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 THE 
 
 LIFE, LETTERS, AND FRIENDSHIPS 
 
 or 
 
 RICHARD MONCKTCXN" MIUSTES, 
 
 FIRST LORD HOUGHTON.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE, LETTERS, AND FRIENDSHIPS 
 
 or 
 
 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 
 
 FIRST LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. WEMYSS EEID. 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES, 
 VOL. I. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PBBS8 
 RJLHWAY, N. J.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No English writer of this century, or of any century, 
 ever occupied the position, either in the world of let- 
 ters or the social world, that was so long filled by Lord 
 Houghton. He united in himself the diverse person- 
 alities of the poet, the politician, and the man of the 
 world, and if not as eminent in either of these char- 
 acters as some of his contemporaries, he was distin- 
 guished in all. Fortunate in his birth, in one of the 
 stately homes of England, in the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire ; fortunate in his parentage, his father a 
 wealthy gentleman of good family, who might have 
 attained high honors in political life, his mother the 
 daughter of a viscount ; fortunate in his education, 
 which was obtained at Cambridge, where he had for 
 his fellow collegians young men of genius like Frede- 
 rick. Charles, and Alfred Tennyson, Arthur Hallam, 
 Thackeray, Spedding, and others who have since en- 
 riched the literature of England ; fortunate in his 
 
 O f 
 
 temperament, which was light and joyous, and in his 
 aims, which were manly and intellectual, there was 
 little which Richard Monckton Milnes could desire 
 that was not within his reach. He always knew what 
 he wanted ; he took a just measure of his powers and 
 opportunities, and, as far as man may, he planned his 
 career and determined his destiny. This, for a poet, 
 was to be lord of himself, and to find that self not a
 
 vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 heritage of woe. Possessed with an insatiate thirst for 
 knowledge, a great reader in many directions rather 
 than a close student in any one direction, the bent of 
 his mind while at college was clearly toward poetry, 
 concerning which his judgment was a singularly inde- 
 pendent one. He refused, for instance, to acknowledge 
 the sovereignty of Byron, who, dying a few years be- 
 fore, was still reckoned the grand Napoleon of the 
 realm of rhyme, proclaiming in its stead the supremacy 
 of Wordsworth, which was hotly contested, and the 
 glorious gifts of Shelley, who was almost unknown to 
 his stolid countrymen. More than a half century has 
 passed since this contention between the admirers of 
 Byron and Wordsworth was begun by Milnes and his 
 friends at Cambridge and Oxford, and the contention 
 is not yet ended. The Wordsworthians have had the 
 best of the argument on paper, but they have not suc- 
 ceeded in convincing the world that their idol is the 
 better poet ; for there is that in the impassioned genius 
 of Byron, and his impulsive bursts of feeling, before 
 which the reflective mind of Wordsworth, and his 
 studied utterance of philosophical didacticism, pale 
 their ineffectual fires. It is not a question of morality 
 with which the world concerns itself in comparing 
 these poets, but the question of poetry ; and, rightly or 
 wrongly, the world prefers the poetry of Byron to the 
 poetry of Wordsworth. Differing from both, Lord 
 Houghton may be said to have resembled Byron in his 
 fondness for travel, and to have resembled Wordsworth 
 in the activity of his interest in the events of his time. 
 Like the young English gentleman of the reign of 
 Elizabeth, this young English gentleman of the reign
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 of Victoria was not content until lie had made his tour 
 abroad. With affections that centered in his family 
 and his friends, and a disposition that was neither dis- 
 satisfied with itself nor his country, the spirit in his 
 feet was not the errant and fugitive spirit that impelled 
 the author of " Childe Harold " to make his memorable 
 pilgrimage, but the happy, healthful spirit of a scholar 
 and a poet, who was fain to see places which had be- 
 come classic ground to him through his reading, and to 
 mix among peoples with whose history he was familiar. 
 He journeyed and resided in France, in Italy, in Ger- 
 many, in Greece, in Turkey, and wherever he 'went he 
 was at home; for, true born Englishman though he 
 was, he was everywhere a citizen of the world. No 
 traveled Englishman ever understood the different 
 peoples among whom he sojourned so well as Lord 
 Houghton, who thoroughly appreciated their national 
 life and character, and their relations with other 
 peoples, and long before his death he might justly have 
 declared of himself, 
 
 I am become a name : 
 For, always roaming with a hungry heart, 
 Much have I seen and known ; cities of men 
 And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
 Myself not least, but honored of them all. 
 
 What Lord Houghton was as a traveler and a corre- 
 spondent of illustrious men abroad this Life shows, 
 and it was much. But what he was when, his travels 
 practically over, he returned, and was elected M.P. for 
 Pontefract, was more ; for that brought him promi- 
 nently before and constantly among his own country- 
 men, to whom he was a celebrity. The difference
 
 via INTRODUCTION. 
 
 between American and English society unfits us to a 
 certain extent for a perfect understanding of the posi- 
 tion which Lord Houghton held in English society 
 for years, and the estimation in which he was held. 
 Traveler, poet, politician, he was before all a man of 
 society, to which he w r as drawn by his vivacious tem- 
 perament, his love of enjoyment, his intellectual ambi- 
 tion, and his talent as a talker. Endowed with 
 self-possession, with confidence in his abilities, and with 
 the courage of his convictions, he was addicted to par- 
 adox, and prone, no doubt, to maintaining opinions 
 which he, did not seriously believe. It delighted him 
 to startle people more than it delighted the people 
 whom he startled. Coming upon the scene when the 
 older poets were passing away, he succeeded the oldest, 
 Rogers, as the literary host of the time. Other hosts 
 there were, at Lansdowne Terrace, Holland House, 
 Gore House, but none who was more hospitable than 
 the bustling gentleman who gave breakfast at his 
 bachelor rooms on Pall Mall, and who, after his mar- 
 riage, invited his friends to visit him at his old family 
 home at Fryston. Everybody who was anybody was 
 to be found at these breakfasts, and many who were 
 nobodies, in a curious way. To have done something, 
 no matter what, insured an invitation to the breakf asts 
 of Lord Houghton. He enjoyed entertaining his 
 guests, and his guests enjoyed him as well as his enter- 
 tainments, he was so courteous and so brilliant, so 
 kindly and so generous. To be in need was to be 
 helped by him, not merely with money, which he 
 could probably spare, but with what is rarer, with 
 sympathy, with considerate advice, and with brotherly
 
 INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 or fatherly solicitude and protection. What he did 
 for poor Hood, in his last days, we know now for the 
 first time; what he did for poorer David Gray we 
 knew years ago when we read the memoir of that daft 
 creature whom it was almost impossible to aid. That 
 Lord Houghton had a tender heart and a ready hand 
 was known to all who knew him, and was shown over 
 and over again by his unremembered acts of kindness 
 and of love. 
 
 Lord Houghton is certain to have a permanent place 
 among British authors of the nineteenth century, but 
 precisely what place posterity alone can determine. 
 He can hardly be forgotten as the biographer of Keats, 
 from whose memory he was the first to remove the 
 clouds of misrepresentation which had so long obscured 
 it, and whose inherent manhood he was the first to 
 maintain, nor hardly forgotten as the author of a 
 volume of personal " Monographs," which is a model of 
 that kind of writing. He ought to live, and, no doubt, 
 will live, as a poet, not a great poet, for great poets 
 are rare at all times, but a gentle and thoughtful poet, 
 to whom the subdued expression of pensive feeling 
 was better than the stormy voice of passion, and who, 
 singing with scholarly sweetness of Greece, of Italy, of 
 the Orient, sang with more gracious sweetness, more 
 philosophic experience, and more spiritual pathos, of 
 the heart and soul, of life and death. No one who 
 has once read will ever willingly forget " The Flight of 
 Youth," "Love and Nature," " Familiar Love," "Half 
 Truth," "The Men of Old," and that touching little 
 song, " I Wandered by the Brookside." His poems of 
 reflection are better than those of Matthew Arnold,
 
 x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which were modeled after them, and full as good as 
 those of Wordsworth, which they surpass in melody 
 and sincerity. 
 
 This much by way of prologue to this Life of Lord 
 Houghton, from which I will no longer detain the 
 reader of this imperfect tribute to his. memory, who, I 
 am sure, will be as much delighted with it as I have 
 been. 
 
 R H. STODDARD. 
 THE CENTURY, 
 NEW YORK, January 10, 1891.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 No apology is needed for the appearance of a biography 
 of such a man as Lord Houghton. For more than half 
 a century Monckton Milnes was one of the conspicuous 
 figures in European society, and during the whole of that 
 long period he played a distinctive part in contemporary 
 life. Eecognised so far back as the beginning of the 
 present reign as one of the ornaments of English society, 
 a wit and a humorist who could hold his own among 
 the best men and women of his time, he quickly secured 
 recognition for other and more sterling qualities. His 
 poetry gained the ear of the public, even though Tenny- 
 son was one of his contemporaries ; his prose-writing 
 though lacking in that continuous effort which is now- 
 a-days essential to permanent fame charmed his own 
 generation, and must long remain a delight to all lovers 
 of good English. His political career, though it failed to 
 satisfy both his own aspirations and the hopes of his 
 friends, was brightened by one notable and unselfish 
 triumph, his share in the establishment of reformatories 
 for children who had been born or driven by force of 
 circumstances into the criminal classes. But of far 
 greater interest and importance than his achievements
 
 rii PREFACB. 
 
 as poet, critic, and legislator, was the part which he 
 played in English social life. The influence he wielded 
 for more than fifty years was due in some measure to 
 the extraordinary number and variety of his friend- 
 ships ; but still more largely was it attributable to the 
 genuine and remarkable qualities of the man himself. 
 
 In these pages it is the purpose of his biographer 
 to throw some light upon the friendships which have 
 long surrounded Lord Houghton's name with a halo of 
 romance. They include the names of many of the most 
 eminent men and women of the century. The man who 
 had known Wordsworth and Landor and Sydney Smith ; 
 who during the greater part of his life had been the 
 friend, trusted and well-beloved, of Tennyson, Carlyle, 
 and Thackeray, was also one of the first to hail the 
 rising genius of Swinburne, and to lend a helping hand 
 to other great writers of a still younger generation. 
 Nor were his friendships confined to the literary world. 
 The Miss Berrys, who had known Horace Walpole in 
 their youth, knew and loved Monckton Milnes in their 
 old age. Among statesmen he had been the friend of 
 Vassall Holland, Melbourne, Peel, and Palmerston, in 
 the heyday of their fame ; he had first seen Mr. Gladstone 
 as an undergraduate at Oxford ; had been the associate of 
 Mr. Disraeli when he was still only the social aspirant of 
 Gore House ; had been the confidant of Louis Napoleon 
 before he was a prisoner at Ham, and had known Louis 
 Philippe, Thiers, Guizot, and Lamartine, alike in their 
 days of triumph and defeat. Lamennais, Wiseman, 
 Edward Irving, Connop Thirlwall, and Frederick Maurice
 
 PREFACE. riii 
 
 had all influenced his mind in his youth ; he had " laid 
 the first plank of a kind of pulpit " from which Emerson 
 could preach "throughout all Saxondom," * and he had 
 recognised the noble character and brilliant qualities of 
 Miss Nightingale long before the world had heard her 
 name. These were but a few of the friendships of 
 Monckton Milnes ; and the reader of these pages will 
 learn that, great as the interest of such friendships must 
 necessarily be, they did not suffice to absorb his affections. 
 No mistake could have been more complete than that 
 of supposing that he cared only for the great and the 
 famous. The richest outpourings of his heart and mind 
 were in many cases reserved for men of whom the world 
 knew little or nothing. He delighted in making the 
 acquaintance of all those who were playing a leading 
 part upon the stage of the day; but his truest friend- 
 ships were often with those whom fame had never reached, 
 nor success gladdened. And it was no common blessing 
 which followed the friendship of Milnes for those who 
 enjoyed it. Where he loved at all; he loved with all 
 his heart; and the greatest happiness he knew was in 
 helping his friends a work in which he never grew 
 weary, never slackened his hand, from the days of early 
 manhood to those of feeble old age. 
 
 His biographer has sought to make many of these 
 friendships tell their own story in the letters of Milnes. 
 Of some of the most interesting of them no record 
 remains ; whilst of others only a chance word here and 
 
 f Carlyle,
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 there reminds us of the fact of their existence. But the 
 reader will find enough in these pages to convince him 
 that the claim set forth in these introductory lines is 
 amply justified. 
 
 To the character of Monckton Milnes it is doubtful 
 if anyone can do full justice. It had so many sides, was 
 so quaintly coloured, and at times distorted, by his love 
 of paradox, flashed so constantly in new lights and under 
 varying aspects, had fe changeful iridescence so entirely 
 its own, that no ordinary biographer can hope to succeed 
 in portraying it fully. But here again the reader must 
 draw his final conclusions from two sources the letters 
 of Milnes himself, covering the whole period of his life ; 
 and the estimate formed of him by those who knew him 
 best. He will learn from the evidence thus set before 
 him, that the man who in his later life was known 
 throughout the world as the liberal friend and bene- 
 factor of men of genius in distress, had, at the outset of 
 his London life, brightened the gloomy fate-burdened 
 soul of Carlyle, as David cheered the heart of Saul. He 
 will see how the best men everywhere loved him, trusted 
 him, clung to him; and he must be a poor judge of 
 character who, in such circumstances, can labour under 
 any doubt as to the entire worthiness of the man 
 who was thus cherished and honoured in so high a 
 degree. 
 
 Not long before his death Milnes wrote the following 
 lines in a copy of his poems, telling the lady to whom 
 the book belonged that they formed the " text " of his 
 life. He had composed them in his youth : -
 
 PREFACE. arv 
 
 AFTER GOETHE. 
 
 Demand not by what road or portal 
 
 Into God's City thou art come 
 But where thou tak'st thy place as mortal 
 
 Remain in peace, and make thy home. 
 Then look around thee for the Wise, 
 
 Look for the Strong who there command; 
 Let Wisdom teach thee what to prize, 
 
 Let Power direct and brace thy hand. 
 Then, doing all that should be done, 
 
 Labour to make the State approve thee, 
 And thou shalt earn the hate of none, 
 
 And many will rejoice to love thee. 
 
 HOUGHTON. 
 
 Rome, Jan., 1885. 
 
 Possibly, in some quarters, there may be disappoint- 
 ment at the fact that these pages show the more serious 
 side of Milnes's character. The other side could only be 
 concealed from the reader at the expense of the truthful- 
 ness of the portrait. But there would be just as great 
 a sacrifice of truth if the superficial oddities and ec- 
 centricities of his manner and character were allowed 
 to hide the real meaning and substance of his life as a 
 whole. It is the real Milnes whom his biographer has 
 tried to paint in these pages ; not the outward Milnes, 
 as he appeared to those who saw him only at a distance 
 the hero of a hundred more or less apocryphal legends; 
 the wit upon whom a thousand jokes he had never 
 uttered were fathered; the man of fashion whose 
 unconventional originality had so ,far impressed itself 
 upon the popular mind that there was hardly any
 
 xvi PREFACE. 
 
 eccentricity too audacious to be attributed to him by 
 tbose who knew him only by repute. His curious 
 disregard of the commonplace and the conventional, 
 alike in manner and in speech, ought not to be forgotten. 
 It was, indeed, the first characteristic of his which 
 caught the attention of the public. Even Carlyle, in 
 the earliest stage of his acquaintance with the man 
 he learned to love so well, was oddly impressed by 
 his outward bearing. " Milnes is a Tory Member of 
 Parliament ; think of that ! " he writes to Emerson in 
 1840. " For the rest, he describes his religion in these 
 terms : ' I profess to be a Crypto-Catholic.' Conceive 
 the man ! A most bland-smiling, semi- quizzical, affec- 
 tionate, high-bred, Italianised little man, who has long 
 olive-blonde hair, a dimple, next to no chin, and flings 
 his arm round your neck when he addresses you 
 in public society ! " That was the first impression 
 which Milnes, in those days of his brilliant youth, 
 made upon Carlyle. How differently he impressed him 
 as the years passed by, and the true nature of the man 
 was revealed, will be seen by those who read these 
 pages. But if even Carlyle was in the first instance 
 struck by Milnes's oddities of speech and manner, what 
 wonder is it that upon the rest of the world they made 
 so deep an impression ! Yet, whilst they cannot be left 
 out of sight, it is not upon these things that the final 
 judgment passed on Monckton Milnes by his fellow-men 
 will be based. For him also can be set forth the claim 
 so often granted in the case of those whose harsh 
 and forbidding exterior has done cruel injustice to the
 
 PREFACE. xv 11 
 
 sweetness of the spirit it concealed that his soul shall 
 be judged by what it was, and not by its environments 
 These environments, it is true, were in his case the ven 
 reverse of harsh and forbidding ; yet, in some respects, 
 they could hardly have been less truthful as an index to 
 the character of the man himself if the opposite had 
 been the case. The buoyant gaiety of spirit, the careless 
 grace of manner, the almost audacious disregard of old 
 canons of social usage, did for Milnes what hard reserve, 
 gloom of temperament, and that morbid shyness which 
 is so often aggressive in its form, have done for others. 
 They concealed the real man from the^ superficial 
 observer. In these pages, whilst the outward man has 
 been sketched, it is the inner and the true man who is 
 placed most prominently before the reader. 
 
 The heart of the biographer knows its own bitter- 
 ness. It has been no light task to select from some 
 thirty thousand letters addressed to Milnes by all sorts 
 and conditions of people, those which were suitable for 
 publication in this work. The selection which has been 
 made is small indeed, compared with the bulk from 
 which it is taken; and it is hoped that no letter has 
 been printed here which can cause needless pain to any- 
 one. It has been still more difficult to trace the record 
 of Milnes 's own life by means of his letters to others. 
 For though he corresponded with many, he wrote 
 especially in his later years regularly to but few, and 
 these he addressed as a rule in the briefest terms. It 
 has consequently been hard to keep track of him 
 throughout his brilliant and varied life ; and there are
 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 many gaps in this narrative which could have been filled 
 up by no one but himself. It has been something for 
 his biographer to have enjoyed for nearly twenty years 
 the privilege of his personal friendship. Without the 
 knowledge and strength derived from this fact, the task 
 he has here attempted to perform would have been an 
 impossible one. To Lord Houghton's family he is 
 indebted, not only for the confidence which they have 
 reposed in him, but for much valuable assistance in 
 the preparation of the biography. From the Dowager 
 Viscountess Galway he has received constant and most 
 useful aid; whilst amongst many to whom he is in- 
 debted for Kelp, or for permission to publish the letters 
 printed in these volumes, he must make special mention 
 of Lord Tennyson, Lord Acton, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. 
 Aubrey de Vere, Mr. George von Bunsen, and Mrs. 
 Henry Bright. To Mr. A. E. Scanes he has been in- 
 debted for the admirable manner in which the great 
 mass of Lord Houghton's correspondence, entrusted to 
 that gentleman shortly after Lord Houghton's death, 
 was classified and catalogued. Finally, he must say 
 for himself that, conscious as he is of the deficiencies 
 and imperfections of this narrative, he can at least 
 claim for it that its preparation has been a labour of 
 love. All through the work of two arduous years he 
 has been sustained by the desire to repay so far as he 
 could the debt of gratitude he owes to the kindest and 
 truest of friends.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 MSB 
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 
 
 The Mflneses of Wakefield Family Descent Robert Pemberton Milnes 
 His Parliamentary Career Marriage Birth of Richard Monckton 
 Milnes Offer of Cabinet Office to Mr. Pemberton Milnes Journey 
 to Paris in 1814 Visit to Waterloo, 1815 Character Refusal of 
 Peerage 1 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 The Character of Monckton Milnes School-days Cambridge Great 
 Contemporaries The Union Ascent in a Balloon Deputation of the 
 Union to Oxford Meeting with W. E. Gladstone College Friend- 
 ships Arthur Hallam, Alfred Tennyson, Sunderland The Apostles . 44 
 
 CHAPTER ITL 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 
 
 London University Letters to his Father Attends the House of Com- 
 mons Goes to Bonn Life at Milan Perplexities of Life Venice 
 Visits Ireland Aubrey de Vere's Reminiscences Rome Wiseman 
 Met ts Charles MacCarthy Projected Greek Tour .... 85 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 
 
 Tour in Greece with Wordsworth Winter in Venice Family Affairs- 
 Illness at Florence Walter Savage Landor Death of Arthur Hallam 
 Letter from Alfred Tennyson Publication of First Book A 
 Carnival in Rome Return of the Family to England Wiseman 
 Connop Thirlwall .,..,,.... 128
 
 xx CONTENTS. 
 
 CHATTER V. 
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Begins his London Career Society in 1836 Milnes's Italian Manners 
 " The Beating of my own Heart " " The Tribute " Correspondence 
 with Tennyson Lansdowne, Holland, and Gore Houses Rogers's 
 Breakfasts The Art of Conversation Takes Chambers in Pall 
 Mall Carlyle Illness of Miss Milnes W. E. Gladstone Milnes 
 returned to Parliament Disraeli's Maiden Speech Publishes Two 
 Volumes of Poetry Correspondence with Sydney Smith . . . 166 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Disraeli and Milnes Carlyle's Lectures The Sterling Club Charles 
 Sumner R. W. Emerson Letter from Wordsworth Growing 
 Friendship with Carlyle Visit to the Pyrenees The London Library 
 established Reviews Emerson's Writings A Glimpse of Beau 
 Brummel Milnes in Paris Friendship with the King, Guizot, 
 Thiers, Lamartine, and De Tocqueville Correspondence with Sir 
 Robert Peel Heine Carlyle at Fryston " One Tract More " 
 Thackeray in Yorkshire The New Administration Milnes disap- 
 pointed Letter to Guizot .216 
 
 CHAPTER VIE. 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 The Copyright Question The Corn Laws The Queen's Ball Journey to 
 the East Correspondence with Peel His Friendship with MacCarthy 
 Tennyson's Pension Carlyle and Milnes Southey's Widow 
 Charles Buller Milnes's Position in Parliament Correspondence 
 with W. E. Gladstone 273 
 
 CHAPTER VHL 
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 " Palm Leaves " Reviewing Disraeli Maynooth Wordsworth and 
 Milnes Letter from De Tocqueville Thomas Campbell Relations 
 of England and France Disraeli at Fryston His Sketch of Milnes 
 Milnes visits Berlin Extracts from Commonplace Book Assists 
 Thomas Hood A Political Storm Another Disappointment . 318
 
 CONTENTS. xxi 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 
 
 PAGl 
 
 The Crisis of Protection Letter to Guizot Peel's Retirement Milnes 
 joins the Liberal Party Death of his Mother Letter from Robert 
 Browning Carlyle in Yorkshire W. E. Forster Friendship with 
 the Duke of Wellington A Characteristic Letter Visit to the 
 Peninsula Withdrawal from the Carlton Club" Events of 1848 " 
 Dispute with Mr. George Smythe Challenges Him Extracts from 
 Commonplace Book Louis Philippe and Milnes Lord Malmesbury's 
 Misstatement 366 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 Thackeray " Going to see a Man Hanged " Charlotte Bronte in London 
 Milnes in Paris Dines -with Louis Napoleon Sayings of Carlyle 
 Accident to Rogers Death of Sir Robert Peel The Papal Aggression 
 Engagement to Miss Crewe Friendship with the Palmerstons 
 Marriage Wedding-Trip Fryston Described Its Many Visitors 
 Death of Eliot Warburton 16, Upper Brook Street Hospitalities 
 Friendship with Miss Nightingale Correspondence with Mrs. Gaskell 426 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CEIMEAN WAR DATS. 
 
 Married Life Visit to Ireland The Eastern Question Correspondence 
 with Lady Palmerston A Round of Visits the Crimean War The 
 Times Account of the Battle of the Alma The Peelitas A Ministerial 
 Crisis Milnes declines Office Miss Nightingale in the East 
 Harriet Martineau Death of Charlotte Bronte Paris and Vichy 
 Lines on Scutari The British Association at Glasgow Visit to 
 Hawarden Peerage offered to Mr. Pemberton Milnes . . . 482
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTOK 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 
 
 The Milneses of Wakefield Family Descent Robert Pemberton Milnes His 
 Parliamentary Career Marriage Birth of Richard Monckton Milnes 
 Offer of Cabinet Office to Mr. Pemberton Milnes Journey to Paris in 1814 
 Visit to Waterloo, 1815 Character Refusal of Peerage. 
 
 AT the beginning of the last century the pleasant 
 town of Wakefield was one of the most prosperous 
 centres of commerce in the West Riding of Yorkshire. 
 At that time it disputed with the neighbouring town of 
 Leeds the pre-eminence in the woollen and cloth trades, 
 and was specially noted for the extent of the business 
 which its manufacturers and merchants carried on direct 
 with Eussia. No English industry is older than the 
 manufacture of cloth, and none has more completely 
 changed its conditions within a comparatively recent 
 period. Down to a time still within the memory of 
 man, the cloth for which the West Eiding has long 
 been famous was woven not in huge mills placed in 
 the centre of crowded towns, but in the cottages of the 
 weavers themselves, a hardy and skilful race of artisans,
 
 2 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGSTON. 
 
 who did not care to herd together in populous cities, but 
 who fixed their homes in one or other of the many 
 pleasant villages which were to be found on the banks 
 of the Aire, the Calder, and the other streams of the 
 West Riding, before the days when the introduction 
 of steam had converted the whole of that prosperous 
 district into the semblance of a vast manufactory. 
 It followed from this fact that, in the West Riding, at 
 all events, nothing was then to be found which bore the 
 faintest resemblance to a manufacturing city such as 
 we are now familiar with. In the town centres of the 
 cloth trade resided the wealthy merchants, who sent the 
 goods which formed the staple industry of the place to 
 London or to those foreign countries which depended 
 upon English woollens for their clothing ; but no 
 manufactures were carried on in these towns. Weavers 
 came to them once a week with the " piece " which they 
 had woven in their own cottage homes, and a market 
 was held, where this homespun material was displayed 
 for sale. The merchants came and bought according to 
 their needs; the weaver took his modest pay and re- 
 turned to his hamlet and his shuttle, whilst the capital- 
 ist, who was his only customer, added the small length of 
 cloth which he had purchased to the stock accumulating 
 in his warehouse. From thence at uncertain intervals 
 the lumbering waggons carried heavy bales of cloth, 
 the produce of a hundred different looms, up to the 
 great capital on the banks of the Thames, or down to 
 the chief Yorkshire port on the Humber. It was ail 
 easy and pleasant mode of carrying on a trade, and in
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 3 
 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was one by 
 means of which not a few great fortunes were accumu- 
 lated. 
 
 Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the cloth trade of Wakefield had become something 
 very like a monopoly in the hands of a single family. 
 This was the family of the Milneses. They had sprung 
 from the dales of Derbyshire, where for many genera- 
 tions they appear to have led the lives of substantial 
 country gentlemen. They were of ancient descent, 
 and they had acquired considerable landed property 
 in Derbyshire, some of which still remains in their 
 hands. Somewhere about the year 1670, fortune 
 directed the steps of one of the Milneses to the West 
 Riding ; and settling at Wakefield, he there laid the 
 foundation of more than one considerable fortune. It 
 is needless to follow minutely the history of the 
 different branches into which the Milnes family, as it 
 increased in numbers, became divided. Its position in 
 Wakefield was, however, so unique, and is so thoroughly 
 characteristic of one of the features of English life in 
 the eighteenth century, that it deserves to be described 
 at length. The best evidence of the nature of that 
 position is to be found in certain old houses which 
 still stand at Wakefield, and which, about the year 
 1750, were the residences of different members of the 
 family. These houses wear even now an air of import- 
 ance, which to-day looks strangely out of place in the 
 midst of the crowded streets of a second-rate country 
 town. Some of them had considerable architectural
 
 4 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 pretensions; all were large, substantial, and well ordered ; 
 they stood within a stone's throw of each other, facing 
 the main road through Wakefield, surrounded by 
 pleasant gardens and summer-houses, and wearing to 
 the eye of the passer-by the aspect of an ideal retreat 
 for wealthy leisure. The brothers or the cousins who 
 occupied these mansions could interchange visits as 
 many times daily as they pleased without inconveni- 
 ence, so close together stood their homes. Not only in 
 Wakefield, but throughout Yorkshire, they were 
 looked up to for their wealth, for their sturdy integrity, 
 and their sound business qualities. 
 
 Their social position meanwhile was that of a family 
 of country gentlemen, and their alliances showed that 
 their business connections in no way interfered with 
 their free intercourse with the neighbouring aristocracy. 
 By one of their marriages they became possessed of the 
 old hall at Great Houghton, once the residence of 
 Straffbrd. This property has never been alienated ; the 
 fine old hall, though now turned to humble use as a 
 country inn, being still in the possession of the present 
 Lord Houghton. A member of the Milnes family 
 who died a few years ago could remember the scraps 
 of moth-eaten black cloth which, in her childhood, 
 hung here and there in the great hall of the old house 
 remnants of the mourning in which it was draped 
 on the day when Strafford perished on the scaffold ; 
 whilst the salver from which he was last served before 
 his execution is one of the treasures of Fryston. 
 
 One of the family, Eichard Milnes, by his marriage
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 5 
 
 with the daughter and heiress of Mr. John Pemberton, 
 of Liverpool, added largely to the fortunes of the house. 
 His son, Pemberton Milnes, was a man of great wealth ; 
 he bought the fine estate of Bawtry, near Doncaster, and 
 built or enlarged the handsome manor-house still stand- 
 ing there. He played a leading part in the politics of 
 the West Riding, and his name is to be found with those 
 of the Fitzwilliams, the Cavendishes, and the Foljambes 
 in the " New Song " written by Lord Effingham : 
 
 " Not the fire, Pern Milnes, of twenty brick-kilns 
 
 Can consistency give to thy clay, 
 First to sign requisition, then let curst coalition 
 Make a Milnes his engagement betray 
 O Pern Milnes ! " 
 
 The allusion in this rhyme to the brick-kilns had 
 reference to the fact that in addition to his great com- 
 mercial undertakings in the cloth trade, Mr. Pemberton 
 Milnes was a large manufacturer of bricks, and at that 
 time the only smoke betokening the existence of in- 
 dustrial operations which clouded the atmosphere in the 
 neighbourhood of Wakefield was that which arose from 
 his formidable array of brick-kilns. 
 
 The only child of this Eobert Pemberton Milnes was 
 a daughter, whose marriage with Viscount Galway was 
 the first of the alliances which have since so closely 
 bound together the two families of Milnes and Monck- 
 ton. At her father's death she inherited from him the 
 Bawtry estate. 
 
 The nephew of Pemberton Milnes, the eldest son of
 
 6 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 his younger brother, was Eichard Slater Milnes, the 
 first member of the family who settled at Fryston. 
 His marriage, like those of not a few of his forefathers, 
 tended to increase the fortunes of the family. His wife 
 was Rachel Busk, the daughter and co-heiress of Mr. 
 Hans Busk, of Leeds, and it was through her that the 
 Great Houghton estate, from which the title of the 
 present peerage has been taken, came into the possession 
 of Mr. Slater Milnes. In 1784, at the early age of 
 twenty-five, he was elected one of the representatives of 
 the city of York in Parliament, and he held his seat in 
 the House of Commons until 1802, when he retired, just 
 two years before his death. A portion of the large 
 fortune which he had obtained from his father was 
 devoted to the purchase of the Fryston estate. Frys- 
 ton is a substantial country house of considerable size, 
 situated in a pleasant park on the borders of the river 
 Aire. The wonderful growth of its industrial fortunes 
 which the West Eiding has witnessed since the be- 
 ginning of the present century has been fatal to many of 
 the beauties of scenery of which it could originally boast. 
 Among other losses to which it has had to submit, as its 
 material wealth has increased, has been that of the 
 purity of its streams and rivers; and the silvery Aire, 
 of which poets once sang, and by the banks of which 
 the angler loved to wander, is now a black and turbid 
 stream, which carries to the great ocean the refuse of 
 Leeds and Bradford and a score of smaller towns.* But 
 
 * Lewis Morris's poem, " A Yorkshire River," refers to the Aire at 
 Fryston in its present state.
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 7 
 
 when the first Milnes took up his abode at Fryston, in the 
 year 1780, he found himself not only the owner of one of 
 the most important country seats of Yorkshire, but 
 dwelling in the midst of pleasant and delightful rural 
 scenery. Fryston lies at some distance from Wakefield, 
 but Mr. Slater Milnes continued throughout his life to 
 devote considerable attention to the business still carried 
 on in his name in that town. His Parliamentary duties 
 may have absorbed the greater part of his time, whilst 
 the large estates of which he was now the possessor 
 must also have made many demands upon his care and 
 thought, but he retained his connection with Wakefield, 
 and its staple industry, and derived a considerable 
 portion of his large income from the latter. He was a 
 sportsman, a country gentleman, a man of fashion, and 
 a conspicuous figure in London society. Egremont 
 House, Piccadilly, now known as Cambridge House, 
 and which before its conversion into the Naval and 
 Military Club was the town residence of Lord Palmers- 
 ton, was, at the beginning of the century, Mr. Slater 
 Milnes's London home. In politics he was an ardent 
 supporter of Mr. Fox, and subscribed largely towards 
 the payment of the statesman's debts. His marriage 
 was a fruitful one, two sons and seven daughters being 
 born to him. Of the sons, the elder, Robert Pem- 
 berton Milnes, was the father of Richard Monckton 
 Milnes, first Baron Houghton.* 
 
 Mr. Robert Pemberton Milnes was a man of remark- 
 
 * Mr. B. S. Milnes's colleague in the representation of Tork was 
 Yiscount Gal way, the grandfather, on the maternal side, of Lord Houghton.
 
 8 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 able qualities, whose career, though his name is now 
 almost forgotten, at one time excited the highest ex- 
 pectations among those best qualified to judge a man's 
 merits and capacity. That he never made for himself 
 that place in the world to which his powers undoubtedly 
 entitled him, must be regretfully admitted. In his 
 youth, fortune seemed to lie at his feet, and to no man 
 of his time was a more brilliant career opened. That 
 he should have ended his days in the quiet of the life 
 of a country gentleman, steadfastly turning his back 
 upon that fame and power which had at one time been 
 within his grasp, must be attributed solely to the 
 peculiar idiosyncrasy of a character which was no 
 common one. 
 
 I have said that the name of Mr. Pemberton Milnes 
 is now almost forgotten. During the first half of this 
 century, however, the tradition of his youthful fame was 
 widely cherished in the political circles of England, and 
 the curious vicissitudes of his career, in almost every 
 case self-inflicted, formed a basis upon which the figure 
 of a hero of romance might well have been founded. 
 Along with his younger brother Eodes Milnes, he began 
 his education in a private school kept by a Mr. Shepherd 
 at Liverpool. On leaving school he was entered at 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1804 took his degree 
 of B. A. His college career was a brilliant one ; he was 
 the first man of his time at Trinity, and throughout the 
 University his reputation was great. The death of his 
 father in 1804, shortly before Robert Pemberton Milnes 
 attained his majority, made him master of his own
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 9 
 
 fortunes ; the Houghton and Fryston estates, however, 
 which now constituted the greater portion of the family 
 property, remained in the hands of his mother, and 
 pecuniarily his position was by no means so good as that 
 of his father had been. In 1806, at the age of twenty -two, 
 he was elected one of the members for Pontefract, the 
 little borough tying hard by the confines of the Fryston 
 domain, over whose political fortunes the families of 
 Monckton and Savile had long wielded a preponderating 
 influence. It was the young man's good fortune to take 
 his seat in the House of Commons whilst Pitt and Fox 
 were still counted among its members. He came in as a 
 supporter of the Tory party. But young as he was, the 
 peculiar independence of his character made it impossible 
 that he should become the adherent through thick and 
 thin of any political party, and he was very soon to give 
 striking proof of tbe fact that he was capable of forming 
 and abiding by an opinion of his own irrespective of 
 family traditions or early training. The year 1806 
 proved fatal both to Pitt and to Fox ; in the following 
 year the King dismissed the Ministry of " all the 
 talents " because of their proposed measure of relief for 
 the Catholics, and the Portland' administration was 
 formed, with Canning as Secretary of State. The 
 adherents of the old Ministers, furious at what had 
 happened, rallied for an attack upon Canning, which 
 took the shape of a resolution moved by Mr. Lyttelton, 
 directly hostile to the new Government. To Mr. Milnes, 
 who had become one of the adherents of Canning, 
 was assigned the task of leading the defence of the
 
 10 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 administration. He moved as an amendment, upon 
 Mr. Lyttelton's motion the previous question, and he did 
 so in a speech which at the time aroused more enthu- 
 siasm than has probably ever before or since been created 
 by the oratorical effort of a young man of three-and- 
 twenty. The conditions of Parliamentary life have 
 undergone so complete a transformation since the time 
 when Mr. Miloes took his seat in the House of Commons, 
 that it is difficult to understand how a mere youth, 
 whose Parliamentary career was only counted by months, 
 should have stepped into such a place as that which he 
 took when he made his famous speech of April 15th, 
 1807, and by means of it averted a threatened overthrow 
 of the Government. Yet that I have not overstated 
 the case with regard to that speech and its effects is 
 proved not only by the traditions which lingered round 
 the name of Mr. Milnes for well-nigh half a century 
 after he had himself quitted the Parliamentary arena, 
 but by contemporary testimony. Before me lies a letter 
 dated April 27, 1807, written by a member of Par- 
 liament who was present on the occasion of the critical 
 debate : 
 
 The hero of the evening who carried away with him the 
 greatest share of applause was a youth of the name of Milnes, a 
 Yorkshireman, member for Pontefract, and about twenty-four 
 years of age. He spoke on the other side of the question, and with 
 such fluency, neatness, elegance, and force (it is true, I assure 
 you), that he drew forth the most tumultuous applause and 
 encouragement from every part of the House. He was known 
 at Cambridge to be an extraordinarily clever fellow, but never 
 publicly distinguished himself there in consequence of having
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH, 11 
 
 engaged in too extensive a line of study and never having 
 brought all the powers of his mind to bear solely on any parti- 
 cular branch. I am sorry, however, to hear, and from rather 
 good authority, of his having laid a wager that he is Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer within two years. This puts one in mind of 
 Simpkinson and the Woolsack. 
 
