some of the few survivors of the mighty race of buffalo, the sudden disappearance of which seems to be one of the most curious things in natural history. About fifteen years before, Mr. Cornell had invited me to go with him on a tour through the West, which I was prevented from doing; and when he returned he said he was sorry I had not been with him, for he had seen ten square miles of buffalo. Suddenly the race became extinct, and the true reason of its extinction I failed to learn. It could hardly have been all shot in so short a time. Railroads or a new obstacle of some kind must have interfered with its necessary migrations. Its surviving representatives at Winnipeg were huge antediluvian monsters. One of them came up to my buggy and looked at it so seriously that the occupant thought it best to move on. From Winnipeg to Calgary by the Canadian Pacific Railway was in those days a weary journey, the dul- ness of the lonely expanse being broken only by the VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 419 little gophers, which then perked up as the train passed, but by this time have probably shared the general fate of aborigines. At long intervals was seen a settler's cottage, planted in conformity with the strange and rather cruel regulation of the Company half a mile off the Railroad. To the constructors of the Canadian Pacific Railway the praise of enterprise and energy is due. To Canada the benefit has been questionable. The Canadian Pacific Railway was not a good coloniza- tion road. The greater part of the emigrants it carried over to the Pacific State. The rest were scattered along a line of eight hundred miles instead of settling close, as would plainly have been best for them, espe- cially in such a country. Had the North- West been left to itself, it would in due time, like the Western States, have provided itself with railroads according to the measure of its needs, and probably on a better plan, without the enormous cost to the country, with- out, it may be added, the political danger which the influence of this enormous corporation has entailed. Too truly the Canadian Pacific Railway has been called "the Dominion Government on wheels." When we had a chance of obtaining reciprocity with the United States, the manager, Van Home, himself an American, 1 put forth a hostile manifesto, though his line was beholden to the United States for its bonding privilege. P Sir William Cornelius Van Home, K.C.M.G., now Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Com- pany.] 420 REMINISCENCES It was not fair to judge the Rockies by a mere pas- sage through them on the Canadian Pacific Railway. But to me they were a disappointment. They are surely not comparable to the Alps. They present nothing, at least they presented to me nothing, like the panoramic view from Basle when the evening light is on the snow peaks. Besides, they lack, what Switzer- land and Tyrol have in their old towns and castles, the piquant conjunction of human interest with the lonely grandeurs of nature. My opinion was little changed by a week at Banff, and a visit to the Devil's Lake with its mighty bastions of rock, their feet clad with the monotonous pine. The boatman who rowed us on the lake was, I felt sure, from his look and speech and the manner in which he took the fare, a young Eng- lish gentleman broken down. The coast scenery of British Columbia impressed me more than the Rockies. It is very peculiar as well as very fine. The vegetation is tropical in luxuriance, though not in variety, and the pines and cedars are gigantic. I never saw anything so grand in the way of trees as the cathedral-like colonnade of mighty pines and cedars between Vancouver and New Westminster, unless it were the grove of spruces at Welbeck, the Duke of Portland's place in England. Victoria, with its pretty cottages amidst their bowers of roses, is a charming little place. It seemed free from the racket of commerce, resting on the little fortunes made from the gold-washings of former ages. The VISITS, TO THE NORTH-WEST 421 general air was repose. A bustling activity seemed to reign in the Chinese quarter alone. The view of the American snow-range opposite is very fine, but one wishes the name were not " Olympian." Perhaps, however, even false classicism is better than naming mountains after directors of railway companies. Why not follow the example of Switzerland with her Wetter- horn and Jungfrau? Desperate efforts are made to keep out the Chinese. The pretexts are social and moral, sometimes religious. The real motive, of course, is fear of their competition in the labour market. They will probably force their way in the end. In the meantime there is exhibited the curious spectacle of wars made on China for her inhospitality to foreigners, while these foreigners themselves practise the height of inhospitality to the Chinese. The Canadian Pacific Railway was built, and the Dominion was stretched out to the Pacific, making it, as Mr. Dunkin said, like seven fishing-rods tied together by the ends, and depriving it of the last vestige of terri- torial and economical unity, for the purpose of incor- porating British Columbia, which threatened, if the road was not built, to stand aloof from Confederation. Having been incorporated at all this expense and risk, British Columbia might almost as well be in another planet. Some Canadians speculate in its mines; but nobody knows or cares anything about its politics or its general concerns. Its politics, if they were known, 422 REMINISCENCES would not edify; when I asked what they were, the answer was, " Government appropriations." While I am writing this there is a turmoil of political discord and intrigue going on in the Pacific Province, of which it may safely be said the man in the street of Toronto could give no account whatever. 1 The English look of Victoria was attractive, and I was thinking of spending some days there and hoping to make some acquaintances. The Society, I knew, was Tory, but I thought I might have left my Radical reputation behind. But on looking into the leading journal of the place I lighted on an editorial which led me, having seen the beauties of the place, to return by the evening boat to Vancouver. Vancouver was evidently flourishing as a port, but I cannot help thinking it unlikely that the grand line of the world's commerce and transportation will be through the sub-arctic region. British Columbia has beauty, wealth, much that has been attracted to it already, while much more must be attracted to it in time. But the grave question pre- sents itself: Whose will British Columbia be? Can American and British Dreadnoughts, even supposing P June, 1903. There was a dismissal of a Liberal Prime Min- ister; an attempt to form a sort of coalition Government by the leader of the Opposition ; resignations of prominent politicians ; a dissolution; a "political contest" which "gradually grew warmer and warmer"; and a general election. See "The Canadian An- nual Review of Public Affairs, 1903." By J. Castell Hopkins, F.S.S. Toronto : Annual Review Publishing Company. 1904. Pages 214, et seq.] VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 423 them to be united, hold the Pacific? What will be the limit to the growth of the military power of Japan? Is it likely that there will be a junction of Japan with China? Will Germany, provoked perhaps by the mischief-making of British Protectionists, throw herself into the Japanese and Chinese scale? Will India rise in alliance with Japan and China? It is hard to discern the future ; specially hard if the greed of commerce persists in stimulating the passion of war. CHAPTER XXV CANADIAN POLITICS The Relation of Canada to the Imperial Country Confederation Quebec Titles for Colonists Political Parties Sir John Macdonald George Brown Alexander Mackenzie Edward Blake John Sandfield Macdonald Joseph Howe Francis Hincks Sir Richard Cartwright Sir Charles Tupper The Destiny of the Colonies Annexation " Canada First " The Irish Question Free Trade Reciprocity The Temperance Question The Patrons of Industry The Weekly Sun. CANADA, with its fine-drawn relation to the Imperial country and the equivocal junction of two not very friendly races in itself, forms rather a special study for the Imperialist politician. At the time of the conquest by Chatham and Wolfe, all in England was boundless exultation. The object in conquering Canada was to set the English settlements to the south of it free from fear of France. Canada having been conquered, the English colonists, being of the Republican breed, re- belled against the Mother-country in pursuance of a quarrel, really trifling, which might have been easily patched up. Into the war France went on the side of the United States to avenge her own wrong. That war was the ruin of French finance, compelled the French Government to summon the States General, 424 GOLDWIN SMITH AT SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF AGE. Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. CANADIAN POLITICS 425 and brought on the French Revolution, with all that followed. The train of consequences may be traced yet even further. In England the abolition of negro slavery, which had been fast coming, was put off, and the con- sequences of its postponement, including the war be- tween the free and slave States, were entailed. Since the settlement of the constitution under Lord Elgin l and the bonfire in the form of the burning of the Parliament. House at Quebec, 2 the only real division that remained was that of the British Provinces from the French Province, which held and still holds to its nationality and its Catholicism, though Lord Durham had regarded the effacement of its nationality as abso- lutely essential to the completion of his work. The struggle between the monarchical and the popu- lar principle of Government ended with the rebellion of 1837. Beaten in the field, the party of popular govern- ment, aided by the same party in the Imperial country, triumphed in the political arena. The spasm of re- action under Lord Metcalfe 3 was the end. Thence- forth the political history becomes a struggle of parties, splitting sometimes into sections without distinct principles or general objects, for power and place. This ended in a deadlock, out of which a way was found in the Confederation of all the North American colonies, with P James Bruce, eighth Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of Can- ada from 1847 to 1854.] P April the 26th, 1849.] [' Charles Theophilus, first Baron Metcalfe, Governor-General of Canada from 1843 till 1845.] 426 REMINISCENCES a federal constitution. 1 The supposed model was Great Britain. But nothing in the debate shows that the difference of circumstances between the two countries was taken into account. The British Kingdom is geo- graphically united; it is divided at least only by the narrow Irish Channel. The union of the Canadian Provinces resembles, as a wit said in the debate, not that of a bundle of rods, gaining strength by their union, to which a confederationist had complacently compared it, but that of seven fishing-rods tied together by the ends. Such a geographical dispersion seems to pre- clude identity of interest, and with it unanimity in council; though about this we shall learn more when the effects of Western annexation are fully felt. There are in Canada no social materials for a House of Lords, nor is there anything like that independent gentry which has furnished the conservative element in the House of Commons. The leading men in Canada are com- mercial, and cannot leave their business offices for Ottawa; or if they do, it is on business of their own. Confederation, when settled itself, could not beget issues of principle. The contest between parties again became a struggle of factions for power and place, with the rancour, intrigue, and corruption inseparable from such a contest, and with the sort of statesmanship that it forms. What is the destiny of Quebec ? Durham took it for granted that Quebec must be absorbed in British Can- P By the British North America Act of 1867 : 30 and 31 Viet. c. 3.] CANADIAN POLITICS 427 ada. Instead of being absorbed, Quebec dominates by the help of venal support in the other Provinces. Her quasi nationality has now a powerful and chivalrous champion in Bourassa. 1 But the end must come. The English Provinces and the United States, to which the workmen of Quebec go, will have their influence. The people of Quebec, the peasantry especially, are pious and devoted to the priesthood, who have hitherto been their leaders and masters. But Papalism cannot reign for ever, and when it loses its hold, Quebec's nationality will fall. In these movements and the attendant controversies I supported the policy which I believed to be best for England as well as for Canada and the continent to which Canada belonged. England was uppermost in my thoughts. But I was thus exposed to the ire of Imperialists, to some of whom the character and man- ners of the English gentleman were an object rather of praise than of imitation. To grace their movement, the Imperial Federationists brought over a Duke. On a very hot day he was driv- ing with a party of which I was one. Opposite him sat a Mayor, who took his hat off. The Duke, taking this [ l Mr. Henri Bourassa was born at Montreal, 1868 ; elected to the House of Commons, for the County of Labelle, 1896 ; resigned in 1899, to protest against the sending of Canadian troops to South Africa, and re-elected by acclamation in 1900 ; also in 1900 and in 1904 ; resigned in 1907 to stand in Bellechasse County against Hon. A. Turgeon, for the local legislature, and defeated ; elected in 1908, in St. James division, against Sir Lomer Gouin, Prime Minister, and in St. Hyacinthe, choosing to keep the latter division.l 428 REMINISCENCES for an act of social homage, bent condescendingly for- ward and said, "Pray, Mr. Mayor, keep your hat on." "Thank your Grace, I was only cooling my head." I never could see that anything but false ambition and inflation of vanity came or could come of granting titles to colonists. The medieval and military title of knight- hood is grotesquely out of place in a modern and com- mercial community. Titles of office are all right ; they increase respect for it. Perhaps titles of mere honour may have a use ; but let them be appropriate, and let them be bestowed by the community to which those on whom they are conferred belong. Bestowed from with- out they not only intoxicate, but estrange. Canada certainly suffers in the estrangement of her leading men from their looking to a fountain of honour elsewhere. With the politics of Canada, otherwise than as a looker-on and critic, I did not meddle. They were the politics of party when the cause of party had ceased to exist, as it did after the Governor-Generalship of Lord Elgin. In my time there was absolutely no political issue of any moment, nothing but a struggle for place carried on by intrigue and corruption, extending un- fortunately to legislation and appointments. To carry through Parliament a Bill 1 forcing Roman Catholic schools on two Provinces of the North- West, the Ro- man Catholic Prime Minister raised the sessional indem- p He is referring to the so-called Autonomy Bills of the Dominion Parliament of 1905, transforming a large portion of the North- West Territories of Canada into the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatche- wan.] CANADIAN POLITICS 429 nities of both Houses of Parliament, created a number of pensions, and granted a salary to the leader of the Opposition. To serve a political purpose one who had not practised law for twenty years was made Chief Justice. Of legal patronage generally party use was made, injurious to the independence both of Bench and Bar. "Graft " was the slang name for corruption among the people, who complained truly but helplessly that everything was full of it. At a farmers' picnic I drew a farmer aside and asked him what was the difference in principle between his party and the other. He was long in answering, but at last he replied, "We say the other fellows are corrupt." The world will not go on in this way for ever. Lord Durham's postulate that the French of Quebec must be anglicized to complete the work of political fusion had not been fulfilled. 1 The French were French still, socially and politically as well as in language, and politicians were and still are as much as ever compelled to court them. Jesuitism, which European morality even in Catholic Kingdoms had spewed out a century before, was recognized by Government and reinstated in its emoluments and its power of killing truth. 2 I 1 The reference, I think, is to pages 124, et seq., of Lord Durham's Report (as printed in pamphlet form at Toronto by Robert Stanton in 1839). I may quote here, as explanation, one sentence : "It must henceforth be the first and steady purpose of the British Government to establish an English population, with English laws and language, in this Province, and to trust its Government to none but a decidedly English Legislature."] [ 2 This refers to the rather celebrated Jesuits' Estates Bill, by 430 REMINISCENCES The separation of the Provinces, among which there was little interchange of population, the course of mi- gration being to the States, was a serious political evil. I do not know at this moment what are the politics, or who are the political leaders of the Provinces on the Atlantic or of those on the Pacific coast. The interests and connections of those Provinces must in part be nearly as much American as Canadian, the American tariff notwithstanding. The great man of Canadian politics, when first I came to Canada, was Sir John Macdonald, 1 who ruled the country for many years. A very curious and notable character he was. The study of his life from his earliest years had been the manipulation of human nature for the purposes of party. In that craft he was unrivalled. A statesman in the higher sense he was not, nor an ad- ministrator. His principles, his economical principles especially, were the shifts of the hour. Only in his attachment to the British Crown, and in his determina- tion, as he said, to die a British subject, could he be said to be firm. He was personally very attractive, bright, good-humoured, versatile, capable of being all things to all men, of talking well on serious and even on literary subjects to the guests at one end of the table, and crack- which, in 1888, that Order obtained from the Provincial Legislature of Quebec the sum of $160,000, together with other sums paid to Catholic Colleges. English readers will find a very succinct account of this affair in the Quarterly Review of April, 1890, Volume 170, No. 340, page 534.] p Born at Kingston, Canada, 1815 ; first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada. Died in 1891.] CANADIAN POLITICS 431 ing rough jokes or telling risque anecdotes to the guests at the other end. He was said to be like Disraeli. There may have been a slight likeness in face. The dark Highland face has something of Jewish cast. Other likeness there was none. Macdonald had nothing of Disraeli's imagination. He more resembled Palmer- ston as a tactician and a speaker whose object was not oratorical effect, but the capture of votes. He was not himself corrupt. It was for the game more than for the stakes that he cared. But he was unscrupulous in cor- rupting other men. He decidedly did not love Spar- tans. He was credited with saying that the perfection of a ministry would be twelve men, each of whom, if you liked, you could put into the penitentiary. He spoke in jest, no doubt ; but in the jest there was a grain of truth. On the eve of a general election it was pointed out to him that some of his men were talking Protection- ism, which, whatever might be its effect in such a coun- try as the United States, with their vast area of produc- tion and home trade, would not do for Canada. "No," was his reply, "you need not think I am going to get into that hole." Scarcely two months had passed when into that hole he got. Rallied by his friend on his change, he jauntily replied, "Yes, Protection has done so much for me, that I must do something for Protec- tion." He was a survivor of the times in which whiskey played an important part in politics, and he had not put off the habits of his jovial generation. Macdonald was not delicate in the choice of his in- 432 REMINISCENCES struments. An incident which I am going to mention showed this and at the same time a certain sensitiveness which he retained after a life which it might have been supposed would have thoroughly steeled his nerves. He came to my house for the wedding of his son. On the evening of his arrival he was in his usual spirits. Next morning as we drove to the church a cloud seemed to have come over him. At the wedding breakfast he sat perfectly silent. When his health was drunk, he disappointed the company by merely stumbling through two or three disjointed sentences. He was called up to reply to another toast, with no happier result. On my return home I found the Chief of Police waiting at my door and desiring to see Sir John Macdonald. Those were the days of Fenianism, and I fancied that this was some alarm from that quarter. It turned out, however, that an American 1 who had served Sir John in some secret and probably associated with him in some po- litical business, had quarrelled with him, and having demanded $3000 of him was trying to indict him for perjury and had chosen the day of the marriage for the service of the writ. The attempt, of course, came to nothing, but the apprehension of it had evidently been enough to upset Sir John Macdonald. There was a rupture between us at last, caused by his hasty assumption, on newspaper authority, of my con- nection with a letter from a Canadian to an American, with which, or anything in its contents, as the recov- f 1 General Butt Hewson, I believe, was the man who indicted.] CANADIAN POLITICS 433 ery of a genuine document proved, I had absolutely nothing to do. 1 The professions of George Brown, 2 the head of the Grit party and Macdonald's mortal enemy, were far more moral than those of Macdonald. Whether he was a better man may be questioned, while he unques- tionably was far less attractive and amusing. A Lib- eral he might call himself; but it could be only in a party sense. Of liberality of character and sentiment, of breadth of view or toleration of difference of opinion, no human being was ever more devoid. Master of The Globe, 3 which then, unhappily for the country, was the only powerful paper, he used it without scruple or mercy to crush everybody who would not bow to his will. For this work he had congenial instruments in his brother Gordon 4 and his chief writer Inglis, 5 a Presby- [ r This was in 1901. The incident is fully explained in pages 501 to 503 of the second volume of Mr. John Mercier McMullen's "The History of Canada, from its First Discovery to the Present Time." Third edition. Brockville : McMullen & Co. 1892.] [ 2 George Brown was born in 1818 near Edinburgh ; went to America in 1838 ; founded The Globe in Toronto in March, 1844 ; Radical M.P. for County of Kent (Ontario), 1851 ; M.P. for Lamb- ton County, 1854 ; for Toronto, 1857-1861 ; for South Oxford, 1863- 1867; Prime Minister (for four days) in 1858; appointed to the Senate, 1873 ; died in Toronto, 1880.] [ 3 A daily morning newspaper published at Toronto.] [ 4 Gordon Brown, a younger brother. He was born at Alloa, Scotland, in 1827. He was chief editor of The Globe for many years before the death of his brother George in 1880, and retained the post till 1882. In that year he was appointed Registrar of the Surrogate Court of the County of York, Ontario, in which office he remained tiU his death in 1896.] [ B Rev. William Inglis was a Presbyterian minister, educated in Edinburgh, and had been pastor of a congregation near London, 2? 434 REMINISCENCES terian minister instinct with the spirit of the West- minster Confession. The headship of a party and the editorship of a paper ought not to be in the same hands. When they are, the judge is confounded with the advocate or with something still more unfair or bitter. The best of Brown was his fidelity to the cause of the North during the American war of Secession. On the other hand, he traded long on the antipathy of the British and Protestant to the French and Catholic Province, a very mischievous and unpatriotic line. For one moment George Brown touched the goal of his am- bition, 1 having in consequence of a mere Parliamentary accident been called upon to form a Government. But he immediately fell, raging through his organ against Sir Edmund Head, 2 who had very properly refused him a dissolution. In his large and burly body dwelt a strong but thoroughly coarse mind. When pitted against Sir John Macdonald in the Confederation Gov- ernment 3 he soon felt his own inferiority and withdrew to his despotic reign in the office of The Globe. There is in Mr. Pope's life of Sir John Macdonald an admirable picture of George Brown as he appeared on the platform. 