 As to the truth of the story about Mr. Milnes's wager 
 his biographer is not in. a position to offer any decisive 
 opinion. The tradition of the bet has, however, long been 
 current. In one of the commonplace-books which were 
 kept by Robert Pemberton Milnes's son, the subject of 
 this memoir, there is a note to the effect that Mr. Milnes 
 did lay a wager of 100 that he would be Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer within five years of his entering upon 
 Parliamentary life. The story which Lord Houghton 
 used to tell on the subject was that after his father 
 had refused the place in the Ministry pressed upon 
 him by Mr. Perceval, he sent to the friend with whom 
 he had made his bet a copy of Mr. Perceval's letter and 
 a cheque for 100. 
 
 In the autumn of 1308 Mr. Milnes married the Honor- 
 able Henrietta Maria Monckton, the second daughter of 
 Viscount Galway. with whose family, as we have seen, 
 the Milneses were already connected. This lady, the 
 mother of Lord Houghton, was, like her husband, of 
 something more than merely agreeable appearance, and 
 like him, she was endowed with exceptional talents. 
 According to the reminiscences of those who knew her 
 in her early days, she was a woman of remarkably beau- 
 tiful features, and the possessor of a singularly fine
 
 12 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 voice, which had been carefully trained by emigres, to 
 whom Lord Galway was very hospitable. Her fame 
 as a vocalist long survived her. Her death revealed 
 the fact that she possessed one faculty for which she had 
 received no credit during her lifetime. This was a dis- 
 tinct literary gift, of which the memorial remains in two 
 by no means bulky manuscript volumes. In these 
 volumes Mrs. Milnes wrote the history of her married 
 life from the day of her wedding to that on which, 
 nearly forty years afterwards, she was compelled to lay 
 aside her pen in the presence of death. Nothing is more 
 remarkable in this simple record of her family life than 
 the self -repression of the writer ; it was no journal that 
 she kept filled with the records of her self-communings 
 and her moralisings upon men and things. Though 
 the book was designed for no eyes save those of her 
 children, it was written with a sense of proportion and 
 an appreciation of literary forms that are remarkable in 
 such a production. Indeed, as told by her, the story of 
 her life has all the interest of a well-developed and 
 well-constructed romance, and those who have been 
 privileged to peruse it, on laying it aside are troubled 
 only by the regret that the tale should have been so 
 short, although it ranges over the extent of nearly two- 
 score years. I have felt it due to Mrs. Milnes to say so 
 much as this regarding her one literary production, 
 because it is no far-fetched idea that the literary faculty 
 possessed in so marked a degree by her son was derived 
 from her as well as from her husband. From time to 
 time I shall have occasion to quote passages from the
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 13 
 
 journal, which I think will substantiate the claims I 
 have made on behalf of its author. 
 
 The marriage of Mr. E. P. Milnes and Miss 
 Monckton was celebrated on September 22nd, 1808; 
 and on the 19th of June, 1809, Eichard Monckton 
 Milnes, the story of whose life is to be told in these 
 pages, was born at the town house of his parents in 
 Bolton Street, Mayfair. As soon as Mrs. Milnes was 
 able to travel, the parents went with their infant child 
 to Scarborough, and here in the month of August an 
 event interesting not only in their own history but in 
 that of the country occurred. 
 
 From Mrs. Milnes's Journal, 1809. 
 
 One morning, while we were at breakfast, a King's mes- 
 senger drove up in a post-chaise and four with a despatch from 
 Mr. Perceval, offering Mr. Milnes the choice of a seat in the 
 Cabinet, either as Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary of 
 War. Mr. Milnes immediately said, " Oh, no, I will not accept 
 either ; with my temperament I should be dead in a year/' I 
 knelt and entreated that he should, and represented it might be 
 an advantage to our little boy, please God he lived ; but all was 
 to no purpose, and he went up to London to decline the most 
 nattering and distinguished compliment ever known to have 
 been paid to so young a man. 
 
 The incident, as I have said, is of interest not 
 merely in connection with the life of Mr. Milnes, but 
 with the history of England, for it was the refusal of 
 that gentleman to accept the office which was pressed 
 upon him by Mr. Perceval that gave Lord Palmerston 
 admission to the Ministry, and started him fairly on
 
 14 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 that career which was to lead him to the Premiership. 
 Lord Palmerston's maiden speech in the House had, 
 curiously enough, been made in reply to what he 
 himself describes as a " splendid speech " by Mr. 
 Milnes on the capture of Copenhagen ; and in Bulwer's 
 life of Palmerston (vol. i., page 88) the story of Mr. 
 Milnes's refusal of office is told at length : 
 
 The well-known quarrel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. 
 Canning had led to the necessity of a change of Ministry, though 
 not to the downfall of the party in the possession of power. 
 Mr. Perceval became Prime Minister, and had to fill up important 
 places, without any very ready means of doing so with men of 
 established reputation. He turned not unnaturally, therefore, 
 to those young men who had given promise of ability. 
 
 I 
 Writing to Lord Malmesbury, October 18, 1809, 
 
 Palmerston gives an account of an interview he had 
 with Perceval : 
 
 He then told me that it depended upon certain other arrange- 
 ments whether he should be able to give me the War Office ; 
 that conceiving Milnes would be a very great acquisition to 
 Government if the bias he had in favour of Canning did not 
 prevent him from joining us, he had written to him to say that 
 he had to offer him such an official situation as, if inclined to 
 take any, he would probably be disposed to accept. That should 
 Milnes come up in consequence, he meant to offer him the 
 Chancellorship of the Exchequer; but that it was possible 
 Milnes might decline so ostensible a post, and that then, rather 
 than run the risk of losing his support, he wished to offer him 
 the War Office, which, in case he declined the other, he might 
 accept. 
 
 The letter in which Mr. Perceval made the offer,
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 15 
 
 which Mrs. Milnes fitly characterised as so flattering to 
 her husband, is as follows : 
 
 Downing Street, Oct. 14M, 1809. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I hope the object of this letter will apologise 
 for my intruding it upon you. If the circumstances which have 
 recently happened, the separation which has unhappily taken 
 place between some of our political friends and myself, and the 
 change of Government which has placed me at the head of the 
 Administration, should not unhappily have indisposed you to 
 give us your support, I have an opportunity of offering you an 
 efficient situation in His Majesty's service, which will fairly suit 
 the high and great pretension which the proofs you have given 
 of very superior talents so truly entitle you to entertain. I feel 
 perfectly confident that if you could give the Administration 
 which His Majesty has charged me to form your official support, 
 that you would not object to do so on account of the office which 
 I would offer to you, as being a subordinate one, or one unworthy 
 of your acceptance. But you must, I am aware, of necessity be 
 very imperfectly informed of all the circumstances which have 
 led to these changes ; and I do not think it reasonable to expect 
 that you should form any determinate opinion upon such a pro- 
 position as I am offering to you without more information in 
 detail than you can possibly at present possess. All, therefore, 
 that I can hope to effect by this letter is to induce you to come 
 to town, when I will give you every possible explanation that you 
 can require ; and till then I must be content to remain in doubt 
 as to your determination. Permit me to repeat that unless you 
 see an insurmountable objection to this proposal, I trust you will 
 not decide against it without giving me the opportunity of some 
 personal conference and explanation of it. 
 
 I have the honour to be, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 R. P. MILNES, Esq. S. P. PERCEVAL.
 
 16 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Mr. Milnes, as his wife states, went up to town at 
 once to confer with Mr. Perceval and with Mr. Canning, 
 for whom he entertained a strong personal admiration, 
 and with whose political opinions he was generally in 
 harmony. No record remains of the reasons he gave 
 for turning his back upon such an opening as has pre- 
 sented itself to few men of this century beyond that 
 contained in his wife's journal. Lord Palmerston, indeed, 
 in his letters to Lord Malmesbury, declares that Mr. 
 Milnes's refusal of office was founded upon real and 
 unaffected diffidence ; an explanation which, it must be 
 confessed, it is difficult to reconcile with the young 
 man's college wager on the subject of the Chancellor- 
 ship of the Exchequer. The truth is that his tempera- 
 ment was exceedingly peculiar. He was, as Sir Henry 
 Bulwer, in his " Life of Palmerston," remarks, " a high- 
 minded, impressionable man ;" but he had also an 
 element of fastidiousness in his nature, which was the 
 cause of his " always finding something to condemn on 
 all sides." He had, besides, after leaving college, suf- 
 fered from a severe illness, one of the -effects of which 
 was to make him shrink from a life of political toil and 
 excitement. 
 
 Whatever the cause may have been, however, the 
 fact remains that from the date of his refusal of a seat 
 in the Cabinet Mr. Milnes ceased to take any prominent 
 part in that arena of Parliamentary life in which, had 
 he chosen, he might have cut so great a figure. 
 
 In the collection of his letters, to which his bio- 
 grapher has had access, it is almost pathetic to note that
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 17 
 
 the next communication he received from Mr. Perceval 
 after that in which he was pressed to come to the aid of 
 the Administration, was one dated 1811, in which Mr. 
 Perceval acknowledges the receipt of a communication 
 from him on the subject of an increased allowance for 
 the schoolmaster at Pontefract. The "brilliant political 
 meteor of Bolton Row," as one of his old friends 
 describes him, had been transformed into the country 
 gentleman, whose chief interest lay in the management 
 of his own estate, and in ministering to the needs of 
 his neighbours and dependents. In the romance of 
 politics there are few chapters more interesting than 
 that which tells us the story of how the young country 
 gentleman, within a few months of his admission to 
 Parliament, thrilled the House of Commons by his 
 eloquence, and made for himself a reputation that 
 seemed the certain stepping-stone to the highest place 
 in the service of his country, and how, at the very 
 moment when his utmost ambition seemed to be on the 
 point of being gratified, and prospects of unexampled 
 brilliancy were opened before him, he quietly turned 
 aside from the glittering temptation and gave himself 
 up to a life of comparative retirement and indolence. 
 Not that it would be correct to ascribe to slothful self- 
 indulgence the withdrawal of Mr. Milnes from public 
 life. His keen interest in affairs remained unabated, 
 and in Yorkshire he aspired to take a leading place at 
 the head of his party. He had evidently satisfied him- 
 self, however, that his taste was too fastidious, perhaps 
 his sense of honour too high, to permit him to engage
 
 18 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 in the strife and turmoil of a personal struggle in the 
 political arena. For the remainder of his life he was, 
 even whilst he retained his seat in the House of 
 Commons, a spectator of the battle rather than a com- 
 batant, and though, as I have said, the tradition of his 
 early greatness was long cherished in the political world, 
 he himself ceased to be a figure in it, almost from the 
 moment when he refused the brilliant offers of Mr. 
 Perceval. 
 
 The truth is that he conceived the life of an English 
 country gentleman, living among his own people, to 
 be in many respects the highest and the most enviable 
 to which any man could aspire. The landed interest of 
 the country seemed to him to be that of greatest im- 
 portance; and although upon many political questions 
 he was in advance of his party, and upon all was able 
 to form an intelligent judgment, he never throughout 
 his life failed to give the first place in his considera- 
 tion to those questions which closely affected the 
 ownership and the cultivation of the soil. In after- 
 years he was wont to discuss with his son the various 
 questions connected with the land, and he invariably 
 did so from the landowner's point of view. From time 
 to time he emerged from his retirement at Frvston in 
 order to place himself at the head of the great political 
 movements by means of which his party in Yorkshire 
 sought to avert or to counteract such measures as the 
 abolition of the Corn Laws ; and there are still some 
 living who can recall the great impression which was 
 made upon crowded audiences in the Assembly Booms
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 19 
 
 at York when the man who had once moved the 
 House of Commons by his eloquence, devoted himself 
 to the task of stimulating the waning energies of the 
 Conservative party in Yorkshire. These infrequent 
 appearances of his enabled a later generation than 
 that to which he himself belonged to realise the 
 fact that when Mr. Milnes quitted public life, the 
 country lost the services of one whose natural abilities 
 would have enabled him, if such had been his ambi- 
 tion, to rise to one of the highest positions in the 
 State. 
 
 Late in life he printed for private circulation a 
 few copies of a journal of a tour taken by himself, 
 his wife and daughter, in the South of Italy in the 
 year 1831. This little book is interesting because of 
 some passages which throw light upon the mind of the 
 writer, and which help one to realise his peculiar posi- 
 tion with regard to politics. " My own politics," he 
 says, " owed their first direction to having observed at 
 the school I was sent to and at Brooks's Club, where 
 I was a member at nineteen, that all their wish and hope 
 was against their own country. Years afterwards there 
 would have been paeans at Brooks's if the Duke had 
 been taken prisoner." Brought up in the traditions 
 of Whiggism, and as a member of a family who at 
 that period held aloof from the Established Church, 
 Mr. Pemberton Milnes, it is clear, had early begun to 
 criticise the tendencies and opinions of his political 
 associates. He seems, in short, to have become a Con- 
 servative rather because of his fastidious distaste for
 
 20 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 the more extravagant manifestations of the Whig 
 spirit than from any positive inclination towards the 
 traditional Toryism. This, and that other feature of 
 his character of which I have spoken, his intense 
 delight and pride in the position of a country gentle- 
 man, were clearly the ruling factors in his political 
 career. 
 
 " I have my apprehensions," he remarks in his 
 journal of travel, " for my own rank, that of a country 
 gentleman an order which no Sovereign but ours of 
 England has, and which kings and princes have no 
 conception of its supporters, the horse and a fox ; its 
 crest, my own, the wheatsheaf ; its motto, Hospitality." 
 
 Before I leave this sketch of the political career 
 of Mr. Pemherton Milnes, it may be of interest to 
 give his description of Pitt as an orator, which is to be 
 found in the same notebook of travel : " The highest 
 impression imparted to me by words spoken was by 
 those which I heard from Mr. Pitt, whose form is even 
 now distinctly before me. His powers were of a mighty 
 order, for none heard him without an absorbing interest, 
 which is proof conclusive. You felt you had been 
 charmed in the listening; it was even to that which 
 you had been thinking of within yourself. There was 
 the secret in his elocution as it is in the antique in 
 debate caught on the moment he saw intuitively into 
 the minds of his hearers, he identified himself with 
 them and impersonated their prevailing thought, which 
 they with rapture heard in his gorgeous language. In 
 his periods of majestic correctness, and sometimes so
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 21 
 
 elaborate as to take two minutes in the delivery, he never 
 turned from or broke in upon the one impression which 
 he felt was pervading the assembly ; all was subordinated 
 to its development and yet tantalising in expressing 
 it protracting as though to be surer of it after an 
 interval of breathless suspense, he then unfurled its full 
 display, like that of Cesar's mantle, at the instant of 
 intensest expectation. They voted in delirium. He 
 was the consummate master of his art, and the greatest 
 leader the Commons ever had or ever will have." 
 
 Although naturally reserved, Mr. Milnes seems to 
 have possessed to a very large degree that laudable 
 curiosity regarding men and events of note which was 
 afterwards so marked a characteristic of his son. One 
 illustration of this was afforded in the spring of 1814, 
 when, accompanied by his friend Lord Lowther, he 
 visited Paris, immediately after the overthrow of 
 Napoleon had once more opened that city to English- 
 men. Lord Lowther and Mr. Milnes were the first 
 Englishmen who landed at Boulogne after the war, 
 they having crossed the Channel in a sloop placed 
 at their disposal by the Admiralty. 
 
 Writing to his wife from Paris, April 23rd, 1814, he 
 says : 
 
 We arrived here, after a journey without any interruption, 
 yesterday, at 6 o'clock. We went from Deal to Boulogne in the 
 Rinaldo, a cutter which a letter from the Admiralty procured us. 
 As we did not wish to get into Boulogne late, we slept very 
 comfortably on board the vessel. On our getting out of the 
 boat, there were at least a hundred women, wanting to carry us 
 on their shoulders through the gates, which they did. They
 
 22 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 began by crying, " Vive les Anglais \" " Buonaparte au diable ! " 
 Boulogne had a white flag hanging out of every window, 
 generally a common sheet. We had not been in the town many 
 minutes when regiments of Prussians rode before the windows, 
 and a great number of cannon and ammunition waggons were 
 piled along the roadside. They were troops from the army in 
 the Netherlands, and were there to escort the king. On Thurs- 
 day we slept at Beauvois. All the way we saw nothing but 
 Prussian and Russian troops, which were marching from Paris, 
 as they are unable to subsist so large an army here, and they are 
 dispersing them in all directions. Near Paris we saw nothing 
 of the white flags, and we took the cockades out of our hats we 
 had put in at Boulogne, as nobody wore them. Near Paris we 
 met several conscripts on their return to their homes. They 
 were entirely boys, quite young some I think, not more than 
 thirteen or fourteen, and none twenty. We saw very few 
 Cossacks, only one now and then. They have plundered and 
 destroyed everything, and now they live without paying. We 
 found there were no troops left at Paris, but the Guards of the 
 three Emperors, about 40,000 men. All the Parisians are, how- 
 ever, in uniforms, as they form a National Guard, similar to our 
 volunteers. They would not fight, however. The conscripts (the 
 boys I mentioned) fought with the greatest bravery. The 
 streets present a very curious appearance you would still 
 imagine yourself in the midst of war. All the houses had holes 
 in the walls to fire out of, and it is known if Buonaparte had 
 been here he would have defended every single house, which 
 would have caused the destruction of the whole of Paris. We 
 went to the Opera after our arrival, and such a blackguard 
 assortment you never saw. The French give you no idea of 
 what we should pronounce gentlemen not half as good as the 
 medley of city beaux out of a Sunday in London. 
 
 We called on Talleyrand with our letter from Lord Yarmouth,* 
 and if he gives any dinners or balls, we shall be invited. We 
 
 * Lord Yarmouth, the famous Marquis of Hertford, was one of Mr. 
 Milnes's intimate friends.
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 23 
 
 afterwards went to Lord Castlereagh's, where we stayed an hour, 
 and Lord Burghersh's, who has been showing us about the 
 town. . . . Paris itself is finer than I expected, though 
 even the city is emblematical of the French character, and is a 
 strange mixture of meanness and the greatest grandeur. . . 
 Lord Castlereagh told us that the internal administration of 
 France is so destitute and confounded that he has never heard 
 from London since he came to France. 
 
 Wednesday, April 27th. . . . The day before yesterday 
 we were taken by Captain Harris, who brought the despatches, 
 and who is the clergyman's son where Lord Lonsdale lives in 
 Rutlandshire, to see Bliicher; he speaks nothing but German, 
 and had an interpreter. We were introduced to him, and he 
 told us he should certainly go to England, for whose glorious 
 name he had the utmost reverence, but that he must stay at 
 Paris some time, as his incessant fatigue had weakened his eyes. 
 He was in plain dress, and has so mild a countenance, you never 
 could have thought him so great a warrior. . . . We have 
 gone through visiting all the public buildings and other curio- 
 sities of Paris. What Buonaparte has done for the city you 
 must see to credit, as nothing we have in England is comparable 
 to the splendour of its edifices. His improvements, however, 
 were in their infancy, and a reign of another half a dozen years 
 would have rendered Paris more magnificent than Rome in her 
 best days. . . . We went last night to see the great play- 
 room, which is conducted by Government. Lord Bliicher was in 
 the midst of the rouge-et-noir, and Waddington's friend, R. G., 
 was risking, I daresay, his last guinea. 
 
 In the following year Mr. Milnes and his family, 
 which had been increased by the birth of a daughter, 
 were staying at Bognor at the time when the news of 
 the great victory of Waterloo reached England. The 
 prompting to see for himself all that was happening at 
 the centre of affairs was too strong to be resisted, and
 
 24 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Mr. Milnes took the earliest opportunity of going to 
 Brussels. His letters to his wife from that place and 
 from Paris are well worth printing, as giving con- 
 temporary pictures of scenes of historic importance. 
 
 R. P. M. to his Wife. 
 
 Bruxelles, July 2, 1815. 
 
 MY DEAREST HARRIETTE, We arrived here yesterday even- 
 ing. We had an unprosperous voyage of thirty hours to Ostend. 
 I suffered extremely from sickness, but recovered the moment I 
 landed. 
 
 We found Ostend full of English people just landed to join 
 the army. Lord Rendlesham was there, who, remembering me 
 at Cambridge, made himself known to me. We slept at Bruges, 
 and arrived here to dinner the day after. From Ostend to this 
 place they know nothing whatever of public events. Here we 
 were furnished with the last intelligence from Paris, which has 
 determined us to set out for that city to-morrow morning. The 
 moment we arrived we went to the park, as it is called, which is 
 more like Vauxhall than anything else, and where all the people 
 promenade. There we saw Sir James Gambier and Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, Hamilton, Lord Cuningham, Lambe and Lady 
 Caroline, &c. 
 
 As we determined to set off for Paris, there was no time to 
 lose in seeing Waterloo, and Sir J. G. borrowed for us horses 
 belonging to Colonel Vigoureux, who is wounded and laid up. 
 We set off at nine in the morning to view the field of this dread- 
 ful combat, and we passed several hours there. Colonel Dash- 
 wood, who was in the action, accompanied us. The battle was 
 fought in a large open field sown with rye, so that the whole 
 plain is now covered with str%w. There were some hundred 
 women and children collecting- whatever fragments they could 
 pick up, and we have brought away several scraps ourselves, such 
 as tricoloured cockades, feathers, and French song-books, &c., &c.,
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 25 
 
 which I will give you on my return. The immense number 
 of graves are evidence of the carnage ; but we did not require 
 the sight of them to convince us of it, for the air was quite 
 pestilential, and at one time made me quite ill. There is nothing 
 now remaining on the field of battle but the French cannon, of 
 which I counted 1 33 pieces, and military caps, which the country 
 people do not think worth taking away. The situation of these 
 caps showed where the battle had raged most violently. I am 
 so little of a soldier, I do not see the advantage of our position 
 over that of the French, who attacked us. The ascent to it is 
 so gradual. The Duke of Richmond, who was Wellington's 
 aide-de-camp, told Beckford that the Duke actually laughed 
 when the French came up to attack our squares, his confidence 
 was such of their invincibility ; and nothing can better show 
 you his extraordinary calmness than that when he first was told 
 of Buonaparte's attack, and that he was within fifteen miles of 
 Brussels, when he got the despatch at a ball, he went out for a 
 couple of hours, gave every order requisite for the movements 
 of the army, and then joined the dance, and kept it up all night. 
 This extraordinary coolness had the effect of calming much of 
 the alarm Buonaparte's incursion had created. Brussels is full 
 of wounded. I have only seen Vigoureux, who was shot in the 
 leg. At every window in this town there is sitting a wounded 
 soldier. You would be sorry to hear of poor Henry Milnes's 
 death ; it was throughout very affecting. He was brought in 
 on the Monday, quite naked, having been stripped in the night 
 by the Belgians and thrown into a ditch. Sir J. Gambier was 
 with him frequently. He lived a week. Dashwood, who was 
 in the same regiment, says he behaved most gallantly. Through 
 the day he defended the farmhouse of Hougoumont, which you 
 may remember Wellington says the French could never take. 
 He was shot through the back as he was turning round. 
 
 It may be some time before I write again, as the communica- 
 tions between Paris and England are not restored. I saw Louis's 
 first entree, and don't doubt I shall see this. It is undeniable 
 that the wonderful valour of the English at Waterloo has seated
 
 26 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 him on the throne, and yet you cannot talk here to one of any 
 party, but they laugh at the simplicity of the Bourbons. 
 
 In great haste, 
 Ever your most affectionate husband, 
 
 R. P. MILNES. 
 
 R. P. M. to his Wife. 
 
 Paris, July 9, 1815. 
 
 MY DEAREST HAKRIETTE, We arrived here from Brussels 
 without the least impediment, although we had been told the roads 
 were shut and everything destroyed by the march of the armies. 
 Within fifty miles of Paris there were, to be sure, sufficient indi- 
 cations of the neighbourhood of armies, as we could get no 
 horses to proceed with, nor anything to eat whilst we had to stay. 
 The horses were in requisition for the British ammunition, and 
 everything that was left to eat was devoured by Louis XVIII. 
 and his valiant soldiers. It was at Senlis that we overtook this 
 precious assemblage, and these wretches, who were covered with 
 gold and had not a shilling in their pockets, and many of them 
 covered with armour from head to foot, were all at breakfast 
 there. We saw a marquis drink four cups of coffee and eat 
 eight artichokes. If you ask me what I was most amused with, 
 either in my former visit here, or in the present, it was this 
 scene which Louis's court and army displayed. They moved on 
 at about the rate of six miles a day, and yesterday afternoon 
 entered Paris. Old Bliicher, however, had made a corps of 
 50,000 Prussians file through the town an hour before, and with 
 this intimation there was a sufficient cry of " Vivent les Bour- 
 bons/ 7 When we first arrived here, although Buonaparte had 
 abdicated a fortnight, and our and the Prussian armies were 
 encamped under the walls, the tricoloured flag was flying, and 
 you did not see a bit of white ribbon in Paris. I don't know 
 that I would conclude from this that Buonaparte has more
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 27 
 
 friends than Louis; but I am sure that one adherent of one is 
 worth a hundred of the other, and I cannot but admire the faith- 
 fulness of their devotion to his memory. The army, however, 
 whose attachment to him no disaster could have shaken, was 
 utterly dissolved at Waterloo. Sixty thousand are with Davoust, 
 but nobody thinks about them, as it is known that the old 
 soldiers are destroyed. There is not one amongst the Frenchmen 
 who all talked last year of their having been betrayed to the 
 Allies, not one who affects to extenuate this complete defeat by 
 the English. The Prussians are allowed no further share in this 
 victory than they deserve which is none at all. They have 
 pillaged and burnt along their line of march, and their whole 
 army, amounting to about 100,000 men, have been paraded 
 through Paris. You may imagine how much the comparison is 
 in our favour. The officers and men, however, may come in 
 individually when they please. The first place we went to on 
 our arrival was the House of Representatives. I was anxious to 
 see an assembly of thorough Jacobins, and there was no time to 
 lose. The order for their dissolution came the evening of the 
 same day. A pretty debate it was, as the orator never got 
 through his first sentence before a dozen jumped up and began 
 answering him at the same time. All he had to do was to get 
 into a violent rage so as to be heard out, which they seldom 
 permitted. After a couple of hours of this tumult, they passed 
 a law that the King should have no power to pardon any Min- 
 ister they impeached ; and they went on in this kind of way, 
 although they must have known they had not a vestige of power 
 to legislate left them. Sebastiani, Garat, and the other violent 
 instruments of the Revolution, were the leaders. All this is at 
 an end, and the Bourbons are now seated for as many centuries as 
 they please, if they possess common discretion. They have 
 shown none hitherto, and if the Allied Armies were withdrawn and 
 they go on doating as they did before, it will be over with them 
 a second time : but they, or rather Talleyrand for them, will 
 know better, and by-and-by they may begin to be respected. 
 We were told it was right to leave our names with the Duke of
 
 28 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Wellington. As we entered the court we met him. He knew 
 me at once, and was as civil as he is to anybody. As we were 
 talking, an old French grandee came to call. The Duke saw him 
 and ran away, and we left the Frenchman running after him. I 
 never saw anyone looking better and happier than the Duke. He 
 has written to know whether he can take Donnington, Lord 
 Moira's place in Leicestershire, that he may hunt he says we 
 have behaved so handsomely to him he will have a house of his 
 own building. 
 
 I think I told you in my other letter that he supped at 
 Waterloo after the battle, and talked it over as he would a fox- 
 chase, but after this first joy was over he was much affected 
 at our loss, and the surgeon who attended General Delancey told 
 me that when he communicated his death to the Duke he cried 
 like a child. Both Beckford and I have been unceasing* in our 
 pains to get at every important fact respecting Waterloo. We 
 have had no two accounts that agreed, except that all are of 
 opinion it was twenty to one we lost the battle, because it was 
 twenty to one the Duke was killed. I think three officers out 
 of four we have spoken to say even as it was there was a time 
 when they gave it up. They felt no alarm that the French 
 cavalry or infantry could have broken our squares, but they 
 thought the fire of 250 pieces of cannon must have annihilated 
 them, and it was from these alone they actually suffered. I find 
 there is no truth in the Duke's having placed himself in our 
 squares for safety. He was always much more exposed, and 
 moving to wherever the attack was hottest to encourage the 
 soldiers. I dined with Barnard yesterday. The Duke has made 
 him Governor of Paris. I take his opinion as much the most 
 valuable of any we have had. He says that Waterloo was not as 
 near being lost as Talavera, but that had it been lost we had no 
 second position to take, and that not one man could have escaped 
 out of the army. Almost all the infantry officers (especially 
 the Guards) complained, and Barnard says that our Hussars 
 have never been knocked about like the infantry. Barnard says 
 he could have told in the battle what regiments had served in
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 29 
 
 Spain. About half our accounts make out that the Dutch and 
 other troops fought admirably. Barnard says they ran away in 
 his part of the line, but he hears they behaved well elsewhere. 
 As he was carried into Brussels wounded, the Belgians who had 
 taken off were plundering- in waggons on every side. There is 
 no second opinion, however, on the point that, had the English 
 been worsted, Belgians, Brunswickers, and all would have turned 
 against us. The conviction that I have come to from all these 
 joint representations is that no one (I hardly except the Duke of 
 Wellington) knows all about a battle, and that when fighting is 
 going on for a mile at the same time, it is impossible for anyone 
 to be informed much better than we in England of what is pass- 
 ing at more than 100 yards on his right hand or his left; and, 
 as the action is maintained differently at different points, there 
 cannot but be opposite opinions upon it. We hired horses at 
 Senlis, from a private person, to take us on to Paris. We found 
 all our army encamped around the town. The day was sunshiny, 
 and the multitude of the tents, and the glitter of the scarlet of 
 our soldiers, was inexpressibly beautiful. The gates were not 
 given up till the following day, and the Duke advised us not to 
 enter the town. We heard, however, from every quarter there 
 was not the least danger, and we found none. They simply 
 asked us at the gates whether we were officers ; and, being the 
 first to enter, we had the town to ourselves, and we hired for a week 
 a beautiful range of rooms for five guineas that the day after they 
 would charge fifteen for. Your brother Carleton is quartered at 
 an obscure village ; he had his horse shot under him at Waterloo. 
 It was with infinite trouble I found out where his regiment was, 
 and I expect him here to-day. I shall write again befoi'e I leave 
 Paris, and hope my next will inform you when that will be. I 
 have kept very well. Beckford is everything agreeable as a 
 companion. Lord Kinnaird is here. Lord Combermere lodges 
 at this hotel. It is where we were before. Pray send the sheet 
 enclosed in this to my mother. I direct this to Bognor, where 
 remember me with every kindness to all. Paris is every way 
 quieter than last year. Much fewer people, much better hours.
 
 30 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Read such parts of my letter to dear little Richy as he can 
 understand. 
 
 I am, dearest Harriette, 
 
 Your most affectionate husband, 
 
 R. P. MlLNBS. 
 
 After returning from his trip to Paris, Mr. Milnes, 
 with his wife and children, took up his residence at 
 Thorne Hall, a small country residence near Doncaster. 
 Near Thorne were the Sykehouse and Fishlake estates, 
 belonging to Mr. Milnes's family, and it was for the 
 purpose of reclaiming some waste lands which formed 
 part of the property that Mr. Milnes went to live 
 at Thorne. He varied his engagements as a scientific 
 agriculturist and country squire by frequent visits to 
 town. Both he and his brother Bodes were not ex- 
 empt from that addiction to gambling which was 
 the great social vice of the time. Yet, in comparison 
 with his brother, Mr. Milnes was moderate and prudent 
 in his play. "Jack," he once said to a friend of his, 
 " if you ever hear anyone say I am a gambler, contra- 
 dict it. I never lost a thousand a night but twice." 
 Although he had ceased to take any part in Parliament- 
 ary life, and in spite of his reserved disposition, he was 
 a favourite in society, where he was admired alike for 
 his good looks, his polished and courtly manners, and 
 the talents of the possession of which he had given 
 such indisputable proof. 
 
 The late Lord Leven once said that, looking back, 
 " he thought Robert Milnes was the handsomest man
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 31 
 
 he had ever seen ; his small head and the expression of 
 his countenance being quite unequalled, and bearing 
 such a stamp of genius and high breeding." If he was 
 thus a favourite in Mayfair and St. James's, he was not 
 less distinguished in that country life to which he was 
 before everything else devoted. He was a wonderful 
 rider, and in following the hounds was as a rule facile 
 princeps. A story is told about him which appears to 
 prove that good horsemanship has a distinct pecuniary 
 value. He was hunting in Leicestershire, and riding a 
 horse which he had bought for 60 because no one 
 could be found who could manage it except himself. 
 Lord Foley came up to him at the close of a splendid 
 run, during which Mr. Milnes had led the field, and 
 asked if the horse was to be bought. No, was the 
 reply, he would not part with the horse, because it 
 suited him. " What ! for no price ? " asked Lord 
 Foley. " Not for less than a thousand," he answered. 
 Lord Foley said he could not give that, but should be 
 happy to give six hundred guineas and the two horses 
 he had been riding that day. Mr. Milnes's knowledge of 
 horseflesh made him perceive that the offer was more 
 than sufficient. The bargain was struck at once, and 
 as Mr. Milnes the next day sold one of the horses he 
 had received in exchange for 250, he was no small 
 gainer by the transaction, the horse which he kept 
 being the famous Blue Euin. Courage in riding was, in 
 his case as in that of most men, allied to courage of an- 
 other description. Once in the year 1816, when he 
 was staying at Fryston, a large gang of poachers were
 
 32 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 discovered at work in the woods. Mr. Milnes was called 
 out of bed at two o'clock in the morning to receive the 
 information that after a battle royal between the 
 poachers and the watchers, the latter had been defeated, 
 some of them being seriously hurt. He at once went 
 to the scene of the conflict, and saw the ringleader, a 
 notorious person, just leaving the spot. He ran up to 
 him and arrested him, regardless of the fact that the 
 rest of the gang were at a very short distance ; the man 
 broke loose, and in trying to escape jumped into a lime 
 quarry. Mr. Milnes, without a moment's hesitation, 
 jumped after him and secured his prisoner, who had 
 broken his leg in his desperate leap. Among the 
 friends of his early manhood was the well-known Beau 
 Brummel, of whom we shall obtain some glimpses in 
 subsequent pages of this narrative. That Mr. Milnes 
 himself was not altogether free from that spirit of 
 dandyism which was the conspicuous characteristic of 
 Mr. Brummel, may be gathered from the fact that his 
 tailor's bill for waistcoats alone the waistcoats being, 
 of course, the gorgeously embroidered silken vestments 
 of the day amounted on an average to 500 per 
 annum. 
 
 In the year 1820, after the recovery of Mrs. Milnes 
 and her little girl from a serious attack of scarlet fever, 
 the family paid a visit to the Continent. 
 
 From Mrs. Milnes's Journal, 1820. 
 
 Left Thome June 28th, the party consisting of ourselves, 
 our little boy and girl in the inside, the man-servant and a maid-
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 33 
 
 servant on the box. We arrived at Jordan's Hotel, St. James's 
 Street, June 30th. "We had hardly sat down to dinner when, 
 hearing a noise in the street, we saw a wretched motley mob of 
 about two hundred boys and rabble drawing the carriage of the 
 Queen up St. James's Street. Billy Austen sat on the box 
 waving his handkerchief. It was altogether a very poor 
 exhibition. The succeeding three days I dined at my dear 
 brother Galway's in Hertford Street. 
 
 Mr. Milnes had General Byng and other gentlemen to dinner 
 on the Sunday, and after dining at my brother's, Richard and I 
 accompanied them to the Lock to hear a very eloquent ex- 
 tempore preacher, Dr. Thorpe. On our return home in a sedan 
 chair, a carriage drove against us, and the sedan chair was 
 thrown down with great violence. My little boy never thought 
 of himself, but called out in an agony, " Oh, my mamma is 
 killed!" 
 
 Whilst they were in London, Mr. Milnes took his 
 son to the House of Commons. There is no record of 
 the impression which the scene made on the mind of 
 the boy, but one may well believe that this return to 
 the scene of his youthful triumphs had a peculiar 
 interest for the father himself. In later years a member 
 of the family recalled him as he appeared not long 
 before his death, walking up and down in the breakfast- 
 room at Fryston, listening to his sister repeating a part 
 of Gray's " Elegy," and himself taking up the words, 
 " The applause of listening senates to command," in a 
 tone so emphatic that when he left the room all present 
 knew that the lines had revived old feelings and old 
 memories in his breast. This visit to London was 
 really the introduction of Richard Monckton Milnes to 
 the scenes with which he was destined to be so long
 
 34 THE LIFE OF LORD HOVGHTON. 
 
 and so intimately associated. He went through much 
 sight-seeing in the care of a servant, and it is recorded 
 that during one morning he spent a pound in the 
 entrance fees which he paid to different shows and 
 places of interest. From London the family went to 
 Dieppe, where a tutor and companion was engaged for 
 Richard ; Mr. and Mrs. Milnes intending to make a 
 trip to Paris. 
 