4 Ontario. In the later sixties and seventies lie was an editorial writer on the Toronto Globe, and thus acquired a reputation for culture and causticity. He was afterwards assistant librarian to the On- tario Legislature, and occupied that position till his death in 1900.] I 1 July the 31st, 1858.] [ 2 Sir Edmund Walker Head, Baronet, Governor-General of Canada from 1854 to 1861. Born 1805; died 1868.] P Of 1867, after the passing of the British North America Act.] [ 4 "Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of the Dominion of Can- CANADIAN POLITICS 435 The Leader? the Conservative organ, was then in its last stage of decrepitude. Our hopes of emancipation and literary decency were excited when The Mail appeared 2 announcing that it would be written by gentlemen and for gentlemen. But soon those hopes were dashed. The Mail had hardly run through a dozen numbers when it proved itself to be a counterpart of The Globe or worse. It has happily long since changed hands. I have lived to see a marked improvement in the Canadian press. The metropolitan organs are both in character and in literary ability superior to The Globe and Mail of former days; while the local press, which used to follow slavishly in the train of The Globe, has decidedly gained in strength and freedom. The day of perfect independence, independence not only of party, but of popular passion and of secret influence, personal or commercial, can hardly be said yet to have dawned. Great will be the gratitude to the proprietor of any journal which can hasten its coming. Alexander Mackenzie 3 was a thoroughly honest man, a faithful servant of the public and steward of the public interests. He deserves a statue far more than some who ada." By Joseph Pope. 2 vols. London : Edward Arnold. 1894. Volume I, pages 320, et seq.] [ l The Leader, published at Toronto, was founded by James Beaty in 1856, and ceased on October 5, 1878.] [ 2 March the 31st, 1872. The Mail was another Toronto morn- ing daily.] [ 3 Born near Dunkeld, in Perthshire, in 1822 ; emigrated to Can- ada in 1842. He was a builder and contractor at Sarnia, in the Province of Ontario, in 1848. M.P.P., 1861-1867 ; M.P., 1867 ; Prime Minister, 1873-1878. Died in 1892.] 436 REMINISCENCES have had one. In fact, he owed his fall from power 1 partly to the integrity with which he guarded the public chest against raiders, while his manner perhaps was made somewhat repellent by the incessant worrying which he endured. He also overworked himself by excessive attention to details. This was the cast of his mind. He had risen from the ranks, having originally been a stone-mason. This made him popular with the Democracy, but a malicious critic might have said that if his strong point was having been a stone-mason, his weak point was being a stone-mason still. John Sandfield Macdonald 2 has a pleasant place in my memory. He was a thoroughly good fellow, and honest, though he had to deal with an element which Was difficult to manage by strictly honest methods. I went to him one day and said, " Macdonald, I have come to ask you for a place." He looked very glum. "For two seats," I said, "in the gallery at the opening of the Session." The look of painful constraint fled from his countenance. "The Sergeant-at-Arms will send you four tickets at once," he said. Another Canadian politician of mark with whom I came into contact was Joseph Howe 3 the favourite son I 1 September the 17th, 1878, when Sir John Macdonald brought in his protective tariff.] [ 2 Born at St. Raphael, Upper Canada, in 1812 ; Prime Minister of Upper Canada in 1862; first Prime Minister of Ontario (1867). Died 1872.] [ 3 Born at Halifax, N. S., in 1804 ; a journalist and writer of much repute in his younger days ; Member in the local Parlia- ment ; also Speaker; Provincial Secretary; Governor of Nova Scotia in 1873 ; died the same year.] CANADIAN POLITICS 437 and renowned orator of Nova Scotia. He came to Eng- land when I was there to demand the liberation of Nova Scotia from Federation, into which they had been in- veigled by the black arts of Sir Charles Tupper. Apply- ing to Lord Campbell/ Howe was by him introduced to me. He attended a dinner at which the chiefs of the Liberal party were present, and made a speech somewhat too eloquent for a rather unimpressionable audience of old politicians, threatening bloodshed if his Province were not set free. The Liberals accordingly moved in Parliament. But scarcely had they done this when the news came that Mr. Howe was in a Confederation Gov- ernment. 2 His apologists say that he yielded to destiny. But destiny, if it requires submission, hardly requires acceptance of place. About Howe's eloquence, it seems, there could be no doubt, though when I heard him it was rather overstrained. Sir Francis Hincks 3 was our greatest economist and financier. I always read him with respect and profit. But his political course had been somewhat tortuous, and fortune more than once entrapped him into un- lucky situations. I felt great respect for the character and abilities of [ l I suppose this is William Frederick Campbell, Lord Stratheden and second Lord Campbell, son of John, the first Baron Campbell, Lord Chancellor.] [ 2 In 1870 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Five Prov- inces in the Dominion of Canada.] [ 3 Born 1807 ; emigrated to Canada, 1831 ; M.P., 1841 ; Inspector General of Public Accounts ; Prime Minister, 1851-1854 ; Finance Minister, 1869-1873. Died in 1885.] 438 REMINISCENCES Mr. Huntington. 1 In his prosecution of the Pacific Railway scandal he served the public admirably well, showing great ability and courage, combined with per- fect self-command. Indolence, which perhaps had a physical cause, prevented his doing more than he did. Sir Richard Cartwright 2 was a strong man in every- way. For many years he was the doughty advocate of free trade and reduced expenditure. But in his last years he sank into an easy chair, and allowed the Gov- ernment of which he was a member to lay both his great principles completely on the shelf. Sir Charles Tupper 3 was a man of extraordinary force and a thunderer of the platform, though the staple of his oratory was purely exaggeration, with a large meas- ure of rather vulgar invective. Unwearied, undaunted, and unabashed, while he served as the shield-bearer of Sir John Macdonald, he was very useful to his p The Hon. Lucius Seth Huntington, Member of Parliament for the County of Shefford, in the Dominion House. It was Mr Huntington who, on the 2d of April, 1873, moved "That a Com- mittee of seven members be appointed to inquire into all the cir- cumstances connected with the negotiations for the construction of the Pacific Railway, with the legislation of last session on the subject, and with the granting of the Charter to Sir Hugh Allan and others. . . ."] P The Right Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright, G.C.M.G., is Minister of Trade and Commerce for Canada, and has been M. P. for South Oxford, Ontario, since 1896. Born in 1835.] P The Honourable Sir Charles Tupper, first Baronet, G.C.M.G. ; has held numerous high political posts, including many of Cabinet rank ; High Commissioner for Canada, 1883-1887, and 1888-1896 ; Prime Minister of Canada, 1890. Born in 1821.] CANADIAN POLITICS 439 chief, whose apparently lost cause he did much to redeem after the catastrophe of the Pacific Railway scandal. Of the few people in England who thought about co- lonial subjects in my day, the general opinion was that the destiny of the colonies was independence. I brought that opinion, certainly not one disparaging either to the colonies or to the Mother-country, with me to Canada. It drew me to a set of Canadian youths strongly imbued with it. They made me the President of their National Club, founded for the union and inter- course of all patriotic Canadians without distinction of political party. But on view of the situation, geo- graphical, racial, social, and commercial, I was led to the conviction that the separation of the two great bodies of English-speaking people on the American con- tinent would not last forever, and that union, free and equal, was in this case, as it had been in the case of Scotland and England, the decree of destiny. The word Annexation, implying a forced submission on the part of Canada, never passed my lips. That ultimate union was my opinion I avowed, and it exposed me to the insults and scurrility of a violent separationist, and, as it was called, United Empire Loyalist clique which tried to expel me from the St. George's Society, with- out success; though the behaviour of the Club on the occasion, seeing that I had simply held my personal opinions and done nothing whatever to compromise the Club, and that the Club was purely social and benefi- 440 REMINISCENCES cent, was hardly such as that of English gentlemen would have been. That I was at the bottom of the Annexationist move- ment of 1892 is completely disproved by the very letter produced in proof of it. 1 The movement had its origin in commercial discontent, as well among the agricul- [ l I append the letter : "TORONTO, Dec. 2, 1892. " THE SECRETARY OP THE CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION OP ONTARIO : " Dear Sir. As the Continental Association does me the honour to think that my name may be of use to it, I have pleasure in accept- ing the presidency on the terms on which it is offered, as an honor- ary appointment. From active participation in any political move- ment I have found it necessary to retire. " Your object, as I understand it, is to procure by constitutional means, and with the consent of the Mother-country, the submission of the question of continental union to the free suffrage of the Cana- dian people, and to furnish the people with the information neces- sary to prepare them for the vote. In this there can be nothing unlawful or disloyal. " That a change must come, the returns of the census, the condi- tion of our industries, especially of our farming industry, and the exodus of the flower of our population, too clearly show. Sentiment is not to be disregarded, but genuine sentiment is never at variance with the public good. Love of the Mother-country can be stronger in no heart than it is in mine ; but I have satisfied myself that the interest of Great Britain and that of Canada are one. " Let the debate be conducted in a spirit worthy of the subject. Respect the feelings and the traditions of those who differ from us, while you firmly insist on the right of the Canadian people to per- fect freedom of thought and speech respecting the question of its own destiny. " Yours faithfully, "GOLDWIN SMITH." See " The Struggle for Imperial Unity : Recollections and Expe- riences." By Colonel George T. Denison, President of the British Empire League in Canada; author of "Modern Cavalry," "A History of Cavalry," "Soldiering in Canada," etc. London: The Macmillan Co. 1909. Pp. 174 and 175. Ed.] CANADIAN POLITICS 441 turists of Ontario as among the commercial men of Quebec. I was steadily looking to the interests of England, which I believed would be not set back but furthered by the re-union of her progeny. The continent was one. Social fusion was rapidly advancing. The commercial union of the continent dictated by nature only awaited the repeal of unnatural and iniquitous laws. Drawn to American centres of employment, Canadians were mingling with the people of the United States at the rate of twenty thousand in a year. The churches interchanged pastors. A Cana- dian clergyman, just after reviling continental union and its supporters, accepted an American cure. Societies such as that of the Free Masons crossed the line. The Canadian Pacific Railroad, Canada's great line of com- munication, the administration of which, it was pro- claimed, was to be purely Canadian, soon had an American President. The Canadian currency was not pounds and shillings, but dollars and cents. Inter- marriage was frequent. Circumstance of every sort, besides race and language, foretold ultimate union. The attempts of United Empire Loyalism in Canada to keep alive international antipathy were fruitless. At the time of my settling in the country there was on foot among the younger men a movement called "Canada First," the tendency, if not the avowed object, of which was to make Canada an independent nation linked by affection to the Mother-country. This was my own idea, as it was that of the British statesmen 442 REMINISCENCES from whom my opinions had been imbibed, and indeed of British statesmen generally in my day. It seemed desirable that there should be two experiments in Demo- cracy on this continent. I was, besides, attracted by genuine patriotism and fresh hope. The most active members of the party were W. A. Foster 1 and W. H. Howland 2 afterwards Mayor of Toronto, Mr. Foster being the chief literary exponent. But the guiding star, the hero of the party, was Mr. Edward Blake 3 an advocate and politician of the highest promise, whose " Aurora speech" 4 had seemed to open a new political I 1 William Alexander Foster, Q.C., a well-known Barrister of Toronto. Died in 1888.] [ 2 William Holmes Howland was born at Lamb ton Mills, Ont., In 1844 ; entered upon a mercantile career early in life ; elected Mayor of Toronto in 1885 and 1886. Died in 1893.] [ 3 The Honourable Edward Blake, K.C. Born at Cairngorm, Ont., Canada, in 1833 ; M.P. for South Longford, Ireland, from 1892 till 1907.] [ 4 " The bond that united the Imperialists and the advocates of independence was national spirit. . . . The greatest intellect of the Liberal party felt the impulse. At Aurora * (in 1874) Edward Blake startled the more cautious members of the party by advo- cating the federation of the Empire, the reorganization of the senate, compulsory voting, extension of the franchise, and repre- sentation of minorities. His real theme was national spirit. National spirit would be lacking until we undertook national re- sponsibilities. He described the Canadian people as ' four millions of Britons who are not free.' By the policy of England, in which we had no voice or control, Canada might be plunged into the horrors of war. Recently, without our consent, the navigation of the St. Lawrence had been ceded forever to the United States. We could not complain of these things unless we were prepared to as- sume the full responsibilities of citizenship within the Empire. The young men of Canada heard these words with a thrill of en- thusiasm, but the note was not struck again. The movement * Aurora is a small town north of Toronto in the Province of Ontario. CANADIAN POLITICS 443 era and given a terrible shock to the orthodox and senile Liberalism of Mr. George Brown and the Globe. I was never a member of the " Canada First " Associa- tion, and the National Club, of which I was made Presi- dent, was social, and intended to bring together Cana- dians of all parties. Nor had I anything to do with the starting of The Nation, 1 though afterwards, when that journal was in difficulty, I was persuaded for some time to help it with my pen. I also contributed a few articles to The Liberal,' 2 ' which was set up by Mr. Edward Blake as an organ of advanced Liberalism and " Canada First " sentiment in opposition to The Globe. I should have done this apart from any special movement of opinion if it had been only from my desire to restore the independence of the press. But Mr. Edward Blake suddenly left his following, let The Liberal die, sur- rendered to The Globe, took office in the Mackenzie Government, 3 which was formed under the auspices of George Brown, and left his adherents to the vengeance of the enemy. That was the end of "Canada First," and, as it turned out, of the hope of making Canada a nation. apparently ceased, and politics apparently flowed back into their old channels. But while the name, the organization, and the organs of ' Canada First ' in the press disappeared, the force and spirit remained, and exercised a powerful influence upon Canadian politics for many years." "The Makers of Canada: George Brown." By John Lewis. Toronto : Morang and Co. Limited. 1906. Page 240. Ed.] P A weekly paper published in Toronto in 1874 and 1875.] [ z The Toronto Liberal;, only existed from January to June, of 1875.] [ 3 In 1873.] 444 REMINISCENCES Mr. Edward Blake was a man of the highest character, a powerful advocate, a jurist of repute, and a strong though prolix speaker. But his career has shown that he mistook his vocation when he undertook to be a leader of men. Too much is said about the necessity of magnetism. A leader may be, as some of the most powerful leaders Pitt and Peel have been, desti- tute of magnetism, and yet have devoted followers if he is unselfish and true at heart to his cause, and to his friends. More than once, to propitiate the Irish vote, has the Parliament at Ottawa voted sympathy with the demand for Home Rule, without, it may safely be said, thinking carefully about the interest of the Mother-country. Encouraged by this, one of the leaders of the move- ment 1 came here to set on foot an agitation breath- ing threats against the Governor-General. Lord Lans- downe, to be out of the way of annoyance, came from Ottawa to Toronto. In conjunction with the head of the Orangemen, Mr. E. F. Clarke, 2 1 got up a Defensive League 3 over which I had the honour of presiding, and which made in the Park at Toronto a strong Loyalist demonstration. The politicians were nowhere to be seen. However loyal they might be, they could not J 1 Mr. William O'Brien, founder of the "United Irish League" ; M.P. for various districts in Ireland since 1883 ; frequently prose- cuted for political offences.] [ 2 Edward Frederick Clarke, a Canadian journalist and politician ; an M.P. ; once Mayor of Toronto.] [ 3 " The Loyal and Patriotic Union."] CANADIAN POLITICS 445 risk the loss of the Irish vote. Painful proofs of the effect of the party system on political character were always presenting themselves in Canada and were made more signal by the general honesty of the people. Whether my course on the Irish question was right or wrong, my motives at least were patriotic. I might smile at charges of disloyalty levelled against me by men who in the Dominion Government or in the On- tario Legislature helped to imperil the integrity of the United Kingdom by pressing Home Rule Resolutions for the purpose of capturing the Irish vote. $ $ # $ $ $ $ For free trade against protectionism as the cause, not of a party, but of the whole community and of hu- manity at large, I felt free as a citizen of the world, and bound, as a follower and friend of Bright and Cobden, to do my best. My best I did, as the "Handbook of Commercial Union'' 1 will testify, and if the Evil One was then too strong for us, discussion enlightens and helps the cause. There is the same battle to be fought on both sides of the line, and with the same disadvan- tage, the forces of protectionism being concentrated hi a compact party with a wily leader, while those of free trade were scattered. A Canadian plunderer of the [ l " Handbook of Commercial Union : A collection of papers read before the Commercial Club of Toronto, with speeches, letters, and other documents in favor of Unrestricted Reciprocity with the United States." Preceded by an introduction by Mr. Goldwin Smith. Edited by G. Mercer Adam. Toronto : Hunter, Rose and Co. 1888.] 446 REMINISCENCES people, a man himself living in a fine house, said the other day that he would like to see a wall as high as Hainan's gallows between the two parts of a continent which nature has most manifestly decreed to be com- mercially one. It was as an Englishman that I took part hi the move- ment in favour of Reciprocity with the United States, the manifest dictate, as it seemed to me, of nature and of the interest of the Canadian people. Every movement of this kind is in a line with the free-trade policy which has hitherto been that of Great Britain. But the league of log-rolling monopolies hi the United States was too strong for us, and too strong for us and for the real interests of the American and Canadian people to this hour it remains. Of the ultimate triumph of those views I feel no doubt. Another movement, rather social than political, in which I took part was that of the Liberal Temperance Union, formed to advocate a more hopeful mode of dealing with the liquor question than that of the en- thusiasts who fancied that they could at once extin- guish by legislation a taste coeval and almost coex- tensive with humanity. A part of our policy was dis- crimination in favour of the lighter against the stronger drinks. With two companions, Mr. Mouat l and Mr. Richardson, 2 I went through a campaign against the [* J. Gordon Mouat, a journalist of Toronto. At one time edi- tor of The Lake Magazine.] PC. Gordon Richardson, an expert analytical chemist and (I think) medical man of Toronto.] CANADIAN POLITICS 447 Scott Act 1 which was producing the inevitable effects of extreme prohibitive legislation in contraband trade, contempt of law, perjury, secret drinking, and prac- tically increased intemperance. In the upshot, the Scott Act was repealed in almost every county which had adopted it by larger majorities than those by which it had been carried. My campaign showed me a good deal of the country and of the people, as well as of the rural hotels of Canada, which, for the most part, at that time left much to be desired. I may say that I had called upon Neal Dow 2 at Port- land, 3 and had satisfied myself, from the bitterness with which the good man spoke of the state of things there, that his system of absolute prohibition had miscarried, as the general evidence shows. He half in earnest said he should like to hang a woman who, when her husband had been imprisoned for a liquor offence, sold some liquor which he had left in the house to buy herself bread. Perhaps the most important, or least unimportant, of my interventions and meddlings with public affairs was the sequel of the movement called that of the Patrons. 4 The Patrons were a body of farmers, who, [ J This was the popular name of the " Canada Temperance Act" (41 Viet. chap. 16), passed in 1878 by the Dominion Parliament after much petitioning and campaigning by the Temperance Party. It was a sort of stringent Local Option measure. Ed.] [ 2 The noted American advocate of the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating beverages. He drafted the Maine prohibitory law in 1851.] [ 3 In the State of Maine.] [ 4 The Patrons of Industry.] 448 REMINISCENCES with abundant reason, had combined for the protection of the legislative interests of their order. The move- ment for a time was very successful ; it almost swept Ontario, and sent a large representation to the Provin- cial Legislature. But on that floor the Patrons, with their political inexperience, and their simple-minded openness to intrigue, were between the two regular parties as a flock of sheep between two packs of wolves, and the result was a collapse. The movement had an organ in The Sun, 1 which was on the point of sharing the doom of the Association. I rescued it from extinc- tion, helped to make it the organ of an Association acting upon the Legislature instead of acting in it, and contributed regularly letters on general politics signed " Bystander." Giving my money and my work, I claimed the privilege of expressing my own opinions, which, however, were, I believe, essentially the same as those of my friends and coadjutors in the work, Walter D. Gregory 2 and Gordon Waldron. 3 Alone, or almost alone, I wrote against the attacks upon the independence of the South African Republic. Great unpopularity for a time was of course the result. The people went mad, as 'they always do when an appeal is made by the party of war to the savage passions [ l A weekly paper published at Toronto.] [ 2 Walter Dymond Gregory, a Barrister and Solicitor of Toronto, born at Gaundle Farm, Montacute, Somersetshire, England, in 1860 ; his parents emigrated to Canada nine years afterwards ; he was called to the Bar in 1887, and has since practised at Toronto.] [ 3 Gordon Waldron, a Barrister and Solicitor of Toronto ; born at Storrington, Ont., in 1864.] CANADIAN POLITICS 449 which still lurk beneath the varnished surface of civili- zation. The Sun for the time lost half its circulation, though it regained its position and profited ultimately in every respect by the proof which it had given of its perfect independence. A journal which sets out to be independent has no longer to dread the scissors of the censor, but it must expect to face the madness of the people as well as the bigotry of party. There is, how- ever, nothing in my life on which I look back with more satisfaction than I do to the part played by me, how- ever feebly, in defence of justice, humanity, the faith of treaties, national independence, and at the same time the honour of my country, for ever sullied by foul and perfidious oppression of the weak. 2G CHAPTER XXVI MY LIFE IN CANADA 1871-1910 Marriage "The Grange" Our Household General Middle- ton Civic Charities The Governor-Generalship The Athletic Club Literary Opportunities The University Question Sports Last Days. IT was in 1871, after spending two years at Cornell, that I yearned for a rather more domestic life, and went over to reside with a branch of my family 1 settled in Canada. In Canada I was destined finally to make my home. Four years after my arrival I married 2 my dear wife Harriet, 3 the widow of William Boulton, 4 and with her in The Grange at Toronto the rest of my life was most happily passed. Fortune, however, made for me almost an England of my own in Canada. The Grange at Toronto, with its lawn and its old elms, is the counterpart in style and t 1 Mr. and Mrs. Charles Colley Foster.] [ 2 September the 30th, 1875.] [ 3 Harriette Elizabeth Mann Dixon, only daughter of Thomas and Mary Bethia (nee Homer) Dixon ; she was born at Boston in 1825 and died at Toronto on September the 9th, 1909.] [ 4 William Henry Boulton was the son of D'Arcy Boulton (who built "The Grange"), and was born in 1812. He was thrice Mayor of Toronto. Died February, 1874.] 