 From Mrs. Milnes' s Journal. 
 
 Almost the first thing the morning after we arrived, I 
 looked out and saw Richard standing by the crier and repeating 
 after him the story he was relating of a murder. He had 
 already been to the churches, where he offered to escort me, and 
 having seen the people cross themselves, I turned round and saw 
 him doing tbe same. 
 
 On returning to Dieppe from Paris the parents 
 found that although Richard had improved in his 
 knowledge of French, in his general appearance he had 
 deteriorated greatly. The mother was naturally anxious 
 as to the health of her son, and would fain have kept 
 him with her, but Mr. Milnes wished to take him at 
 once to school ; and accordingly crossing from Dieppe, 
 lie set off with him by coach and travelled straight 
 through to Yorkshire. The school where the boy had 
 already spent some months, and to which he now 
 returned, was kept by the Rev. W. Richardson, and 
 was situated at Hundhill Hall, not far from Pontefract. 
 Out of health when he began the trying journey from 
 Dieppe, the child was thoroughly ill when he reached 
 his destination, and almost immediately afterwards he
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. as 
 
 was prostrated by an attack so severe that for several 
 months his life was in imminent danger. During that 
 time he was tenderly nursed by his mother, but it was 
 not until the summer of 1821 that he was really restored 
 to health. One result of this illness was to prevent his 
 entering any public school. His father had meant to 
 send him to Harrow ; but the plan had to be abandoned 
 because of his delicate health, and his education up to 
 the time of his going to the University was carried on 
 by private tutors. 
 
 Mr. Robert Milnes continued meanwhile to lead his 
 pleasant life as country gentleman and farmer at his house 
 at Thorne. Between him and his son, as the latter 
 grew up towards manhood, the relations, though always 
 friendly, were somewhat peculiar. The father's desire 
 to see his son making a great position for himself in 
 public life was very strong. His critical attitude was 
 maintained even towards his own child, and though he 
 delighted in discussing questions of politics and history 
 with the members of his family, he did so rather in the 
 character of a philosopher than of a parent. Naturally 
 enough, Richard Milnes on his part, though always 
 attached to his father and proud of his distinguished 
 abilities, was not drawn towards him in that full outflow 
 of filial love which a parent less critical and fastidious 
 might have evoked. Even as a boy, Richard Milnes's 
 fondness for paradox was apparent ; probably it had its 
 birth in a boyish desire if he could to mystify, or at all 
 events to entertain, a father whose interest in him was 
 apparently mainly intellectual. The two represented
 
 36 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 distinctly antagonistic spirits, and as a natural con- 
 sequence, even in the boyhood of Richard Milnes, they 
 were frequently in collision on matters of opinion. 
 Mr. Milnes treated his son, even in his youth, with 
 a frankness not common between parent and child ; he 
 expected Richard to discuss all public questions freely 
 with him, and delighted in serious argument with the 
 boy on questions which few young men are inclined 
 to consider until they have passed their first youth. 
 One day, after the son had attained to manhood, he 
 was denouncing to his father the want of intelligence 
 v. hich characterised the farmers of England. 
 
 "You know such-and-such a farm, Richard?" said 
 Mr. Pemberton Milnes. "Yes," was the reply. "Well, 
 miserably deficient and wretched as I admit the result 
 of the education you have had has proved, yet that farm 
 has paid for it." 
 
 The pleasant life at Thome was brought to an end 
 in 1828. Shortly after Richard Milnes had entered 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, Mr. Milnes found that it 
 was desirable for a time to economise his resources, as, 
 owing to circumstances over which he himself had no 
 control, the cost of keeping up a country house, with its 
 varied hospitalities, had become too great for him. He 
 determined, therefore, to remove his family to the Con- 
 tinent, and, as will be seen in the course of this nar- 
 rative, their stay abroad chiefly in Italy lasted for 
 several years. 
 
 It was owing to the misfortunes of his brother 
 Eodes that Mr. Milnes found it necessary to take this
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 37 
 
 step. There is no need to dwell upon the story of 
 Eodes Milnes. He was a typical representative of 
 fashionable society in the days in which he had the 
 misfortune to live those of the Regency. Witty, 
 hospitable, good-tempered, a keen sportsman, and a 
 devoted patron of the turf, he was extremely popular in 
 all the circles in which he moved. The friend of the 
 Prince Regent and of Beau Brummel, he had long 
 moved in circles in which a reckless extravagance was 
 regarded as something like a virtue. He was addicted 
 to gambling, betted freely on his own horses, and played 
 a prominent part in the gaieties alike of York and of 
 London. His racing associate was Mr. Petre, of Staple- 
 ton, and their stable won the St. Leger no fewer than 
 five times in the eight years between 1822 and 1830. 
 Nobody could have been more careless in money matters 
 than Rodes Milnes. Is it not told of him, as an 
 example of his open-handed extravagance, that, after a 
 successful day at York races, he and Lord Glasgow 
 stationed themselves at the window of the inn where 
 they were staying, and stopping every passer-by, insisted 
 that he or she should drink a glass of wine with them ? 
 There are, indeed, many traditions of the same kind 
 attaching to the name of Rodes Milnes, all telling the 
 same tale, all conjuring up before us the figure of the 
 fashionable, reckless, extravagant, good-tempered rake 
 who was one of the types of the period. There could 
 be only one end to such a story as his. His debts 
 multiplied, his resources came to an end ; and his 
 brother had to intervene on his behalf. Though
 
 38 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 under no legal obligation to do so, he undertook the pay- 
 ment of Rodes's debts. Thus it was that Mr. Robert 
 Milnes found it desirable to remove from Thome to the 
 Continent, where the family resided from 1828 to 1835. 
 
 In subsequent chapters the story of this long so- 
 journ abroad will be found told in the letters of Richard 
 Monckton Milnes and his friends. I mention it here in 
 order that I may complete the brief narration of the 
 life of Mr. Robert Pemberton Milnes. 
 
 By the death of the Dowager Lady Galway, who 
 was not only his wife's stepmother, but his own second 
 cousin, Mr. Pemberton Milnes became in 1835 the 
 owner of the Bawtry estate, which had first been acquired 
 by his great-uncle, Mr. Pemberton Milnes, of Wakefield. 
 The death of his own mother in the same year placed 
 him in full possession of the family property, and he 
 was enabled not only to return to England, but to take 
 up bis residence once more at Fryston. At Fryston he 
 spent the rest of his days in the fashion which has al- 
 ready been described; reading much, writing a little, 
 meditating in his own manner always upon public 
 affairs, occasionally emerging from his retirement to take 
 part in great political meetings at York, and to remind 
 his fellow- Yorkshiremen of the fact that the broai shire 
 still possessed a great orator of its own, and ever receiving 
 with a graceful and dignified hospitality the many guests 
 whom his son brought to Fryston, or who went thither 
 in order to renew their early acquaintance with Mr. 
 Pemberton Milnes himself. Many glimpses of his life 
 and character will bo found in future pages of this book,
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 39 
 
 but only one more episode in an almost unique career 
 need be mentioned at this point. The reader has al- 
 ready seen that it was the refusal of Pemberton Milnes 
 to take office at the hands of Mr. Perceval in 1809 which 
 led to the introduction of Lord Palmerston to his 
 long career as a Minister. Many years afterwards, 
 Lord Palmerston and Mr. Milnes were again brought 
 into contact under very different circumstances. Most 
 unexpectedly on his own part, Mr. Milnes, in the month 
 of February, 1856, received the following letter from his 
 old friend, who was then Prime Minister : 
 
 144, Piccadilly, W., February 6th, 1856. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, The Queen has determined to make 
 two or three hereditary peers in order to show that the creation 
 of a life-peerage in the person of a law lord is not meant to be 
 the beginning of any general change in the constitution of 
 the House of Lords, but is only intended as a means of 
 supplying a temporary want without entailing a future incon- 
 venience ; and Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to 
 authorise me to offer you a seat in the House of Peers. 
 
 We began public life together, and it was to your declining 
 the office of Secretary at War that I owe my appointment to 
 that post. We have not been much thrown in contact of late 
 years, and it gives me great pleasure that the renewal of 
 personal intercourse between us should consist in my being the 
 channel of a communication to you which I trust may prove 
 acceptable to you, but which, at all events, it is very gratifying 
 to me to be able to make. 
 
 Your personal position and your first-rate abilities would 
 make you a valuable addition to the House of Lords, and that 
 body will, I trust, have the advantage of your accession to it. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 E. PEMBERTON MILNES, Esq. P ALM ERSTON.
 
 40 THE LIFE OF WED HOUGHTON. 
 
 It was characteristic of the man to whom this 
 very flattering offer was made, that he should decline 
 it without consulting anybody, not even his own son, 
 to whom, of course, such a proposal was a matter 
 of the first interest. His refusal was as follows : 
 
 Fryston, February 1th, 1856. 
 
 DEAR LORD PALMERSTON, I have received your letter 
 offering me a hereditary peerage. The first impression from 
 it upon me is the deepest gratitude, and my humblest thank- 
 fulness to the Queen, which I beg you will express for me 
 to Her Majesty. 
 
 To yourself I can only say it continues the regard and 
 love I have ever had in sincerity for you. 
 
 After some hours' reflection I think that I could not accept 
 it with perfect honour. 
 
 Although, after the termination of the last war, I could go 
 on no longer with our old Tory party when it refused emanci- 
 pation and the enfranchisement of our large towns (in so far 
 showing I have no very illiberal instincts), yet, after the Reform 
 Bill, I deemed it right to rejoin the party, and there I have 
 since remained. 
 
 It is from no vanity I say I am now looked to, in York- 
 shire, as the head of it. 
 
 I could give a conscientious support to your Administration 
 at present, but I foresee that questions will come on in which I 
 could not concur with many of your colleagues. 
 
 Mr. Bright makes this certain; and how could I vote against 
 a Ministry which had raised me to the peerage ? It is a spotless 
 disinterestedness only which, in the present age, can maintain 
 for the House of Lords its real power and dignity, and my 
 impression is that this would be compromised in my own person, 
 by my acceptance of the honour. 
 
 Another less important reason is that were I made a peer, I 
 should be utterly inefficient in the House of Peers. Born the
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 41 
 
 same year as yourself, I am ten years older, and though I might 
 once have spoken with some effect, I am conscious I could not 
 do so now. 
 
 From these considerations, with thanks and gratitude un- 
 bounded for Her Majesty's most gracious offer, I feel myself 
 compelled to decline it. i have the honour to be, 
 
 R. P. M. 
 
 I need not say that no one person shall know of your 
 communication. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was unwilling to lose this oppor- 
 tunity of testifying his regard for his old friend, and he 
 was also anxious to give pleasure to that friend's son, 
 who, at this time, was a valuable and consistent supporter 
 of his own in the House of Commons. He again unred 
 
 O o 
 
 upon Mr. Pemberton Milnes the acceptance of the honour 
 designed for him by the Queen, and he communicated 
 the offer he had made to his son, Richard Monckton 
 Milnes. The latter warmly pressed upon his father the 
 acceptance of the peerage. He was, however, quite 
 unable to move him from the resolution which he had 
 formed to remain in his own station that of a simple 
 country gentleman, trusted and followed by his local 
 associates in politics. 
 
 In the meantime, he put absolutely aside all thought 
 of a return to that public life to which he had been so 
 long a stranger. " It is my wish," he wrote on a sheet 
 of paper which was discovered after his death (" I know 
 it to be otherwise with Richard) that his son, if he lives, 
 should be a commoner. With no disrespect to the 
 House of Lords, I consider there is no position higher
 
 42 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 than that of an English country gentleman." So Mr. 
 Pemberton Milnes remained consistent to the last in his 
 view of the estate in which he had been placed by his 
 birth. In youth he had turned his back resolutely upon 
 the almost irresistible temptation of political power ; in 
 old age he was equally resolute in resisting the allurements 
 of social rank, and he died, as he had lived, a commoner, 
 whose delight it was to dwell among his own people. 
 It was after his death, which occurred in November, 
 1858, that there was found among his papers this touch- 
 ing note, apparently written soon after the period when 
 the offer of the peerage had caused a temporary renewal 
 of his relations with the Prime Minister : 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, Tell Lord Palmerston he has my dying 
 remembrances, and I pray, he having so soon to follow me, he 
 may ask for forgiveness for sins committed, by the atonement 
 of Jesus Christ. R . P- MILNES, 1856. 
 
 It was on receiving this touching message from the 
 man who had begun life with himself that Lord Palmer- 
 ston addressed to Eichard Monckton Milnes the follow- 
 ing letter : 
 
 Broadlands, 12 Nov., 1858. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I am greatly grieved at the event which 
 your letter just received announces, but which the accounts we 
 had previously had led us to expect as too certain. I was deeply 
 touched by the kind remembrance which you were commissioned 
 to convey to me, and which I shall carefully preserve in recollec- 
 tion of one of my earliest friends, whose brilliant talents excited 
 universal admiration at a time of life when young men in general 
 are only beginning to feel their way in their public career.
 
 PARENTAGE AND BIRTH. 43 
 
 Lady Palmerston desires me to beg you to accept her 
 sincerest sympathy on this affecting occasion. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 PALMERSTON. 
 
 The death of Mr. Pemberton Milnes revived the 
 recollections of his early distinction, and among the 
 letters received by his son on the occasion is one from 
 Lord Broughton, in which he tells how the men of Mr. 
 Milnes's own time were wont to regard him as the 
 Admirable Crichton of their day ; one in whom all virtues 
 and all accomplishments seemed to be naturally com- 
 bined ; who could convert a hostile majority in the 
 House of Commons or leap a five-barred gate with 
 equal ease ; whose good looks and fine manners made 
 him the favourite of all women, and whose genuine, 
 though undemonstrative, kindness of heart and hospi- 
 tality made all men cherish his friendship. His career, 
 as the reader has seen, left the promise of his youth 
 wholly unfulfilled, and it is perhaps difficult to point 
 the moral of such a story ; but I have thought it well to 
 preface the fuller record of the life of his son by this 
 brief and imperfect sketch of the character of a man to 
 whose remarkable qualities full justice can never now be 
 rendered.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 The Character of Monckton Milnes's School Days Cambridge Great Contem- 
 poraries The Union Ascent in a Balloon Deputation of the Union to 
 Oxford Meeting with W. E. Gladstone College Friendships Arthur 
 Hallam, Alfred Tennyson, Sunderland The Apostles. 
 
 ONE evening many years ago Richard Monckton 
 Milnes, who had been chatting at the Cosmopolitan 
 Cluh, happened to leave it rather earlier than usual. 
 Among those whom he left behind him was Mr. W. E. 
 Forster. " I have many friends," said Forster, turning to 
 the late Lord Dalhousie, " who would be kind to me in 
 distress, but only one who would be equally kind to 
 me in disgrace, and he has just left the room." 
 
 To those who really knew Lord Houghton, these 
 words seem to furnish the key-note of his character and 
 career. 
 
 A many-sided man, Lord Houghton was known 
 to the outer world as the poet, the wit, the brilliant 
 conversationalist; the politician of cosmopolitan know- 
 ledge and far-reaching sympathies, the friend and 
 patron of innumerable men of letters ; a familiar and 
 striking figure in society, of which he was one of 
 the recognised ornaments. One has but to men- 
 tion his name in order to conjure up all these ideas and
 
 EARLY YEARS. 45 
 
 to see him in these varied aspects. But there was 
 another side to the nature of the man the story of 
 whose life is to be told in these pages, which perhaps 
 was only recognised by those who knew him best, which 
 certainly was never so fully recognised as it ought to 
 have been by the outer world. " He was a good man to 
 go to in distress," as many a victim of trial and misfor- 
 tune could testify ; a man whose hand was as open as his 
 heart, and who has left behind him a thousand memories 
 of those deeds of kindness which, blossoming on the tomb, 
 give fragrance to the names of those whom we have lost. 
 But he was something more than the kind and generous 
 friend of the sick, the poverty-stricken, and the sorrowful. 
 That whimsical love of paradox which distinguished him 
 from his boyhood upwards, and which led him so often 
 to puzzle and confound the dull or superficial, had its 
 reflection in his moral nature. He was " a good man to 
 go to in disgrace." The victim not of accident or mis- 
 fortune, but of his own passions or failings, knew that 
 when the rest of the world had turned its back upon him 
 there was one friend to whom he could still go, not to 
 have his vices or his faults condoned, but to receive even 
 in his disgrace kindly sympathy and counsel from one 
 whose views of life were at least never those of the 
 Pharisee, one who could see not merely the fall and the 
 exposure to the world's harsh judgment, but the strong 
 temptation which had caused the fatal slip, and who 
 could realise better than most how narrow is the gulf 
 which divides the sinner who has been found out from 
 his fellow-sinner who still goes undetected.
 
 46 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 The life of Lord Houghton is not the story of re- 
 markable adventures or of great achievements. Though 
 a sweet and graceful singer, dowered with no ordinary 
 gifts, and though a critic of brilliant acuteness and capa- 
 city, it shall not be claimed for him that he has inscribed 
 his name upon the roll of letters among the immortals. 
 Though a politician who early brought to the handling 
 of the great problems of statecraft a mind naturally 
 sagacious and stored with knowledge far surpassing that 
 possessed by most of his contemporaries, Lord Houghton 
 never won for himself in the political arena that place 
 which he coveted and which he might so well have 
 claimed by virtue of his natural endowments, his keen 
 interest in the social and political movements of his 
 time, and his unflagging industry in acquiring a personal 
 knowledge of the questions of the day. It is not there- 
 fore the story either of a great author and thinker or a 
 successful statesman, which is to be told here ; it is 
 rather the record of the life of a brilliant man, endowed 
 with a real measure of genius, blessed with a sympa- 
 thetic temperament, which, allied to exceptional social 
 advantages, enabled him to become the friend trusted and 
 beloved of such an array of men and women of distinc- 
 tion as has probably never before been found sharing 
 the affection of a single person, that we have to tell. 
 It is well, however, at the outset of my story that 
 I should give the keynote to his character in the words 
 I have quoted from the lips of Forster. 
 
 The reader has seen something in the preceding 
 chapter of the boyhood of Richard Monckton Milnes.
 
 EARLY YEARS. 47 
 
 It was in no sense eventful or remarkable. There are, 
 it is true, indications, both in his letters and in the recol- 
 lections of his family, of his early intelligence and of the 
 promise which he gave of future distinction. His father, 
 owing to the illness which nearly terminated his life 
 when a boy, did not send him to any great public school, 
 and he was thus deprived of one of the advantages 
 enjoyed by most men of his station. His early educa- 
 tion was undertaken by a private tutor, a Mr. Binns, 
 who came from Wakefield to Thorne to superintend 
 his studies. After that he was for a season at the 
 school of Mr. Richardson at Hundhill Hall, and then 
 again the private tutor was called in to prepare him 
 for the University. The first distinct impression of his 
 personality which has been received by his biographer 
 is that obtained from a series of letters written to his 
 mother and his sister during a sojourn in Scotland, 
 whither he had gone with his tutor during the summer 
 of 1825. There is not much, perhaps, in the letters of 
 the boy of sixteen, which need be reproduced here ; but 
 one letter written from Edinburgh may be given as a fair 
 example of the state of his mental development and of 
 the keen interest in men and affairs which even at that 
 time distinguished him. 
 
 B. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Sunday Morning (August, 1825). 
 
 MY DEAREST MOTHER, It is now a week since I have heard of 
 you, but I hope it has originated in your prosecuting- some plan 
 for your pleasure and advantage. I shall leave this place with 
 regret, though I am going to other scenes as novel and as
 
 48 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGRTON. 
 
 pleasing as " mine own romantic town," as Sir Walter Scott 
 calls it. By-the-bye, he seems to be quite deified here ; from 
 what I have heard he is very fond of money, but Lady Scott, 
 a Corsican, is so extravagant she prevents him from ever getting 
 rich. His eldest son is lately married to a Miss Jobson with 
 100,000. . . . 
 
 Sapio is here ; we were very anxious to see the first appear- 
 ance last night in the Siege of Belgrade, but having dined at 
 a ship-builder's at Leith, we only got in for the two last scenes. 
 It was the only full house I have seen here. The theatre is 
 much less patronised than it deserves, for I should think that no 
 actress of the present day can come up to Mrs. Siddons in her 
 line. Her voice, figure, and countenance are all very delightful, 
 and as Mary Stuart I should think she was inimitable. She has 
 a most excellent character, and has five children, who she has 
 determined shall none of them go to the stage. The King paid 
 her high compliments when he saw her. The next actress of 
 note is Mrs. Renaud, who was once mistress to the Duke of 
 York. She is seventy, but is very effective both in Meg Merrilies 
 and Helen Macgregor. Two Miss Trees have been here, neither 
 superior in any way. 
 
 I have dined with Miss Campbell,* and am going to-night to 
 pay hei ^ farewell visit. I am quite amused at her fondness for 
 you. She is really a very good sort of person. 
 
 I have just received Harriette's letter. Thank her over and 
 over again for it, and tell her it has interested me exceedingly. 
 I hope to see you both so fat and rosy I shall hardly know you. 
 I suppose you are not a little gay, as I am sure every amuse- 
 ment you enjoy is equally advantageous to the temperament of 
 your mind and thence to your body. . . 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 Your affectionate Son, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 P.S. I have just come back from hearing Dr. Gordon. 
 
 * Sister of Thomas Campbell the poet. She was at one time governess 
 to the sisters of Mr. B. P. Milnes.
 
 EARLY YEARS. 49 
 
 His preaching- is very beautiful. I like the solemnity of the 
 Scotch sacrament much better than ours. ... I saw 
 yesterday the first steam carriage that has ever been made. 
 It is going' to run, in a fortnight, at the rate of twelve miles 
 an hour. The engine is contrived in the same body as the 
 carriage, and not separate from it. 
 
 What does Eliza think of the lion-fight at Wakefield ? I 
 should really have liked very much to have been there. It must 
 have been a noble sight. 
 
 In October, 1827, Milnes was entered by his father 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge, as a fellow -commoner. 
 " Arranged Richard's books in his rooms," writes Mrs. 
 Milnes in her journal, under date October 23rd, "and 
 the old butler showed me a gallery where I could see 
 him dine in Hall for the first time. He sat by Went- 
 worth, who was also just arrived, and seemed as much 
 at home among all the dons as if he had been there 
 for years." To make himself at home wherever he 
 might be, was at all times the object of his ambition, 
 and there is ample evidence of the fact that before 
 many days had elapsed he felt thoroughly at home in 
 the famous college in which his father before him had 
 acquired distinction. He found himself at Trinity in 
 the midst of a circle of remarkable men. Dr. Words- 
 worth, brother of the poet, was the master, Whewell 
 was the senior tutor. Connop Thirlwall, afterwards 
 Bishop of St. David's, was his tutor, whilst among his 
 friends were Charles Buller, John Sterling, Richard 
 Chenevix Trench, J. M. Kemble, J. W. Blakesley, 
 Julius Hare, Sunderland, Stafford O'Brien, Augustus 
 Fitzroy, and other young men, some of whom sub-
 
 50 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 sequently achieved distinction, and all of whom were 
 noted either for their literary tastes or their political 
 ambition. 
 
 Thirl wall, as his tutor, naturally exercised a strong 
 influence over him. -From the first Milnes was drawn 
 towards the remarkable man with whom he was thus 
 brought in contact. He admired him greatly, and, 
 as their intimacy increased, a real affection sprang up 
 between them an affection which knew no change 
 throughout their subsequent lives. In the " making 
 of his mind " Milnes was more deeply indebted to the 
 future Bishop of St. David's than to any other man. 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Trinity College, November 1th, 1827. 
 
 I have really very little to say, since it is not easy here to 
 find out any difference between to-day and yesterday. 
 
 I spoke to Thirlwall about sending game to his friends. He 
 said he should prefer its being sent to him here. You will be 
 amused to hear that his visit to Ely was for the purpose of being 
 ordained, and I am happy to say he got through his examination 
 satisfactorily. It is quite surprising to me to see him analyse 
 my compositions and detect errors where I fancied only beauties. 
 . . . I went last night to the Union for the first time to 
 hear the Catholic claims debated. It was opened by a fresh- 
 man, who made a complete failure of the attempt, but some of 
 the speaking afterwards was very tolerable. Charles Campbell's 
 son was energetic and fluent, and a Mr. Sterling told us we were 
 going to have a revolution, and he "didn't care if his hand 
 should be first to lead the way/' But perhaps the best was a 
 Mr. Hawkinson (who wrote a poem last year on the Druids, 
 which grandmamma admired), whose whole speech was one con- 
 tinued strain of sarcasm and irony, so well managed that an 
 honourable gentleman rose and begged to know which way the
 
 EARLY YEARS. 51 
 
 honourable member intended to vote. At the very fullest there 
 were about two hundred in the room, and on the whole there 
 was a great deal more declamation than argument. The men 
 complimented each other most outrageously. The division was 
 sixty-eight for and forty-four against. 
 
 There was not so much row here on the 5th as was expected ; 
 a man who lives on the next staircase to mine got his head 
 broken, as he was standing quietly at a door, by the snobs, who 
 paraded the town in large bodies. I heard Simeon last Sunday 
 evening. There was no eloquence, but nothing ridiculous. If 
 you did not look at him it was very well; but his action is 
 absurd in the extreme. He brandishes his spectacles when he 
 talks of the terrible, and smirks and smiles when he offers 
 consolation. 
 
 Tell Jane,* as she is so particularly anxious to know what we 
 eat, that we have turbot and lobster-sauce three days out of the 
 seven; and tell Harriette that I answered her last letter. I 
 will send my father some of WhewelTs prettiest deductions in 
 my next letter. 
 
 Like many another undergraduate, Milnes had hardly 
 taken up his residence in college before he conceived a 
 violent detestation of the chapel system, and whilst 
 still one of the youngest of freshmen, he drew up a 
 petition to the Master calling attention to the subject, 
 and pointing out that whilst the system of compulsory 
 attendance at chapel was perfectly inadequate to the 
 purpose for which it was established, it had produced a 
 connection between the holiest and the lowest feelings 
 of the heart. It does not appear that the audacious 
 petition was ever presented to the authorities, but its 
 author's feelings with regard to attendance at chapel 
 never altered throughout his University career. 
 
 * His aunt, Jane Milnes.
 
 52 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 December Uh, 1827. 
 
 Long as it is since I have written, I have hardly got 
 materials for a letter. My father's gossiping epistle and yours 
 received this morning deserve all my thanks. Tell him I wish 
 I could look on the frivolities of life as philosophically as he 
 does. " Mais les plaisirs meme de la jeiinesse ont assez d'epines ; 
 pourquoi done diminuer les frivolites, qui sont les ebullitions des 
 coeurs naives et pas encore fletris ? " 
 
 Who says this? I forget. Dr. Spurzheim dined with me 
 on Saturday, with Thirlwall and two or three quiet men. He is 
 the most good-natured creature possible, and after dinner told 
 me from the conformation of my head that " I should never do 
 any great harm I had too much benevolence for that. I was 
 fond of music and poetry, and 'the two faults I had to guard 
 against were, first, love of approbation, an inclination to like 
 flattery and to hear my own praises ; second, a propensity to 
 satire and ridicule, too fond of classing people, and to like 
 looking on the gay side of things rather than the prudential 
 these two things would be of use or disadvantage as I used them 
 well or ill." I need not tell anyone who knows me how true 
 this is. One of his ideas, in which Thirlwall agrees, is that 
 parents are responsible for all their children's faults and dis- 
 positions that the sins and virtues of the parents really descend 
 upon the children to the third and fourth generation. 
 
 Tell Harriette I hope she will have her fairy tresses shorn 
 before we meet again, that I may examine her head properly. 
 
 . . I saw Matthews last night for an hour or two. I 
 should think every gownsman was there. He kept you in a 
 roar the whole time. His lecture of Dr. MacSillergrip at the 
 Mechanics' Athenaeum on geography, vulgar fractions, and other 
 abstract sciences, was excellent ; his definition of metaphysics is 
 " when one mon spaiks to anither what he no understands, and 
 what the mon to whom he spaiks kens no better than himself 
 that's metaphysics/' . . . To-night is our debating night, 
 and a beautiful debate is expected on the character of Napoleon,
 
 EARLY TEARS. 53 
 
 so I have not time to write much more. . . . You would be 
 amazed at the taste for discussion that prevails here. Last 
 Sunday I heard three separate debates, in which Paley and 
 Butler were brought forward at great length. 
 
 R. M. M. to Ais Father. 
 
 December 11, 1827. 
 
 I think I know enough men by this time to be able to 
 select a society in the next term. Cavendish * reads like a 
 dragon, and is very good-natured, but I much doubt whether 
 he will be as popular as his dancing Grace. You will laugh 
 when I tell you I cannot contain myself from speaking a few 
 words for the Greeks this evening at the Union. I want, too, 
 to try my powers. You shall hear the result. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Tuesday (undated}. 
 
 My father will give you a much better tale of our College 
 festivities than I can commit to writing. I think you would 
 have been amused at the scene, which you must come and see 
 some day. Since my last I think I have been at Mrs. Freer's 
 ball, where you may suppose the struggle for partners was 
 very great, and where Fitzclarence, the arbiter elegantiarum (I 
 think you know the phrase) of Cambridge and the aristocracy, 
 carried all before him. By-the-bye, my father has consented 
 to my making an attempt at wearing a hat by the Duke of 
 Rutland's royal consent. ... I dined yesterday as a guest 
 at Jesus. Such a contrast to the noise and bustle of our gala 
 days ! What do you think of Monck facing a whole circle of 
 dons and refusing to obey them, because he said they had no 
 right to command him? The scene in the Hall to-day the 
 music, the clapping, the whistling, the shouting was exactly 
 like the back gallery at Drury Lane. . . . My speech at the Union 
 was nearly a failure. I was dreadfully nervous, and not quite 
 well, and near three hundred men present I was applauded 
 * Seventh Duke of Devonshire.
 
 &4 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGETON. 
 
 and complimented, but it was ill delivered. Another attempt 
 may be more propitious. 
 
 Before the year closed, Milnes obtained from Dr. 
 Whewell the right to wear a hat, a privilege conferred 
 inter alia among those who can show royal descent. 
 This he was able to do by tracing his mother's connec- 
 tion with the family of the Duke of Eutland. 
 
 He was enthusiastically loyal to his college, and 
 when Trinity produced the Senior Wrangler of the 
 year in the person of Mr. Perry, he wrote to his father 
 with all the jubilation of one who had achieved a 
 triumph on his own account. 
 
 R. M. M. to Ms Father. 
 
 Jan. 20^, 1828. 
 
 It savours of College freshness to talk of the glories of the 
 Senate House, but the scene on Saturday was to me almost 
 ecstatic. The Duke of Sussex was enthroned by the Chancellor, 
 and seemed to enjoy the thing. Thirlwall, a father of the 
 College, led Perry up the long line amid deafening shouts. 
 Though he seemed somewhat affected, yet I cannot imagine 
 how he was not overpowered ; but I suppose the discipline of 
 mind required in such a practice of study was enough to wither 
 up all the weakness of the heart and keep down exuberant feel- 
 ing. The College was never so grateful to any man. If one of 
 the seven Johnian sages who followed had been first, Trinity 
 must have hid her diminished head. In the evening in the 
 combination-room the Duke in returning thanks and alluding 
 to the London University, which was received with excellent 
 feeling, and in proposing Perry's health, was very good. His 
 language was peculiarly well chosen. Poor Monck has been 
 very unfortunate in his examination; he had read much too 
 high. He is a good algebraist, and they gave him division sums,
 
 EARLY TEARS. 55 
 
 which he would not deign to do ; so he was lower than many 
 men far his inferiors. He is now going to read mathematics 
 hard. I asked him the reason. " We shall soon be all thrown 
 on our own resources, and in a revolution how can a man be an 
 officer without mathematics ? " . . . I got a note from 
 De Vere this morning. He says " our game is up in the 
 Cabinet, but n'importe ; we shall give them a roasting in the 
 only House where honour, patriotism, or liberality meets with 
 its full meed of reward/' I fear this is more Irish than true. 
 There are six men plucked. One of them has a living of 600 
 a year waiting for him, which by his not taking orders reverts 
 to the Bishop. Whewell says nothing can be more marked 
 than the distinctive merits of the men. Perry is almost sure 
 of the Smith's prize. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 I have received your kind letter and money, for which I give 
 you all my thanks. I believe I have been extravagant, but I 
 hope it is past. I see the part I have to play, and it shall be 
 done. However inclined I may have been at any time to 
 indolence and luxury, I have never entertained a thought of 
 ever living in apathetic independence of my own exertions, as 
 most of my associates fancy themselves entitled from circum- 
 stances of fortune to do. Might I not then make a double use 
 of my time here by keeping terms at some Inn of! Court in 
 town, and thus, at any rate, give a semblance of intention to 
 commence a professional career ? 
 
 There were special reasons for the tone thus taken by 
 Milnes with regard to his future and the desirableness 
 of his adopting some professional career. This was the 
 period at which the family embarrassments, of which brief 
 mention was made in the previous chapter, had culminated, 
 and it had become necessary that Mr. Pemherton Milnes 
 should partially close his establishments in this country,
 
 56 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 and, together with his family, take up his residence 
 abroad. In the month of May he and his wife and 
 daughter accordingly left England and went to Boulogne, 
 where they took a house in the Eue St. Martin, in which 
 they resided for about a year. The circumstances in 
 which he was thus placed naturally made Mr. Milnes 
 more anxious than he otherwise might have been that 
 his son should neglect no opportunity of steadily 
 pursuing his studies at Cambridge. 
 
 Writing in reference to a disappointment as to 
 his place in an examination, Milnes says to his 
 father : 
 
 You seem to speak of the disappointment as if it did not 
 affect me as deeply as yourself. All that can be done I promise 
 you shall be done ; but this brings me to another part of your 
 letter. I see you think the tenor of my last letter to my mother 
 too gay, too flippant; but really, if I am to write anything but 
 a dull record of my studies, I must make the most of every 
 little thing that breaks upon the monotony of this place. In 
 the amusements I frankly write of, and which you consider such 
 a prostitution of time, is there one inconsistent with ten hours a 
 day reading ? They all embraced but the hours of ten till twelve; 
 they never made me miss lectures, nor in any way interfered 
 with the following day. I have never been out to dinner, and I 
 have never been on horseback; I have not walked out half a 
 dozen times. With so little active dissipation, I must indeed be 
 a desperate lounger if I have been very idle. 
 
 During the long vacation Milnes joined his family 
 at Boulogne, and spent a pleasant time with them there. 
 Returning to Cambridge at Michaelmas, he found many 
 new students had arrived, with some of whom he was 
 destined to form lasting friendships.
 
 EARLY YEARS. 57 
 
 We have a grand flush of noblemen (he writes to his mother, 
 Oct. 2 7th), Lord Kerry,* who has been privately educated, and who 
 promises much, and some others. At St. John's they have a son of 
 Lord Heytesbury. Among us there is Sutton, the Speaker's son, 
 very gentlemanly, and Hallam, the son of the historian. ... I 
 find I can carry the Presidency of the Union easily, but as my 
 rival is a third-year man I have given it up. Do let me hear 
 very often how you are. It is really very hard that Boulogne 
 should have so bad a name, I dare hardly mention it. Harvey 
 gave me such a Bristol look when I said where I had been. I 
 am afraid my mathematics will go on slowly this term, and I 
 begin to be nervous about the Union. We are to discuss the 
 character of Voltaire and the question of Primogeniture, both 
 pretty good subjects. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Sister. 
 
 Nov. 29^, 1828. 
 
 My studies may be discerned by the books at present on my 
 table Wordsworth's poems, a book on anatomy, resting on a 
 skull (I am attending the lectures on that subject, and a man 
 comes down from town to be cut up next week), Aristotle, 
 Hallam's Constitutional History, Bolingbroke, and Cousin's 
 Philosophy. Tell papa Kerry says I am the most Parliamentary 
 speaker in the Union. We had a delightful debate on the 
 Catholic Association at the Sunday-school, when Hallam made 
 a capital speech. We have Rousseau next Sunday. 
 
 It was very soon after the date of this letter that 
 Arthur Hallam, writing to his school friend, Mr. 
 Gladstone (February 29th, 1829), after referring to 
 another old Etonian, Mr. James Milnes Gaskell, also 
 a friend of his own and of Mr. Gladstone, added, " His 
 cousin Milnes is one of our aristocracy of intellect here. 
 
 * Elder brother of the fourth Marquis of Lansdowne. He died early.
 
 58 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 . . A kind-hearted fellow, as well as a very clever one, 
 but vain and paradoxical, and altogether as unlike 
 Gaskell as it is possible to conceive." In another 
 letter to Mr. Gladstone, Arthur Hallam observes that 
 the principal orators at the Union were Sunderland, 
 Milnes, Kemble, and Trench, and he speaks of Milnes 
 as a clever and agreeable fellow, with some power of 
 speaking in him if he cultivated it well. 
 
 In a letter written in November, 1828, Mr. Milnes 
 Gaskell says : 
 
 I have received two letters from Mr. Hallam, both very 
 interesting and affectionate. In the first he sends me word 
 that atheistic ultra-utilitarians sway the Union. He describes 
 Milnes as possessing great and varied talents, and gives me his 
 concluding sentence in the debate at the Union on the character 
 of Voltaire, which was applauded to the skies, and is certainly 
 good : " During the stormy period of the French Revolution, 
 and during the greater peril of the Empire under Napoleon, a 
 lamp was kept perpetually burning on the tomb of Voltaire. 
 France is greater now than she was then ; France is wiser now 
 than she was then ; France is better now than she was then ; 
 but that lamp does not burn upon the tomb of Voltaire." 
 
 His young friends at Cambridge saw only the gay 
 exterior of their brilliant companion, whose manner 
 charmed all, but, as the following letter shows, the 
 smiling face at this time concealed a heart that was 
 anything but gay. 
 
 M. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 December %th, 1828. 
 
 I was rather surprised, though, I can assure you, not at all 
 sorry, at the way you have destined me to spend my vacation, as
 
 EARLY TEARS. 59 
 
 Mary Ann told me you had determined I should go to Yorkshire 
 this Christmas. If I had, I should have managed, if possible, 
 to spend a day or two at poor Fryston. I seem now only to 
 begin to feel the blight that has fallen on the hopes of my 
 childhood; it is an undefined regret, a sense of having lost a 
 place in society and to hear you call yourself exiled, exiled 
 without almost a name, without a good cause, without even the 
 miserable consciousness that you have enjoyed what you have 
 lost, and are paying present pain for past pleasure, makes me 
 very wretched. When I examine it, I half find it a selfish and 
 grovelling feeling, but it comes upon me when alone, and more 
 still when I look round on those who have brighter courses 
 before them. ... As to the Union, we will talk it over 
 under the sober influence of your thirteen-penny claret; but 
 we expect a grand display to-morrow, as a tribe of the wise and 
 good have come down from London to speak (the subject is the 
 Irish Union). They all breakfasted with me yesterday, except 
 Praed, who comes up to-day. ... I have a very deep 
 respect for Hallam. Thirlwall is actually captivated with him. 
 He really seems to know everything, from metaphysics to 
 cookery. I dine with him, Thirlwall, and Hare (think what a 
 parti carre we shall be!) on Wednesday. We are to have no 
 commemoration at all ever again, no public spectacles, and all 
 because men will applaud their friends. How absurd ! 
 Clubs are all the rage here, and all my friends look like livery 
 servants in their different costumes. A Brunswick one, with 
 Norreys and Wellesley at the head, is the most prominent. 
 Tell my mother to keep herself quiet for me, as I am coming to 
 see her, not anyone else, and to waltz only with Harriette. . . . 
 I have taken the most vivid hatred against Boulogne ; I think, 
 however, I shall come to you in about a fortnight. W^hewell 
 was going to take me to the Observatory to-night to see the 
 comet, but it is a regular Cambridge day. 
 
 Among the friendships Milnes had already formed, 
 was one with John Sterling, with whom their common
 
 60 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 literary tastes formed a -strong bond of union. Having 
 spent Christmas at Boulogne, Milnes passed a few days 
 in town before returning to Cambridge, from which 
 place he writes to his mother, February 2nd, 1829 : 
 
 I dined at Sterling's on Sunday quite a Cambridge dinner. 
 My friend has a brother, a great friend of Carleton's in the 
 Twenty-fourth. Kemble and all the Athenaum men were there. 
 The former has been very ill-treated here, nobody knows why, 
 except that in his examination he called Paley a " miserable 
 sophist," and talked of Locke's " loathsome infidelity," which 
 pleased one very much, but made the examiners very angry. 
 Some proposed to pluck him, but one said, " We will not make 
 him a martyr." 
 
 Intermingled with questions as to his studies, his 
 health, his personal habits, and his expenses, such as 
 most fathers address to their sons, there were to be 
 found in the letters which Milnes received from his 
 father all through his college career, shrewd and even 
 brilliant criticisms upon the state of public affairs, to 
 which the young man was expected to respond. It was 
 in response to one of these letters, often intended as a 
 direct challenge to the son, that he wrote as follows : 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 February, 1829. 
 
 I think you are too hard on Peel ; he declares (and are we not 
 to believe him?) that the honest Government of Lord Anglesea 
 displayed to him a series of facts regarding Ireland, which he 
 had before heard indeed, but had little credited, as the arguments 
 of a side and plea of a party. Now they are brought before him 
 on clear, indisputable authority, and he suffers himself to be con- 
 vinced. Now, Mr. Peel, who, in his miserable lack of genius, 
 has enough of sound sense, must have perceived that by remain-
 
 EARLY YEARS. 61 
 
 ing in place he vacated that stronghold in which he had rested 
 invincible so long his ostentatious honesty, his integrity of 
 principle. Now, is it probable he would have thrust himself 
 forward with the poor covering of his own ability into the 
 pelting storm of infuriated popular feeling, unless he had 
 believed himself able not only to justify himself to his own 
 heart, but to come forth with good report again before men ? . . . 
 We had a capital debate last night at the Union on the subject : 
 " Will Mr. Coleridge's poem of the Ancient Mariner, or Mr. 
 Martin's Acts, be most effectual in preventing cruelty to 
 animals ? " It was opened with some very deep poetical criticism 
 by a friend of Coleridge's; then the great unpoetical King's 
 man tried to turn the poem into ridicule, and I answered him. 
 Sunderland followed me in a most absurd strain of hyperbolical 
 Radicalism, ending, "To give the people an opportunity for 
 developing their poetic sympathies, we must give them a liberal 
 education ; to give them this, we must overthrow an aristocratical 
 Government." Then Mr. Symons " he knew Mr. Martin very 
 well; he would not compare all his senatorial abilities with the 
 sole production before them ; he knew Mr. Martin was actuated 
 by the best of motives, Mr. Martin would be much hurt by the 
 aspersions cast upon him in that Society," &c. &c. Much 
 better, however, than I ever heard him before. Then a clever 
 Utilitarian speech, and lastly a most eloquent commentary upon 
 the poem itself, from a very superior man, which so won on the 
 hearts of the House, that when he read the last verses the cheer- 
 ing was tremendous. Coleridge, however, would not have 
 carried it, had it not been for the Brunswickers, who arrived in 
 full orange badges to vote against Martin. I am getting on 
 very slowly, but tolerably steadily, in Mathematics, but, alas! 
 cannot exclaim with one of the poets of the Elizabethan age, 
 " Sweet analytic, thou hast ravished me." I have had two or 
 three short reviews and bits of poetry in the Atheneeum, but no- 
 thing worth sending you. Whewell is going to give lectures on 
 Political Economy at the Philosophical Society, and to reduce 
 the whole theory of rent to algebraical formulae. I have a Latin
 
 62 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 declamation in about a fortnight. Hare is very much amused at 
 the topic I have chosen the truth of the essential dualism of 
 Herodotus. As this subject penetrates to the very foundation of 
 Coleridge's philosophy, it will give me some hard fagging. 
 Hallatn and Fitzroy are the men whom I see most of. The 
 former is the only man here of my own standing before whom 
 I bow in conscious inferiority in everything. ... I am going 
 to give a small dinner next week to Cavendish, Wellesley, 
 Wentworth, and some two others. I don't think people are par- 
 ticularly gay this term, though there was a grand migration to 
 Hendon on Monday night, and I take some credit to myself for 
 having resisted the contamination, as I had a fancy dress all 
 ready. I have finished " Timbuctoo." It is liked by the Popeians 
 and Darwinians, as well as my own sect, which is a good sign. 
 I shall let Thirlwall correct ad libitum. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 February 26^, 1829. 
 
 Hallam opened at the Union in a maiden speech against the 
 decapitation of Charles last night, but he did not succeed very 
 well. I opposed him at some length, but am afraid I was too 
 flashy. Indeed, I find it hard to trace the line between passion 
 and rant. I took the question on simple constitutional prin- 
 ciples. I open next Sunday at our society on Mr. Peel's 
 conduct. G. Wellesley is going to defend him. By-the-bye, 
 how superbly has Cavendish done in the Tripos ! Wellesley, 
 with all his talents, has too much Etonian frivolity about him 
 ever to do well as a scholar. Everybody is pleased that 
 Wordsworth has got the scholarship. Lushington, I believe, 
 was next htm. The London Union does not seem half so good 
 as ours. Sterling spoke splendidly, and Mill made an essay on 
 Wordsworth's poetry for two and three-quarter hours, which 
 delighted me, but all the rest was meagre in the extreme. 
 
 . " Timbuctoo " was the subject of the prize poem for 
 the year, and, as a previous letter has shown, Milnes
 
 EARLY YEARS. 63 
 
 duly took part in the competition. It is hardly 
 necessary to say that he did not achieve the success he 
 coveted. The prize-winner was a young man then 
 unknown to fame, who had recently become an under- 
 graduate at Trinity College, and between whom and 
 Milnes a lifelong friendship had already sprung up ; 
 who was destined to gain for himself, within a few 
 years of the beginning of his University life, a place 
 among the greatest of English poets. 
 
 Lord Tennyson preserved his feeling of affectionate 
 regard for Milnes throughout the life of the latter. He 
 has told me how their friendship began. It was on the 
 day on which the poet entered Trinity College as an 
 undergraduate. He saw a young man whose face 
 struck him so much, that he said to himself, " That is 
 a man I should like to know ; he looks the best-tempered 
 fellow I ever saw." It was Milnes. They spoke to 
 each other, and from that time forward they were friends. 
 " He always put you in a good humour," were the 
 words Lord Tennyson used to the present writer when 
 recalling his intercourse with Milnes ; and as the phrase 
 supplies one of those happy touches so invaluable to 
 the biographer, I venture to reproduce it here. Kind- 
 ness of heart, and good temper a good temper which 
 was, I admit, liable to be disturbed by little gusts of 
 irascibility such as are common to sensitive and highly 
 strung natures formed the passport which brought 
 Milnes into social favour everywhere. 
 
 Not to succeed in a competition for poetry in which 
 Alfred Tennyson was one of tlie competitors, could
 
 64 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 hardly have been regarded, even by a man far more 
 sensitive than Milnes, as a serious blow. His career at 
 Trinity had, however, other vicissitudes, some of which 
 mortified him greatly. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Friday Evening, June 5th. 
 
 Thank heaven the examination is over, and the result, is just 
 what I expected, though from causes I hardly anticipated. I 
 had been reading very hard before it, but found when I got a 
 paper before me, that I could indeed write down what I had got 
 b} T heart ; but as for thinking, and deducing, and collecting my 
 scattered knowledge, it was perfectly useless. I was so nervous 
 and agitated, that it was a great exertion even to write down 
 anything memoriter accurately, and as it happened, hardly 
 anything that I could do so was set. It was much the same 
 on the second day, but I still hoped I should do tolerably in 
 my differential, and I sat up nearly all the preceding night 
 getting it up. It came on in the afternoon, when, what with 
 fatigue (I had written for four hours incessantly in the morning) 
 and the heat of the hall, I soon became excessively faint and 
 giddy, and could hardly see before me. My agitation increased 
 every moment, and I went out for some minutes, hoping to 
 collect myself. When I returned it was all in vain, and when, 
 after trying some very simple things, I found even my memory 
 quite gone, I lost all self-possession, and rushed out of the hall 
 in a most miserable state, and cried myself to sleep on my sofa. 
 I don't know I had ever hoped for a first-class, but I feel so 
 mortified at thus having lost it irrevocably, that it was quite a 
 shock to me. The next morning I had such a dreadful headache 
 that I did not go in at all, as I was sure I could have done next 
 to nothing, and people would not have believed me so unwell as 
 I was. I was, however, much better in the afternoon, and now 
 hope with a few days' rest to get quite strong again. I am, 
 however, convinced of one fact, that for purposes of examination
 
 EARLY TEARS. 66 
 
 my studying mathematics is totally useless. I am sure I have 
 given them a fair chance, and the only thing I regret is that 
 they have cost you so much. I have not, indeed, devoted my 
 whole time to them, but I have read them harder than I ever 
 did anything in my life ; perhaps the time I have spent on them 
 has not been actually thrown away, as it has been a mental 
 employment, and certainly I have not the same repugnance to 
 them I once had. As for my classics, there has been a great 
 deal both of composition and cram. Out of these I have done 
 as well as I expected. I have not the least anxiety now about 
 what class I am in, as I have no bets this year, and nobody 
 expects me to be high. 
 
 As it happened, the profound dejection displayed in 
 this letter was uncalled for. When the result of the 
 examination became known, he found that he had done 
 very much better than he had supposed, and received the 
 somewhat mortifying assurance from his tutors that if 
 he had remained to the end, he would undoubtedly have 
 secured a very high place in the list. 
 
 Once more he arranged to join his family at Boulogne 
 during the summer, and proposed to take with him one 
 of his Cambridge friends. Hallam could not go, but 
 Tennyson Charles Tennyson, brother of Alfred was 
 willing to do so. Before he left Cambridge, however, 
 Milnes had an adventure of a kind which he dearly 
 loved, and which procured for him at the time a little 
 notoriety. This was an ascent in a balloon with Mr. 
 Green, the well-known aeronaut. Another undergrad- 
 uate, Mr. George Wyndham Scott, afterwards Eector of 
 Kentisbere, in Devonshire, joined him in the adventur- 
 ous flight, and, curiously enough, the two young men,
 
 66 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 who met for the first time in the balloon, never 
 met again. " Ascendat Mr. Milnes, May 19, 1829, 
 W. Whewell," is the exact form in which Milnes ob- 
 tained leave to make this novel flight from his University. 
 " Precisely at half-past six o'clock," says the local 
 newspaper, chronicling this ascent, "the preliminary 
 arrangements having been completed, the intrepid aero- 
 naut entered the car, followed by his spirited companions, 
 each of whom sat at one end, Mr. Green standing in the 
 centre. At a given signal the cords were loosened, and 
 the machine rose in a most majestic manner, amidst the 
 shouts of the assembled multitude." One can well 
 imagine the enthusiasm with which the undergraduates 
 beheld the flight of two of their brethren heavenwards. 
 Hardly had the ascent commenced, than Milnes produced 
 a pencil, and began the following note to his friend 
 Arthur Hallam : 
 
 R. M. M. to A. H. Hallam. 
 
 DEAR HALLAM, Your friend in the skies speeds this note to you 
 at an elevation of about a mile and a half from the base earth, where 
 you are grovelling. Oh, if the spirit of Adonais would sail with me 
 in my little boat, my very crescent moon ! The sun has given me a 
 little headache, but a light breeze comes playing along. Now 
 we cross St. Neofs. The whole country looks a beautiful 
 model; the wind near the earth is tremendously high, and the 
 descent will be rather dangerous. We have ascended 2,000 feet 
 since I began this, but no motion is perceptible ; now the shout 
 rises from the earth, in a sort of distant wail. The sun is painting 
 the clouds. In a little basket 
 
 The remainder of this effusion is illegible, but a note, 
 in the handwriting of its author, attached to it is as 
 follows :
 
 EARLY YEARS. 67 
 
 I wrote the above note to my friend Arthur Hallam, on the 
 occasion of my ascent with Mr. Green, from Cambridge, in 1829. 
 We descended in Lord Northampton's Park, at Castle Ashby, in 
 Northamptonshire. I intended to wrap up the note with some 
 solid substance, to let it fall as we passed over some town, and 
 to beg whoever found it to put it in the post. I forget what 
 circumstance prevented me from finishing it. 
 
 He must have written a second and fuller account of 
 his aerial voyage, which extended over a distance of forty 
 miles, to Arthur Hallam, as the following letter shows : 
 
 A. H. Hallam to R. M. M. 
 
 67, Wimpole Street, Thursday. 
 
 Brava ! Bravissima ! If I were dying I could not refrain from 
 taking my pen in hand to congratulate the prince of all aeronauts. 
 You are not yet Gazetted, so your letter was the first notice I 
 received of your adventure. To say the truth, I by no means 
 expected such a notice, for I had been sceptical all along as to 
 your possessing physical courage enough to venture. Hence- 
 forward I shall look on you with much increased reverence. A 
 power has gone forth from you, and woe to any idolater of 
 negations who, denying its influence, should look on " him as 
 flies" with the same coolness as he had before on "him as 
 speaks." Your account is admirable, as far as it goes, but surely 
 you could fill another sheet with pneumatologica. Talk of 
 chapels like ivory boxes, trees like bits of stick, why, a Lockian 
 could have said as much ! For the honour of transcendentalism 
 and Shelleyism give me something more refined. By all means 
 come and see me in London. You will have heard from 
 Tennyson that I am kept within gates here. I am better to-day 
 than I have been for the last week, but you will pardon me, 
 I hope, for not exerting my eyes more at present. Pray write 
 often to me in the course of the next dreary five months, and 
 believe me, 
 
 Yours reverentially and lovingly, 
 
 A. H. HALLAM.
 
 68 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 As I have given Hallam's expression of doubt as to 
 the physical courage of his friend, it is only fair to 
 state, on the authority of the newspapers of the day, that 
 Mr. Green bore testimony to the perfect self-possession 
 shown throughout the whole trip by his two com- 
 panions. At this point, too, I may observe that Hallam, 
 for whom Milnes entertained so strong a regard and 
 respect, was, according to their contemporaries at Cam- 
 bridge, "at one time very unjust" towards the latter. 
 No memory, however, of such passing injustice lingered 
 for a moment in the breast of Milnes, who never ceased 
 to love and revere the memory of the young friend 
 whose brilliant career was so early cut short by the 
 " blind Fury with the abhorred shears." 
 
 His plans for joining his family with one of the 
 Tennysons at Boulogne were frustrated by the depar- 
 ture of Mr. and Mrs. Milnes with their daughter 
 from that town for Italy. Their son joined them 
 en route at Paris, where he was introduced to General 
 Lafayette, Baron Cuvier, and other noted people, and 
 accompanied them to Switzerland, where he made a tour 
 on his own account, and enjoyed for the first time the 
 delight of sojourning amid the majestic beauties of the 
 Alps. Mr. and Mrs. Milnes in the meantime had estab- 
 lished themselves at Milan, where they were to reside 
 for several years. We shall have many glimpses 
 in Eichard Milnes's letters of life in Northern 
 Italy in those days when Austrian rule was supreme 
 throughout Lombardy and Venetia. The story told by 
 Mrs. Milnes in her journal proves that the English
 
 EARLY YEARS. 69 
 
 family was very soon made at home in the society of 
 Milan, such as it was. Even the great gulf which 
 divided the Governed from the Governors did not seem 
 to affect them, and they were equally welcome in the 
 salons of the Italians and the palace of the Austrian 
 Viceroy. It was a pleasant and by no means unprofit- 
 able life which the exiles led. Mr. Milnes, indeed, pre- 
 served his critical attitude of mind, even under the 
 seductive skies of Italy ; and whilst he was by no means 
 blind to the hardships and the injustices attached to 
 Austrian rule, he was equally ready to point out to his 
 son the defects of the Italian character, and the extent 
 to which long years of bondage had enfeebled their 
 powers of self-government. Mrs. Milnes, with her great 
 love of music and her uncommon powers as an executant, 
 thoroughly enjoyed the society of the many artists of 
 distinction, both amateur and professional, who were at 
 that time to be found in Milan ; whilst her daughter 
 steadily pursued her education under the best masters 
 the city could afford. Eichard Milnes was only able 
 to be with his family at intervals, the claims of Uni- 
 versity life in England being paramount; but from 
 the first he seems to have formed a warm attachment, 
 not only for Italian life, but for the Italian character. 
 His sympathetic temperament quickly enabled him to 
 enter into the feelings of those around him, and the 
 development of that cosmopolitanism of mind and tem- 
 perament, which to the last was so striking a feature in 
 his character, made rapid advances during these years 
 of his early sojourn in Italy. Side by side with his
 
 70 THE LIFE OF LORD HOVGHTON. 
 
 Cambridge friendships now grew up a whole series of 
 friendships, not less sincere than warm, with many 
 Italians of distinction, as well as with not a few 
 English residents. The fruits of these friendships are 
 to be found in profusion in Milnes's subsequent corre- 
 spondence, as well as in many of his poems and prose 
 writings. At the close of the long vacation he returned 
 to England. 
 
 In a letter to his father from Paris he says : 
 
 I had a delightful two hours' conversation with Cousin this 
 morning, mostly on politics. One of his remarks was, " What 
 is it makes Lafayette a mere idol of the public, and B. Con- 
 stant a phraseur, and Wellington and Peel mere engines of 
 State ? They are not metaphysicians. For a man to be now 
 a statesman he must first be a philosopher." He embraced me 
 most affectionately. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Cambridge, Oct. 22nd, 1829. 
 
 My books are all on my shelves, Hallam in my great-chair, your 
 list of books on my table ; so I have nothing to do but to write 
 to you, and sit down to read. This place, with its usual accom- 
 paniments, seems perhaps from contrast to be all that dulness 
 can make it. The very air is insipid, and unmeaning words and 
 more unmeaning faces throng on every side ; and I mean to be 
 enormously eclectic, not living, as Lady Morgan says, with a 
 fifth part of the world, but an infinitely smaller fraction. Hare 
 has not yet arrived. Thirlwall I have had an hour with. He says 
 that there is no connection between political and literary para- 
 . lysis, and that there is no reason of this kind that the Milanese 
 should not be a most intellectual people. Whewell looks quite 
 a gentleman, raves about Lalande, and has been taking an 
 architectural tour in Germany. We have no novelties of any 
 reputed calibre a Cavendish, an Arundel, a Sir Somebody
 
 EARLY YEARS. 71 
 
 Preston, Lord Duncan, a Lord St. John, and Lord Sandwich. 
 Do you know anything about any of them? This is all my 
 Walpoliana. Now for your letter. The essay was deposited in 
 full time at the Master's Lodge. I did not make the corrections 
 you wished, as the latter part of them quite perverted my 
 meaning, and the others were not worth taking to Jones. 
 You must be quite insane to talk of my writing on the finances 
 of England in my melancholy state of ignorance. No, no stop 
 till I have read something on the subject, then I will write to 
 you as much as you please. I will tell you now what I mean to 
 do for the month Political Economy, Italian, German, speaking, 
 and a little Metaphysics, lectures on Geology, which cost nothing, 
 and the College of Astronomy on Newton. As for my other 
 plans, I can only say I am firmly convinced that all this 
 Cambridge talking will be rather injurious than otherwise, if it 
 is not skilfully and laboriously adapted to the House. I do not 
 quarrel with the stone, but it must be strangely shaped for so 
 strange an architecture. I told you I met Wellesley in town; 
 we had a long talk about the Union. One of his remarks was : 
 fl The very fluency which it gives you is itself injurious in the 
 House. They are so conceited with their own importance that 
 they are pleased with the confusion and hesitation of a tyro, and 
 are ready enough to give him credit for intellectual superiority. 
 If, on the contrary, he does not in the least seem to quail before 
 them, however apparently humble he may be, they imagine it 
 only a disguise, and set upon him with a merciless hostility." Is 
 there not some truth in this ? I am convinced that if I cannot 
 come soon into Parliament, attendance on the House, however 
 disgusting, is a most indispensable tedium. As for Germany, a 
 few months with such men as Niebuhr, who you must know has 
 held high diplomatic situations, and Schlegel you remember his 
 " Dramatic Literature " must be of deep mental advantage. 
 Lady Morgan says they who would legislate for the world must live 
 in the world, and the best intentions, aided by the best talents, 
 will be found inadequate to serve the great cause of humanity if 
 its schemes, though perfect in the abstract, are inapplicable to the
 
 72 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 actual state of society. This is true enough, but it is surely the 
 part of a wise man to have a canon to which he can adapt these 
 fugitive circumstances, and not, making these very circum- 
 stances his rule, adapt his principles to them. I did not see 
 Sterling in town to ask him about the Courts of Law, but shall 
 write to him. Kemble is at College, reading metaphysics ; 
 Tennyson's poem has made quite a sensation ; it is certainly equal 
 to most parts of Milton. Hallam is looking very well, and in 
 full force ; his marvellous mind has been gleaning in wisdom 
 from every tract of knowledge. Cousin said, " It is a fit thing 
 that the son of a great historian should be a great metaphysician." 
 I found a sonnet from him awaiting me in town ; here are the 
 last lines : 
 
 " Enough of flickering mirth and random life, 
 Yearnings are in them for a lofty dome ; 
 Trample that mask a sterner part assume, 
 Whether thou championest Urania's strife, 
 Or, marked by Freedom for her toga'd sway, 
 Reclaim'st thy father's soon abandoned bay/' . . 
 
 Living in London, supposing that I had a mutton chop at a 
 coffee-house three days a week, would at any rate be cheaper than 
 at Cambridge. Gaskell is leading the Union at Oxford trium- 
 phantly. . . . Lord Monson has bought Cardinal Fesch's 
 collection of pictures for 150,000. 
 
 It. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Nov. Uh, 1829. 
 
 Our debate on Wordsworth and Byron went off very ill. I 
 spoke for an hour and twenty minutes they tell me, very fluently; 
 but I was so anxious to be quiet and simple, that I am afraid I 
 overshot my mark, and became rather prosy, and it was alto- 
 gether more a serious essay or a sermon than a speech. Hallam 
 spoke well, but shortly; he would be a splendid speaker if he 
 had more nerve. The votes were only twenty-three for Words-
 
 EARLY YEARS. 73 
 
 worth. Hare said the number was too large, for that there were 
 not twenty-three men in the room really worthy to be Words- 
 worthians. 
 
 Julius Hare's remark was characteristic of the feel- 
 ing of Cambridge at that period. The young men of the 
 University were living under the shadow of two great 
 names, those of Wordsworth and of Shelley. Milnes 
 throughout his life was proud of the fact that as an 
 undergraduate he had done something to generate the 
 enthusiasm for Wordsworth, which might almost be said 
 to date from the time of these discussions at the Union. 
 " When I look hack," he said, shortly before his death, 
 at a meeting of the Wordsworth Society, " upon that 
 time, and the so to say mental proceedings by which it 
 was made important to the lives of all who shared in it, 
 I find it somewhat difficult precisely to comprehend the 
 cause of that enthusiasm for Wordsworth, ft was 
 contemporaneous with a burst of interest in the poetry 
 of Shelley and of Keats. . . . The enthusiasm for 
 Keats is, I think, very intelligible ; he is essentially the 
 poet of youth ; he is the embodiment, as it were, of youth 
 and poetry, in the richness of the imagination and in the 
 abundance of melodious power. We also, I think, fully 
 comprehend, now that Shelley has taken his just place 
 among the poets of England, how delightful it was to 
 our youthful interests, and I may say, to our youthful 
 vanity, to raise the name of Shelley from the obscurity, 
 I might almost say even the infamy, which at that 
 time attached to it, to the high atmosphere of pure 
 imagination in which it now exists in the estimate of all
 
 74 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 real lovers of British literature. But there was no such 
 reason why we should have laboured to any similar 
 extent for the elevation of the name and works of Mr. 
 Wordsworth. The name of Wordsworth was familiar 
 to the crowd at Cambridge in two ways. His brother 
 was the Master of Trinity, a venerated and respected old 
 gentleman, the author of a very dull ecclesiastical bio- 
 graphy, who had not recommended himself to the under- 
 graduate mind by any exhibition of geniality or a special 
 interest in our pursuits, our avocations, or even our 
 studies. We had at Cambridge, in the son of that Dr. 
 Words worth, by the name of Christopher Wordsworth, 
 a very eminent scholar, and not unagreeable companion, 
 but he manifested in youth the germs of that outwardly 
 hard, though inwardly benevolent, character which so 
 much, distinguished him as the learned, pious, excellent 
 administrator, the Bishop of Lincoln." There was some- 
 thing, however, in the moral spirit of Wordsworth, as 
 well as of Shelley, which touched the hearts of the Cam- 
 bridge youth of that period, and led them to revolt 
 against the worship of Byron, which was then almost 
 supreme in the literary world. 
 
 Here it may be well to say something of the Union 
 in that year (1829), and of the men who took part in 
 its proceedings. Trinity College counted among its 
 tutors and students an extraordinary number of men of 
 distinction. Whewell, and Julius Hare, and Connop 
 Thirlwall, as the reader has seen, were among the 
 tutors, and Milnes was on affectionate terms with all 
 three. Among the undergraduates were the three
 
 EARLY DATS. 75 
 
 Tennysons (Frederick, Charles, and Alfred), Ralph 
 Bernal (who subsequently became known to fame as 
 Mr. Bernal Osborne, Thackeray, Gr. S. Venables, J. W. 
 Blakesley, E. L. and Henry Lushington, James Sped- 
 ding, Richard Trench, Charles Rann Kennedy, Arthur 
 Hallam, Henry Alford, John Allen (the prototype of 
 Major Dobbin), W. H. Thompson (subsequently Regius 
 Professor of Greek and Master of Trinity), Robert 
 Monteith, Edward Horsman, and Thomas Sunderland. 
 The last-named of these was the man who filled the 
 greatest place in the eyes of his contemporaries in the 
 little world at Trinity, and who seemed to them to be 
 destined to make the deepest mark upon his generation. 
 Speaking at the Inaugural Proceedings of the Union 
 Society, when they entered their new Club-house in 
 1866, Lord Houghton, after referring to the "low, ill- 
 ventilated, ill-lit, cavernous, tavernous gallery, at the 
 back of the Red Lion Inn," which was the meeting- 
 place of the Union in his days, went on to say, "There 
 was one man, the greatest speaker, I think, I ever heard, 
 a man with the highest oratorical gift, a man of the 
 name of Sunderland, who only lives in the memory of 
 his own generation, and for this reason, that he was 
 only known at the Union at Cambridge." How it 
 came to pass that this brilliant student and orator, who 
 was the autocrat of the Union and of Trinity, ruling 
 supreme even over such minds as those of Hallam, 
 Tennyson, and Milnes, was doomed to spend a long life 
 in obscurity, is a sad story, which may be briefly told. 
 On leaving Cambridge, he disappeared from the view of
 
 76 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 his contemporaries, who never heard of him again until, 
 nearly forty years afterwards, in June, 1867, there 
 appeared in the Obituary of the Times a brief announce- 
 ment of his death. Subsequent inquiries elicited the 
 fact that shortly after leaving Cambridge, and whilst 
 travelling upon the Continent, his brain became de- 
 ranged, and the brilliant intellect which had been so 
 universally admired was irrevocably shattered. The 
 attack of acute mania, which was the first symptom of 
 the terrible catastrophe, passed away, but it left him the 
 victim of incurable delusions, and of habits the almost 
 inevitable result of his mental condition. Lost to his 
 old friends, he led for years the life of a nomad, wander- 
 ing from place to place, under the cloud of a settled 
 melancholy, still pursuing the studies which had in- 
 terested him at the University, still pouring forth his 
 thoughts upon those subjects on which he had been 
 wont to speak so brilliantly at the Union, and at times 
 astonishing the traveller who encountered him in some 
 country inn, where for the moment he had fixed his 
 abode, by his unrivalled command of language, the vast- 
 ness of his knowledge, and the brilliancy of his imagina- 
 tion. But, alas! in all that he said or wrote, proofs of 
 the insanity which lurked within him were to be found. 
 Death, when it found him at last, came as a welcome 
 termination to a ruined and hopeless career. The story 
 is no uncommon one in this life, with its manifold 
 vicissitudes and disappointments, but no one who writes 
 of the Cambridge of 1829 can afford to omit from his 
 narrative the name of Thomas Sunderland.
 
 EARLY YEARS. 77 
 
 It was early in the December of that year that 
 the Cambridge Union distinguished itself by sending a 
 deputation to the kindred society at Oxford, to maintain 
 the superiority of Shelley to Byron. Sir Francis Doyle, 
 then an undergraduate at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone, 
 his fellow-collegian, invited the Cambridge Union, which 
 had distinguished itself by the ardour with which it had 
 championed the cause of the poet whom Oxford had 
 turned from its doors, to send over a deputation to 
 maintain the claims of its favourite. Arthur Hallam 
 (through whom the "Adonais " had for the first time been 
 printed in England), Milnes, and Sunderland, were the 
 men chosen to speak for Shelley and their University. 
 Years afterwards Lord Houghton, telling the story of 
 the memorable expedition, was wont to say that when 
 on behalf of himself and his colleagues he applied to Dr. 
 Wordsworth for an " Exeat," he did not make it quite 
 clear to that venerable dignitary whether Shelley or 
 Wordsworth was the poet whose intellectual character 
 was to be defended by the deputation. " I have always 
 had a dim suspicion, though probably I did not do so, 
 that I substituted the name of Wordsworth for Shelley." 
 However this may be, the " Exeat " was granted, and 
 the three young men went across the snowy country to 
 Oxford, to fulfil their self-imposed task. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Dec. Uh, 1829. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, The two full letters on my table remind 
 me of my silence, which I fear has rather outstepped its proper 
 bounds. I am doing- all I can to become methodical, so I will
 
 78 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 write you a methodical letter. First, facts and incidents ; secondly, 
 answers to your letters ; thirdly, anything else. As for the first 
 chapter, I think the only point that comes under that head is the 
 day and a half I have spent at Oxford. I wanted much to see 
 the place and the men, and had no objection to speak in their 
 society ; so, as they had a good subject for debate (the compara- 
 tive merits of Shelley and Byron), and Sunderland and Hallam 
 were both willing to go and the Master, when he heard what 
 was our purpose, very kindly gave us an Exeat we drove man- 
 fully through the snow, arriving in time to speak that evening, 
 were feted the next day, and saw the lions, and came back the next 
 morning. The set of men I saw corresponded very well to my 
 own set here, so I could form a pretty just comparison. The man 
 that took me most was the youngest Gladstone of Liverpool I 
 am sure, a very superior person. Doyle, whose sister you have 
 met at Wheatley, is also clever. Gaskell * is as different as 
 possible from what I expected very plain, completely unaffected 
 and simple in his manners, and good-natured, even to boyishness. 
 Sunderland spoke first after Doyle, who opened, then Hallam, 
 then some Oxonians, and I succeeded. The contrast from our long, 
 noisy, shuffling, scraping, talking, vulgar, ridiculous-looking kind 
 of assembly, to a neat little square room, with eighty or ninety 
 young gentlemen sprucely dressed, sitting on chairs or lounging 
 about the fire-place, was enough to unnerve a more confident 
 person than myself. Even the brazen Sunderland was somewhat 
 awed, and became tautological, and spoke what we should call an 
 inferior speech, but which dazzled his hearers. Hallam, as being 
 among old friends, was bold, and spoke well. I was certainly 
 nervous, but, I think, pleased my audience better than I pleased 
 myself. The Oxonian speaking is wretched. Gaskell's knack 
 of Parliamentary phrases is wonderful. He offered to repeat me 
 the tellers in every debate for the last sixty years, and suggested a 
 most amusing game, which consisted in each person telling the 
 name of a borough and of the persons who represent it, and whoever 
 
 * His relative, James Milnes Gaskell, of Thorne House, Wakefield, 
 afterwards member for "Wenlock.
 
 EARLY TEARS. 79 
 
 stopped first paid a forfeit ! ! <f My father and I/' he said, 
 " played at it nearly a whole day without stopping." 
 
 I hope Gaskell is coming here to speak in about a fortnight. 
 The only other news I have for you, is the dismissal from Trinity of 
 
 an acquaintance of mine, a son of , for rowing, and throwing 
 
 Peacock's books out of the window ; the anniversary Club dinners, 
 which have overflowed with turtle and venison ; and the death of 
 the head waiter at the "Hoop/' whom I suppose my father knew 
 (vulgarly called Will of the Hoop), who cut his femoral artery in 
 drawing a cork, and died in two minutes. The last debate at the 
 Union was about the hereditary aristocracy. I spoke almost 
 extempore, and as fluently as I could wish. I have quite recovered 
 the talking knack, but cannot acquire Sunderland's confidence, 
 that nothing can ever make him hesitate a single moment. The 
 Athenaum is going to be given up. Maurice, the editor, is going 
 into the Church, and to try for the first-class at Oxford. 
 