450 M O <: O MY LIFE IN CANADA 451 surroundings of a little English mansion. It is the only specimen of the kind that I happen to have seen on this side of the Atlantic. There were one or two more in Toronto, but they have succumbed to progress. The Grange is an antiquity among mushrooms, having been built in 1817. It originally stood outside the city, though now it is in the exact centre. In summer, when the trees are in leaf, nothing is seen from its door but a church spire. In such a mansion lived Miss Austen's Emma, and her father. We had, moreover, a household of faithful and attached domestics, our relations with whom were like those of an English family in former days. The married ones lived, with their children, on the grounds in four cottages, which they took pride in making pretty with flowers and creepers, giving an air of happy life to the place. In summer, only chimes were wanting to make me fancy that I was in England. The great elms were a special feature of the place, and to their whispering under the starlight I owe some lessons in philosophy. The Grange contained relics of what for the New World was the olden time. It is now passing, under my wife's Will, at my suggestion and with my hearty concurrence, to the projected Art Museum. Traditions were attached to it of horses killed by bears in its gar- den; of a Red Indian presenting himself in the bed- chamber of its mistress; of British sportsmen losing themselves in the wood in which the house stood, and being guided to the house by a light in its windows. It 452 REMINISCENCES seems to have been a social centre and political rendez- vous of the Family Compact. 1 Among other relics of an olden time preserved in it were the wine-glasses of Governor Simcoe, 2 without stands, so that you had to empty them before you put them down. I have seen at a grand table in Ireland the waiters remaining when the cloth had been drawn and standing behind the chairs to fill up the half-empty glass the moment it was put down. My wife was an excellent manager, and we had really the counterpart of an old English household, a thing rare on this side of the water, rarer in England probably designation 'Family Compact,' . . . did not owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty signed at Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on behalf of France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guar- antee each other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and land, and to consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. This treaty, being contracted between the two branches of the House of Bourbon, is known to History as the Family Compact Treaty, and the name was adopted in the Canadas, as well as in the Maritime Provinces, to designate the combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect, if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy their influence. ' The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion ; Largely Derived from Original Sources and Documents.' By John Charles Dent. C. Blackett Robinson : Toronto. 1885. But Mr. Dent's, perhaps, may be regarded as an ex parte statement. Lord Durham, in his Report, says of the phrase ' Family Compact ' that it was ' a name not much more appropriate than party designations usually are.' " Ed.] [ 2 John Graves Simcoe, first Governor of Upper Canada (1792- 1794) ; afterwards Governor of San Domingo. Born in 1752 ; died in 1806.] MY LIFE IN CANADA 453 than it was. Our butler 1 had been in The Grange for forty years. A servant 2 with whom I had parted, thirty years after his departure sent me from England Christmas holly, which is still stuck over my mantel- piece. Marriage settled me in Canada. Transplantation to England, away from all my wife's connections and associations, would hardly have been quite consistent with my wife's happiness, though I am sure she would have sweetly consented to go with me, and when we were visitors in England was perfectly at home in all social circles. She was by birth a Bostonian, and had been much in Europe. Whatever might be said, I never had any intention of entering public life in Canada. 3 An overture made P At the time of Goldwin Smith's death, William Chin's term of service at The Grange was fifty-two years lacking a month.] [ 2 James Cooper, coachman. Afterwards in the Royal Artil- lery, I think.] [ 3 Mr. Goldwin Smith must have forgotten that on April the 18th, 1874, he wrote from 15, The Crescent, Oxford, in his own hand to Mr. Charles Lindsey, of Toronto, as follows : "Mr DEAR LINDSEY, * * * * * * * * * " It is not easy at this distance to see what is going on, but I fear ' Canada First ' has taken the field rather prematurely and got entangled, by its sense of its own weakness, in equivocal and com- promising alliances. " I hold to my intention of getting into the Provincial Parlia- ment, for a Session or two, if I can ; though no doubt it will be difficult with George Brown against me. I want to get a little prac- tical insight into Canadian politics without which I cannot write about them with confidence. Here I was not in Parliament, but I was thrown almost from boyhood among public men, which made up for my want of parliamentary experience in some measure at least. 454 REMINISCENCES me, though the special case was one which called for consideration, was declined. After settling in Canada, I declined an invitation sent me on the part of a strong Liberal constituency in England. It was not likely that I would seek the suffrages of those to whom I was a stranger. But as an independent observer and writer I continued to take a lively interest in public affairs. ******* As an Englishman I had now and then to take up the cudgels for my country. On each of the several oc- casions on which the British Government was called upon to negotiate on behalf of Canada with foreign powers there was an outbreak of discontent at the result, and England was said to have failed to get justice for her colony. It was forgotten that the whole responsibility rested on the Imperial country, and that the colony in case of war would have been helpless. I took it upon me to say that the Imperial Government, instead of neglecting Canadian interests, had always given them most anxious attention, and done for them all that negotiation could do. To Canada, defenceless as this " You will not proclaim this, of course, but if you should have an opportunity of doing anything to open the way for me, I will ask you kindly to bear my wish in mind. " I should get on very well with M. Cameron, though we may not agree about the propriety of cutting off Charles the First's head. " Ever yours truly, "GOLDWIN SMITH. "CHAS. LINDSEY ESQ." This is taken from the holograph letter kindly lent me by Mr. George G. S. Lindsey, K.C., son of its recipient.] MY LIFE IN CANADA 455 broken line of provinces is, war would inevitably be ruin. A most painful incident and one which threw a glaring light on the system of political party was the attack on the character of the English General, Middle- ton * who had commanded against the French Half- Breed rebels at Batoche. 2 The heart of the French at Quebec had been with their rebel kinsman, 3 and though, to save appearances, two battalions of French militia were called out, they were never brought into action, and one at least of the colonels withdrew from his com- mand, and the execution of Kiel was bitterly resented by the French of Quebec and denounced by their representatives at Ottawa. To propitiate them an attack was made in Parliament on General Middleton's honour. He was accused of having stolen a bale of furs, of laying lawless hands on a billiard table and a horse, as well as having maltreated the people. The poor old soldier, beset by these politicians, was be- wildered, and in that assembly no one was found to take his part. He was in peril of his character. I invited him to my house, got the facts from him, drew up and printed his case. 4 Two of the charges, that of stealing or permitting to be stolen a billiard table, and f 1 Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Dobson Middleton, in com- mand of the Canadian Militia from 1884 till 1890.] [ 2 In the French Half-Breed rising in the North-West Territories of Canada in 1885.] [ 3 Louis Kiel, the leader.] [ 4 In the Toronto Evening Telegram of August the 21st, 1890, and afterwards privately in pamphlet form and with no imprint.] 456 REMINISCENCES that of seizing a horse, were dropped for total lack of evidence but without pronouncing a verdict of acquittal. The charge of maltreating the people was declared to be untrue by the Catholic Bishop of the district. I got up a public dinner at Toronto for General Middleton, and so for him the matter ended well. Of the charge of stealing furs no more was heard in Parliament. It seems that he had rather hastily allowed a bale of furs of no extraordinary value belonging to a man who had gone into the rebel camp to be divided among the members of his staff. In the old country there is still something to keep the political game within the bounds of personal honour. It is with serener pleasure, however, that I recall my connection of thirty years with the charities of Toronto, in which my coadjutor was Mr. J. E. Pell, Secretary of the St. George's Society, a man who has spent a long life in the humble and untitled service of beneficence, a science of which he was the master. He lived to a good old age, 1 and if a memory charged with recollections of good works could make him happy, he must have been happy in his armchair. With him I shared some charitable enterprises, such as the labour test and the creche, and helped to do the little that could be done to introduce some sort of organiza- tion and principle into the chaos of Toronto charities, an effort in which we had to face the stolid indifference of the Council and the bigoted opposition of the House I 1 He died in Toronto in February, 1903.] MY LIFE IN CANADA 457 of Industry; I am afraid I must add in face of the general apathy of Toronto wealth, the ears of which were little open to any appeal of benevolence or social duty. It was from people of small or moderate means, whose souls were not enslaved by money, that most of the support came. It was remarked on that occasion, and I am afraid with justice, that Toronto wealth is not munificent. It certainly is not, compared with the wealth of the United States. The reason perhaps is, partly at least, the comparative weakness of patriotic ambition, and the desire of local gratitude in the colonial breast. The colonist who is making money looks, perhaps unconsciously, for social recognition and gratitude, not .so much to the colony in which his money is made, as to the Imperial country in which he may end his days, possibly with a title. Once, however, within my experience the purse of Dives was opened. I received an invitation to a "con- ference " about a charity specially patronized by a Peeress who, with her husband, then Governor-General, had honoured Toronto with a visit. I went, expecting what an invitation to a conference implied. Instead of this, I found myself in a large room full, not of au- thorities on questions of charity, but of the wealthy magnates of Toronto. Her Ladyship made a speech and left the room. Then, instead of a conference about her charity, there was a call, evidently prearranged, for a subscription, and in a quarter of an hour or little 458 REMINISCENCES more there was drawn, in some cases visibly wrung, from the lords of the dollar a sum the quarter of which local charity could hardly have coaxed out of them in a year. Do what you will, spout loyalty as much as you please, a dependency is not a nation. Of this the Governor-Generalship is the symbol, and it is nothing more. It has not made its influence felt in raising social any more than it has in raising political character, or in controlling political action. Ottawa is the seat of a petty court and of all that a petty court is sure to generate. The man has not been long enough in Can- ada to know it well when his term expires. The affec- tation of Royalty is ridiculous. Lord Dufferin l was very fond of making speeches, and the editor of a lead- ing Toronto paper told me that the speeches were sent on beforehand to the press, marked with "applause." Of the Viceregal control over political action we have just had an example in the passing by the Governor- General of the Act of a Provincial Parliament which his Minister of Justice, in laying it before him, desig- nated as "confiscation without compensation," and to force a way for which the Provincial Ministry had closed the gate of public justice. 