 My Homeric essay will be out to-morrow ; I shall send a 
 copy to my grandmother and another to Mr. Brown, but shall 
 let no more go out of this place. I have corrected the style 
 very rigorously, and it certainly does not read ill. My com- 
 petitor who came in second also prints his. . . . Papa's 
 definition of an orator is so modest and simple a one, that I can 
 only equal it by the schemes of the most system-drunken political 
 economist. Tell him that a time-worn and money-less country 
 like England has a great deal more chance of starting into 
 youth and health and omnipotence under the wand of a political 
 theoriser than I will not say of my becoming, but of the world 
 ever seeing such an orator as he images to himself. Tell him 
 that if Shakespeare had attempted to become a Laplace, or the 
 converse, they would both have foiled the grand purpose for 
 which the Deity formed them ; and that a trial to fuse poetry 
 into the dry bones of reason and fact, or to liquefy the latter 
 into the former, would be as strange an attempt as to convert 
 the fat Bedford level into a Chamouni, or the Spliigen into the 
 Carse of Gowrie each has its use, each its beauty. Tell him 
 that a wise man said, " Si cum natura sapio sub numine, id vere
 
 80 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOKTON. 
 
 plusquam satis est." I do not say an attempt may not be made 
 to make an equilibrium between the faculties of the mind, but 
 for any mind to be full in its strength and conscious might, it 
 must follow where nature leads it. I must repeat, as I said 
 before, that if Parliamentary influence is to be exercised on the 
 venal and animal minds of such men as Mr. Dick, I conceive no 
 good or great man would ever try to wield it ; but I hope it is 
 otherwise. I think the duty of a statesman is solely to address 
 himself to the aristocracy of mind, and through their minds alone 
 to influence the vulgar. His object is to gain men who will go 
 with him, not after him, fellow-soldiers, not drummers and 
 camp-boys. Also tell mio padre that I shall quite think it my 
 duty to send to Metternich some information or other about him, 
 that the personal loving-kindness of the Austrians might bring 
 him to a proper sense of their government. A moral despotism 
 would be certainly the best of governments, but a moral people 
 would never submit to a despotism. . . . I see papa quotes 
 Elizabeth as a supporter of his despotical theory. She was in 
 sooth a wicked tyrant, but by a wonderful tact appealed so 
 strongly to the vanity of the people, and loaded them with such 
 flattering and gorgeous chains, that in the pride and pomp of 
 national dignity they merged that of the individual. Is it so 
 with the Milanese and their alien taskmasters? But I must 
 thank him for his second letter, which, on Coleridge's defini- 
 ^ion of a gentleman ("a, man with an indifference to money 
 matters"), was exceedingly ungentlemanly. I really do not 
 think but that a very moderate fortune is enough to give a 
 man a start in Parliament Canning was poor enough. If I 
 was to become an M.P. for amusement, I see no reason why 
 I should not go into Parliament next year; but as I have never 
 thought of this, any more than of living at Chats worth, it does 
 not make a part of the question. To undertake it as a profession, 
 with my scant knowledge of the world, is indeed absurd at pre- 
 sent. ... I had a religious conversazione last night, and some 
 very good singing afterwards. We have had some capital debates 
 in our society called "The Apostles"; we attacked Paley to-night
 
 EARLY YEARS. 81 
 
 The mention of the Athenaum in the foregoing 
 letter calls for a word of explanation. The Athenaeum, 
 it will be remembered, was originally started by Mr. 
 James Silk Buckingham. Among his contributors was 
 Frederick Denison Maurice, at that time an under- 
 graduate at Cambridge. In the course of a few months 
 the Literary Chronicle came into existence, Maurice 
 being its editor ; and in August, 1828, the two pub- 
 lications were merged under Maurice's editorship. 
 Milnes, like Sterling and other members of his set 
 at Cambridge, contributed frequently to the journal 
 during Maurice's connection with it, and his literary 
 criticisms and essays in that periodical were practically 
 his first contributions to the press. 
 
 The famous association popularly known as " The 
 Apostles," of which the first mention in Milnes's corre- 
 spondence is in the foregoing letter, has earned a place 
 of its own in the history of Cambridge. It was origin- 
 ally started in the year 1820, under the name of the 
 Conversazione Society, and was limited to twelve mem- 
 bers in residence ; the name of Apostles being in the 
 first instance given to the members in derision. Among 
 those connected with the little society in Milnes's time 
 were Alfred Tennyson, Arthur Hallam, Trench, Alford, 
 W. H. Thompson, Blakesley, Charles Merivale (the 
 historian of Borne), Gr. S. Venables, and Edmund Lush- 
 ington, afterwards Professor of Greek at Glasgow. 
 Frederick Maurice, C. B. Kennedy, and Spedding, the 
 biographer of Bacon, were also members. The society 
 began to be famous in the time of Buller, Sterling,
 
 82 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Maurice, and Trench. " Then came the halo of Tenny- 
 son's young celebrity. . . . Within the society it- 
 self there is no hierarchy of greatness ; all are friends. 
 Those who have been contemporaries meet through life 
 as brothers ; all, old and young, have a bond of sym- 
 pathy in fellow-membership ; all have a common joy 
 and a common interest in the memory of bright days 
 that are gone, of daily rambles and evening meetings, 
 of times when they walked and talked with single- 
 hearted friends in scenes hallowed by many memories 
 and traditions, or by the banks of Cam or in the lime- 
 treed avenues of Trinity, or even within sound of the 
 great organ of the great chapel of King's, or in the 
 rural quiet of Madingly or Grantchester sometimes, 
 perhaps, 
 
 'Yearning for the large excitement which the coming years 
 would yield/ 
 
 but all, as they stood on the threshold of life, hopeful 
 and happy, gladdened by genial influences which are 
 never forgotten, and sunned by warm friendships of 
 youth, which never die." 
 
 So wrote Mr. W. D. Christie of the Apostles, of 
 whom he had himself been one. All who knew Lord 
 Houghton knew also not only how admirably he was 
 adapted to make a prominent and popular figure in that 
 little band of young men, but with what fidelity and 
 tenderness throughout his long life he clung to the 
 memories which the mention of its name conjured up. 
 
 Before me lies a volume of " Memorials " of his stay 
 at Cambridge, gathered together by Milnes after he left
 
 EARLY YEARS. 83 
 
 the University. It has more than a personal or bio- 
 graphical interest. There is a list of the Trinity 
 College prizemen for 1829, from which it appears that 
 he took the second English Declamation Prize, Sunder- 
 land taking the first ; and that he also carried off the 
 prize for the English Essay, the subject of which was 
 the " Influence of Homer." It is notable that the 
 motto on the title-page of this essay was supplied by a 
 couplet from Tennyson : 
 
 " Listening the lordly music flowing from 
 The illimitable years " 
 
 Probably the first lines ever quoted in this way from 
 the great poet. There is also a copy of the Trans- 
 actions of the Union Society, printed in 1834, from 
 which it appears that Milnes first spoke in a debate on 
 November 13, 1827, and that from that time forward 
 he spoke frequently during his stay at the University. 
 Among his fellow-disputants Sunderland holds the 
 most prominent place ; but Charles Buller, Kemble, 
 Sterling, Blakesley, Trench, Praed, Hallam, Venables, 
 Thackeray, Alford, and Kinglake, are also mentioned. 
 
 The little volume has a special value because it 
 contains the thin pamphlet in which the " Adonais " of 
 Shelley was first presented to the English public, 
 Charles Tennyson's poem on the expedition of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte into Russia, Hallam's " Timbuctoo," and the 
 prize poem on the same theme by Alfred Tennyson, as 
 well as many similar records of that era in the history 
 of Cambridge. There is, too, the Epilogue written
 
 84 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 to Much Ado About Nothing, on the occasion of that 
 comedy being performed by the Cambridge Amateur 
 Dramatic Club on March 19th, 1830. From the list of 
 performers it appears that Milnes took the part of 
 Beatrice, and also fulfilled the duties of stage-manager 
 Kemble, Hallam, Edward Ellice, Fitzroy, Monteith, 
 O'Brien, and Warburton, being among his fellow-actors. 
 The Epilogue was written by Milnes, and its closing 
 lines are as follows : 
 
 " But, ere our artless pageant disappear, 
 We ask one boon if in some after-year 
 In evening hours your eye should chance to light 
 On any name you recognised to-night 
 On some brief record of their mortal lot 
 Married or murdered, ruined, or what not ? 
 While natural thought returns upon its track, 
 Just pause and murmur ere you call it back, 
 With pleasant memory, sipping your liqueur 
 ' Yes, yes, he was a Cambridge Amateur/ "
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 
 
 London University Letters to his Father Attends the House of Commons 
 Goes to Bonn Life at Milan Perplexities of Life Venice Visits Ireland 
 Aubrey de Vere's Reminiscences Rome Wiseman Meets Charles 
 MacCarthy Projected Greek Tour. 
 
 " I OFTEN wonder what will be your future destiny, and 
 I think you are near something very glorious, but you 
 will never reach it. I wish it were in my power to give 
 you all the good I possess, and which you want, for I 
 would willingly pull down my hut to build your palace." 
 These were the words in which one of his college 
 friends, Stafford O'Brien, wrote to Milnes during the 
 year 1830, when his career at Cambridge was drawing 
 to a close. They afford a glimpse of the estimation in 
 which the young man was held by his contemporaries 
 at the University. No one doubted his brilliant powers 
 of mind the eclecticism of his sympathies, the gener- 
 osity and geniality of his disposition, his love of para- 
 dox, the vastness of the field of knowledge which he 
 sought to cultivate, and the cosmopolitanism of his 
 spirit. All these things, however, seemed, in the eyes 
 of his friends, to tell against his chance of attaining
 
 86 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 that future distinction which he might otherwise have 
 made his own. It was, as we have seen, no ordinary 
 band of young men of whom he made one at Cam- 
 bridge, nor was it in itself a small distinction to be the 
 friend and associate of such men. That he was recog- 
 nised by the ablest among them as the equal of any is 
 proved alike by their letters and by the recollections of 
 the survivors. > In the eyes of many, indeed, the judg- 
 ment passed upon him by Stafford O'Brien would have 
 seemed unwarrantably despondent, for unquestionably 
 Milnes was one of the most brilliant of that bright 
 company of ardent youths. Sir Francis Doyle in his 
 Reminiscences has told us how, in the expedition to 
 Oxford on behalf of Shelley, the oratorical honours of 
 the day fell to Milnes, albeit Hallam and Sunderland 
 were his competitors ; and again and again in his cor- 
 respondence at the time there is abundant proof that he 
 was not only one of the best beloved of the Apostles, 
 but one of whom his contemporaries expected the 
 greatest things in the future. 
 
 It is interesting to note that during the early part 
 of 1830 Milnes spent some time in London as a student 
 at the then recently-founded University in Gower Street ; 
 and in enrolling himself very early among the under- 
 graduates of that institution, he gave striking proof of 
 his superiority to sectarian and political prejudices. The 
 very name of the University of London stank in the 
 nostrils of those who had been brought up at the older 
 seats of learning, and it was a strong measure for an 
 actual student at Trinity, with the tastes and the
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 87 
 
 associations of Milnes, to connect himself with an 
 association so generally disliked. But his attendance 
 on the classes in Grower Street was not without its 
 advantages, altogether apart from any improvement in 
 his education which might result from it. It afforded 
 him more frequent opportunities for meeting that little 
 body of Cambridge men who were now resident in the 
 metropolis, and of whom the most eminent were John 
 Sterling and Frederick Maurice. Among the other 
 friends with whom at this period he came into frequent 
 contact were John Stuart Mill and the Kembles, whose 
 son, J. M. Kemble, was a fellow-student at Trinity. 
 Fanny Kemble, the niece of Mrs. Siddons, was charm- 
 ing the town by her acting, and Milnes, like most of 
 the young men of his day, was filled with admiration 
 for a genius so fine and a heart so pure and simple. He 
 himself, it may be remarked en passant, had attained 
 distinction on the boards of the Amateur Dramatic 
 Club at Cambridge, where his impersonation of certain 
 characters, and notably of Mrs. Malaprop, had roused 
 almost as much enthusiasm among the members of the 
 club as Miss Kemble's Juliet had evoked in the wider 
 arena of Covent Garden. The frivolous side of life, 
 however, if the stage may be said to belong to it, by 
 no means absorbed his leisure moments. He was about 
 this time a regular attendant at the church of Edward 
 Irving, for whom he had a profound admiration. " He 
 is indeed," he says, " the apostle of the age, and his 
 English is more like Jeremy Taylor's than any I ever 
 read or heard."
 
 88 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Jan. 20M, 1830. 
 
 My mission to Oxford would never have taken place except 
 for that peculiar subject which you despise. It was an earnest 
 wish to tell of and propagate that stupendous genius that took 
 me there. I could not expect to please much where there were 
 no sympathies to excite. Why is he fatiguing to you ? Why 
 is he delightful to me ? Is my mind better strung to labour 
 than yours ? Am I less fond of facility and lubricity in study ? 
 You will not natter me by saying this. I suspect the case to be 
 that, having accustomed yoiirself to consider poetry " a thing of 
 idle hours and vacant thought/' when it first presented itself 
 as a study you were struck with the change. Mamma asks 
 whether I speak as well as Sunderland. I say, Certainly not, 
 for his speaking as an art is perfect ; his best sentences are 
 always learned by heart,, and the common current of his words 
 runs on so fountain-like, that you might deem it was a speaking 
 automaton before you. Now mine is good exactly in the pro- 
 portion that I am interested ; I have hardly any rhetoric. We 
 have the " Education of the People " next term a charming 
 subject. I have just read the Dissertation on Parties. Mr. 
 Hallam advised me to study Bolingbroke, Shaftesburyj and 
 Temple. He liked my Homer very much. Lord Lansdowne 
 said " it showed talent, but the writer was of a school/' That 
 is, I suppose, no communicant of the high indivisible Church of 
 Whig superficiality and useful knowledge. A line of books, 
 and I have done. The two new ones I have read are Coleridge 
 on Church and State, and Moore's Byron. The first has given 
 me the only clear idea I ever had of the English Constitution; 
 the second I am delighted with, as I think I completely antici- 
 pated it in my estimate of Byron. Passion, imagination, fancy, 
 all were his, but not the one holy cement of poetic feeling to 
 amalgamate and unify the whole. 
 
 There were many discussions about this period 
 between Milnes and his father on the subject of his
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 89 
 
 future. Mr. Pemberton Milnes, though he might be 
 disappointed at the manner in which his son's undoubted 
 talents had developed themselves, still clung to the hope 
 that he might make a great figure in the House of Com- 
 mons, and revive the tradition of his own youthful 
 eminence. Milnes himself was distinctly ambitious, and 
 was drawn almost as strongly towards the pursuit of poli- 
 tics as towards the cultivation of literature, but he shared 
 the fastidiousness of his father, and was far more inclined 
 to criticise the work of others than either to engage in 
 construction himself or to become the mere follower of 
 a party leader. It is not necessary to recall all the dis- 
 cussions between father and son as to the possibilities 
 of a Parliamentary career for the latter, though here and 
 there a few lines may be given to indicate the direction in 
 which the mind of one or the other was moving. In the 
 early part of 1830 a question of more immediate interest 
 than that of his admission to Parliament occupied the 
 mind of Milnes. His father wished him to go during 
 the summer to Paris for the purpose of improving his 
 French pronunciation ; he, on the other hand, was bent 
 upon going to Germany in order to study the German 
 language and literature ; and, as it will be seen in the 
 subsequent correspondence, he carried his point. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Feb. 1st, 1830. 
 
 . . . Turning 1 over Lord Byron's Life a week ago, I found 
 a passage in one of his journals, which applies very well to my 
 Oxford speech, which I find people are surprised made so little 
 impression. It is this : after speaking of all the orators of his
 
 90 THE LIFE OF LOED HOUGHTON. 
 
 day, he says, t( I heard Bob Milnes' second speech ; it made no 
 impression whatever." Voila, monsieur \ on pent parler lien sans 
 faire d' impression, combien defois m'avez-vousentendu direcela? 
 I foresee this subject will be a standing joke against me at the 
 Union. I suppose you have seen some extracts from the book in 
 Galignani. The letters are as good as Horace Walpole's, and two 
 or three good stories of S. Davies, who, he says, could beat all 
 the set in wit and conversation. Now for a line about Germany. 
 Sunderland wishes to go there with me or, rather, to meet me 
 there and I find that Kemble, Trench, and Blakesley will be the 
 summer at Heidelberg. Kemble has just written a letter which 
 would, I think, give you a different opinion of those universities 
 than you now have. He says that the depth of the knowledge 
 of the young men there is something he could hardly have con- 
 ceived ; they study everything, and everything well. He is now 
 at Munich, where he is going on very steadily, and reading very 
 hard. Your great error seems to me to lie in confounding 
 superficiality and generalisation. Now the great void I find in 
 my mind is that I do study things in reference to a few facts 
 for a particular purpose, and not to acquire any knowledge of the 
 thing itself for itself. So you need not be afraid of my joining 
 the pious and well-disposed company who, consisting of ninety 
 families disgusted with the present condition of the moral 
 European world, have issued from Germany and established 
 themselves on one of the islands on the Norwegian coast, and 
 renewed the ancient rites and ancestral religion of Thor and of 
 Odin. I have really no great inclination for a residence in Paris 
 just now, and I have too many great things to study to give 
 attention to anything so frivolous as a perfect knowledge of a 
 language for itself alone though good enough in its way and 
 I think you would not hesitate about the advantage of reading 
 German or speaking French. . . Prince Leopold seems very 
 slow in deciding between the otium sine dignitate and the digni- 
 tas sine otio [referring to the offer of the Crown of Greece]. A 
 battue was given him the other day at Ashbridge, at which all 
 the walks were swept, and hassocks placed at the corners of the
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 91 
 
 covers for the shooters to stand on. What a situation for a king 
 of Sparta and successor of Pericles ! 
 
 Sunderland leaves Cambridge to-morrow [he writes, Feb. llth]. 
 I should be very sorry to lose sight of him, though he is a man 
 whom I could never make a friend of. He yearns after power ; 
 and certainly if talent can force a way to eminence, his will do it. 
 His self-conceit and contempt of all others except the oligarchy 
 of his momentary admiration will stand in his way, but even 
 this may be of use in imparting to him a dignity and high tone of 
 conscious power which is so good a substitute for rank and station. 
 R. M. H. to his Mother. 
 
 February 26^, 1830. 
 
 . . . Kemble has come back to go into orders, having 
 had a living given him, and is up here for his degree. He is 
 most delightfully unaffected and well informed, and seems to 
 have derived immense advantage from Germany. He has 
 talked to me a good deal about his sister, and seems very proud 
 of her, and well he may be. ... I read an essay on the 
 state of the country at a society called The Apostles last 
 Saturday. I hurried it too much to be very good. One party 
 called it too metaphysical, others (the greater part) too practical, 
 but it took altogether very well. The set that is, all the 
 nobles, &c., who had been civil to me dined with me last week. 
 I gave them, I will venture to say, the best and the cheapest 
 dinner ever given here. . . . Harvey and O'Brien and a 
 good many others have been getting up a play, in which I take 
 a second-rate part, a sort of city husband to Fitzroy, who acts a 
 kind of Duchess of St. Albans. I could not take a part which 
 would take up much time or trouble. The play is Lord 
 Glengall's new comedy, The Follies of Fashion. It will be 
 acted next week. I daresay Harriette will laugh, when I tell 
 you that though Hallam and I remain very intimate, I do not 
 see him once for the twenty times I am with Fitzroy or O'Brien. 
 The former is really so much attached to me that I must love 
 him, if he had no other good qualities, and he has so many.
 
 92 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 O'Brien is fascination itself. Did neither papa nor you know 
 his mother, Emma Noel ? We sing duets together, and I 
 really think, if I was with him much longer, he would make me 
 as good as himself. ... I will now pass on to Mr. Milnes. 
 You ask me, sir, what my politics are. How strange a ques- 
 tion! and one you know I cannot answer. If there is one thing 
 upon which I have ever prided myself, it is on having no 
 politics at all, and judging every measure by its individual 
 merits. That by this means I have arrived at some political 
 principles is very true, but they are too general to be applied 
 with any accuracy to business of the day. That the Parliament 
 represents the intellect, not the will, of the nation ; that it is 
 impossible to support a marrowless aristocracy, who have nothing 
 but wealth to uphold them when the reverent feeling has ex- 
 pired ; that the education of the people ought to proceed in 
 subserviency to their will ; that a free trade in corn ought to 
 accompany the reduction of the funds ; that we ought to return 
 to a metallic currency ; that a man's moral wealth ought to 
 enter all questions of political economy, in the same way as 
 money's worth is the thing desirable, not money. These and 
 some similar axioms are the sum-total of my politics, and I 
 suppose the party which most approximates to them is that of 
 Palmerston and Grant, the Canningites. I was much amused 
 by Gaskell's saying that he should vote with Lord Clanricarde 
 out of respect for Canning, but perhaps I may go to the other 
 extreme ; however, I am on the safe side. ... I remember 
 you once told me to lead the Union ; this I could not do if I 
 stayed here a century, and for this reason : a leader there must 
 be a violent politician and a party politician, or he must have a 
 private party. I shall never be the one or have the other. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 March lUh, 1830. 
 
 Sunderland has gone to the Isle of Man, to live there 
 some time in perfect solitude, to expatriate himself as much as 
 he can, he says, from human feelings, and " be able to cut his
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 93 
 
 father's throat if, necessary, in the good cause." Since I wrote 
 I have made two extempore attempts at the Union ; the first to 
 cut up a man who had been ignorantly impertinent, and with 
 folding my arms and mimicking Pitt's antithetical phrase (for in 
 sarcasm alone is that engine greatly available), I really made 
 great play. The second, a great noisy speech of half an hour, 
 full of invocation and clap-trap in debate, which also took ; so I 
 am rather pleased. I had Hare and Thirlwall to dine with me 
 almost alone last week, and a conversazione of all the phases of 
 our literary microcosm classics and millenarians, philosophers 
 and politicians the most amusing farrago I ever saw. . . . 
 Kemble has talked to me about his sister ; if the season goes on 
 as it has begun, the whole debt of the theatre will be cleared off 
 before the end. Is not this a fine thing for a girl of sixteen to 
 do ? He told me that he had not heard from his family for a long 
 time, when one day at Munich he took up a newspaper and read, 
 " to-morrow Miss F. Kemble will appear in Juliet." He de- 
 scribed the impression as a cold sword run through his heart. 
 . Poor Fred Tennyson is sitting by me while I am 
 writing. He took up your long letter, and said, " I have no 
 one to write to me on such things." It is most sad to see this 
 highly-talented being thrown away from society and himself 
 by hard circumstances of temperament and fortune. He won't 
 exert himself to write for the Greek Ode, which be would be 
 certain to get, out of pure melancholy idleness. One of his 
 brothers is publishing a volume of poems, which will be out 
 to-morrow ; and the youngest [the great poet] is publishing two 
 ' little volumes with Hallam, which will be out in about two 
 
 months. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 March Nth, 1830. 
 
 ... I am writing for the prize poem, so shall not take my 
 
 degree till after it comes out. The subject, you know, is 
 
 Byzantium, and I am writing the most Popish, sober, noisy, 
 
 half -sentimental, half -bombastic thing I can. I begin at once, 
 
 " To muse on Pera's slope at cool of eve,"
 
 94 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 dash on through the Constantines, talk furious Christianity, and 
 end with the Apocalypse. If the execution be as politic as the 
 scheme, I have a good chance of it, particularly as this year they 
 are sure to give it to one most antithetical to Tennyson's. 
 
 On April 4th he writes to his mother his farewell 
 letter from his old rooms at Trinity, and the natural 
 sadness at the thought that the " thing as a part of life 
 is all over and for ever " weighs upon his spirits. Yet, 
 even under the influence of the depression, he is able to 
 give a graphic account of a journey to St. Ives to hear 
 Cobbett lecture : 
 
 He spoke in a barn to about one hundred farmers and 
 Cambridge men. It lasted full three hours, and he pever paused, 
 sat down, or recalled a word, but went through the whole series 
 of the causes of the distress : currency ; poor laws ; Church 
 property ; Crown lands ; standing army, &c., and wound up with 
 radical reform. He was at one time conversational, at another 
 humorous, at another eloquent, yet all in the same idiomatic 
 phraseology. The impression on the farmers was decidedly 
 favourable, and I was much pleased with the whole. He came 
 here on foot, his daughters following in his carriage. . . I have 
 only heard two stories by way of news ; one, that the Duke of 
 St. Albans asked the showman of the Siamese boys, who, you 
 know, are joined together, whether they were brothers ; and the 
 other, that Prince Leopold, being recommended to read Plutarch 
 for Grecian lore, got the British Plutarch by mistake, and laid 
 down the Life of Sir Christopher Wren in great indignation, 
 exclaiming there was hardly anything about Greece in it. 
 
 From Cambridge, Milnes went to Yorkshire, and 
 visited the family house at Fryston, which had so long 
 been practically closed. One of his objects in doing 
 so was to consult local friends of influence as to the
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 95 
 
 possibility of his coming in for Pontefract, on the 
 dissolution of Parliament at the death of the King, an 
 event which was then imminent. Then he returned to 
 town, and gave his days to the London University, and 
 most of his nights to the House of Commons. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 May, 1830. 
 
 I have heard some debates since I wrote last. The best was 
 on the Jews' Bill. O'Connell spoke better than I have ever heard 
 him energetic, but not well pointed. He ended with one striking 
 expression. He had spoken of what lie had deemed the petty inter- 
 ference of human power in the great works of Providence, that 
 the Jews had advanced in wealth and power against all obstacles, 
 and " who will now dare to say that the arm of the Almighty is 
 shortened ? " There was only one really good speech, as far as 
 matter and argument that of Lord Belgrave. He was un- 
 answerable, and his attempted confuters made great fools of 
 themselves. What a purling stream of language Goulburn 
 emits ! so full of phrased nothings and gentle shufflings. . . . 
 Sunderland meets me sometimes at the House. He rails against 
 all politics, and is quite ashamed of himself for nourishing such 
 a petty ambition as to overthrow the despicable antagonists of 
 Parliament. I should much enjoy the effect of his demolishing 
 rhetoric among Huskisson and his brother-dunderheads. There 
 are a few political men wbom I want to know very few the 
 Grants, Palmerston, Sir J. Graham, and Spring Rice I think 
 this is all. McCulloch's lectures improve upon him ; he is too 
 abstract in his views, he does not attend to modifications, but he 
 elaborates a principle, and gives it to you to weave up very 
 ingeniously. ... I have been to one or two balls, about one a 
 week ; Mrs. Stanhope's was very agreeable. Fountain Wilson 
 came dressed like Mawworm. Lady Cork* has given me a dinner ; 
 Hallam, and Gait the Scotch novelist, and Mr. Lister the author 
 
 * Lady Cork was his great-aunt.
 
 96 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 of " Granby," and some blue ladies, were the party, and some other 
 litterateurs in the evening. Fanny Kemble was to have come, but 
 was tired with acting 1 . I go to Mrs. K/s some evening this week. 
 She told me her daughter had never seemed the least elated with 
 her success till her father told her she had cleared him a debt of 
 11,000, and then she owned she was proud. She is not eighteen. 
 Campbell * has asked me to dine on Monday, and meet all the 
 artists. Nothing can exceed his civility to me- He pressed me 
 very much to stay in his house, as being nearer the House of 
 Commons than this, and said he hoped I would make all possible 
 use of him. I met Conversation Sharpe the other night. He talked 
 much about having been in Parliament with you. My trip to 
 Cambridge succeeded very well. I was feted outrageously for 
 two days. Ellice had stupidly written me word of a wrong 
 question for the Union, so I was completely thrown on my 
 extempore resources, and succeeded as well as I could have 
 expected. I spoke about three-quarters of an hour, and took a 
 formal farewell. Fitzroy was so affected he ran out of the room. 
 (Don't laugh.) Thirlwall gave me a supper, which, as he never 
 stirs out, I deem a great favour ; and, after everybody was gone, 
 asked me to sit and talk, which we did till past three in the 
 morning. He was particularly anxious about my going to 
 Greece, said it would be of more use in calling up my classical 
 knowledge, and supplying me with reflection for the rest of my 
 life, than anything. . . . My dear mother's matronly letter ! 
 Pray tell her if Lord Cleveland offered to bring me into 
 Parliament to-morrow, I would refuse it ; I must work my way 
 unpatronised, if at all. I will attend to all her kind admonitions, 
 but pray console her about my growth, by Lord Monson being 
 a head less than I am. Grattan and Fox were both little men, 
 and so was St. Paul. ... I have seen something of Fitz- 
 clarence. He seemed in good spirits at his uncle's approaching 
 departure. The eldest brother is to be made a peer, and the 
 other ones to have the titles of duke's younger sons. I think 
 this is very fair. 
 
 * The poet.
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 97 
 
 In the middle of June, Milnes left London for 
 Germany ; he travelled by way of Brussels, being 
 anxious to see the field of Waterloo. On the road 
 he met a party of Oxonians on a holiday tour, one 
 of whom recognised in him the defender of Shelley. 
 So, for the remainder of his journey, he had com- 
 panions; and sixpenny whist on the top of the diligence 
 made the hours flow pleasantly. His first impression 
 of Bonn was one of disappointment ; the place looked 
 black and dull in the driving rain as he arrived at 
 nightfall ; but in the morning he was delighted with 
 it, and found it just such a spot as that in which 
 literature ought to have a home. "I called on Pro- 
 fessor Brandis with Thirlwall's letter ; he was all 
 politeness, went over the town with me to look for 
 lodgings, and introduced me to. a metaphysical tutor. 
 On returning I found the card of Privy Councillor 
 Niebuhr. . . . Who were at the door but Augustus 
 Fitzroy and Sandwich ! They had stopped on purpose to 
 see me, and were just going off. There are here about 
 950 students, very nice- (not clean-) looking. Some 
 are just now passing by, with their arms about one 
 another's necks, chorussing with fine voices." He 
 enjoyed his stay at Bonn, which lasted over several 
 months, and, as he took care to live entirely among 
 Germans, he made good progress in his knowledge 
 of the language ; reading omnivorously among the 
 standard authors, and, as usual, losing no opportunity 
 of making the acquaintance of the celebrities of the 
 place.
 
 98 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Sister. 
 
 Bonn, July 14M, 1830. 
 
 . . . You must have indeed been wonder-struck at 
 Venice; there are two beautiful lines of Wordsworth's about 
 
 it 
 
 " And when she took unto herself a mate, 
 She must espouse the everlasting sea/' 
 
 which papa will explain to you. It must have been delightful 
 to float in those soft gondolas all day, and dance all night . . . 
 I have bought all the students' songs, which are very simply 
 delightful. They walk about the streets at night singing them 
 in very excellent time ; they all have good voices. There is a 
 great difference in their appearance, in general shabbily dressed, 
 with very long hair, moustache, and a pipe, on which the senti- 
 mental ones have a portrait in enamel of their lady love, by 
 whom the ornaments of their favourite pipe are also worked. 
 There are about four duels a day at a village a little distance off; 
 the combatants are padded all over except the breast, arms, and 
 lower part of the face, and have a large woollen and steel cap 
 over their eyes. The sword has a round sharp point, and never 
 hardly makes any more wound than a little scratch, which must 
 be an inch long and cut through two skins. The general word 
 of offence is Dummer Junge, which if your dearest friend call you 
 you must fight him. There are two or three very violent words for 
 which they go out with the sabre, which is really dangerous. 
 . . . I dine every day at one o'clock; it is excessively dis- 
 agreeable, as I am sleepy all the afternoon. It costs about 
 two and a half francs, and the only fault is that it lasts full an 
 hour and a half, and consists of six regular courses. A great 
 many professors dine there, but, as they all sit together, I 
 cannot get much out of them. I went last Sunday, with one of 
 the Bullers who is here, to an island called Nonnenwert, a little 
 beyond the Drachenfels. I dined there, and afterwards walked to 
 drink tea with Madam Schopenhauer, a great German authoress, 
 a particular friend of Goethe's. She speaks English perfectly, 
 and was not at all pedantical. I am to be introduced to Schlegel
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 99 
 
 this week. He thinks a great deal more of rank and political emi- 
 nence than anything 1 else, so I wish I could say that papa had 
 been Chancellor of the Exchequer, if it was only for twenty- 
 four hours. He is insufferably vain of his person, though near 
 seventy, and arranges his wig from a little looking-glass in his 
 snuff-box, and ill-natured people say he rouges. We have at last 
 got some tolerable weather, and these little hills (they call them 
 mountains) look pretty enough. The gliding down the stream of 
 the Rhine by starlight, or an evening walk by the lamps of the 
 fireflies, will be my favourite amusement. 
 
 The death of George IV., which occurred at the 
 close of June, caused the dissolution of Parliament 
 in the following month, and a proposal reached Milnes 
 that he should stand for Pontefract. Naturally the 
 young man was not a little excited by the prospect of 
 thus entering Parliament. " I cannot bear the idea of 
 giving up so enticing a prospect," he writes to his 
 father, " which would enable me to secure a seat not 
 only for this, but probably for the next Parliament, for 
 nothing. Why need I open my mouth next Parlia- 
 ment ; why even need I be all the session in town ? " 
 His father, however, saw difficulties in the way, especially 
 money difficulties, and was anxious to defer his son's 
 entrance upon political life until a later period. The 
 latter was compelled to acquiesce in his decision. Per- 
 haps he found some consolation for the disappoint- 
 ment in the fact that one of his friends, who had 
 recently entered Parliament, Charles Buller, did not 
 achieve the success anticipated for him in the House. 
 
 Mrs. Buller seems much disappointed in her son's ill-fortune 
 in the House. He has had six regularly prepared speeches, I
 
 100 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 believe of very high merit, without having obtained a hearing-, 
 and this continual repulse has made him more nervous than when 
 he began. He must, however, do something. They are talking 
 much of a Mr. Hyde Villiers, who seems to have made a great 
 impression on the House. He has been four years in Parliament, 
 and never had an opportunity of making himself heard. How 
 excessively disgusting this must be ! Mrs. Buller told me to 
 ask papa what he would recommend to a young man who wished 
 to acquire Parliamentary confidence, and what he did to speak so 
 calmly at first. Would he advise any artificial excitement to a 
 very nervous man ? Sir James Mackintosh always took opium. 
 I saw a letter from a very acute m n the other day, saying that 
 Lord Althorp was certainly the most rising man in the House, 
 and to whose party a young man ought now to attach himself 
 if he meant to stick by any party at all. ... I am waiting 
 very patiently for my father's absolute negative about Pomfret 
 to send to Rodes. I wish he would write to thank him and Lord 
 Mexborough for the interest they have taken about me. 
 
 Whilst he was attending the lectures at the Univer- 
 sity came news of the Revolution in Paris. 
 
 If you think [he wrote to his father] that the event came 
 coldly to the bookish men you are wont to jeer at, you are much 
 mistaken. Niebuhr interrupted his course, and gave a very 
 eloquent lecture on it. Schlegel said he had expected it all ; 
 and the Liberals looked mysterious and said they knew where it 
 would extend to. ... I am now not without hope of the 
 liberation of Lombardy. To no power is the shock so terrible 
 as to Austria. Every plank of the Imperial throne must quiver. 
 Metternich " must have talked in his sleep " the night he heard 
 of it, but I fear it will take both time and toil to render Austria 
 and even Lombardy fit for freedom. 
 
 After leaving Bonn, Milnes joined his family at 
 Milan, where he spent part of the winter with them.
 
 LONDON AND ITAL?. 101 
 
 The yoke of the Austrians at this time pressed with 
 special severity upon the Milanese, and there was great 
 dejection in the city in consequence. Arrests were con- 
 stantly being made, and as they were generally accom- 
 panied by the confiscation of the property of the 
 prisoner, they involved the ruin of his family. Among 
 the friends whom Mr. and Mrs. Milnes had made during 
 their stay in Milan, there was hardly a family which 
 had not some member of it in prison. The Austrian 
 officials did their best to conceal the general discontent 
 by the exercise of profuse hospitality, but the invita- 
 tions to the Governor's balls were never accepted by the 
 Milanese, and their cards offering excuses for their non- 
 attendance were always bordered with black. There is 
 no need to say that Richard Milnes's sympathies were 
 wholly with the Italians in their unhappy position, but 
 both he and the other members of his family were on 
 friendly terms with Austrians as well as Milanese. 
 
 From Mrs. Milnes's Journal. 1830. 
 
 As Richard wished to go to the Court balls, I had an audience 
 with the Archduchess, the Vice-Regina. Mr. Money, who then 
 acted as our Consul at Milan and Venice, having written giving 
 the particulars of my family and rank, &c., I had an audience in 
 the morning with the Vice-Regina, and only the ladies of 
 honour. She begged me to sit down by her on the sofa, and 
 kept me in conversation very agreeably for two hours. Richard 
 had accompanied me, and during this time was paying his devoirs 
 to the Viceroy- Rainer, .brother to the Emperor of Austria. 
 He conversed on literature and politics, and asked Richard a 
 good many questions about Cobbett and O'Connell. Before I 
 left the Vice-Regina she said, " I have a request to make to you.
 
 102 THE LIFE OF LORD SOUGHTON. 
 
 I hear you have a very charming little girl, and I am particularly 
 anxious to see her. Will you bring her with you to my ball to 
 be given for the marriage of the Queen of Hungary ?" I said 
 I had not taken her anywhere, being too young. However, 
 she said so much about it that I answered I could not refuse her 
 Highness, and was highly flattered. The Queen of Hungary 
 was married by proxy, and her beautiful sister, afterwards 
 Queen of Naples, was there, also the King and Queen of 
 Sardinia. Marie Louise (wife of Napoleon) requested to come 
 to the ball, but they shut the gates against her. It was a most 
 splendid and brilliant ball, and the attention of the Vice-Regina 
 was highly gratifying. She is a very handsome woman, with a 
 fine figure, very agreeable and amiable. 
 
 Mr. Milnes was at this time in England. His son 
 remained at Milan with his mother and sister. It was 
 the longest sojourn he had yet made in Italy, and he 
 greatly enjoyed the opportunity of becoming intimate 
 with Italian society. 
 
 Miss Caroline Milnes, to whom the following letter 
 was addressed, was one of the sisters of Mr. B. P. Milnes. 
 She and two other sisters Louisa and Jane never 
 married, and throughout their lives stood almost in the 
 relationship of sisters to their nephew. The affection 
 which existed between them and Richard Milnes was, 
 indeed, remarkable, and deserves special notice here. 
 The eldest of the three ladies was Louisa, who, born in 
 1791, attained a great age, surviving her nephew, and 
 dying in 1886. The next in order of age was Caroline, 
 who was born in 1792, and died in 1869 ; whilst the 
 youngest was Jane, born in 1801, who died, a few months 
 before Lord Houghton, in 1885. Miss Jane Milnes 
 always stood in the relationship of an elder sister to
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 103 
 
 Milnes. To her and her sisters throughout his life he 
 confided all his hopes and his troubles, certain of the 
 sympathy with which they followed him throughout his 
 career. In later years, owing to the delicate health of 
 Miss Caroline Milnes, the three sisters took up their 
 residence at Torquay ; but, so long as the infirmities of 
 age permitted them to travel, they regularly spent 
 the autumn and winter at Fryston. Many visitors to 
 Fryston can recall the venerable ladies, whose graceful 
 simplicity of manner only heightened the effect of their 
 intelligence, and lent an additional charm to their store 
 of old-world memories. Miss Louisa Milnes had been 
 in Paris at the same time as her brother, and was an 
 eye-witness of the entrance of Louis XVIII. into the 
 city an event which far on in the eighties she would 
 describe vividly to those with whom she conversed. She 
 was the first member of the family to abandon Unita- 
 rianism. All three sisters were educated far above the 
 average of the women of their time. In his early life 
 they did much to stimulate Milnes's intellectual pro- 
 gress, whilst their affection for him, and his wife and 
 children in after-years, was of such a character that no 
 account of his life would be complete in which it passed 
 unnoticed. 
 
 R. H. M. to Miss Caroline Milnes. 
 
 Milan, February, 1831. 
 
 DEAREST CAROLINE, I must answer your charming letter, 
 though very briefly and very dully. The first, because the post 
 is just going out ; and the second, because you must before this
 
 104 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 have seen my dear papa, and he will have told you of all oxir 
 late goings on. Since he has gone I have had a few balls, 
 where the Germans put my waltzing to shame, which was 
 thought very tolerable in London ; and actually scoff at my 
 gallopade, which was thought much above par. Indeed, if I 
 depended upon the resources of society entirely, I should find 
 this place very stupid. The opera, though good in itself, does 
 not please me as a social assembly, as I can never talk at my 
 ease in a box, and as the conversation suggested by the place is 
 always the same, the monotony to me is intolerable. 
 
 Pasta is in her full glory, and as I know her a little in 
 private, it adds to my pleasure in her public exhibitions. The 
 people who constitute this society do not go well with taste. 
 There is undoubtedly a good deal of beauty and some affability 
 to strangers, but the Italian women are in general grossly 
 ignorant; and the men whose only employment is paying 
 their devoirs to the women if they have anything in them, are 
 afraid to display it. I am reading English with some diligence, 
 and have conceived and written somewhat of a novel ; whether 
 it will ever reach its termination, Heaven knows. My heroine 
 is a composition of you and Lady M. two ingredients rather 
 different, but which amalgamate well. I am sorry at the arrest 
 of O'Connell; not but that he would deserve all the Government 
 could do to him, but I am certain they will not get a jury 
 firm-hearted enough to convict him in the present state of 
 Ireland. It is as much as the life of any man amongst them 
 is worth. Here I only hear echoes and distant reports of 
 English literature. I expect the second volume of Moore's 
 " Byron " with very much interest, not so much for the hero 
 himself, but for the many interesting names associated with 
 him in his sojourn in the South. I hear Theodore Hook's 
 " Maxwell " is good, as everything he writes must be, particu- 
 larly when he gets into middle life. I met him in London at 
 the Kembles', and thought him most amusing. I was much 
 shocked at Niebuhr*s death. The wicked breath of this age is 
 strong to blow out great lamps
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 105 
 
 The perplexities which surrounded Milnes's own life 
 at this time were very great, and undoubtedly they cast 
 a shadow of despondency over even his bright spirit. 
 Enough has already been revealed to show the reader 
 that his father was not altogether an easy man to get 
 on with. The great ambition which he had on his son's 
 behalf was allied to a strong dislike of the latter's 
 literary tastes. Nor was this all ; the family embar- 
 rassments were not grave, but they were apparently 
 exaggerated by Mr. Milnes, who, at the very time 
 when he was urging his son to prosecute his political 
 studies and to practise oratory with increased vigour, 
 was warning him that in all probability he would 
 never be able to make such provision as would enable 
 him to enter Parliament. All this was very trying 
 to Milnes, but it is only right to state that he bore, 
 with a sweetness of temper remarkable in one of 
 his impetuous disposition, the continuous thwarting of 
 his wishes which attention to his father's injunctions 
 involved. 
 
 In February he received from his college friend 
 Monteith a welcome batch of news from Cambridge. 
 
 Spedding- [he said] has just finished his prize declamation, 
 which has been greatly praised on all hands. Alfred Tennyson, 
 calling on Whewell, said, " It quite smells of Spedding." To 
 which the enthusiastic tutor rejoined, " And, my dear sir, a rare 
 good thing- to smell of too/' Such an encomium has done him 
 a deal of good. Hallam in all likelihood is to have the de- 
 clamation prize for this year. It was verily splendid to see the 
 poet Wordsworth's face, for he was there, kindle as Hallam 
 proceeded with it. Blakesley has lately fathered a new debating
 
 106 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 society, modestly called <( The Fifty/' It seems in a fair way 
 to drag on a languid existence for a good time ; but after all, 
 popular tumult is a great excitement in matters of this kind; 
 and we are, as Yorke says, " so damned gentlemanly " that all 
 spirit seems evaporated. The Union, God pity it, is nearly at 
 death's door. Perhaps the election of O'Brien as president may 
 restore its character a little, but in fact it only exists from its 
 reading-room and library. Have you seen by-the-bye, you 
 cannot the review of Tennyson's poems in the Westminster ? 
 It is really enthusiastic about him, and is very well written on 
 the whole. If we can get him well reviewed in the Edinburgh, 
 it will do. 
 
 One great pleasure he had during his stay in Italy 
 at this time : it was his visit for the first time to 
 Venice. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Venice, March 25^, 1831. 
 
 " Water, water everywhere/' and thus no light for picture- 
 seeing. . . . For four days of bright weather I have much 
 enjoyed this great city. Beauty and art and memories are so 
 plentiful that, notwithstanding many discomforts, it seems to 
 me the fittest resting-place for an intellectual and poetical man 
 that my eye has ever rested on; and, if I mistake not, there 
 will not pass any five years of my life without some months on 
 the Grand Canal. To the mere sightseer I can imagine it 
 almost disappointing. Canaletti has prevented any impression 
 of novelty, and the peculiar structure of the town implies a 
 certain monotony. I have been introduced by Count Albrizzi 
 into the four or five coteries, the debris of Venetian society. 
 The tone of conversation is much higher than at Milan, and 
 there is an appearance at least of hospitality that the Corsia di 
 Serni shows little of. The Moneys have given me a dinner, and 
 are so kind ; and then they have with them a great attraction 
 to me in Lady Campbell, who arrived the same day I did from
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 107 
 
 Rome, as fascinating as ever. ... I can't make out what 
 you mean by saying that it is essential I should go to Rome 
 just now. It is such a mockery to go to Rome for three weeks ; 
 it would be a disgrace to anyone above a cheesemonger or a 
 chancery lawyer in intellect. I could not do it. The pain of 
 leaving it would so far exceed any pleasure I could enjoy there 
 that the money and the time would be equally lost. And why 
 I should not go now : first, I could not get there in time for the 
 Holy Week; second, on account of the political disturbances 
 all the public places are shut up. Lady Campbell was not able 
 to see a single statue, and very few pictures, while she was there, 
 the Vatican being hermetically sealed ; and as I and the Austrians 
 would enter Rome about the same time, the inconvenience would 
 not be lessened ; thirdly, I have not read a line for Rome this 
 winter, and Thirl wall told me I might as well not go there at 
 all if I had not studied it topographically closely before ; and, 
 fourthly, I have got no letters to anybody there, and cannot 
 imagine who are the dinner-giving friends I was to meet with 
 according to one of your, letters. P. I delight in in his way, 
 but for a sympathetic companion in the Eternal City ? It 
 will be strange if I do not find sometime, however, a winter to 
 dedicate to Rome and to things of Rome. It may possibly be 
 the next one. If the weather brightens I intend next week to 
 go and see the Roman Amphitheatre at Pola, and if I find it 
 easy, may probably go for a day to Zara to see what a Dalma- 
 tian city is like. Returning here, I shall go by Bologna to 
 Florence to Hare and Landor, and thence to Casa Arconati. 
 This part of the road will be quite quiet, as Frimont entered 
 Bologna without a blow. Indeed, these cracker revolutions are 
 of very little interest. People are only anxious about General 
 Zucchi, who will certainly be shot if he is caught a hard fate 
 for one of Napoleon's favourite generals. . . . Whatever be 
 the fate of the Reform Bill, the Whigs have done a great crime. 
 It is clear as daylight that it cannot pass the Lords, and thus 
 the middle ranks will become at last persuaded that the rejectors 
 of the Bill are their oppressors, and there will be a still further
 
 108 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 schism between them and the aristocracy at a time when above 
 all others union is power. You say the measure is not demo- 
 cratic. Perhaps not ; but it subverts the anchor principle of our 
 Constitution, recognised by the Whig historian Hallam, that the 
 House of Commons represents the commonalty of Great Britain 
 that is, all the community, from the king to the peasant and 
 establishes in its stead a democratic principle which can only 
 be balanced by an extension of corrupt influence on the part of 
 the aristocracy, the very thing which the Bill professes to wish 
 to subvert. ... I should indeed have enjoyed answering 
 Macaulay or R. Grant. I suppose poor Buller dare not speak ; 
 his Radicalism and family interests are so fearfully at war with 
 each other. ... I am amused at your vituperation of my 
 brother essayist, Kerry, and also Spedding, which I am sure is 
 beautiful. He is a regular Utilitarian, opposed to Hare in 
 everything, and a scrupulously chaste writer. He was the best 
 Latin composer of my year. If you had only looked at the 
 Gem, you would have seen that I only sent for it because it 
 contained some of Tennyson's finest poetry. Have you read the 
 review of him in the Westminster ? 
 
 The mention in the foregoing letter of the names of 
 Hare and Landor recalls the fact that at that time 
 Julius Hare, Milnes's old tutor at Trinity, was living in 
 Italy in close intimacy with Walter Savage Landor. It 
 was through Hare that Milnes first became acquainted 
 with the older poet, of whom in his " Monographs " he 
 has given us so touching and sympathetic a sketch. But 
 if we may trust the statement he makes in that account 
 of Landor, it was not until 1833 that their acquaintance 
 actually began. At the end of May Milnes returned to 
 England, and proceeded to Cambridge to take his degree. 
 "The public orator," he writes, "made a very pretty 
 Latin speech, presenting me, principally about papa,
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 109 
 
 whom he traced through Cambridge into the House, 
 &c., &c., and after having said that I was ' et nohilitate 
 et pramus, omnibus honoribus dignus? called me indole et 
 natu ceque ac studio oratori" 
 
 He spent some weeks in town, hearing the debates 
 in the House, Macaulay being one of the speakers, 
 dancing at Almack's, dining at Lord Barham's to meet 
 an Indian Brahmin, who was making a furore, and had 
 taken an immense fancy to him ; in company with 
 Hallam listening to the preaching of Edward Irving, 
 and the first manifestation of " the tongues," and de- 
 ploring the fact that he had not seen the lion of the 
 season, Don Pedro, who " at Mrs. William Gruelph's 
 last hop " (as the Republican called the Queen's ball) 
 was the gayest of the gay, and seemed to forget both 
 his daughter and his throne. 
 
 The summer and autumn were devoted to a visit to 
 Ireland, undertaken in the first instance at the sugges- 
 tion of his college friend Richard Trench. It was the 
 first of many visits paid by him to the sister- island, where 
 in due season he formed not a few of the most warmly 
 cherished friendships of his life, and where even at that 
 time he had not a few good friends. Eliot Warburton, 
 the distinguished and ill-fated author of " The Crescent 
 and the Cross," was one of these, and it was partly for 
 the purpose of seeing him that Milnes made his present 
 journey. In travelling from London to Liverpool he 
 had his first experience of the railway.
 
 110 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Dublin, August 3rd, 1831. 
 
 I should have written to thank you for your amusing letter 
 and Harriette's scrap of German from London, but I thought it 
 better to wait till I had surmounted the dangers of the railroad 
 and the passage. The former rather disappointed me. We 
 went quick enough (36 miles in an hour and twenty minutes), 
 but it made you so giddy to look on the ground, and the dust 
 flew so disagreeably in your eyes, that unless one slept all the 
 way, a long steam journey would be anything but pleasant. In 
 one point, however, it is superior to every other kind of travel- 
 ling in safety. I cannot conceive a possible accident if you 
 only sit still ; for if the boiler was to burst, it could not hurt 
 those in the inside of the carriages. I believe a good many engi- 
 neers are killed, and this certainly seems rather dangerous. I had 
 a beautiful passage, and was not at all sick a great wonder for 
 me. This city pleases me. I think it is as handsome as any 
 built of brick can be, and the public buildings are in excellent 
 taste. It is now quite deserted, as the few people I have seen 
 tell me. The Bishop of Kildare asked me to dinner the day 
 I arrived, yesterday ; a very agreeable party. I sat by a Lady 
 Campbell, daughter of the Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Madame 
 de Genlis' " Pamela," one of the cleverest creatures I ever saw. 
 Moore has just published her father's life, and I began talking 
 of it without knowing who she was, but luckily very encomias- 
 tically, so we got on very well. ... I go to-morrow to 
 Belfast, where a Cambridge friend of mine of the name of 
 Warburton has been waiting some time for me. He takes me 
 over the northern lions, and then after paying some visits to 
 places where I have got letters to, I go to stay quietly with 
 Trench in Queen's County. O'Brien is in the south at Sir 
 E. O'Brien's, and as he has a tutor with him whom I do not 
 like at all, and a friend I am not particularly fond of, I am in no 
 hurry to join him, especially as Trench offers me to stay quietly 
 with him as long as I please. ... In the way of politics I
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. Ill 
 
 have nothing 1 new, except that everybody says that now that 
 Prussia has declared against Poland there must be war, and 
 we shall be dragged in. There is no doubt that the people are 
 anxious for it, and will bear to be taxed still more for that pur- 
 pose though for no other. The Duke does not yet give up all 
 hope of thwarting the Bill in the Commons, and nobody now 
 seems to imagine it can pass the Lords, the pledged majority 
 against it being fifty, exclusive of the bishops. It is supposed 
 that Parliament will sit till the Coronation, and then adjourn 
 only for a month or six weeks. I saw a letter from S. Kildenbee, 
 saying that they never left the House except to get a little sleep, 
 and now that they have begun to sit on Saturdays the imprison- 
 ment must be intolerable. . . . Papa tells me to give him 
 some account of the debates I heard ; what can I tell him ? That 
 Lord Althorp was dull, Croker clever, Wetherell coarse, Hunt 
 a bore ? Or am I to say at once what everybody says that 
 the House was never so low as at this moment ? There has 
 been some good speaking, and it was cheered, but nobody 
 thought any more about it. Indeed, it is very natural that the 
 faintest joke should be a more grateful relief to the continual 
 tedium than the most eloquent ejaculation. Everybody is dis- 
 gusted with the insolent injustice which the Ministry have shown 
 in adhering to their capricious decision, especially in Schedule B, 
 when the most unanswerable evidence was given or offered to 
 prove them in the wrong ; and except as leading to something 
 else, the mass of the people care very little about the Bill. 
 
 Mr. Milnes senior was in favour of Parliamentary 
 Reform, so that on the burning political question of the 
 day there was a distinct difference of opinion between 
 his son and himself. On the other hand, upon questions 
 of foreign affairs, and, above all, upon the subject which 
 was so closely brought to the notice of the family by 
 their stay at Milan the subjugation of Lombardy to 
 Austrian rule Milnes, as we have seen, took the broad
 
 112 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 side in opposition to his father, who upon these questions 
 was distinctly conservative. 
 
 Among the other friends whose acquaintance Milnes 
 made during his stay in Dublin was Sydney, Lady 
 Morgan, author of " The Wild Irish Girl " and other 
 well-known stories. Lady Morgan seems to have taken 
 a great liking to him from the first, and she did her best 
 to make him at home in the literary society of Dublin 
 of that day. 
 
 From Dublin, in accordance with his programme, 
 Milnes went to the north, and joined Eliot Warburton 
 for a tour in open cars, which he greatly enjoyed. His 
 pleasure was, however, marred, as that of so many other 
 travellers in Ireland has been, by the importunity of the 
 beggars, who followed him everywhere. 
 
 .ff. M. M. to his Sister. 
 
 Aiigust \QtJi. 
 
 The Giant's Causeway is very marvellous, and would have 
 much interested me if I could have had one quiet, contemplative 
 moment, but the guides stream down on you in actual shoals, 
 and torment you to death by their garrulity and importunity. 
 As it is a wonder of nature only when taken collectively, and 
 requires to be regarded en masse and as a whole, you will under- 
 stand how the interruption of even a human form must be 
 utterly destructive of the general effect. Think, then, of a 
 rabble rout of sightseers, with the eternal prattle and hubbub 
 of picnic parties, hampered with veal pies, and blind ancient men 
 with cracked fiddles. We had hoped that by coming by water 
 we should keep the cormorants off, but I was forced to rush back 
 into the boat, leaving the thing half unseen, in an agony of 
 passion. We stayed two days at Glenarm Castle, the famous 
 Lady Antrim's. I learned very much from her husband
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 113 
 
 of Irish affairs, but as I have kid it down as a rule to 
 believe nothing here implicitly but my own eyes, I shall not 
 transcribe any of it. . . . I hear there is a letter at the 
 post, so I shall stop till I get it, as it may be from you. Well, 
 here is papa's letter, and I have to direct this to Napoli, la bella 
 Napoli ! When you get this you have looked at Baise, and raised 
 your eyes to Vesuvius. If it is decided that you are not to stay 
 at Naples, then I think your vagrant plan of travelling is much 
 the best. And now, while you are enjoying yourself, will you do 
 something to please me ? Will you write a journal and send it 
 me, but upon this system never say when you left or got to a 
 place, never how far one place is from another, never any date or 
 order, but merely put on paper the impressions of new and 
 external objects ? Now besides this, read " Eustace " very 
 attentively, and get papa to explain to you all the classical part 
 of it. Have you also, as you promised me, read all the part of 
 the " Outline of History " that Concerns Rome ? But first of all, 
 take Corinne with you, and get " Letters from Italy." I 
 fear it is a hopeless task to make papa a regular sightseer, but 
 do make him go and see all the buildings; this is by far more 
 important than pictures or statues. The impression of the 
 beautiful in a building connects the ideas of the pleasure and 
 the place more intimately than any other work of art, which 
 might be easily transferred into another country, can do. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow Milnes in his Irish 
 visit further. One of the most interesting places at 
 which he stayed was the Island of Valentia, to which 
 he had received a kind invitation from the Knight of 
 Kerry ; whilst amongst the other notable persons whose 
 acquaintance he made during his stay in Ireland was 
 Miss Edgeworth. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Aubrey De Yere for some 
 reminiscences of Milnes dating as far back as this 
 period, and although they necessarily anticipate the
 
 114 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 course of my narrative, it may be well to insert them 
 here : 
 
 My first acquaintance with my old friend Houghton [says 
 Mr. De Vere] was so characteristic of him that I have never 
 forgotten it. It was in 1831, and we were reading- aloud the 
 great debate on the Reform Bill, when, about 9 o'clock in the 
 evening, a postchaise drove up. No one was expected, and we 
 went out on the terrace to see who the new arrival could be. 
 A young man, with a jaunty step and very vivacious intelligent 
 face, walked up the steps and asked whether my eldest brother, 
 the late Sir Vere de Vere, was in the house. They both belonged 
 to Trinity College, Cambridge, and were friends. My brother 
 fortunately was with us ; they were delighted to meet, and in 
 another half -hour we seemed to have leapt into an intimacy with 
 the young traveller as close as if it had begun years before, so 
 entirely easy and familiar was our guest in all his ways, and so 
 singularly unconventional in his manners. After a little time 
 my father told him that we had been engaged on the debate 
 which at that time absorbed public attention, and proposed that 
 we should resume our reading, to which he replied that nothing 
 could interest him more. He soon, however, had had enough 
 of the speeches, jumped up, lighted a bedchamber candle, and 
 began to coast round and round the room, examining the books 
 with which its walls were lined. Now and then he laughed 
 as a flight of Parliamentary rhetoric reached his ears; but the 
 books excited his attention far more. He took down many of 
 them, perused their title-pages carefully, turned over a few of 
 their leaves hastily, and replaced them. Having run rapidly 
 through the lower shelves, he got a chair and subjected the 
 higher to the same rapid inspection, and once stood at a con- 
 siderable height from the ground with the candlestick in one 
 hand and a volume in the other, which drew from him louder 
 laughter than he had bestowed on any of the political sallies. 
 When we all retired for the night, he took half a dozen 
 volumes to his room, promising not to read them in bed till 
 daylight returned. The next morning, at breakfast, a question
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 115 
 
 arose as to whether a particular book was in our library ; no one 
 could tell. "Yes, it is," said our newly arrived guest, "it is a 
 small volume on one of the upper shelves. I will get it for 
 you." He vanished, and soon reappeared with the book in his 
 hand. " That was the book which amused me so much ; do 
 you remember it ? I will read some of it to you ; it is one of 
 the cleverest books I know." He then read us passages out of 
 Dean Swift's " Advice to Servants," till reminded that, though 
 the Dean's wit always holds its own, tea sometimes grows cold. 
 
 He remained with us a good many days, though when he 
 left us they seemed too few. We showed him whatever of 
 interest our neighbourhood boasts, and he more than repaid us 
 by the charm of his conversation, his lively descriptions of foreign 
 ways, his good-humour, his manifold accomplishments, and the 
 extraordinary range of his information, both as regards books 
 and men. He could hardly have then been more than two-and- 
 twenty, and yet he was already well acquainted with the 
 languages and literatures of many different countries, and not a 
 few of their most distinguished men, living or recently dead. I 
 well remember the vivid picture which he drew of Niebuhr's 
 profound grief at the downfall of the restored monarchy in 
 France at the renewal of its Revolution in 1830. He was 
 delivering a series of historical lectures at the time, and Milnes 
 was one of the young men attending the course. One day they 
 had long to wait for their professor ; at last the aged historian 
 entered the lecture hall, his form drooping, and his whole aspect 
 grief-stricken. " Gentlemen," he said, " I have no apology to 
 make for detaining you ; a calamity has befallen Europe which 
 must undo all the restorative work recently done, and throw back 
 her social and political progress perhaps for centuries. The 
 Revolution has broken out again." 
 
 Milnes was then a Tory, though our cousin, the old Knight of 
 Kerry, himself a Tory, and whom he also visited, thought he must 
 be mistaken when he professed to be one. At a later time another 
 Tory friend said to him, " What a pity that you began with 
 such good principles ! If you had but begun with bad ones, you
 
 116 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGRTON. 
 
 would have got tired of them, and gone on to better." In 1832 
 he was opposed to the Reform Bill of that year, as was my father, 
 notwithstanding that he had also regretted as calamitous the 
 long delay in effecting a sound Parliamentary reform. 
 
 Milnes was at that time much devoted to German literature, 
 and in sympathy with German philosophy at least, so far as 
 it stands opposed to that of Locke and his followers. He was 
 ardent in his admiration for both the Schlegels, for Tieck, for 
 Heine and Schiller, but, above all, for Goethe, whose many- 
 sidedness delighted him, and whose minor poems he pronounced 
 to be the perfection of art. Art was what he then seemed most 
 to value in poetry, not reality or the experience of life ; the poet, 
 he maintained, often wrote best when he felt least. Among the 
 French poets, he spoke with enthusiasm of Victor Hugo ; but I 
 have little doubt that his own mind, like that of Carlyle, was 
 more deeply influenced by the writings of Goethe than by those of 
 any other poet. He would not have agreed with the man who said 
 Goethe was " at once an idolater and an unbeliever, for he wor- 
 shipped himself, and yet he was too shrewd to believe in himself/' 
 
 Milnes left behind with us a multitude of pleasant recol- 
 lections, not only connected with his original conversation and 
 amusing ways, but with many books which he was fond of quoting, 
 and most of which we sent for on his recommendation. One 
 of these was " Guesses at Truth/' by Julius and Francis Hare, a 
 work full of fine thoughts and happy suggestions, and one 
 written in a spirit both scholarly and elevated. Through him 
 we became well acquainted with the refined and classical poetry 
 of Landor, and with those imaginary conversations which take, 
 perhaps, the highest rank in prose poetry, characterised, as they 
 are, by a style at once so masterly and so various, by thoughts 
 so deep, and by an eloquence so manly and so true. Through 
 Milnes also we acquired a thorough knowledge of Shelley and 
 Keats, the latter of whom had previously been unknown to us, 
 while the former was known only through a volume of selections; 
 and I became familiar with those noble works by Kenelm 
 Digby, " The Broad Stone of Honour " and " Mores Catholici/'
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 117 
 
 in which what was best in the Middle Ages is so vividly 
 mirrored, and to which I have ever felt myself much indebted 
 for the light which they cast on religious history and philosophy. 
 
 We had previously seen nothing of Alfred Tennyson's poetry, 
 though we had often heard him spoken of by my eldest brother, 
 who was one of his Cambridge friends; but Milnes's portmanteau, 
 amongst the many books with which it was crammed, had found 
 room for a slender periodical called, I think, The Englishman 
 containing Arthur Hallam's fearlessly appreciative critique on 
 the first volume that bore on its title-page a name destined to 
 become so widely known and gratefully honoured. We were 
 soon on very intimate terms with Oriana, Mariana, Haroun 
 al Raschid, the Persian Girl, and much good company besides, 
 who for years afterwards accompanied us in our boatings and 
 woodland rambles. That magazine included an exquisite sonnet 
 of Tennyson's, not now accessible, beginning " Check every 
 outbreak," and among his other poems recited to us by Milnes 
 was a grand sonnet on Cambridge, which, from its theme, 
 challenges yet greater interest in the present day than when it 
 was written. We asked in vain for a copy of it; my sister took 
 up her pen, and, screened by a pile of books, wrote out the 
 whole of it from memory with perfect correctness. Quite 
 recently that copy was found and sent to me. Milnes used to 
 speak with a special affection of his sister, but in his own quaint 
 way, " I don't resent her being beautiful when I am plain, but 
 it is really too bad that she should also be taller than I am." 
 
 I don't affect to draw a complete portrait of an early and 
 always faithful friend; I don't go beyond detached impressions. 
 What, as I always thought, had the strongest hold on Houghton 
 was poetry, and especially that gleam which it throws on the 
 grace and gladness of youth ; the inevitable departure of youth 
 was, I think, felt by him to be the one great woe of humanity. 
 He sang its dirge in an early poem, " The Flight of Youth." 
 
 The highlands of life were not what interested him much ; its 
 mountains cast their shadows too far, and drew down too many 
 clouds ; he was better pleased to
 
 118 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Recognise that idyll scene 
 Where all mild creatures without awe 
 Amid field flowers and pastures green 
 Fulfilled their being's gentle law. 
 
 He had not, as it seemed to me, much of solid ambition, nor 
 did he value social distinction as much as intellectual excitement 
 and ceaseless novelty. He played with the world, even after the 
 plaything had become a tiresome one; but he was never seriously 
 a man of the world. His affections were much stronger than 
 they were supposed to be, especially those connected with 
 domestic ties or with early recollections ; he never forgot an old 
 friend, and was always anxious to be of practical help to those 
 who stood in need of aid, or who were unjustly assailed. It was 
 thus that when Augustus Stafford, though a man singularly and 
 deservedly popular, found himself for a time severely assailed in 
 connection with some alleged interference with votes on the part 
 of officials in the Admiralty, his old friend was at once at his 
 side, the stoutest to fight his cause, when some of his own 
 political party looked coldly upon him. 
 
 Milnes told me in his later life that in his earlier days he 
 would almost certainly have become a Catholic but for the 
 sudden uprising of a Catholic school in the Church of England. 
 But I should have thought it more likely that his feelings 
 on this subject had been those expressed in a profoundly touching 
 poem, written at Rome in 1834, beginning " To search for lore 
 in spacious libraries." * 
 
 * The following is the closing stanza of the poem to which Mr. De 
 Vere refers : 
 
 " Thou to whom the wearisome disease 
 Of past and present is an alien thing, 
 Thou pure existence, whose severe decrees 
 Forbid a living man his soul to bring 
 Into a timeless Eden of sweet ease, 
 Clear-eyed, clear-hearted lay Thy loving wing 
 In death upon me, if that way alone 
 Thy great Creation-thought Thou wilt to me make known."
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 119 
 
 Houghton was, I think, a man wholly without resentments 
 and free from all touch of envy or jealousy, while, on the other 
 hand, he had an ardent faculty of admiration. His wit had no 
 sting in it ; it hurt nobody, and he was not easily hurt himself. 
 He had a great relish for amusement, and a benevolent desire to 
 amuse others, not much caring whether the laugh which his jest 
 had raised went with him or was at his own expense. When 
 he was still a young man, the Queen gave a masked ball at 
 Buckingham Palace, and he had, as was said, expressed his in- 
 tention of going to it in the character of old Chaucer. Words- 
 worth, as Poet Laureate, had received an invitation to it, though 
 not wholly pleased at having to begin his attendance on such 
 revels at seventy-five years of age. The patriarch of English 
 poetry, when told of the young poet's intention, exclaimed, " If 
 Richard Milnes goes to the Queen's ball in the character of 
 Chaucer, it only remains for me to go to it in that of Richard 
 Milnes/' If the repartee reached the ears of Milnes, no one, I 
 am sure, enjoyed it more or repeated it oftener. 
 
 Some time or other the world will discover, with much 
 pleasure and surprise, what a true poet there lived in a man 
 whom it regarded chiefly as a pleasant companion with odd ways 
 and manifold accomplishments. It did him injustice in this 
 respect ; he would have been more known as a poet if he had 
 always lived in a cell under the old oaks of Fryston. Men 
 fancied that one so amusing could have no right to possess the 
 poetic gift in addition, and many did not take the trouble to 
 ascertain whether he actually possessed it or not. His poetry 
 did not assert itself ; it had a modesty about it which the poet 
 himself did not claim. It shunned the sensational, and the 
 refinement which so marks it presented probably the greatest 
 obstacle to its popularity. Though rich in fancy, it is grave- 
 hearted, and in an unusual degree thoughtful ; it is full of 
 pathos, and that pathos often rests gently, like Wordsworth's 
 "lenient cloud," on scenes and incidents not only of modern 
 but of conventional life. A more ample appreciation will one 
 day be given to such poems as " When lying upon the scales of
 
 120 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 fate/' " The words that tremble on your lips," " She had left all 
 on earth for him/' " I had a home/' " Beneath an Indian palm 
 a girl/' in which so much of tender feeling is united with 
 exquisite grace of expression ; though it is probable that 
 Houghton's earlier friends, of whom he probably lost none, 
 except through death, will, from old associations, recur more 
 often to the poems of his youth, such as he read to us in this 
 house. Among the best of them were those entitled " Rapture," 
 " Shadows," " All fair things have soft approaches," " My 
 Youthful Letters," and " The Men of Old." 
 Curragh Chase, Nov. 4, 1889. 
 
 As I have said, Mr. de Vere's tribute to the memory 
 of his friend anticipates the course of this biography, 
 but his estimate of a complex character too little under- 
 stood will be of service to the reader as he follows my 
 narrative. Mr. de Vere's description of Milnes is full 
 of the regretful tenderness of friendship, but it is not 
 the less accurate on that account, and it presents a vivid 
 picture of the brilliant youth of the man of whom he 
 speaks. 
 
 Writing to his mother, October 12th, in anticipation 
 of his rejoining his family in Italy, he says 
 
 I shall really be very glad to get to my books, having seen 
 enough of people and spent enough of money this summer for a 
 year at least. However, I have seen more of Ireland and 
 Irishmen, I think, than most would have done in the same 
 time ; and so leave it with a most vivid impression of its beauty, 
 artfulness, and power, and as gloomy anticipations of its destiny. 
 . . . You can have no idea of the immense gulf in society 
 that separates the Protestant and Catholic gentry. I think this 
 is the first Catholic family I have been in [the Knight of 
 Kerry's] , and Lady K. is a Protestant.
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 121 
 
 After spending a few weeks in town, Milnes started 
 for Italy to join his family at Rome, where they were 
 now residing. Letters already given show that he felt 
 a certain degree of reluctance as to visiting Rome. It 
 seemed as though he regarded the Eternal City as 
 being something too formidable and too sacred to be 
 lightly approached. He had warned his sister of the 
 necessity of making full literary preparation before she 
 entered it, and this necessity weighed still more heavily 
 upon himself. His wish had been that his father 
 should remain at Naples for the winter for Naples 
 had undoubtedly greater attractions for the young man 
 than Rome itself but this wish was not gratified, and 
 in December he started from London for Rome by way 
 of Paris and Marseilles. Before leaving London he 
 had seen a good deal of the poet Thomas Campbell, 
 who had long been an acquaintance of his father's ; and 
 it is interesting to observe, as one of the links " which 
 knit the generations each with each/' that Campbell 
 was indebted at this time to Milnes for a letter of intro- 
 duction to Tennyson. 
 
 R. H. M. to his (jrrandmotker* 
 
 Rome, January 14^, 1832. 
 
 DEAREST GRANDMAMA, I find to my horror that a short 
 letter written to you directly after my setting foot in the 
 Eternal City has, by some domestic forgetfulness, been re- 
 posing in the blotting-book instead of passing the Alps. It 
 was merely to announce my arrival, so I prefer writing you 
 rather a longer one, though the post is going out in a quarter of 
 
 * Mrs. R. S. Milnes.
 
 122 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 an hour. I cannot say I am quite well, but am still suffering 
 something from the long shaking of my journey. The voyage 
 after Genoa was still worse, and I think I caught a little touch 
 of malaria in coming over the marsnes at night from Civita 
 Vecchia. The doctor here tells me that I shall not be quite 
 well for eight or ten days, and must live very low while I 
 remain at Rome. You may suppose that thus I have as yet 
 seen very little just run over a few things. St. Peter's nearly 
 knocked me down, the Vatican blinded me with its multitude 
 of treasures, and the Coliseum has a glory of ruin which must 
 be grander than its first perfection. My father, on the con- 
 trary, seems much disappointed at not finding more of old 
 Rome, and is content with nothing but the aqueducts, which he 
 thinks stupendous. He speaks with the most shocking dis- 
 respect of the Forum, and with absolute contempt of half the 
 temples, and declares that everybody else would do the same if 
 they dared. The weather out of doors is most delicious, but 
 notwithstanding the roses and oranges, it is nearly as cold in 
 the house as in England, and I am very profligate of wood, 
 though a full sun is shining from a cloudless sky. There was a 
 slight shock of earthquake felt here yesterday, but we are too 
 high to feel it. You may suppose I think myself very lucky 
 that Mr. Spencer is to preach to-morrow for the first time. 
 There is great interest excited about it. I found my father 
 pretty well, but evidently not quite recovered from a violent 
 attack of illness he had at Naples ; Harriette not looking very 
 well ; and my mother much the same as usual. 
 
 The stay of Milnes in Borne during this winter was 
 memorable in his life, because of the friendships which 
 he was enabled to form among the English residents in 
 the city. Cardinal Weld was at that time at the head 
 of the British Catholics in Rome. He was, as we 
 are told in the " Monographs," " an English country 
 gentleman of the simplest manners, whose delight it
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 123 
 
 was to show hospitality to his fellow-countrymen who 
 visited Kome." Cardinal Weld had long known Mr. 
 Milnes senior, and when Richard arrived in Rome he 
 lost no time in doing all in his power to make the 
 young man's stay there agreeable to him. One of the 
 first persons to whom he gave him an introduction was 
 Dr. Wiseman, subsequently the famous Catholic Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster. With Wiseman Milnes formed 
 a warm and lasting friendship. Wiseman was then 
 at the head of the English College, and among the 
 students under his care was a young relative of his own, 
 Charles MacCarthy, to whom also Milnes was strongly 
 attracted, and with whom he formed one of the great 
 friendships of his life. 
 
 MacCarthy was at that time preparing to take 
 orders in the Catholic priesthood. He was, however, 
 one of those young members of the Church of Rome 
 who fell under the influence of the Abbe de Lamennais, 
 and he was also an early friend of Count de Montalem- 
 bert, subsequently famous in French history. The in- 
 fluence of De Lamennais was great over MacCarthy, 
 and it led, in the end, to his withdrawal from his theo- 
 logical studies. Milnes, who took the deepest interest 
 in MacCarthy, urged Dr. Wiseman to acquiesce in his 
 change of professions and, when the latter did so, 'he 
 exerted himself to procure for MacCarthy a place in the 
 public service. Thanks to Milnes and his friends, 
 MacCarthy obtained an appointment under the Colonial 
 Office. In his new career he attained distinction, and 
 became eventually Governor of Ceylon.
 
 124 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Dr. Cullen was also then resident in Rome, as 
 rector of the Irish college; as was Bishop McHale, 
 who later became Archbishop of Tuam. With Dr. 
 McHale Milnes travelled in Italy for some time. Thus 
 he had exceptional opportunities during this winter 
 for making the acquaintance of men of ability and 
 distinction, and, as usual, he did not fail to make the 
 best of these opportunities. Through M. Bio, "the 
 graceful and pious historian of Christian art," he 
 became acquainted with Montalembert and Lamennais, 
 as well as with many other members of the French colony 
 in Rome. The distinguished family of the Chevalier 
 Bunsen were then in Rome, and with them he at once 
 became on friendly terms. The friendship was main- 
 tained throughout his life. It followed that the 
 months he spent in the city, in the beginning of 1832, 
 were full of intellectual enjoyment and activity, and 
 bore fruit in friendships which distinctly influenced his 
 later years. 
 