2 P The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava : Governor-General of Canada from 1872 to 1878.] [ 2 The reference is to the case of the Florence Mining Company (Limited) v. the Cobalt Lake Mining Company (Limited), in which the ownership of the property was in dispute. (See 18 On- tario Law Reports, page 275.) The Provincial Legislature passed two Acts, in effect confirming the title of the defendants : 6 Edward MY LIFE IN CANADA 459 My greatest disappointment in the charitable or benevolent line was the Athletic Club, on the goodly building of which, now turned into a technical school, I look with sadness when I pass it. Young men must have pleasure; and young men in a city where they have no home will be apt to take to pleasures which are not healthy. The Athletic Club, social as well as athletic, was intended to provide healthy pleasure for our numerous bank-clerks, and other young men em- VII (1906), Chapter 12 ; and 7 Edward VII (1907), Chapter 15 the second, I am informed, while the case was sub judice. It is but fair to state, however, that by the Judgment of the Privy Council (delivered on March the 18th, 1910), the plaintiffs were declared not to have proved ownership. The phrase of the Min- ister of Justice (the Hon. Allan Bristol Aylesworth) referred to, is in his Report to the Governor-General re the two Ontario statutes above cited. The sentence in which it occurs reads as follows: "The legislation in question, even though confiscation of property without compensation, and so an abuse of legislative power, does not fall within any of the aforesaid enumeration." I rather think myself that Mr. Goldwin Smith has also here in his mind the passing by the Governor-General (in spite of petitions for Disallowance) of two Acts of the Ontario Legislature having re- ference to its formation of a so-called Hydro-Electric Commission for the transmission of electrical power to municipalities, viz. : "An Act to Validate certain By-Laws . . ." etc. (8 Edward VII, Chapter 22); and "An Act to Amend an Act . . . to validate certain contracts ..." etc. (9 Edward VII, Chapter 19) ; for Mr. Smith often confounded the two cases both in speech and in writing. In the latter of these Acts occur the words "every action which has been heretofore brought and is now pending wherein the validity of the said contract ... is attacked or called in question . . . shall be and the same is hereby forever stayed." (See the columns of the [Toronto] Financial Post and of the [Toronto] Canada Law Journal from 1907 to 1910. Professor A. V. Dicey's Opinion on both questions, which Mr. Smith obtained, will be found in the last- named periodical, Volume XLV, Numbers 13 and 14, pages 459, et seq, July, 1909.) Ed.] 460 REMINISCENCES ployed in our commercial institutions. Some of our best citizens took part in the enterprise. But the com- mercial magnates, who had a special interest in the scheme, behaved as, I am sorry to say, was their wont. The Bank of Commerce alone lent a helping hand. I cannot pretend that the behaviour of the young men themselves was very gallant, or that they stood by those who were struggling and spending money in their interest as English youths would have done. The Club was within easy walk of "The Grange," and I had imagined myself strolling thither often in old age and looking on at the enjoyments of youth. But for my best efforts wasted and a large outlay of money I had only the consolation of feeling that the failure was no fault of mine. A literary field Ontario could hardly be, walled in as she was by the French Province on one side, on another by the wilderness which bounds her to the west, and to the south by the United States. The literary market of the United States, in spite of the identity of language, is separate. A little popular History of the United States 1 written by me had some sale. It was an exception which proved the rule. It had the advantage of being written by a neutral, though one who knew the United States and took a native's interest in their story. But my life as a literary man [ l "The United States: An Outline of Political History; 1492- 1871." By Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. New York and London: Macmillan. 1901.] MY LIFE IN CANADA 461 in the higher sense of the term was at an end. My Oxford dreams of literary achievement never were or could be fulfilled in Canada. Canadians who seek literary distinction, as some have done, not in vain, go to England. The University question was one in which I naturally felt great interest. While the University of Toronto, then King's College, was confined to Anglicans, the other churches had founded separate universities for themselves. When that barrier was thrown down, Bishop Strachan, 1 a masterful but wrong-headed man, led an Anglican secession and founded Trinity. 2 The resources of the Province, which, especially since the enlargement of the curriculum by the inclusion of science were not more than sufficient to maintain a single university on a proper scale, were now scattered among half a dozen bodies, all with a power of granting degrees. Visiting one of these, I found a staff of two teachers besides the head, a library containing two bookcases, one full of common school books, the other of Government reports; science represented by a few instruments on the floor of a hall; and a museum represented by a small hortus siccus, and some geologi- cal specimens scattered, like the scientific instruments, on the floor. This institution was empowered to grant degrees in all the subjects of human knowledge. I [ l The Hon. and Right Rev. J. Straehan, born at Aberdeen, 1778 ; went to Canada in 1799 ; joined the Church of England ; Executive Councillor, 1818; first Bishop of Toronto, 1840. Died 1867.] [ 2 The University of Trinity College, Toronto.] 462 REMINISCENCES was invited to speak on the question at Trinity, where I pleaded for combination of resources to sustain one worthy university and advocated the religious college in a secular university as the solution of that part of the problem. My plea was well received. But the Provost of Trinity about that time was a very excellent man transplanted late from England, who seemed to feel that he was in an alien element and to shrink from closer contact with it. I went on preaching upon the same text, though Colonel, afterwards Sir Casimir Gzow- ski 1 came to my aid, seeing that great opportunities were being missed by Canadian youths for lack of a good school of practical science. At last a legacy left by Mr. George Gooderham 2 to the Methodist University at Cobourg on condition of its migration to Toronto brought about that in favour of which I might have preached for ever. I enjoyed the success, although the credit was not mine. However, in the main the true policy prevailed. The chief exception was Queen's University at Kings- f 1 Sir Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski, K.C.M.G., born at St. Peters- burg in 1813, a son of Stanislaus, Count Gzowski. Having taken part in the Polish insurrection of 1830-1831 he was after imprison- ment shipped to America. There he practised law in Pennsylvania. In 1842 went to Canada ; took up engineering and was employed in railway construction and bridge building. Appointed Lieutenant- Colonel in 1873 ; Honorary A.D.C. to the Queen, 1879. Died 1898.] [ 2 George Gooderham, born at Scole, Norfolk, England, in 1830 ; President of the Gooderham and Worts Distilling Co. ; of the Bank of Toronto ; of the Western Canada Loan and Savings Co. ; a Director of the General Hospital (all of Toronto) ; and a Governor of the University of Toronto. Died in 1905.] MY LIFE IN CANADA 463 ton, the Principal 1 of which perhaps relieved himself of a little of his chagrin by a critical article in a London Review. 2 Reconcentration was accompanied by the admission of science and other utilities. The exclu- sively classical or mathematical University, though we may venerate its memory, is a thing of the old time and the old world. Besides the part I took in the foundation of the Athletic Club, I was President for some years of a Lawn Tennis Club, and always thought it right to do what I could for the reasonable encouragement of sports, not forgetting the playing fields of Eton,, though it may be questioned whether Waterloo was won there. Reasonable sports are good for moral as well as for physical health. But I hope I never pandered to the dominant craze for athletics, of which I am afraid Oxford and Cambridge, Universities of the wealthy, were the birthplaces, and to which University author- ities have weakly pandered, betraying thereby their duty to their students, and to the parents of those students, who sent them, perhaps at a great sacrifice, [ J The Rev. George Monro Grant, born at the Albion Mines, N.S., 1835 ; Principal of Queen's College, Kingston, Ont., Canada, from 1877 till his death in 1902.] [ 2 " Canada and the Empire," by G. M. Grant, in The National Review for July, 1896. No. 161. Volume XXVII, pp. 673-685. Goldwin Smith published "A Reply" in The Canadian Magazine of October, 1896. Vol. VII, pages 540-544. And to this Principal Grant answered under the title of "Canada and the Empire: A Rejoinder to Dr. Goldwin Smith," in The Canadian Magazine of November, 1896. Vol. VIII, pages 73-78.] 464 REMINISCENCES to the University, to be trained for intellectual callings, not for those of porters or stevedores. Mens sana in cor pore sano, by all means; but sanies means healthy, not muscular. By this glorification of the animal we get up a false standard of merit specially misbecoming a University. The same man can rarely be an athlete and a good student, since it is from the same fund of nervous energy that we draw for the work of the body and for that of the brain. In this highly commercial age, when success in life means success in making money, University training has its detractors who tell you that an office-boy of fourteen is worth more than a University graduate of four-and-twenty. It will be difficult to answer this if the graduate has spent his time in the abnormal development of his muscles; otherwise we might answer the commercial detractor by asking what it is that he means by 'life.' 3JC *"(* 5JC *J 3JC *|C 5yC My wife's name on the tomb, 1 my joy departed, I still did not want to spend the rest of my days in idle gloom. My eyes were turned to Cornell, one of the happiest scenes of my life. I was still, for my age, vigorous and able to hold the pen, which, not the sword or the spade, had been my instrument of labour. At Cornell a new building of the University had been called after my name, and, what was more to the purpose, teaching in History seemed likely to be of special use to American youth in the coming time. I might have p Mrs. Goldwin Smith died on September the 9th, 1909.] PHOTOGRAPH OF A DEATH-MASK OF GOLDWIN SMITH. Made by Mr. Walter S. Allward, of Toronto, on June the ninth, 1910. MY LIFE IN CANADA 465 gone down to my grave in honour, as I certainly should in peace. That hope was suddenly blighted, that door to a happy and perhaps not unfruitful eld age and exit, was shut. 1 I received a shock which ruined my intel- lect, my memory, my powers as a teacher. Without the aid of a first-rate Secretary, I could not have stumbled on as I have done. f 1 He is referring to the accident by which he broke his hip on February the 2d, 1910.] 2H INDEX Aberdeen, the fourth Earl of, 185 ; 206; 287. Abingdon, the sixth Earl of, 53. Acland, Dr. (afterwards Sir H.), 283. Adams, Charles Francis, 325 ; 327. Africa, South, war in. See Boer war. "African Confessors," 109. Agassiz, 372. Alabama, the, 322. Albany, H. R. H. the Duchess of, 282. Albert, Prince. See Prince Consort, the. Alboni, Marietta, 151. Alderson, Georgina Caroline, 164. Alpine tours, 88 ; 387 Althorp, Lord, 69. Amalfi, 394. America, Civil War in, 221; 238; 319; England's attitude, 323; 327, 328; 333-335; 339-340. Andersonville prison-camp, 335. Annexation, 439, et seq.; 446. Anti-Corn-Law League, 216; 256. Aram, Eugene, 386. Arch, Joseph, 13 ; 228. Archibald, Adams George, 416. Arnold, Matthew, 70, 71 ; 151. Arnold, Thomas, 67 ; 396. Arrivabene, 155. Ashburton, the second Baron, 140. Ashburton, Lady, 140, et seq. Astley's, 293. Athenaeum Club, the, 158. Athletic Club, the, 459, 460. Athletics, 367-368; 463-464. Aumale, due D', 146. "Aurora Speech," Mr. Blake's, 442, 443. Autonomy Bills, the, 428. Awdry, Sir John, 107. Bacon, John, 76. Bagley, Sir Thomas, 215. Ballinasloe Horse Fair, 309. Balliol College, 99. Bancroft, George, 332 ; 400, 401. Bar, the, 129. Bayard, Thomas Francis, 401. Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli, Benjamin. "Bedgebury," 163. Bellamy's "Looking Backward," 230. Bentham, 289. Bentinck, Lord George, 176; 180, 181; 183; 204; 264. Beresford-Hope, Alexander J., 162 ; 178. Bernard, Mountague, 51. Bernhardt, Sara, 151. Besant, Mrs. Annie, 80. Bethell, Richard, first Baron West- bury, 109. Biota, 93. Bismarck, 155; 164. Blake, Edward, 442, 443; his char- acter, 444. Blanc, Louis, 96 ; 155. Boardman, Douglas, 378. Bodley, Sir Thomas, 148. Boer War, the, 211; 219; 448 et seq. Boston, arrival at, 328 et seq. Boulton, William Henry, 450. Bourassa, Henri, 427. Bouverie, Edward Playdell-, 111. Bowring, Sir John, 289. Brady and Tate, 4. Braham, John, 145. Brain, promise to bequeath, 378. Breton (his mother's name), 5. Bridge, 400. Bright, John, 174; 216; 218; 223; 228, 229; 234; his oratory, 238 et seq.; his character, 239-240; 256; 288; 320; quoted, 358; as an orator, 405. British Columbia, 420 et seq. Brodrick, G. C., 296. Brougham, Lord, 25; 156; 229. 467 468 INDEX Brown, George, character of, 433 el seq.; 443; 453. Brown, Gordon, 433. Bruno, Giordano, 397. Bryan, W. J., 404. Bryant, W. C., 332. Buckland, William, 67. Buffalo, extinction of the, 418. Bulley, Frederick, 51. Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, 154. Burghley, 253. Burke, Edmund, 300. Burke, T. H., 301. Burns, Mrs. See Crooks, Miss. Burrard, Sir George, 274. Butler, General Ben, 339; 348; appearance and character, 349 ; anecdotes of, 350. Butler's " Analogy," 65. Bystander, the, 448. Caen, 93. Cameron, M., 454. Camorra, the, 392. Campbell, John, first Baron, 157. Campbell and Stratheden, Lord, 437. Camp meetings, 376-377. Canada, 282 ; English ignorance of, 385 et seq.; the North- West, 414 et seq.; the North- West rebellion, 411; history of, 424^25; con- stitution of, 425 ; confederation of, 425-426. "Canada First," 441 et seq.; 453. Canada Temperance Act. See Scott Act. Canadian Pacific Railway, 418 et seq.; 421; 438. Canino, Prince de, 417. Canning, Charles John, Earl, 161 ; 183; 185; 203. Canning, Sir Stratford (afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), 287. Canterbury (in New Zealand), 209. Carabas, Marquis of, 255. Cardwell, Viscount, 161 ; 185 et seq. ; 202; 301-302. Carlingford, Baron, 144. Carlisle, the seventh Earl of, 301. Carlyle, Mrs., 142. Carlyle, Thomas, 141; 167; 331; 358. Caroline, Queen, 157. Carthusian Monastery, 388. Cartwright, Sir Richard, 438. Cascadilla, 374. Cashel steeplechases, 309. Catholic emancipation, 252. Catholicism, Roman, 397. Catholics and Protestants, war be- tween, 308. Cavendish, Lord F. C., 301. Cayuga Lake, 374-375. Cecil, Lady, M. A. C. H., 163. Cecil, Lord Robert. See Salisbury, third Marquess of. Chamberlain, Joseph, 210. Charities, Civic, 456, 457. Chartists, the, 292, 293. Chase, S. P., 338. Cheese fair at Reading, 10. Chesson, F. W., 362. Chevening, Lord Stanhope's seat, 147. Chimney-sweeps, 9. Chin, William, 453. Chinese War. See Lorcha War. Christian Socialists, 361. Christmas festivities, 7, 8. Churchill, Lord Randolph, 173. Circuits, 123. Civil War, the, in America. See America, Civil War in. Clarke, E. F., 444. Clerical tests, effect of removal of, 381, 382. Clive, Lord, 282. Clough, Arthur Hugh, 72, 73. Clubs, observations on, 158. Clumber, 191. Cobalt Lake Mining Co., case of, 458. Cobden, Richard, 174; 216, 217; 223 ; 228, 229 ; 232 ; his character and temperament, 242-243 ; his style, 243 ; the French treaty, 247 ; quoted, 248 ; burial place of, 250 ; 256 ; quoted, 261 ; his attack on Peel, 261 ; his letter to Peel, 265 ; 320. Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, 124 ; 359. Coercion Bills, 265; 268; 316. Coleridge, Edward, 40 ; 201. Coleridge, John Duke, first Baron, 47; 107; 110. INDEX 469 Coleridge, Sir John, 116; 123. College, the, at Eton, 39. Colonial question, the, 169-170 ; 210 ; 221-222 ; 245 ; 424-425 ; 439 ; 454. Commissions, the University, (i) the Commission of Inquiry, 98 et seq.; names of the Commissioners, 101 et seq.; (ii) the Executive Com- mission, 107 et seq.; the names of the Commissioners, 107 et seq.; signing of the document, 1 12 et seq. Common Room Society, 282. Competition-wallahs, 309. Comyn, Patrick. See Cummin, Pat- rick. Conde, Prince de, 160. Congreve, Richard, 51. "Coningsby," 162. Conington, John, 52, 86. Cook, John Douglas, 162 ; 165. Cooper, James, 453. Cope, Sir John, 16 ; 20. "Copenhagen" (Wellington's horse), 24. Cornell, Ezra, 366-370. Cornell University, 367 et seq.; ar- rival at, 371 ; site of, ib. ; lectures at, 399 ; hopes of revisiting, 464. Corn laws, the, 252 ; 260. See also Manchester school, the. Corson, Professor Hiram, 378. Cory, W. J. See Johnson, William. Cosmos Club, the, 400. Courts of law, English, 124. Coxe, H. O., 279. Cradock, E. H., 280. Cradock, Mrs., 280. Cranworth, Baron, 313. Craufurds, the, 159-160. Crimean War, the, 195 ; 219 ; 287. Criminal cases, appeal in, 125. Croker, John Wilson, 137. Crooks, Miss, 391. Crowder, R. B., 124. Cummin, Patrick, 150. Currency, paper, 337. Curtis, G. W., 372 ; 402. Czar, Nicholas I. See Nicholas I. D Daily News, The, 168 ; 170. Dalhousie, first Marquess of, 185 ; 205. Dampier, John Lucius, 101. Dana, Charles, 413. Darwin's theories, 373. Davis, Jefferson, 194 ; 324 ; 355. Deer-shooting, 20. Delane, J. T., 232 ; 292. Democracy, 225; 233; American, seamy side of, 402. Demys, the, of Magdalen, 52. Denison, J. E. See Ossington, first Viscount. Denison, J. E., Viscount Ossington, 192. Denmark, Crown Prince of, 283. Derby, fourteenth Earl of, 106 ; 180 255; 267. Desmond, Countess of, 108. Devrient, 152. Dickens, Charles, 154. Disestablishment, 196 ; 224. Disraeli, Benjamin, 106; 148; 155; 161-162; 164; 168; 170-171; 175 et seq.; 178-182; as a speaker, 179; his "Life of Lord George Bentinck," 181; 194; 198; 202; his letter tc Peel, 212-213; his speech on Peel's reference to this letter, ib.; his political character, 255; 264; 310. Dixon, B. Homer, 5. Dixon, Harriette E. M. See Smith, Mrs. Goldwin. Douro, Lady, 23. Dow, Neal, 447. Dresden, 90. Drummond, Edward, 263. Duff, James Grant, 147. Dufferin, the first Marquess of, 458. Dukinfield, Sir Henry Robert, 12; 159. Dukinfield, John Lloyd, 12. Dukinfield, Katherine, afterwards Mrs. R. P. Smith, 12. Dukinfield, Lady, 159. Dukinfield, Sir Nathaniel, 12. Dundas, Sir David, 134. Durham, Lord, 429. E Edlund, R. C., 409. Education Commission, 1 16 ; names of Commissioners, ib. Education, State-aided, 231. 470 INDEX Edward VII, King, 191 ; 281. Electioneering, 294. Elections, anecdotes of, 296-297. Elections of 1886, G. S.'s share in, 298-299. Elgin, the eighth Earl, 204; 219; 289; 425; 428. Ellesmere, the second Earl of, 107. Emerson, 331. "Empire, The," 168; 170. Engleheart, Sir J. Gardner D., 131. "Essays and Reviews," 72. Eton, life at, 35 ; masters at, 40 ; religion at, 42 ; boys, character of, 42; beauty of, 48. Eveleigh, John, 99. Everett, Edward, 66 ; platform ora- tory of, 405. Eyre, Governor, 189, 225; 357. F Factory, the, and its influences, 327, 328. Factory Acts, 229. Factory system, the, 363. Fagging (at Eton), 35. Falaise, 93. "Family Compact," the, 452. Family likenesses, 329. Farmers, sixty years ago, 14. Farrer, the first Baron, 47. Faucit, Helen, 151. Fearne, Charles, 121. Fellows of Colleges, 75. Fellowships of Magdalen, 73. Fiske, Daniel Willard, 370; 398. Florence, 388 ; 398. Florence Mining Co., case of, 458. Forbes, J. M., 321 ; 330. Forbury, the, at Reading, 10. Forster, W. E., 316, 317. Foster, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Colley, 450. Foster, W. A., 442. Fox-hunting, sixty years ago, 20. Fraser, James, Bishop of Manchester, 15; 20; 119. Freeman, E. A., 20 ; 70-71 ; 277. Free trade, 183; 216-217; 246; 256-257; 269; 445. French Emperor. See Napoleon III. Friar Street, Reading, 5. Froude, James Anthony, 72; 167; 175. Frowd, J. B., 279. G Gaisford, Dean, 50. Garibaldi, 155; 220. Garrison, W. L., 334. George IV, 316. Gladstone, W. E., 38; 101; 105; 161; 179; 185; 193; his advo- cacy of the cause of the oppressed, 194 ; hie attitude on the American civil war, 194-195 ; his attitude on the Crimean War, 195 ; his character, ib. ; his disposition, 197 ; his attitude on the Irish question, 197; as a statesman, ib.; as a speaker, 198 ; his versatility, 199 ; his classical studies, ib. ; his writ- ings, ib. ; his Homeric theories, ib. ; his appearance, 200 ; 203 ; 234-236; 284-285; 294; 310; 317 ; 324 ; as an orator, 405. Gladstone, Mrs., 200. Globe, The [Toronto], 433, 434 ; 443. Godkin, E. L., 413. Godley, J. R., 169 ; 209. Goldwin Smith Hall, 379. Goldwin, Mr. (G. S.'s mother's uncle), 5. Goodall, Joseph, 43. Gooderham, George, 462. Good Friday, 8. Gordon, William, 358. Graham, Sir John R. G., 180 ; 185 ; 205. "Grammar of Assent," the, 62. "Grange, The" (Lord Ashburton's House), 140. "Grange, The" (Goldwin Smith's House), 450 et seq. Grant, General U. S., 135; 339; his character, 342 et seq.; hia failure as President, 343. Grant, Rev. G. M., 463. Granville, the second Earl, 208. Greek Letter Societies, 368. Gregory, Walter D., 448. Gregory, Sir William, 168. Greville's "Memoirs," 175; 183; 200. Grey, the third Earl, 212. INDEX 471 Griffith, Moses, 279. Grisi, 152. Grote, Mr. and Mrs. George, 147. Guizot, 25 ; 94. Gully, J. M., 384. Guy Fawkes's Day, 10. Gzowski, Sir Casimir, 462. II Hallam, Arthur, 136. Hallam, Henry, 47 ; 136. "Hamlet," 152. Hampden, Renn Dickson, 143. " Handbook of Commercial Union," 445. Hannibal, 395. Hanover, travels in, 91. Harcourt, Sir W. G. G. Vernon, 163 ; 281. Hardinge, the second Viscount, 178. Hardy, Gathorne, 276. Hare, Augustus J. C., 396. Harper, the Reverend , 14. Harrowby, the second Earl of, 107. Hastings, Warren, Life of, 167. Haultain, T. Arnold, 379. Hawtrey, E. C., 43, 44. Hayward, Abraham, 148. Head, Sir Edmund Walker, 434. Hemming, G. W., 163. Herald, the New York, 283. Herbert, Sidney, 161; 176; 185; 202; 260; 291. Hertford, third Marquess of, 137 ; 179. Hewson, General Butt, 432. Heydukoff, H., 34. Heywood, James, 100. Hincks, Sir F., 437. Hinds, Samuel, 101. Hodgson, Francis, 43. Home, Daniel Dunglas, 384. Home Rule, 196; 234; 241; 245; 270; 285; 294; 298; 305; 317; 444, 445. Hook, Theodore, 134. Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 347. Hooker, Richard, 79. Hope, Alexander J. Beresford. See Beresford-Hope. Hope, Thomas, 162. Hopkins, J. Castell, quoted, 422. Horsman, Edward, 178. Hospitals, military, 335 ; 352. Houghton (Monckton Milnes), Lord, 135. House of Commons, speeches in, 150. House of Lords, 226. Household, his father's, 29. Howe, Joseph, 436 et seq. Howland, W. H., 442. Howley, Archbishop, 58. Hughes, Thomas, 209 ; 361. Hunter, Sir Paul, 175. Huntington, Lucius Seth, 438. Huntley and Palmer, 2. Huxley, T. H., 199 ; 138. Imperial Federation, 222 ; 427. Indian Mutiny, the, 203. Inglis, Sir R. H., 132. Inglis, Rev. Wm., 433. Ionian Isles, cession of, 168. Ireland, visits to, 301 ; its beauty and its people, 302 ; crime in, 306 ; clergy in, 307 et seq. ; constabulary of, 308; second visit to, 313; neglect of, by Royalty, 314 et seq. Irish, character of the, 303. "Irish History and Irish Character," Mr. G. S.'s book on, 235; 304. Irish question, the. See Home Rule. Italians, cruelty of, to animals, 393. Italy, early travels in, 95 ; second visit to, 391. Ithaca, first visit to, 371 ; life at, 374, 375; inhabitants of, 377, 407. Jackson, Andrew, 333 ; 399. Jamaica, outbreak in, 357 ; floggings in, 357 ; committee, 359. James I, King, 284. Japan, military power of, 423. Jelf, W. E., 66. Jenkyns. Richard, 99. Jerome Bonaparte, 24. Jesuits' Estate Bill, 429. Jeune, Francis (afterwards Lord St. Helier), 101; 102. "Jingoism," 219. John of Nepomuk, Saint, 80. Johnson, Andrew, 349. Johnson, George Henry Sacheverell, 101; 104. 472 INDEX Johnson, William (afterwards Cory), 47. Jones, Mrs., of Pantglas, 290. Jowett, Benjamin, 83 ; 100 ; 195. Judges, their responsibility, 127-128. "Junius," 109. K Kean, Charles, 152-153. Keate, John, 40. Keble, John, 64. Kell, Robert and Samuel, 326 ; 363. Kinglake, A. W., 245. Kingsley, Charles, 20 ; 358. Knaresborough, 385-386. Ku-Klux, the, 321. Labouchere, 195. Labourers (agricultural), sixty years ago, 14. Lake, William Charles, 116; 117. Landor, Walter Savage, 398. Lansdowne, Lord, 408 ; 444. Lawn Tennis Club, 463. Lawrence, Mrs. Bigelow, 141. Lawrence, Sir John, 309. Layard, A. H., 170. Leader, the, 435. Lee, General Robert Edward, 341 ; his character, 347 ; as a soldier, 348. Le Marchant, Denis, 156. Leo XIII, Pope, 393. Leopold, Prince, 160 ; 282. "Letters of Runnymede," 161 ; 178 ; 179. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 107 ; 108; 199. Lewis, John, quoted, 443. Liberal, the [Toronto], 443. Liddell, H. G., 101 ; 103. Lincoln, Abraham, 320 ; 321 ; 334 ; second election of, 336 ; his ig- norance of money matters, 338 ; 340 ; his character and appearance, 354 et seq. ; as a statesman, 355. Lincoln's Inn, 121. Lind, Jenny, 82 ; 151 ; 152. Lindsey, Charles, Goldwin Smith's letter to, 453. Lindsey, George G. S., 454. Linwood, W., 52. Literature, Canada as a field for, 460. Littlemore, 61. Liverpool, Earl of, 324. London, life in, 132 et seq. Longfellow, H. W., 331. Longley, C. T., Archbishop, 107. Long Marston, 5. Lorcha War, 288. Loring, Charles, 328. "Lothair," quotation from, 171 ; 182. Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon III. Lowe, Mrs., 312. Lowe, Robert (afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke) , 309 ; appearance and character, 311 ; as a talker, 311 ; anecdotes of, 311 et seq. Lowell, J. R., 332 ; 372. Loyal and Patriotic Union, the, 409 ; 444. Lushington, Stephen, 158. Lyndhurst, Baron, 156. Lyons, Admiral Lord, 28 ; 290. Lyons, the first Earl, 353. Lyttleton, the fourth Baron, 199. Lytton, Bulwer. See Bulwer. M Macaulay, 132; 167; quoted, 397. " Macbeth," 153. Macdonald, Sir John A., 341 ; 430 et seq.; 434. Macdonald, John Sandfield, 436. Mackenzie, Alexander, 435 ; his character, manner, and work, 436. Maffia, the, 391, 392. Magdalen College, 51 ; Fellows of, 55; revisited, 381. Mail, the [Toronto], 435. Maine, Sir Henry, 163. Malmesbury, third Earl of, 168. Manchester School, the, 174; 215; its creed, 220; 287. Manners, Lord John (sixth Duke of Rutland), 162. Manning, Henry Edward, Cardinal, 62. Mario, 152. Marx, Karl, 327. Maule, William Henry, 128. Maurice, Frederick Denison, 362. May Day, 9. Maynooth, 304 ; 308. INDEX 473 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 96 ; 155. McDonnell, Sir Alexander, 202 ; 304. McMullen, John Mercier, 433. Meade, Gen. George Gordon, 347. Melbourne, Lord, 46. Memory, remarks on, 34. Mennonites, 417. Merchant Shipping Act, 188. Metcalfe, Lord, 425. Metternich, Prince, 87. Miall, Edward, 116-120. Middleton, General, 411 ; 455. Mill, John Stuart, 359 ; 360. Milman, Henry Hart, 4 ; 136 ; 199. Milnes, Monckton. See Houghton, Lord. Milton, John, 240. Miracles, 394. Mitchell, Colonel, 178. Mitford, Miss, 25. Monkton Farley (or Farleigh), 32. Moriarty, Bishop, 308. Morley, Viscount, 194 ; his portrait of Cobden, 242 ; quoted, 259 ; 261; 264; 270. Morning Chronicle, the, 161. Morny, due DE, 146. Morris, John Brande, 65. Mortimer House, 13 ; 272 ; 380. Mortimer Parish, 13. Mouat, J. G., 446. Mowbray, Sir John, 27 ; 380. Mozley, James, 56. Muller, Max, 272 ; 276. Mummers, 7. Mundella, A. J., 172 ; 294-295. Murat, 393. Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey, 29 ; 67 ; 138 et seq. ; 288. Mutiny, the Indian. See Indian Mutiny, the. N Naples, 392. Napoleon Bonaparte, likenesses of, 24 ; appearance of, ib. Napoleon III, 155; 220; 247; 287; 289; 291; 325. Nation, The New York, 413. Nation, The [Toronto], 443. Naushon, 330. Neale, Sir H. B., 273. New Year's Day, 8. Newcastle, the fourth Duke of, 37. Newcastle, the fifth Duke of, 106; 116; 119; 161; 176; 185; 201; 291. Newman, Francis, 61. Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 61 ; 167. Newman, Thomas Harding, 60. "Newmanism," 80; 382. Newspaper reporter, anecdote of, 333. Niagara, Cobden's remark on, 224. Nicholas I, Czar, 139 ; 287. Normandy, tour in, 92. Norton, Charles Eliot, 329. Notarbartolo, 391. Noyes, J. H., 375. O O'Brien, William, 409. O'Connell, Daniel, 178 ; 264. Odessa, siege of, 291. O'Hagan, first Baron, 202 ; 304 ; 313. O'Leary, Arthur, 313. Oneida Community, the, 375-376. Opera, the, 151. Oratory, English and American, 405 ; Parliamentary, 149. Oriel College, 99. Oronyatekha, 283. Osier, Professor, 272. Ossington, first Viscount, 149. Oxford (the University), life at, 52- 53; before reform, 67; 98-99; the curriculum, 68 ; undergraduate life at, 69; after reform, 113-114; society at, 275 ; revisited, 380-381. Oxford (the University), the Com- mission of Inquiry and the Ex- ecutive Commission. See under Commissions, the University. Oxford University Bill of 1854, 105 ; 106-107. Oxoniensis, letters of, 101. Owen, Robert, 376. Owen, Sir Richard, 138. Pakington, J. S., 166. Palermo, 391. Palizzolo, 392. Palmer, Fyshe, 2. 474 INDEX Palmer, Roundel. See Selborne, first Earl of, 55. Palmer, William, 56. Palmerston, Lord, 166; 170; 218; 224; 266; 284; 288; 289; 324. Paris, comte DE, 146. Parke, Sir James, 123. Parker, Charles Stuart, 177-205. Parliament. See House of Commons. Parnell, 316. Parr, Samuel, 53. Parr, Thomas, 108. Parsons, hunting, 19. Parsons, sixty years ago, 14. Party system, the, 299; 410; in America, 334 ; in Canada, 425. Pasquale, Villari, 398. Patrons of Industry, the, 447. Pattison, Mark, 84; 85; 100; 278. Pearson, Mrs., 290. Peel, Sir Robert, 161; 174; 175; 180; 194; 203-205; 207; speech referring to Disraeli's request for place, 213 ; 248-249 ; burial place of, 250 ; political character, 250- 251 ; 255 ; 256 et seq. ; financial policy, 260 ; attitude of leaders of Corn Law League towards, 262 ; and Cobden, quarrel between, 262- 263 ; character of, 264 ; and Cob- den, reconciliation of, 265; 317. Peelites, the, 185 ; 200 ; 287. Pell, J. E., 456. Penjdeh incident, 408. Pension system, the Army, 403404. Pensions Arrears Bill, 403. Perugia, 95. Peter the Great, 231. Phelps, Samuel, 153. Phoenix Park, 301 ; 314 ; 315. Pigott, E. F. Smyth, 150 ; 154. Playdell-Bouverie. See Bouverie. Plumptre, Frederick Charles, 41. Plunket, first Baron, 208. Poe, Edgar Allan, 332. Pompeii, 387. "Pop" at Eton, 38. "Popanilla." See "Voyage of Cap- tain Popanilla." Pope, Joseph, 435. Portland, the fifth Duke of, 192. Potter, Thomas Bayley, 257; 322; 326. Powell, Baden, 101. Prague, 80. Prairie, the, 415. President, the, of the United States, a presentation to, 402. Prince Consort, the, 45 ; 181 ; 281 ; 324. Prince Imperial, the, 291. Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII), 315. Pritchards, a Welsh family, 5. Property, private ownership of, 232. Protection, 183 ; 185 ; 217. Proudhon, 232. Psi Upsilon Society, 370. Public School, the, influence of, 119- 120. Pullman, 327. Pusey, E. B., 62. Pym, John, 240 ; 250. Quakerism, 240-241. Quarterly Review, quoted, 345. Quebec, destiny of, 426, 427. R Rachel, 151. Railway, the Great Western, 280. Ravenna, 95; 390-391. Reade, Charles, 56. Reading (the town), 1-11 ; 380. Reading parties in the long vacation, 69. Rebellion, Canadian Northwest, 455. Reed, Thomas Brackett, 404. Reform Bill (of 1832), 10, 11 ; 225. Reid, Wemyss, 211. "Relations between America and England, The," 409. Reporters, newspaper, 411. Richardson, C. Gordon, 446. Richmond, George, portrait-painter, 159. Riel, Louis, 411; 455. Ring, Dr., 7. Rintoul, R. S., 165. Ristori, 150. Riviere, Briton, 131. Robert the Devil, 93. Rockingham, 300. Rocky Mountains, the, 420. Roebuck, J. A., 172 ; 208 : 294. INDEX 475 Rogers, Sir Frederic, 169, 209. Rogers, J. E. T., 84 ; 277. Rogers, Samuel, 133. Rogers, William, 117. Rolleston, George, 277. Rome, Classic and Modern, 395. Rosebery, the fifth Earl of, 209. Routh, Martin, 51 ; 53 ; 381. Ruloff, 386. Ruskin, 358 ; 389. Russell, Alexander, 204. Russell, Dr. Charles William, 202; 304; 307. Russell, Sir Henry, 26. Russell, Lady, of Swallowfield, 365. Russell, Lady (wife of Lord John Russell), 198. Russell, Lord John (first Earl Rus- sell), 24, 25; 100; 106; 133; 179; 207; 225; 266; 325. S Sackville-West, Mortimer, first Baron, 148. Sadleir, John, 187. Sadler's Wells, 152. Saffi, Count Aurelio, 96 ; 155. Sage, Henry W., 378. Saint George's Chapel, funeral at, 46. Saint Lawrence's Church, Reading, 2. Saint Mary's, Parish of, 4. Saint Peter's (Rome), 396-397. Salisbury, third Marquess of, 163 ; 178-179; 322; 329. Saltaire, 327. Sandars, Thomas Collett, 163. Saturday Review, The, 162 ; dinners, 165; 272. School life, 32. Schoolmates, 33. Scott Act, the, 447. Scott, Rev. William, 163. Seances, spiritualistic, 382-383. Secession, 319. Sedgwick, Adam, 67. Selborne, first Earl of, 59 ; 198 ; 241. Sellar, A. C., 295. Senate, the United States, 404. Seneca Lake, 374-375. Senior, Nassau William, 116-117. Seward, William Henry, 353. Shaftesbury, the eighth Earl of, 204 ; 284. Sheffield, elections at, 172-173, 294- 295. Sherbrooke, Viscount. See Lowe, Robert. Sheridan, 341. Sherman, General, 341 ; 345. Silchester, 13. Simcoe, John Graves, 452. Simpson, Professor, 304. Skye Crofters, 417. Slavery, 319 et seq.; 334. Smith, Arthur, death of, 6 ; 38. Smith, Assheton, 17. Smith, Goldwin, boyhood, 1 et seq.; goes to school at Monkton Farley, 32 ; goes to Eton, 35 ; leaves Eton, 49 ; matriculates, 50 ; enters Mag- dalen College, 51 ; takes first-class honours, 68 ; leaves Magdalen, 73 ; tutor of University College, 77 ; travels on the Continent, 88 et seq. ; visits Switzerland, ib.; the Tyrol, ib., et seq.; spends a summer at Dresden, 90; visits Prague, ib.; visits Hanover, 91 ; takes a car- riage drive through Normandy, 92 et seq. ; visits Caen, 93 ; visits Falaise, ib. ; meets Guizot, 94 ; visits Italy, 95 ; at Rome, ib. ; at Ravenna, ib.; at Perugia, ib.; at Venice, ib., 96 ; Assistant Secre- tary to the University Commission of Inquiry, 102 ; Secretary to the Commission of Reform, 107 ; Member of the Education Com- mission, 116; studies Law, 121; goes on Circuit, 123 ; social life in London, 132 et seq.; joins the Saturday Review, 162 ; appointed to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, 272; settles at Oxford, ib. ; opposes the Great Western Railway, 280, 281 ; takes part in elections, 294 et seq.; visits Ireland (1862), 301 et seq.; (1881), 313 et seq.; speaks on behalf of the North at Manchester, 322 ; visits America, 327 ; visits Washington, 352 ; meets Lincoln, 354 ; resigns the Oxford Professor- ship, 365 ; lives at Mortimer, ib. ; meets Andrew White, 366 ; arrives at Cornell University, 371 ; visits the Oneida Community, 375 ; 476 INDEX attends a camp meeting, 376 ; revisits England, 380 et seq. ; visits Italy, 387 et seq. ; at Venice, 389 ; at Ravenna, 390 ; second visit to Italy, 391 et seq.; visits Sicily, 391 ; at Naples, 392 ; at Pizzo, 393 ; at Amain, 394 ; at Capua, 395 ; at Rome, 396 ; revisits Washington, 399 et seq.; visits the Northwest Territories of Canada, 414 et seq.; at Winnipeg, 416 ; visits the Skye Crofters, 417 ; forms the Loyal and Patriotic Union, 444 ; joins the "Reciprocity" movement, 446, takes part in the Liberal Tem- perance Campaign, 446, 447 ; settles in Canada (1871), 450; marriage, ib. ; defends General Middleton, 455, 456 ; interests himself in civic charities, 456 ; founds the Athletic Club, 459; 460 ; advocates university cen- tralization, 461 et seq.; patronizes athletics, 463 ; his accident, 466. Smith, Mrs. Goldwin, 450 ; death of, 464. Smith, Henry, 276. Smith, Dr. Richard Pritchard (Gold- win Smith's father), his second marriage, 12 ; retires, 13 ; death of, 365. Smith, Mrs. R. P. (Goldwin Smith's mother), death of, 6. Smith, Sydney, 134 ; 136. Smoking, 21. Socialism, 228-229. Society, rural, sixty years ago, 15, 16. Soult, Marshal, 45. South African War. See Boer War. Spectator, The, 165. Spence, James, 320. Spencer, Bishop, 58. Spencer, Herbert, 139, 140. Spiritualism, 383 et seq. Spithead, 274. Sports. See Athletics. Sprague, Professor and Mrs., 375. Squires, sixty years ago, 15. St. Helier, Lord. See Jeune, Fran- cis. Stanhope, the fifth Earl, 133 ; 146 ; 156. Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 77; 100; 102; 152; 255; 344. Stansfield, Sir James, 155 ; 215. Statesmanship, American, 406, 407. Stephen, James Fitzjames, 117 ; 133 ; 167. Strachan, Bishop, 461. Strahan & Paul, 289. Strathfieldsaye, 21. "Strawberry Hill," 144 et seq. Stubbs, William, 84 ; 277. Students, American, 369. Suffrage, the, 225. Sumner, Charles, 344 ; 409. Sun, the New York, 413. Swindon, 281. Syracuse (the Sicilian), 95. Tait, Archbishop, 101 ; 103 ; 196. Talfourd, Sir T. N., 26. Taylor, Bayard, 372. "Tea, Afternoon," the old-fashioned, 280. Teck, Prince, 313. Telepathy, anecdote of, 273. Temperance movement in Ontario, the, 446. Temple. See Templer, John Charles. Temple, Frederick (Archbishop), 72. Templer, John Charles, 122. Tennyson, 142; 288. Thackeray, W. M., 137. Theale, parish of, 55. Theatre, the, 150. Thessiger, Frederick, 166. Thirl wall, Bishop, 82. Thomas, George Henry, 345. Thomasson, Thomas, 228 ; 364. Thomson, William, 285. Tichborne Case, 70. Tietjens, Teresa, 151. Times, 281 ; 315. Titles of honour, 428. Tractarian movement, the, 60. Trade unions, 228. Trent affair, the, 324. Trevelyan, Sir Charles, 203. Trials, notable, 125-127. Tupper, Sir Charles, 437 ; 438. Twisleton, Edward, 107 ; 109. Twiss, Travers, 86. Tyndall, John, 138. INDEX 477 IT Union League, the, 322. Unions, Trade-, 295. "United States, The" (Goldwin Smith's book), 460. Universities, Canadian, 461 et seq.; Universities, contrasted, 368. University. See under "Oxford" and under "Commission." University College, Common Room of, 75. University Reform, 73. Upton Manor House, 14. Urquhart, David, 136. V Vancouver (British Columbia), 422. Van Home, Sir W. C., 419. Vaughan, Henry Halford, 93; 274; 275. Venables, George, 163 ; epitaph on, 165; 331. Venice, 389. Verhuel, Admiral, 291. Verney, Lady, 93. Victoria (British Columbia), 420, 421, 422. Victoria, Queen, 45 ; 46 ; 155 ; 179 ; 181; 314. Villiers, C. P., 260. "Vivian Grey," 255. "Voyage of Captain Popanilla, The,' 180; 182. W . Waldegrave, Frances, Lady, 144 et seq. Waldron, Gordon, 448. Walker, Thomas, 170. Walrond, Theodore, 219. Walsingham, Sir F., portrait of, 148. Walter, Count of Mantes, 93. Walter, John, 27. Ward, Sally. See Mrs. Bigelow Law- rence. Ward, W. G., 61 ; 63 ; 73. Warde, John, 12 ; 17. "Warfare of Science and Religion," 66. Waring, George, 278. Warren, T. Herbert, 381. Washington (the city), 352; 399; society at, 407. Waterloo, battle of, 38 ; 160. Wayte, S. W., 105. Webster, Daniel, 45. Weekly Sun, the [Toronto], 448. Welbeck, 192. Wellesley, Gerald, 22. Wellington, the first Duke of, 21 ; 102 ; 290 ; resemblance to Grant, 344. Wellington, the second Duke of, 24. Whist, 400. White, Andrew D., 66 ; 366 ; 370. White House, a presentation at the, 402 ; reception at, 408. Wigan, A. S., 151. Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Ox- ford, 63; 83; 143. Wilder, Professor Burt G., 378-379. William the Conqueror, 93. William III, 175. William IV, 45. Williams, Edward Vaughan, 123. Williams, Monier, 276. Wilson, J. M., 278. Winkworth, Mr. and Mrs., 364. Winnipeg, 416. Wolseley, Lord, 189. Woman suffrage, 360. Wright, Mrs. Atkins, 1. Wyburnbury, 5. Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), 274. A; WORKS BY GOLD WIN SMITH THE UNITED KINGDOM: A POLITICAL HISTORY. Two vols. 8vo. IDS. 6d. net. 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