 His desire to see Naples was not diminished, how- 
 ever, even by the attractions of Rome, and in May, when 
 the family returned to their permanent quarters in 
 Milan, he went southwards to make himself acquainted 
 with Naples and Pompeii. Rio and Montalembert 
 were his companions on the journey, and with them he 
 saw much of the social life of the place, climbed 
 Vesuvius whilst it was in a state of eruption, walked 
 the streets of Pompeii, finding them to be " much what 
 he had expected, though of greater extent," and made 
 the acquaintance of Count Platen, the German poet.
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 125 
 
 His college friend, Christopher Wordsworth, came to 
 Naples whilst he was there, and the two young 
 men discussed a project of which both had long 
 been thinking. This was a tour in Greece, at that 
 time a much more formidable enterprise than it is at 
 present. Wordsworth was determined to go, and Milnes 
 resolved to accompany him, provided his father would 
 give his consent. On leaving Naples he returned to 
 Borne, whence he addressed his father on the subject. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Rome, June 21st, 1832. 
 
 I left the city of clamour four days ago, and am just arrived 
 in this great cloister. The contrast is immensely imposing ; you 
 seem to have left a living city for the ghost of one. The Monte 
 Casino road, by which I came, is a good deal of it very interesting, 
 and is in every respect preferable to the other. 
 
 The convent of Monte Casino rather disappointed me, and the 
 gratitude I felt for the sumptuous dinner I got hardly over- 
 powered my anger at the practical perjury of the poverty-swearing 
 monks. I never saw anything comparable to the fertility of the 
 valley on entering these States, but the mountains are generally 
 bleak and dull. Caserte I thought a bad imitation of Versailles, 
 and not worth the detour. I am here, in the V. Belsiana, with 
 Wordsworth, who goes to Greece early in July. Now I daresay 
 you have anticipated the very natural desire I have of accom- 
 panying him, as so many advantages both of pleasure and 
 instruction would be united to my anxiety to see that country. 
 The party, besides him, are Gray, son of the Bishop of Bristol, 
 and two German literati, so that, in fact, I should be learning every 
 step I took. But, my dear father, notwithstanding the general 
 disf ranchisement of the rights of paternity throughout the world, 
 I recognise yours far too well, and not only yours but those of my
 
 126 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 mother and Harriette, to adopt a plan, however pregnant with 
 delight, which would separate me from you all for three or four 
 months and put you to some little expense you can so ill 
 afford, without not only the consent, but the full approval of all 
 of you individually. The money part is perhaps the least 
 important, as the expense cannot exceed 150 at the very most, 
 and Wordsworth expects to do it for half that sum, especially as 
 those Germans share the poverty as well as the huge learning of 
 their class. But whether you will consent to give up any 
 projects you had for my employment this autumn, and whether 
 my mother or Harriette, of whom I feel so strongly that I am 
 bound by every sacred duty to be the sole companion, will 
 approve of my absence, is another question. Write me word by 
 return of post everything you wish, and I hope I shall be able 
 to make the sacrifice cheerfully if required. I like Wordsworth 
 better every day. He is "by himself alone;," I have never 
 seen anybody like him. You said something in one of your 
 last about my standing for Pontefract, if you had the money. 
 Even were that the case, I hardly think you could wish me to 
 come forward this next dissolution. Independently of the im- 
 probability of success to a candidate avowing, as I should feel it 
 my first duty to do, my earnest belief that the Bill is the curse and 
 degradation of the nation, and that every effort of mine would 
 be exerted to neutralise its effects (for even the base Pontefract 
 electors must now be roused to some political thought), what 
 possible good to myself or others could I effect in the factious 
 and heterogeneous assembly which will soon be got together ? 
 What could my boyhood do against the passion of the nation, even 
 were it tenfold what it is, but meet with repulse and scorn ? 
 
 His father was not insensible to the appeal addressed 
 to him, and gave his free consent to his visit to Greece. 
 
 The party [he wrote to his father, acknowledging this 
 consent] consists of Wordsworth, his friend Robertson, the two 
 Germans, and two English persons I just know to speak to.
 
 LONDON AND ITALY. 127 
 
 We leave Rome the day after to-morrow, and hope to be at Corfu 
 in a fortnight. ... I have spent two happy days with 
 Bunsen, and one with the Cheneys at Frascati ; the latter I did not 
 like much at Rome, but they have something to balance their 
 fine-gentlemanism. ... I breakfasted with Monsignor 
 Spada the other day. He was very civil. I think he has not 
 yet finished Harriette's drawing ; nor has Severne done his duty, 
 but he has been so busy with Mrs. Severne, who has given him 
 another daughter, that he ought to be excused ; besides, he 
 expects to be at Milan in six weeks, and will bring her a picture 
 of Keats. Weld gave me a dinner to meet Mezzofanti, whom I 
 got on with charmingly. I found him very neatly read, but 
 perhaps only conversationally. The Cardinal has done a beauti- 
 ful drawing for mamma. He says, " It is not much, but he does 
 not think she will find another Cardinal to do it better, or, 
 perhaps, as well/' I shall send it, with some autographs for 
 Harriette, by somebody who is going straight to Milan. Tell 
 my mother I will pay all attention to her little-great advice, and 
 have got all the medicines she recommended, castor-oil and 
 quinine into the bargain. The latter is the great thing. The 
 new Cardinals' names are all over the town, surrounded with bay. 
 There was a talk of making Wiseman one, but the Italians 
 objected.
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 
 
 Tour in Greece with Wordsworth Winter in Venice Family Affairs Illness 
 at Florence Walter Savage Landor Death of Arthur Hallam Letter 
 from Alfred Tennyson Publication of First Book A Carnival in Rome 
 Return of the Family to England Wiseman Connop Thirlwall. 
 
 THE tour in Greece which Milnes took between July 
 and November, 1832, has found its record in his first 
 independent literary venture, the volume of " Memorials, 
 chiefly Poetical," in which the young man described his 
 impressions on visiting scenes, the interest of which to 
 the cultivated mind can never fail. It is not necessary 
 in this story of his life to follow him throughout his 
 tour. Travelling in Greece in the year 1832 was 
 hardly a holiday enterprise, and Milnes and his com- 
 panion, Wordsworth, had to rough it frequently, and 
 for many weeks at a stretch, during the course of their 
 journey. The unsettled state of the country, and the 
 hardships through which the travellers passed, will, 
 however, be gathered from one or two of the letters 
 addressed by Milnes to members of his family whilst he 
 was in Greece. 
 
 The party set out on July 7th, travelled by way of 
 Naples and Otranto to Corfu, thence to Zante, Arta,
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 129 
 
 Larissa, Pharsala, and Thermopylae, and then to Athens, 
 which place they reached on October 13th. After 
 spending a week there, Milnes returned by Ithaca to 
 Corfu, and, landing at Ancona, spent fourteen days in 
 the lazaretto, Venice being reached at the close of the 
 tour, on December 21st. 
 
 It. M. M. to Miss Caroline Milnes. 
 
 Zante, August Z5th, 1832. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND CAROLINE, When I set off from Italy, I 
 expected by this time to liave been able at last to send you an 
 Athenian letter, but my party has been detained in these pleasant 
 Ionian Islands so long, for agreeable and disagreeable reasons, that 
 we are hardly yet set out fairly on our tour. This delay, how- 
 ever, has had its advantages, for had we set out earlier from the 
 Continent, we should have arrived in Greece at the most un- 
 healthy part of the year, and very probably instead of writing to 
 you I might be sharing the grave of Leonidas or Epaminondas. 
 The political state of the Morea is at this moment the most 
 terrible. I have the hills of its coast in clear view from the 
 window where I am writing, but I suppose you might as well 
 put a pistol to your head as attempt to walk five miles into the 
 country. The whole is in the hands of certain predatory chief- 
 tains, who have armed the population for their own purposes; and 
 now these peasant armies, after having done nothing since Capo 
 d'Istria's death but rob and murder one another, are driven by 
 actual starvation to every possible mode of pillage and outrage. 
 When we were at Ithaca last week, above 300 people of the 
 better class at Missolonghi arrived with the property they had 
 saved, the town having been sacked two nights before by one of 
 these chieftains whom the municipality had offended; and an 
 officer, not many days since, was robbed of everything by the 
 Coastguard of the Gulf of Lepanto, who said their own Govern- 
 ment had paid them nothing for nine months, and they must
 
 130 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 live. ... In the meantime, nothing is left for us but to go 
 hence straight by sea to Athens, or to come down upon it through 
 the happy and secure provinces which rest under the paternal 
 authority of the Turks. This will, I think, be our course, 
 for we shall not only see something of Mohammedanism and its 
 influences in perfect security and with every advantage (for 
 General Woodford, of Corfu, lias given us letters and diplomas 
 in abundance), but we shall take Tempe, Thermopylae, and 
 Thebes, in our way, three as interesting places as can well begin 
 with the same letter. The pleasure I have derived from our 
 tour in these Islands has been so much greater as it was quite 
 unanticipated. It may be that most of our military men are so 
 plagued by a long confinement in these countries, but they 
 certainly never speak of them in a way to prepare us for anything 
 like what we find. The first effect of Corfu is quite marvellous. 
 I came upon the town after a beautiful ride across the country 
 from the opposite shore on the evening of a festa. The 
 Englishism and the Orientalism would under the circumstances 
 have been each of them striking, but both of them combined were 
 astonishing. The old red coat and the new Albanian costume, 
 the old English and new Greek faces, the familiar language 
 clashing with one never heard before, were all wonders; and 
 above all, a scenery for splendour of colouring and sublimity of 
 outline perhaps unsurpassed in the world. What took me 
 principally was its complete difference from Italian scenery ; you 
 felt you were going to distant places "nearer to the sun." A 
 whole fortnight has been spent, half of it at least in being be- 
 calmed or detained by contrary winds, between Corfu and this 
 pretty place, called from time immemorial the Flower of the 
 Levant. I could, howerer, have well stayed something longer at 
 Ithaca, after having examined which Homer's Odyssey is a 
 different book to you from what it can have been before. I hope, 
 indeed, by the means of this town to revive to something of 
 a more vigorous life the classical pursuits I have lately much 
 neglected, and not to lose utterly the fruits of a very painful 
 boyhood.
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 131 
 
 The party had the usual experiences of travellers 
 who are thrown together without much previous know- 
 ledge of each other, and in a letter of the same date as 
 the foregoing, Milnes congratulates himself upon the 
 fact that by getting rid of one of their German com- 
 panions, who had made himself immensely disagreeable, 
 the pleasure of himself and the rest of the little com- 
 pany had been greatly enhanced. One result of his 
 wanderings through that part of Greece which was then 
 in the hands of Turkey, was to inspire Milnes with an 
 affection for the Turkish character which he never 
 entirely lost, and which enabled him in very different 
 days, then far distant, to understand the political 
 exigencies of the East better than many politicians of 
 more pretentious character and fame. Certainly in 
 those days that part of Greece where Turkish rule pre- 
 vailed presented a pleasant contrast to the provinces 
 which were independent of the rule of the Pashas. 
 Yet the reader must not suppose that this sympathy 
 with the Mussulman character prevented Milnes from 
 sharing to the fullest extent in the aspirations of the 
 Greeks after national life and freedom. In those 
 troubled days of Greek independence during which 
 he first became acquainted with the country itself, 
 whatever might be his tolerant regard for the Turk, 
 his appreciation of his undoubted virtues and his 
 leniency towards his faults, he never wavered in his 
 attachment to the side of freedom and of Christianity.
 
 132 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to Miss Jane Milnes. 
 
 Athens, Oct. 10, 1832. 
 
 MY DEAREST JANE, I don't know when I have written to 
 you, it is so long ago. In beginning a letter to you, this great 
 place and all its associations goes away, and I am what and 
 where I was when I passed many a long night in writing what 
 was nonsense to you but happiness to me, and I am obliged to 
 look very hard at the great temple of the Parthenon with its 
 huge broken portico up there on the citadel, and to think that I 
 have been six weeks without a bed to sleep in or a table to 
 dine upon, before I can bring myself back to things as they are, 
 and believe that I am about to despatch to you an Athenian 
 letter. Now this said letter must be as much about myself and 
 
 nothing else as the conversation of the W T 's about 
 
 the other T 's, and this for very good reasons. It is near 
 
 two months since I have seen a newspaper, and as yet I have 
 heard nothing here of how the old world goes on, and I have just 
 received the agreeable intelligence that the gentleman to whose 
 care all my letters were addressed has been for the last six 
 months at Napoli di Romania, and has most probably got them 
 all safe there. From our particular family circumstances this is 
 most vexing ; but I hope to get them in ten days or so. I will 
 not, however, wait so long to write to grandmamma through 
 you, and to tell her I am just as fond of her, and think as much 
 about her in Greece as in Rome, in Rome as in England, and 
 earnestly hope to find good accounts of her health and goings on 
 in the first English epistle I lay my hands on. I wrote a murder- 
 and-robbery kind of letter from Zante which, however, was 
 literally true, and I am sorry to say that things at this moment 
 are rather worse than better. . . . There is literally no 
 government whatever, so the wonder rather is that things are not 
 in a still more desperate state than they are. . . . The roads 
 in every direction are insecure, and travelling very difficult ; but 
 it is the opinion of all the National people that it will last but 
 a short time. 
 
 One of the Provisional Government here, a merely nominal
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 133 
 
 thing 1 , told me that the Greeks in this respect are unlike every 
 other nation. The moment they feel themselves under a consti- 
 tutionally appointed Government that understand them, they 
 will lay down their arms and become absolutely quiet, as hap- 
 pened at the accession of Capo d'Istria. General Church, and 
 indeed everybody worth listening to, says the same thing. . . . 
 Of what I have seen, if Greece and its associations have absorbed 
 most of the interest, Turkey and the Turks have contributed not 
 a little to the amusement. The step that transfers you from a 
 Christian to a Mohammedan land is wider than perhaps any 
 other in the world. You are with people who seem to be guided 
 by none of the motives of action which are commonly attributed 
 to men. There they sit on their broad sofas the whole day long, 
 never working, reading, or seeming to think, with an immense 
 train of motley attendants standing at the end of the room, 
 always ready to renew the pipe and coffee at the instant, with 
 in fact no apparent occupation except the string of beads like a 
 rosary which everyone carries in his hand for something to play 
 with, passing the beads up and down. Their power of patience 
 and subdual of the general passions of mankind is most wonder- 
 ful; for instance, they do not entertain the slightest rancour 
 against the Greeks for having shaken off their yoke, nor spite 
 against those who assisted them to do it. In fact, they are now 
 on excellent terms with the Greeks. They are most civil when 
 you call upon them, but with few exceptions the effect is always 
 the same. Some of the highest classes are imitating European 
 manners with a ludicrous zeal, sitting perched cross-legged on 
 hard chairs, and pretending to find them very comfortable, and 
 drinking tea in the middle of the day. I can hardly say whether 
 the impression you receive in this country of objects you have 
 read about is as great as you expect. It is in general so very 
 different that you can scarcely measure the two. Thermopylffi 
 certainly surpassed all anticipation, and Negropont exceeds in 
 natural beauty everything I have ever seen ; and for Athens, 
 even if it were not Athens, there are some points of view like 
 nothing else in the world. The whole modern town, which is
 
 134 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 described by Clark and others as pretty and flourishing, is now 
 one mass of ruins, the Turks having pulled down every house. 
 One street only is rebuilt, for the market, and the rest of the 
 inhabitants have patched up a house here and there as well as 
 they can. Above this desolation rise about half a dozen of ugly- 
 shaped white and painted Italian kind of " palazzos " belonging 
 to Consuls and other European residents, making a disgusting 
 contrast to the few unparagoned edifices that time and the Turks 
 have spared of the old city. Your view is thus doubly distracted 
 from what ought to be its sole object, and it is only by taking 
 refuge on the side of the citadel away from the town that you 
 can limit it to the glorious remains. The Parthenon is far more 
 a ruin than I believed. The last seven years of civil war have 
 terribly advanced the injury the Venetians began long ago, and 
 the chasm is not only so great between the two ends of the 
 temple that the eye hardly takes them in as one building, but 
 the columns themselves have been so chipped and shattered by 
 balls and bombs that the solemn effect of their immense circum- 
 ference and height is sadly diminished. It is quite painful to 
 read the descriptions of earlier travels and feel how much you 
 have lost. 
 
 The perfectness of the other monuments, however, is a great 
 compensation, and their very fewness makes it the more wonder- 
 ful that so many others should have gone down into the dust 
 without a trace, and these selected ones still standing very nearly 
 the same as when they were gazed at by old Athenian eyes. . . . 
 There is no doubt that if a firm Government is ever established 
 in Greece, Athens alone can be selected as the capital. Supposing 
 this to take place soon, it will require but little money and 
 trouble to rebuild the city, and, in a few years after, we may 
 expect to see the city of Solon degraded into the condition of the 
 city of Cicero, and as many silly and useless gazers on the hill 
 of Minerva as on the Roman Capitol. Now, the solitude of the 
 present goes well with the solitude of the past, and what little 
 society there is, is of a very pleasant character. It is nearly confined 
 to the families of the American Episcopalian missionaries, who
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 135 
 
 are doing worlds of good. They have schools of every kind, and 
 for every purpose, and are assisted in all ways by the Greek 
 Church, with which they are on the best terms, as they attempt 
 to make no converts, but merely ask for an unlimited distribution 
 of the text of the Bible, which it is quite willing to sanction. 
 They do and give everything gratis, and have a printing press, 
 whence they circulate everything they think will be useful. 
 Their wives generally assist in the good work, which must in 
 the common course of things meet with a just success. I was 
 much amused at the children singing one of Watts's hymns in 
 Greek, to the tune of " God save the King." 
 
 Deeply interested as Milnes was in the classical 
 memories evoked by his tour, he was still more deeply 
 absorbed in the spectacle which Greece at that moment 
 presented, as it was emerging from its struggle with the 
 Turks, and the old and new forces were confronting each 
 other for the last time. The picturesque side of the 
 rule of the Pashas had, as has been told, many attractions 
 for him, and he bewailed the fact that their contact with 
 the new civilisation was leading the Mussulmans to adopt 
 European customs and costumes, to abandon the turban 
 in favour of the tarbusch, and to introduce knives and 
 forks at the dinners at which they entertained the 
 passing stranger. And whilst he was thus strongly 
 interested in watching the receding waves of the Otto- 
 man invasion as they withdrew from the territory 
 which they had so long submerged, so, with his quick 
 mind and wide-spreading sympathies, he was also 
 intensely interested in observing the first attempts of 
 Modern Greece to form a constitutional government. 
 
 I have seen just enough of Greece [he wrote to his mother
 
 136 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 from Athens] to make me wish to see more. I have learned 
 enough to feel that every day I spend here brings with it its own 
 profit. The rough travelling, though amusing for two or three 
 days, is rather boring in the long run, but one is driven to think 
 a good deal in self-defence. 
 
 The most noticeable incident of his return journey 
 was his detention for a fortnight in the lazaretto at 
 Ancona, a tedious imprisonment, which would, however, 
 have been still further prolonged had it not been for 
 the good offices of Cardinal Weld and other friends in 
 Rome, through whom his liberation at an unexpectedly 
 early date was procured. 
 
 Mr. Milnes was at this time in England. His wife 
 and daughter had left Milan in October, for Venice, 
 where they took up their abode in a small house which 
 they had hired for the winter. Nothing could exceed 
 the kindness of the Venetians to the English visitors, 
 who thus made the city their head-quarters for a 
 prolonged sojourn. 
 
 We had seven houses [says Mrs. Milnes in her journal] open 
 to us whenever we chose to go out of an evening for society. 
 At the Comtesse Albrizzi's we met all the literati ; she and the 
 Comtesse Benzone had been in their day the great beauties of 
 Venice, and always rivals. Madame Benzone, however, never 
 pretended to literature, in which the Comtesse Albrizzi freely 
 shone. Lord Byron had frequented these houses more than any 
 others in Venice, and it was at the Benzones' that he first met 
 Madame Guiccioli. 
 
 Mrs. Milnes gives a lively account of the social life 
 of Venice during this winter ; of the gambling which 
 went on among all classes ; of the amusements by
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 137 
 
 means of which the Venetians strove to drive out of 
 their minds the recollection of their subjection to the 
 hated Austrians ; of the Opera ; of Thalberg, who made 
 his first appearance as a pianist during the season ; and of 
 the soirees, where music, dancing, and love-making, made 
 the hours pass pleasantly. It was into this bright and 
 congenial atmosphere that Eichard Milnes plunged 
 immediately on his return from Greece at Christmas, 
 and it is not to be wondered at that one so full of social 
 sympathies and possessed of so many social gifts should 
 at once have become a popular figure in the society of 
 Venice. His success in theatrical performances has 
 already been noticed, in the account of his life at 
 Cambridge. Such performances were not much in the 
 way of the Venetians, but it may be noted in passing 
 that his singing of the buffo songs, which were at that 
 time so much in vogue in Italy, delighted them, and 
 gained for him more than a passing fame. 
 
 His sister, too, shared his popularity with the 
 Venetians, upon whom her gift in singing made a deep 
 impression. Mrs. Milnes, in her journal, mentions one 
 incident of a dramatic character in connection with the 
 appearance of her daughter at a large party. Miss 
 Milnes was singing amid the dead silence of the com- 
 pany, her mother accompanying her. Suddenly the 
 latter observed the guests rise in great agitation and 
 point to the wall immediately above the spot where 
 Miss Milnes was standing. The latter looked also, and 
 saw a large scorpion crawling down towards her. She 
 immediately seized it in her pocket-handkerchief, carried
 
 138 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 it to the window and set it at liberty, amidst the 
 screams of the Italians, who declared that none but an 
 English girl could have done such a thing. 
 
 Amid the gaieties of the season at Venice and the 
 enjoyments of the many hospitalities showered upon 
 himself and his mother and sister, Eichard Milnes had 
 much at this time to cause him trouble and anxiety. 
 The affairs of Eodes Milnes were now at their lowest 
 ebb. Everybody liked him, and few liked him better 
 than did his nephew. Eichard Milnes and his uncle 
 were, indeed, upon terms of intimacy somewhat peculiar 
 considering their relationship. The younger man never 
 spoke of the other except as " Eodes," and his manner 
 of addressing him in his letters, " Dear Eodes," was in 
 itself proof of the perfect equality which prevailed 
 between them, despite the disparity in their ages. 
 Universally popular as Eodes Milnes was, he might 
 still have been left to come to utter ruin had it not 
 been for the high and chivalrous sense of honour which 
 inspired his brother. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Venice, December 24M. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I have just read over for the third time 
 all your letters, and when I think of the fearful things you have 
 undergone I am almost unable to put pen to paper. The imme- 
 diate effect of all our misfortunes upon you is so overpowering 
 that the misforttmes themselves seem nothing in comparison, 
 and if it were not that in your last letter there is something less 
 painful, I don't know whether I could have dared sit down to 
 this one. I see everything that is dark and desperate in our 
 affairs, yet I believe I could face it all calmly enough ; but to
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 139 
 
 follow you from your raised hopes to the misery you have 
 suffered, brings life home to me with a depth of bitterness I 
 never yet knew. In your noble conduct to poor Rodes, and the 
 involuntary respect which even the world is obliged to pay you 
 in your depression, I find the only source of consolation. I hope 
 nothing, and I believe you do not either; and to be striving on 
 even against hope is a blessed thing ; but do not, pray do not, 
 load yourself with the capricious pain of believing that these 
 sorrows have a retributive meaning. ... As soon as you 
 safely can, come to us (neither my feelings nor yours would bid 
 us come to you), and let us pass the next years of our existence 
 unknowing and unknown, making our very poverty a source of 
 our intellectual well-being through keeping us out of the noise 
 and calls of general society. You cannot suppose that I am now 
 in any mood to entertain you with a tale of my Grecian tour; 
 it is as much as I can do if I get through a few leading and late 
 facts. ... I see that it would be perfectly impossible to 
 go out nowhere here; the only thing is to limit it as much as 
 possible. I shall amuse myself by throwing my tour into a 
 legible form for you, and if it pleases me, for the world. . . . 
 If you ever regret that our own sad fortunes put off to an 
 infinite distance all your Parliamentary projects for me, it is 
 some consolation to remember that in the present state of the 
 political world, with my political feelings, even with a hundred- 
 fold my ability, my career could never be anything but one of 
 ambitious pleasure. There is disgrace on the very threshold to 
 come in as a nominee of the Duke of Newcastle (which I was 
 really vexed by seeing you envied Gladstone), or by a contest with 
 Mr. Gully,* who I see is about to take your senatorial seat. This 
 may perhaps seem fox-and-grapish, but I feel it none the less. 
 
 This is a sad letter to come from a young man who 
 had begun life with high hopes ; but the reader will note 
 
 * Mr. Gully, at one time a professional pugilist, and subsequently 
 member for Pomfret. In later years B. M. M. knew Gully well, and 
 had a high respect for him.
 
 140 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the tone of manly fortitude and of tender solicitude for 
 those dear to him which marks the writer's words; and 
 reading this letter one of many such which might be 
 quoted here did the limits of space permit he may 
 probably form a truer estimate of the character of 
 Richard Milnes, of the warmth of his affections, the 
 strength of his sense of honour, and the underlying 
 gravity of a mind which, on the surface, often seemed 
 to the outsider to be essentially light and frivolous, than 
 he can otherwise hope to do. 
 
 It was about this period also, when family affairs 
 were of so depressing a character, that Milnes passed 
 through one of those spiritual crises which come to 
 most men once at least during the course of their lives, 
 but which, it may be, few would have associated with him. 
 Frequent mention has been made in his letters of his 
 attendance on the sermons of Edward Irving and other 
 preachers of eminence and renown in England. In his 
 earliest days his family had been connected with the 
 Unitarian body; at college a more orthodox and 
 Evangelical form of faith attracted him ; but now, 
 through his intimacy with MacCarthy and Wiseman 
 at Eome, he found himself drawn into close sympathy 
 with the more enlightened section of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. It was whilst he was in Greece 
 that Charles MacCarthy, writing to him (Aug. 30th, 
 1832) said :- 
 
 Mezzofanti, whom I often see, talks always most kindly of 
 you, and is full of hopes that you will return to the bosom of her 
 whom Carl vie calls " the slain mother," but who, I trust, is not
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 141 
 
 dead, but only sleepeth. I have had two or three most affec- 
 tionate and magnificent letters from Lamennais, and one from 
 
 Montalembert I am writing some verses on the 
 
 Pope's blessing, because you said you would write some too, and 
 I want to see whether we shall fall into the same line of thought. 
 . What do you mean by talking about the twilight of 
 your mind ? It must surely be the morning, not the evening twi- 
 light which you feel. You have bright prospects and happy 
 auguries flitting about your path, and the world before you 
 where to choose. I shall always look back with delight to the 
 few happy hours I have passed in your society. Wiseman, the 
 only man one has to talk to, desires to be most kindly remem- 
 bered to you. 
 
 It was a striking commentary upon MacCarthy's 
 brilliant picture of Milnes's future, that at that very time 
 Milnes liimself was writing to his father, lamenting that 
 he could see in no direction clearly before him. With 
 the family fortunes Lad vanished for the present, and as 
 he believed permanently, the hope of sitting as member 
 for Pontefract, whilst he was too proud to listen to his 
 father's suggestion that, like his friend and contem- 
 porary, Mr. Gladstone, he should accept a seat from 
 some great nobleman like the Duke of Newcastle. 
 
 Even supposing [he writes] the case of the patronage of a 
 Duke of Newcastle, do you believe that if Gladstone speaks with 
 the tongue of angels he can ever have really any weight in the 
 House or gain any reputation except the unmeaning one that he 
 is the only Tory except Peel that has a word to say ? I was not 
 at all sanguine, but still hoped that the ruin of the Conservatives 
 would not come on so immediately. 
 
 This refers to the result of the election of January, 
 1833, by which it seemed to Milnes arid others that
 
 142 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 something like absolute ruin had fallen upon the 
 landed interest and the Conservative party. 
 
 Writing to MacCarthy (Dec. 27th, 1832), Milnes 
 tells him that Hare is at Rome, and sends a letter of 
 introduction to his college friend. At the same time he 
 encloses to him a copy of one of his earliest poems, that 
 which appears in the " Poems of Many Years " under 
 the title of " Life in Death." 
 
 C. J. MacCartky to R. M. M. 
 
 Rome, 26 Dec., 1833. 
 
 . . . . Since I wrote to you last Wiseman has returned 
 after a prosperous and successful journey ; and glad as I was to 
 see him again, I found his exalted spirits and the great interest 
 which he takes in the active affairs of life jar very much with my 
 present disposition. I thank you infinitely for your charming 
 verses. Though I shun anything like comparison, I will send 
 you some of mine, but not by the post, because I have not room 
 in my letters for all I have to say to you. It was not till 
 Wednesday last that I was able to see Hare. I could not for a 
 long time find out where he lived, and I go out so little that I 
 was not likely to discover him. Wiseman, however, met him 
 somewhere in society, and asked him to call. He came imme- 
 diately with a Mr. Worsley, who, I think, also knows you. I 
 gave your letter to Hare, and was most graciously received, but 
 as we were only half an hour together, and that in Wiseman's 
 rooms, I could not have much talk with him. I hope we shall 
 know more of one another before long. . . . He has given 
 great delight to Wiseman and great scandal to some other people 
 by preaching a sermon last Sunday in the Protestant Chapel 
 here on the " indecent behaviour of the English in Catholic 
 Churches/' which sermon he proposed printing here, but Wiseman, 
 to whom he applied, seemed to think there would be too many 
 difficulties in the way. . . . What an escape you have had
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 143 
 
 in not being elected for Pomfret ! A boxer who has made a for- 
 tune by becoming a blackleg would have been a pretty colleague 
 for my philosopher and friend. 
 
 During this period of much inward depression, 
 MacCarthy seems to have heen the chief confidant and 
 friend of Milnes, and it is evidently in reply to a letter 
 full of self-depreciation that the former writes to Milnes, 
 March 2nd, 1833, as follows : 
 
 I know you too well to think you are fishing for compliments 
 in your depreciation of yourself, and so I will tell you candidly 
 that I consider your judgment of yourself much too hard. I 
 don't by any means believe in that frivolity of mind of which you 
 are pleased to accuse yourself. After all, what could you do in 
 your present situation which you do not do? Your existence and 
 mine are yet in embryo. We both of us have our task to work out, 
 and in the meantime let us wait patiently. . . . Your chosen 
 ghostly father feels much too deeply the affectionate confidence 
 which you place in him, and has much too high an opinion of 
 your own judgment and power of directing yourself, to venture 
 on a prescription for any of your mental indispositions. . . As 
 well as I can judge from what I have seen of your fine feelings 
 and ardent affections, I should say that you would end in some 
 great passion, either of love or of generous ambition, which will 
 give you that steadiness of purpose, that concentration of all your 
 power^ into one burning point, which is all you want, and for 
 which I think you have all the seeds and elements in your 
 mental constitution. 
 
 Early in June, 1833, the stay of Milnes at Venice 
 cama to a close. Leaving his mother and sister behind 
 him, he started with two newly made friends, the Comte 
 and Comtesse Circourt, for a tour through Northern 
 Italy, which eventually brought him to Florence
 
 144 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 towards the close of the month. Here he was attacked 
 by intermittent fever, and was for a time seriously ill. 
 Disagreeable as the incident was, it was not with- 
 out its compensations. Through Julius Hare, Milnes 
 had been brought into communication with Walter 
 Savage Landor, who was then resident at Fiesole, and 
 they had frequently corresponded with each other. They 
 had not met, however, before this summer of 1833. No 
 sooner did the old poet learn that the young one was 
 lying ill at an hotel in the place, than he came to his 
 assistance, insisted upon taking him to his own villa, 
 and there nursed him with the almost passionate tender- 
 ness and self-devotion which were characteristic of the 
 man in certain moods. 
 
 Mr. Landor [writes Milnes to his mother from Fiesole] was 
 kind enough to ask me to come and stay at his beautiful villa as 
 long as I liked, and here I have been a week. I have had two 
 attacks of fever since I am here, and Mrs. Landor was as 
 attentive to me and kind as if I had been at home. But now, 
 as some days have gone by without any signs of recurrence, I 
 really hope that this delicious mountain air and quinine have 
 driven it away altogether. I must not, however, be in any hurry 
 to get away, and as I have my books, and Mr. Lander's delight- 
 ful conversation, and my whole day to myself, and a carriage at 
 my orders whenever I want to drive out, I don't know how I 
 could be better off except with you. The bother of this fever 
 business has been not only the eight or ten napoleons it has cost 
 me, but the state of mental lassitude into which it threw me, and 
 which I have not yet got over. I have hardly been able to read 
 for five minutes together, much less write anything, not even the 
 most trifling letters. 
 
 His letters during the illness betray many signs of
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 145 
 
 this mental lassitude, and of the accompanying depres- 
 sion of spirits which in the circumstances was natural. 
 
 Landor [he writes to his father] is very delightful, though 
 not in high spirits much less paradoxical than he used to be, and 
 therefore more instructive. He says his visit to England cured 
 him of Radicalism and sent him back a Tory. I see Gladstone 
 has spoken, and it appears gracefully. The "redaction" of my 
 Greek travel goes on slowly, not from inclination on my part, but 
 from the nature of the work, which cannot be thought on too long 
 before it is put to paper, and it is very difficult to avoid a general 
 monotonous effect. Landor approves of some part that I have 
 shown him, and he approves of few things. If you bring any 
 new book from England, let it be Horace Walpole's new 
 Letters. ... I have hardly bought a book this twelvemonth. 
 I also asked you to bring me the Paris edition of Anastasius ; this 
 I have re-read here, so do not get it. If Trelawny's " Ad ven- 
 tures of a Younger Son falls in your way, pray read it. For mere 
 power of expression I think it is the most wonderful thing I 
 know. Landor says it is like nothing but the Iliad. .... 
 I had intended to stay a week with an Italian family at Perugia, 
 the richest and most intelligent of the Romagna, but the Papal 
 Government have arrested the head of it, probably for his 
 wealth. He is now in the dungeons of Civita Castellana. 
 
 When, thanks to the kindness of the Landors, he 
 had recovered from his illness, Milnes went to Switzer- 
 land, where he joined his family, to which his father 
 was now added, and spent some time with them at 
 Berne, and on the Swiss lakes. In the autumn he 
 accompanied his father to England by way of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 It was during his stay in Switzerland that he re- 
 ceived from one of his college friends a welcome hudget 
 of home news.
 
 146 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Francis Garden to R. M. M. 
 
 Croy, September 24^, 1833. 
 
 I did not come here till near the end of July, having stayed 
 up at Cambridge to the meeting of the British Association, 
 then having spent ten days with Trench at Hadleigh, and then 
 ten days more in London. The Association has, of course, no 
 inconsiderable share of humbug, but was nevertheless very 
 interesting. . . . The highest luxury, however, of the 
 whole week was quietly meeting Coleridge both at breakfast 
 and at dinner at your friend Thirlwall's ; never in my whole 
 life did I spend such a day. We got rid of the " phantom 
 time" very soon, and had the pleasure of being made to think 
 in Trinity; and, to use a phrase of your own, of being made to 
 " see the invisible and touch the intangible." My ten days with 
 Trench were precious. He is the best man and the best clergy- 
 man I ever knew, and his preaching superb, yet plain enough 
 for his auditors. He will do great things if life be granted 
 him. . . . Hallam either is or has been in Germany with 
 his father. He was most absurdly gay last season, a mood and 
 habit so unsuited to his character that I cannot believe the 
 tendency will last long. Alfred Tennyson was here before I 
 came down, and like a rascal would not wait for me. He saw 
 this part of the world in the worst of weather, which was very 
 provoking, especially as he had previously formed a theory that 
 Scotland had no colour a theory which, however, that par- 
 ticular week may have tended to confirm. It is a most unjust 
 suspicion, as all who have seen the country in fine weather can 
 testify. The Apostles are flourishing in high style. 1 had the 
 pleasure of begetting one the other day in the person of the 
 younger Lushington (brother to the senior medallist of the year 
 before this). He is a glorious fellow, and I feel great pleasure 
 in thinking that what in all probability has been my last 
 Apostolic act should have been to introduce so excellent an 
 acquisition to our forces. The other new names since you last 
 saw us are Macaulay (cousin to Tom Bab), Morton Merivale,
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 147 
 
 by way of illustrating the saying, " better late than never/' 
 and Spring Rice, the last of whom is the only freshman 
 among us. 
 
 In November we get a glimpse of him through a 
 letter from one of his aunts in London, where he is 
 deeply engaged with his publisher, Mr. Moxon, cor- 
 recting proofs and preparing for the production of his 
 " Impressions of Greece." " I never saw him better," 
 says his aunt, writing to Mrs. Milnes, " and my mother 
 is so delighted to receive him unchanged in heart and 
 temper, not tainted by the corruption of the world." 
 
 In common with a wide circle of his college friends, 
 he suffered at this time a grievous sorrow in the death 
 of Arthur Hallam. Although of late years they had 
 seen but little of .each other, Milnes's affection for his 
 gifted fellow-student had never failed, and he mourned 
 for him as for a brother. When the " Memorials " of 
 his tour in Greece appeared, it bore a dedication to the 
 father of his friend, Henry Hallam the historian, and in 
 it Milnes bore his own testimony to the worth of the 
 young man, the light of whose life had so soon g^one 
 out. " We are deprived," he said, " not only of a 
 beloved friend, of a delightful companion, but of a 
 most wise and influential counsellor in all the serious 
 concerns of existence, of an incomparable critic in all 
 our literary efforts, and of the example of one who was 
 as much before us in everything else as he is now in 
 the way of life." There is no need to dwell upon the 
 memory of Arthur Hallam, whose name has, through 
 the genius of another of his contemporaries and friends,
 
 148 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 attained a literary immortality. I may mention, how- 
 ever, that the lines in Lord Houghton's " Poems of 
 Many Years," beginning, 
 
 " I am not where I was yesterday, 
 Though my home be still the same, 
 For I have lost the veriest friend 
 Whom ever a friend could name," 
 
 were composed on the occasion of Arthur Hallam's 
 death. 
 
 Soon after attending the funeral of his friend, Milnes 
 returned to Italy. 
 
 JR. M. M. to Miss Caroline Milnes. 
 
 Wednesday \JDec.?}, 1833. 
 
 DEAR CAROLINE, It is decided that I am not to see you all 
 again till next summer. 1 leave London for Dover to-night, and 
 shall be at Calais to-morrow. If I was to go to Rome at all 
 there was not a day to be lost, and an interview at Hastings 
 would have had so much more of parting than of meeting about 
 it that it is quite as well as it is. ... I 'shall leave a 
 parcel for you in Carter's care, containing some German books I 
 found at Fryston, the Italian book which you must get half- 
 bound, and two copies of my BiicJtlein, one for you all, and the 
 other you must send to Mr. Hare by the Brighton coach. You 
 must arrange to sell as many more for me as you can. I have 
 not given a single copy to any of my friends, so nobody can be 
 jealous. . . . You have never told me anything about 
 Bodes,* though I heard he was much worse, so pray write to me, 
 Hotel Bristol, Place Vendome, Paris. I suppose I shall stay in 
 Paris a week or so. 
 
 Milnes wrote to others besides his aunt on the subject 
 of his book, and amongst those whom he addressed was 
 
 * Bodes Milues died abroad in 1837.
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 149 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, with whom his correspondence seems 
 to have been suspended during the interval since he left 
 Cambridge. From Tennyson he received the following 
 letter : 
 
 Alfred Tennyson to R. M. M. 
 
 Dec. 3rd, 1833. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, A letter from you was like a message 
 from the land of shadows. It is so long since I have looked upon 
 and conversed with you that I will not deny but that you had 
 withdrawn a little into the twilight. Yet you do me a wrong in 
 supposing that I have forgotten you. I shall not easily forget 
 you, for you have that about you which one remembers with 
 pleasure. I am rejoiced to hear that you intend to present us 
 with your Grecian impressions. Your gay and airy mind must 
 have caught as many colours from the landskip you moved 
 through as a flying soap-bubble a comparison truly somewhat 
 irreverent, yet I meant it not as such; though I care not if you 
 take it in an evil sense, for is it not owed to you for your three 
 years' silence to me whom you professed to love and to care for ? 
 And in the second place, for your expression "cleaning one's 
 mind of Greek thoughts and Greek feelings to make way for 
 something better/' It is a sad thing to have a dirty mind full 
 of Greek thoughts and feelings. What an Augean it must have 
 been before the Greek thoughts got there ! To have done with 
 this idle banter, I hope that in your book you have given us 
 much glowing description and little mysticism. I know that 
 you can describe richly and vividly. Give orders to Moxon, and 
 he will take care that the volume is conveyed to me. 
 
 Believe me, dear Richard, 
 
 Ever thine, A. T. 
 
 P.S. Charles and Frederick are neither of them here, so that 
 I am forced to cover their remembrances to you. 
 
 The little book had been eagerly expected by Milnes's 
 friends, with whom his reputation stood high, and they
 
 150 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 received it with generous appreciation. It is true that 
 Connop Thirl wall, in criticising the volume, rebuked the 
 author for having declared at the outset that the Greece 
 he went to visit was the land of his own imagination 
 rather than that of reality ; but even he did full justice 
 to the graceful and -poetic fancy with which the slender 
 volume was filled, and to the genuine enthusiasm by 
 which it was inspired. 
 
 Rome was very full during that winter of 1833-34, 
 and Milnes found many friends there. Doncaster in the ' 
 race week he declared was an absolute void to the 
 Eternal City as he then saw it. Its chief attraction for 
 him for the moment lay in the fact that among those 
 residing there for the winter and spring was his friend 
 Stafford O'Brien. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Mother. 
 
 Rome, Jan. ZZnd, 1834. 
 
 The exclusives are exclusive in the strictest sense. The 
 Russian Ambassador will see nobody but Tories, and very few 
 of them ; and as Kestner is not here, the other ambassadors are 
 not so easy to get to. As yet I have only dined at the Ingrams' 
 and Hares', and been at a ball at Mrs. Hunter Blair's, who has 
 just come into a fortune and got a splendid house. Ladies 
 Northlands, Coventry, and Torlonia give dances next week, and 
 balls will, I suppose, go on thickening to the end of the Carnival, 
 which, it is said, will be very gay, as there are to be masks and 
 moccoletti. My two Scotch friends, Garden and Monteith, whom 
 you heard Mrs. Chambers talk about, are here, and so we have 
 quite a Cambridge coterie. Charles Gambier is very nice, and 
 Mrs. Botham very civil. She is quite among the fine, and 
 delights in giving small, exclusive, stupid parties. There is 
 certainly much beauty. Mrs. Montagu, the Pagets, Maynards,
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 151 
 
 Percys, another little Miss Claxton, a Miss Shipley I saw in 
 Switzerland, and some Miss Parkers. Lady Coventry seems in 
 pleasant mood, but is getting on very ill, Lady Anglesea refusing 
 to visit her, and having all the great people on her side. People 
 cannot imagine how she will muster for her ball. The Circourts 
 are in great force ; Lady Caroline giving up going out entirely, 
 and leading a most cloistered life ; Mr. Wingfield much better ; 
 the Wandesfords living quite secluded ; Cortoni fagged to death 
 with lessons, and his wife dying ; Miss Lockhart never stirring 
 out, but Lady L. and " Old Whity " looking very well ; the 
 Bunsens and Gerhard just the same, and I could go on in this 
 way for an hour. MacCarthy is, I am delighted to say, in much 
 better health, leading the life of a monk, never leaving his 
 college walls. He has had a dreadful letter from Montalembert, 
 who is quite broken-hearted at the public censure which the Pope 
 has pronounced on him for having taken the part of the Poles, 
 calling him " juvenem plenum malitise et temeritatis." He 
 seems bowed to the dust by it. The Abbe Lamennais has just 
 finished by retracting everything he said, and submitting him- 
 self unreservedly to the Pope in everything: "thereby," Cardinal 
 Weld said this morning, " doing himself very great credit." 
 
 The Carnival seems to have equalled the anticipa- 
 tions formed respecting it. It was exceptionally good, 
 and Milnes and his friends entered into it with the 
 spirit of their years. 
 
 R. M. M. to Miss Caroline Milnes. 
 
 Rome, Feb. 28M, 1834. 
 
 We have had here what people call a very brilliant Carnival. 
 That is, people pelted one another with sugar and lime most 
 assiduously for five whole days, so that if there had been a ditch 
 by the side of the Corso all the world would have fallen into it, 
 for they were indisputably the blind leading the blind. And 
 there was plenty of masking foolery ; for instance, I paid visits 
 and walked about in white muslin and a blue satin toque, &c.,
 
 152 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 &c. And there were great ambassadorial balls and suppers, and 
 so on. The tranquillity of the Quaresima is only broken in upon 
 by a rapid musketry of small soirees, which we have attempted 
 to enliven by some charades. O'Brien gave his first evening 
 party to a select fifty, last week, with great success. You have 
 doubtless heard of the illness and death of Mr. Hare's brother 
 Augustus. It was one of the most rapid cases of consumption 
 that ever occurred. He was Julius's favourite brother, and Miss 
 Hare's, I think, too. I fear she will have suffered from the 
 shock very seriously. I saw him laijd in his narrow bed, in that 
 pleasant place below the old pyramid, which you no doubt 
 visited when you were here. He died in the most beautiful 
 calm of spirit. I wish I had brought some copies of my book 
 here for sale ; it would have gone off immensely, as there are 
 absolutely crowds starting for Greece who would have bought, 
 on the expectation of its telling them all the best inns, and the 
 prices of washing, and turkeys a la Starke.* I suppose Louisa 
 will be interested about the state of the Church at Rome. If 
 
 there was nothing against Mr. but his immense 
 
 popularity, it would be enough to prejudice me against him. 
 But really the way in which he steers clear of offence on all 
 sides, establishes him as the prince of religious navigators. . . . 
 I heard one sermon in which he literally "congratulated 
 himself on having so eminent and distinguished an audience/' 
 and said he believed " there was no body of Christians on 
 the Continent so exemplary in their religious duties." It was 
 really quite shocking to see the audience retire like the frog 
 in the fable, actually bursting with spiritual pride, and smiling 
 out : " Beautiful sermon ! " One of the last converts to 
 Protestant monasticism is no less a person than Lady Conyng- 
 ham, who has been living here the whole winter, in such 
 absolute seclusion that hardly ten people are aware of her 
 existence. I believe there never was a year when Rome was 
 
 * Mrs. Starke, author of a " Guide to Borne," had excited the resent- 
 ment of the Roman shopkeepers by complaining in her book of the price 
 of turkeys.
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. ]63 
 
 so crowded with foreigners as this one. When I arrived no 
 tolerable lodging of any kind was to be had, and the prices at 
 the hotels were much dearer than in St. James's Street. The 
 number of English was then estimated at five thousand ; now 
 the crowd and the exclusiveness have rather transferred them- 
 selves to Naples, but will, I suppose, return in a great measure 
 for the Holy Week. We have quite a Cambridge coterie, which 
 makes it very pleasant, and gives the place a sort of domesticity. 
 If, indeed, it is like heaven in nothing else, there is still one 
 point of resemblance there is no marrying or giving in 
 marriage. 
 
 From Rome Milnes went to Venice to join his 
 family once more. He was cheered by the manner in 
 which his volume upon Greece had been received, and 
 his literary aspirations were evidently quickened by its 
 success, though in a characteristic vein he wrote to one 
 of his aunts to express the hope that his book was not 
 selling at a " vulgar rate," but was achieving popularity 
 in the special circle to which he had desired to appeal. 
 
 In the autumn, instead of returning to England 
 according to his wont, he visited Munich and the 
 Salzkammergut, meeting Bunsen, who was on his way 
 from Berlin to Rome, and other friends on the journey. 
 The death of the Dowager Lady Gal way, and shortly 
 afterwards that of his mother Mrs. Milnes, the widow of 
 Mr. R. S. Milnes, had made a great change in the posi- 
 tion of Mr. Pemberton Milnes. The long exile to which 
 he and his family had been subjected was now happily 
 drawing to a close, and they were preparing to resume 
 their place in English society. Greatly as Richard 
 Milnes had profited by it in many ways, and much as be
 
 154 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 had learned of men and manners during his sojourn on 
 the Continent, there can be no doubt that the necessity 
 of spending so large a part of his time abroad had 
 become irksome and painful to him. To his mother 
 and sister, who had never been in England since leaving 
 it in 1828, their exile was, it need hardly be said, still 
 more oppressive, and they looked forward with delight 
 to the prospect of an early return to their native land. 
 
 I need not say [writes Milnes to his aunt, February 3rd, 
 1835] with what pleasure my mother and Harriette look 
 forward to the possibility of passing some months of this year in 
 England ; how earnestly they look forward to embracing you 
 all again. To the latter the charm of the society of so many 
 people she loves will be coupled with almost the zest of a new 
 existence. If she only amuses as much as she will be amused, 
 if she only pleases as much as she is sure to be pleased, all parties 
 will be very well content. 
 
 This was written from Florence, to which place the 
 family had resorted during the winter, as a change from 
 their past experiences in Milan and Venice. Concerning 
 the life of the city Milnes writes : 
 
 Papa is delighted with the laissez aller of the whole thing. 
 No one interferes with you, no one introduces him or herself to 
 you, no one wonders that you do this or do not do that. You 
 may live and die as domestically and in as thick an atmosphere 
 of indifference as in London itself. Except the Sandfords, who 
 are prodigal of all sorts of attention, we have not a single 
 intimacy ; and, until Stourton arrived yesterday, whom I knew 
 at Venice, I had nothing but bowing or literary acquaintances. 
 I mustered half a dozen of the latter to dinner yesterday, among 
 whom was Mr. James, the author of " all the novels." . . . 
 Lady Lucy Standisb/s theatre is shut up for the moment, she
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 155 
 
 being in a delirious fever. When she comes to herself she gives 
 a representation of a ballet on the story of Bluebeard, which was 
 given to a very select audience a fortnight ago the young ladies 
 pirouetting with a vivacity to shame Taglioni. Indeed, the 
 only difference you could distinguish was the substitution of 
 loose drawers for tight ones, perhaps not a sufficiently strong one 
 to reconcile the thing exactly to Louisa's notions of legitimate 
 amusement. Even / did not quite like to see young English girls 
 trained up in the way they should go by dancing pas seul in all 
 possible attitudes to a promiscuous audience. 
 
 Among the people of note who were in Florence this 
 winter was Madame Murat, the ex-Queen of Naples, a 
 fine-looking and agreeable woman, with whom all the 
 Milnes family became acquainted. Amidst the gaieties 
 of the season there was one tragical occurrence which 
 cast a gloom over all who witnessed it. A young 
 Englishman, who had only arrived the same day, was 
 dancing at one of the balls where at that time, hy the 
 way, more English people than Italians were to be seen. 
 The unfortunate young man suffered from heart-disease, 
 and dropped down dead on the floor of the ball-room 
 close to where Milnes was standing ; and it was the 
 latter who carried the dead man's partner in a fainting 
 state from the ball-room. 
 
 As the spring advanced Milnes once more found 
 himself in Borne, seeing much of his friend MacCarthy, 
 as well as of Richard Trench, who was also at this time 
 staying there. 
 
 In MacCarthy's journal there occurs this passage : 
 
 In the spring of the year 1835 I was one day returning from one 
 of the gorgeous ceremonies of Easter at St. Peter's, in company
 
 156 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 with Trench and Richard Milnes. As we were sauntering 
 slowly down the Strada Giulia, along the Tiber, Milnes in his 
 red militia uniform and I in my black silk academic gown, 
 Trench, who had been lingering for a moment behind, came up 
 to us and said with his usual deep-toned solemnity' of voice : 
 " I was just thinking that after all there are but two professions 
 in the world worth professing those two," pointing to our 
 dresses. " Yes," said Milnes, " but we neither of us belong to 
 them. MacCarthy is as much a churchman as I am a soldier, 
 that is to say, not at all." I waited and said nothing. I think 
 this incident worth recording as indicative of our respective 
 characters, and the character of the age in which we live. 
 
 In the summer Milnes returned to England, pre- 
 ceding his family by a few months. Among the letters 
 which welcomed him was one from Julius Hare, August 
 25th :- 
 
 I am glad to hear of you in England again, and shall rejoice 
 to know that you have given up vagabondising and are thinking 
 of taking a rest somewhere. . . . Sterling you will find at 
 Knightsbridge in flourishing health and full of energy as ever. 
 He will tell you what you want to hear about your Cambridge 
 friends. Of Thirlwall I have heard nothing for months, and 
 know .not whether he has gone to his living or no. 
 
 Hare's hopes regarding Milnes were to be realised. 
 Although he travelled much throughout his life, and 
 subsequently took longer journeys than any he had 
 taken down to this period, yet his return to England in 
 1835 might be said to mark the close of what his friend 
 described as his vagabondising days. Henceforth when 
 he was on the Continent, he knew it rather as a traveller 
 than as a sojourner, and though he never lost his keen 
 interest in the political affairs of Europe an interest
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 157 
 
 stimulated by his own special knowledge of the great 
 questions of Continental policy it was to English 
 politics and English life that from this time forward 
 he devoted the greater part of his thought and time. 
 
 His sojourn on the Continent left, however, its indeli- 
 ble traces upon his mind and character by stamping both 
 with that catholicity of taste which distinguished him 
 above most, if not indeed above all, his contemporaries. 
 To life and society in England he brought a inind 
 trained and informed by close association with some of 
 the most eminent men in Europe, and which had been 
 familiarised with modes of thought and schools of 
 philosophy essentially foreign to our national ideas. 
 
 One of the first letters which he received after com- 
 ing to England in this summer of 1835 was one from 
 Mr. Hallarn telling him how he had retained a copy of 
 his son's " Remains, " which had been printed for 
 private circulation in the previous year, for him. 
 
 It is the last that I have to give [said the bereaved father], 
 for the applications have been many, while in general I have 
 been forced to refuse. On every account I felt that the voice 
 of his inmost heart was not for the careless ear of the public. 
 
 Nobody who knew Milnes ever hesitated to ask a 
 favour of him, and few who did so met with a refusal. 
 Many stories have indeed been told of cases in which he 
 has turned away somewhat brusquely from the petitions 
 of his friends; but those who are best acquainted with the 
 story of his life know that in hardly one of these cases 
 was his refusal final. No sooner had he established 
 himself in England than the friends he had left behind
 
 158 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 in Italy began to load him with commissions on their 
 behalf. Among these was his valued acquaintance 
 M. Rio, who was just at that moment producing the 
 first volume of his work on " Christian Art," and who 
 lost no time in entrusting his interests in England, so 
 far as arrangements for the sale of the book were con- 
 cerned, to Milnes. The latter spent much time during 
 the autumn in completing those arrangements and in 
 doing his best to ensure for M. Elo's work a fitting 
 reception by the English public. His parents and 
 sister took up their abode at the close of the year in the 
 family house at Bawtry, and Mr. Pemberton Milnes 
 forthwith resumed that life of an English country 
 gentleman which he had long before declared to be the 
 most enviable that any man could lead. Milnes was 
 too eager to share in this life to accept a flattering offer 
 which he received from Montalembert to spend the 
 winter in travelling with him in the East. Before 
 going to Bawtry for Christmas, however, he took a short 
 tour in Ireland in the company of his friend Stafford 
 O'Brien, from whose father's house he writes as follows 
 to C. J. MacCarthy : 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Blatherwycke, Nov. 11, 1835. 
 DEAR FRIEND, This letter is O'Brien's, and my part of it 
 
 a mere ; but I must thank you with my own mouth for 
 
 your welcome one. I wrote querulously to Wiseman last week, 
 fidgeting that I had not heard from you. 1 left the note in 
 Golden Square, where they told me he was in Ireland. I hope, 
 however, he will be returned by this time, and that I shall see
 
 OEEEOE AND POETRY. 159 
 
 him before he leaves England. Trench's poems have reached a 
 second edition, owing principally to a puff in Blackwood. He 
 says he is afraid that it is the religious world that have bought 
 them, not the poetical. He has given Wiseman a copy for you. 
 I hear you have some bold English at Rome to defy the green 
 insects ; amongst them, I believe, the Francis Egertons (he, you 
 know, who did Faust). They are very pleasant, and I should 
 think it worth while for you to get a letter to them from Mrs. 
 Cunliffe. I do not think you will find much likeable in Mrs. 
 B , though nothing the contrary. Her husband is detest- 
 able for coldness, avarice, &c. &c. Landor, they tell me, does 
 not intend to return, but leaves his children to his wife and the 
 devil, and intends to fix himself in some village in England 
 where he may live and die alone. I have been the most emmar- 
 velled [sic] in England by two things, the intelligence and 
 information of the upper part of the middle class and the beauty 
 of the women of the higher. I am going about this winter an 
 English scatterling, as I have been a foreign one, for I wish to 
 be as much as possible with my sister, and she is to visit every 
 relation she has on earth. Still direct to me at Bawtry. There 
 is a very great talking and thinking about Catholicism in Eng- 
 land. The Protestant missionary fools have excited a sort of 
 bull-dog enthusiasm among the Dissenters especially, but have 
 set intelligent people considering, which, I do not doubt, will pro- 
 duce much good. I have a beautiful letter from Windischmann, 
 telling me he is just going into orders and is to have a cure in 
 the mountains near Munich. O'B. is become graver and more 
 practical, but none the worse for that ; a good faith and good 
 animal spirits together will always keep a man well up. Would 
 that we had them both ! 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 On the same day O'Brien wrote also to MacCarthy, 
 and in his letter opened his heart with the frankness of 
 youth to his friend on the subject of Milnes's state of 
 mind. This, he declared, caused him great grief; for
 
 160 THE LIFE OF LORD SOUGHTON. 
 
 whilst most of them had now got to some fixedness of 
 faith, Milnes still remained amongst speculations and 
 paradoxes, which gave no peace to his own mind and 
 deprived him of any influence over that of others, 
 " wasting his fine talents and good heart on things that 
 win him neither respect nor love." Properly to under- 
 stand this somewhat severe condemnation, it must be 
 borne in mind that O'Brien had for some time enter- 
 tained the hope of seeing Milnes brought into the fold 
 of the Catholic Church. That he had himself enter- 
 tained thoughts of this step has already been stated, 
 and the disappointment of his friend was great, as he 
 saw time pass without bringing the desired object 
 nearer to its attainment. It was somewhat curious, 
 though entirely characteristic of the man, that Milnes, 
 who in his college days .had been an earnest listener to 
 the preaching of Edward Irving, and who was still the 
 friend of Sterling and Maurice, should also be the 
 associate and confidant of those who were now paving 
 the way for that great revival of the Roman Catholic 
 faith in England which the last half-century has 
 witnessed. Wiseman, not yet a bishop, had just 
 arrived in England, and on the very morrow of his 
 return to this country he had written as follows to 
 Milnes : 
 
 Dr. Wiseman to R. M. M. 
 
 85, Golden Square, London, September Ylth, 1835. 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Yesterday upon my arrival in Babylon 
 I found your note, to which I forthwith reply. I had been 
 inquiring wherever I had hopes of being able to learn your
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 161 
 
 whereabouts, and had only a short time before learned from 
 Charles [MacCarthy] that you were still lingering about Italy. 
 I had thus been prevented from forwarding- to you the ac- 
 companying long letter from the dearest of creatures, Fritz 
 Windischmann, whose company I was delighted to enjoy during 
 my short residence at Munich. Perhaps, however, you may 
 have seen him since. My projects are as follows : in a few 
 days, after I have made some further arrangements with the 
 " calumas " about my publication, I set out on a species of tour, 
 or rather progress, through England and Ireland, having made 
 a resolution never to sleep in an inn or hostelry the whole way ; 
 but I intend to quarter myself upon such of the nobility or 
 gentry of these realms as can sufficiently appreciate such an 
 honour. My first station will be in the neighbourhood of 
 Birmingham, and other Midland Cyclopean towns, where I have 
 several short calls to make. Thence I proceed to the princely 
 towers and enchanted gardens of Alton, and so forward to Sir 
 E. Vavasour's, where if you are in the neighbourhood I hope 
 I may have the pleasure of seeing you. If you think this 
 practicable, and any preliminary arrangements are necessary, 
 you could let me know by a few lines under cover to Lord 
 Shrewsbury at Alton, Ashbourne. I have but little news 
 from Italy. From Rome, by some unaccountable fatality, 
 literally none. MacCarthy writes in his usual low spirits, which 
 I hope have more of the sentimental than the real. However, 
 he was looking with anxiousness towards the striding march of 
 the cholera Sienawards. Twice he had been obliged to call in 
 the physicians in the dead of the night to cure a very ominous 
 affection. This makes me feel uneasy; and yet there is no 
 moving, for all ingress is forbidden into the Pope's States, and 
 Florence is dreadfully infected. To-day I shall go to call on 
 his mother, who is a saint upon earth. If you receive better 
 news, pray let me have them. 
 
 Ever yours very faithfully, 
 
 N. WISEMAN.
 
 162 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Wiseman, as Lord Houghton himself has told in 
 his " Monographs," achieved a distinct social success in 
 England in those days, before the Papal aggression had 
 stirred British feeling and British prejudice to their 
 lowest depths. The fact that he and Milnes were 
 already on terms of intimacy was of advantage to both 
 in the immediate future. 
 
 Milnes spent his Christmas at Bawtry, renewing his 
 acquaintance with the connections and friends of the 
 family ; and in January, 1836, he accompanied his 
 father and mother to Fryston, which had now become 
 the property of Mr. Pemberton Milnes through the 
 death of his mother. From this time forward it became 
 the family seat. One old college friend had recently 
 settled in Yorkshire, and was therefore available as a 
 recipient of those hospitalities which were traditional at 
 Fryston. This was Connop Thirlwall, who had accepted 
 the living of Kirby Underdale, which he held for a 
 brief period on his way to the bench of bishops. With 
 Thirlwall, Milnes kept up a regular correspondence, the 
 interest of which is as fresh to-day as at the time when 
 the letters were written. Space forbids that I should 
 even attempt to do justice to it, but I may make a 
 citation from one letter, if only to show how the learned 
 author of the History of Greece bore himself in the 
 solitude of his Yorkshire rectory. 
 
 Connop Thirlwall to JR. M. M. 
 Kirby Underdale, Pocklington, Dec. 28^, 1 835. 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I hope you will not suppose, because I 
 wished to see you ten days or a fortnight ago, that I am the less
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 163 
 
 desirous of having your company whenever you are able to come 
 to me ; but, as the termination of one of the semestrian stages of 
 my historical career is a matter of great self-gratulation to me, it 
 is an occasion when the presence of a friend is peculiarly season- 
 able. But whenever you come I shall take the liberty of old 
 acquaintance by leaving you to your own devices and pursuing my 
 own for a good part of the morning. If I have any other reason 
 for regretting the delay of your visit, it is that it might have 
 afforded me a means of eluding one or two engagements, for the 
 barbarians among whom I am living think that they show me no 
 little kindness when just about the time that I should be coming 
 in from an afternoon's walk they make me set out on a journey 
 of perhaps seven or eight miles to dine with what appetite I may 
 while my mind is busied with the anticipation of the Z/OOTO? and 
 the recollection of the books and papers which I have left on my 
 table. The most rational person I know here is my neighbour 
 the Captain. He never goes out to dinner, and therefore never 
 expects to receive me. He has, however, breakfasted with me 
 once or twice ; which reminds me of a little incident worth men- 
 tioning for the sake of the psychological instruction it conveys. 
 I believe I mentioned to you that the Captain is celebrated for 
 his stories, in a way which might keep the most unsuspicious 
 hearer on his guard against receiving them with implicit faith. 
 I need not observe that I am by character and habit inclined 
 rather to scepticism than to credulity, and that my regular 
 employment, which lies so much in sifting evidence, comparing 
 opinions, tracing unfounded rumours to their source, and so forth, 
 might be expected to have sharpened my sagacity so as to secure 
 me from the danger of being grossly imposed upon by a narrative, 
 even if related on good authority, when it is intrinsically impro- 
 bable. These things premised, I proceed to say that the last 
 time the Captain breakfasted with me, which was a week ago, he 
 entertained me with a description of the taking of a whale, which 
 he had witnessed while he had the command of a ship somewhere 
 on the coast of Africa. The most picturesque feature in the 
 description was that the monster whale, which was upwards of
 
 164 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 ninety feet long 1 , having been struck, leapt three times its length 
 out of the water. A little appendix to this tale was that the 
 morning after this adventure the Captain was informed that the 
 whalers, in return for some assistance which he had given them, 
 had sent him a calf found in the uterus of the whale. The 
 Captain ordered it to he hung up, but being asked to what part 
 of his ship he would have such an appendage" fastened, he went 
 out to view the creature, which was floating by the side of the 
 ship, and found that, embryo as it was, it measured twenty-five 
 feet ! ! ! All this, I declare, I received not with polite acqui- 
 escence, but with most sincere and admiring conviction of its 
 literal truth ; and a day or two after, happening to have a friend 
 on a short visit to me, an intelligent man though a bit of a 
 poet, I regaled him with the Captain's story as a remarkable 
 fact. He took it in with as much simplicity and earnestness as I 
 had, but the next day as we were walking out together in a 
 clear frosty morning he asked me in a delicate manner whether 
 the Captain's reputation for accuracy was so wholly unimpeach- 
 able that nobody who heard him could question the exact truth 
 of any of his stories. It turned out that we had both been 
 reflecting on the subject, and the scales having suddenly dropped 
 from our eyes, both viewed the matter in its true light as a por- 
 tentous bounce. This, I think, must be one of the greatest 
 triumphs the Captain ever achieved. Pray let me hear from you 
 as soon as you are able to say when you can come to, my dear 
 Milnes, Yours most truly, 
 
 C. THIRLWALL. 
 
 Among the amusements at Fryston during this 
 first winter of their home life in England were the 
 charades, in which Milnes and his sister took so much 
 interest. One which illustrated the principal scenes 
 in " Nicholas Nickleby," which had just appeared, 
 gained special popularity. In the performance Stafford 
 O'Brien played Nicholas, whilst Connop Thirl wall made
 
 GREECE AND POETRY. 165 
 
 an inimitable Squeers, whose antics were the delight 
 not only of the residents in the house, but of the 
 village children whom O'Brien swept into the drawing- 
 room with an entire disregard of the fitness of their 
 attire for the scene into which they were thus un- 
 ceremoniously ushered.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 
 
 Begins his London Career Society in 1836 Milnes's Italian Manners " The 
 Beating of my own Heart" "The Tribute" Correspondence with 
 Tennyson Lansdowne, Holland, and Gore Houses Rogers's Breakfasts 
 The Art of Conversation Takes Chambers in Pall Mall Carlyle Illness 
 of Miss Milnes W. E. Gladstone Milnes returned to Parliament 
 Disraeli's Maiden Speech Publishes Two Volumes of Poetry Correspond- 
 ence with Sydney Smith. 
 
 IN the spring of 1836, Mr. and Mrs. Milnes took a house 
 for the season in South Street, Hyde Park. Mr. Milnes 
 was already beginning to suffer from a certain lethargy 
 of disposition, which although it never dimmed his 
 mental faculties, deadened to no small degree his per- 
 sonal interest in that society in which in his youth he had 
 been so conspicuous a figure. He no longer apparently 
 cared to make friends for himself; but in spite of their 
 marked difference of temperament, a real affection had 
 always existed between him and his son. He still en- 
 tertained the hope that the latter would make a great 
 name in English politics, and though he had been dis- 
 appointed by the results of his University career, and 
 had little sympathy with his literary tastes and pursuits, 
 he was fully conscious of his brilliant abilities, and 
 anxious to render him all the aid he could in his social 
 career. The father accordingly, though he no longer 
 cared for society on his own account, laid himself out
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 167 
 
 to make his house pleasant to the friends of his son; and 
 that he succeeded in doing so is proved by many a corn- 
 temporary record. Not merely in his town house, but 
 at Fryston, he was eager to bestow the hospitality in 
 which he delighted upon Richard's friends. A story is 
 told of the first visit of Thackeray to Fryston, which 
 throws light upon the relations of father and son, and 
 upon the esteem in which the former was held by the 
 friends of the latter. When Thackeray was introduced 
 to the older man, who still retained the courtly manner 
 of his youth, Mr. Milnes having ascertained that his 
 guest smoked, said : " Pray consider yourself at liberty, 
 Mr. Thackeray, to smoke in any room in this house 
 except my son's. I am sorry to say he does not allow 
 it." "Richard, my boy," exclaimed the famous novelist, 
 slapping his friend on the back, " what a splendid father 
 has been thrown away upon you ! " As it has been my 
 duty to say something of the serious differences of 
 opinion between the two men, it is only right to allow 
 their relationship towards each other to be seen in this 
 pleasanter light. 
 
 At South Street, accordingly, in that season of 1836, 
 Richard Monckton Milnes may be said to have been 
 launched on that social career in England in which he 
 achieved an almost unique distinction. He was young, 
 he was gifted, he had already gained a certain measure 
 of repute as a poet and a critic. He had a circle of 
 friends, large, distinguished, and enthusiastic, who 
 looked for great things from him in the future. The 
 removal of the pecuniary difficulties which had weighed
 
 168 THE LIFE OF LOED HOUGHTON. 
 
 upon his youth owing to the honourable conduct of his 
 father, had placed him in a condition of ease and com- 
 fort as far as money matters were concerned, whilst the 
 well-established social position of his father's family, 
 and his kinship on his mother's side to more than one 
 ancient house, opened for him the most exclusive circles 
 of the day. Let us remember, in addition, how his pro- 
 longed residence abroad had made him familiar with 
 some of the best sets in Continental society, and we shall 
 understand how brilliant was the prospect which lay be- 
 fore him, when he thus entered upon his life in London. 
 English society lay all before him where to choose, as 
 both before and since it has lain before many another 
 young man equally well born, equally well endowed 
 by fortune, and perhaps not greatly inferior to him in 
 mental powers. Nothing would have been easier, no- 
 thing, alas ! more natural, than for a young man thus 
 placed, possessing that love of society which unquestion- 
 ably distinguished Milnes, to fall into those habits of 
 the mere pleasure-seeker which have so often, blighted 
 the most promising careers in the ranks of the English 
 upper classes. 
 
 Milnes's temperament must have strengthened the 
 temptation to fall into these ways, so common with 
 young men of his rank ; but allied to his bright intelli- 
 gence, and easy-going and self-indulgent disposition, 
 there was that in him which enabled him to take a 
 higher and a nobler line than that of the mere pleasure- 
 seeker. In his heart there was the real fire of the poet. 
 There was in it, too, that sympathy with noble deeds
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 169 
 
 and noble thoughts, which is perhaps, humanly speak- 
 ing, the strongest of all the defences of the soul, when 
 it is assailed by the seductions of a mere life of pleasure. 
 However powerful to one of Milnes's temperament 
 might be the temptations which now beset his path, he 
 had too great a reverence for what was good and pure 
 and true, too consuming a desire to hold his own with 
 the best intellects of his time, and above all, too deep a 
 sympathy with the suffering and the wronged to allow 
 him to fall a victim to these temptations. But he was 
 no anchorite ; on the contrary, even before this period 
 of his life had been reached, his friends spoke of him as 
 an Epicurean ; fond of the good things of this life in the 
 common sense of the term, but happily also fond of the 
 best things of this life in the highest sense of the words. 
 From the first, therefore, after he had pitched his tent in 
 the great wilderness of London, he seems to have made 
 it his mission to combine as far as might be the two 
 worlds with which by temperament he sympathised 
 the world of pleasure and the world of intellect. How 
 he succeeded was known to all his contemporaries more 
 fully perhaps than it can be set forth in these pages, 
 though the reader as he proceeds will have many a glimpse 
 of these two sides of Milnes's character, which no man 
 combined so well as he did. He will see him moving, 
 the gayest of the gay, in the brightest and airiest of 
 social circles, where pleasure is apparently the one end 
 aimed at, and he will see him also taking his part not 
 merely in those Platonic intellectual exercises which are 
 themselves but a form of self-indulgence, but in real and
 
 170 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 earnest efforts to improve the conditions of English 
 society, and especially of that section of the community 
 which lies outside the social pale. 
 
 Above all, the subsequent pictures of Richard 
 Milnes's life, if they are sketched aright, will reveal to 
 the reader one of the kindest hearts that ever beat in 
 human breast; a heart that in the secrecy of its own 
 chamber knew no pleasure so great as that of alleviating 
 the distress of others. Something was known during 
 Milnes's own lifetime of the extent to which his " hand 
 and heart, both open and both free," were at the service 
 of men of genius in distress ; but what is known is a 
 mere fraction of that which could be told if the tale 
 were to be made complete. Milnes, with his love of 
 paradox, his at times almost startling self-assertiveness, 
 his impulsive temper and acute sensitiveness, was not a 
 man who could go through the world without making 
 enemies ; but the bitterest of these, if they could have 
 known all the truth regarding those deeds of kindness 
 which he wrought in silence and in secrecy from day 
 to day, would at least have admitted that he had in 
 his breast that love of his fellow-men, pure, and real 
 and inexhaustible, which is the most precious of all the 
 gifts that can be conferred upon the human soul. 
 
 Mrs. Milnes records in her journal that the dinner- 
 parties which they gave in the house in South Street, 
 during this season of 1836, were chiefly to the friends 
 of her son, "some of them being very agreeable and 
 literary " amongst others, Wordsworth and Samuel 
 Rogers. It may be well here to mention briefly the
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 171 
 
 leading figures in the political and literary world in that 
 summer of 1836. In prose literature the great name of 
 Scott was still a living factor, though the author of 
 the Waverley Novels had been himself four years in his 
 grave. The influence of Byron was on the wane, that 
 of Shelley and of Keats was beginning to be felt. Men 
 were also beginning dimly to realise the fact that in 
 Wordsworth they had a poet who was destined to add 
 to the imperishable treasures of our English literature. 
 But, apart from Wordsworth, no really great name was 
 at that time known in English poetry. Moore, Southey, 
 Rogers, Campbell, were all still living ; and to the world 
 at large they, rather than Wordsworth, were the ac- 
 cepted representatives of English verse. If we except 
 Wordsworth, it will be seen that this particular period 
 was one in which few men of the highest literary fame 
 were at their zenith. The greatest names belonged to 
 those recently dead or to those who were past their 
 powers. But almost contemporaneously with Milnes's 
 entrance upon his social life in London, new stars were 
 making their appearance above the horizon. Two years 
 before the house in South Street was taken, Thomas 
 Carlyle, abandoning the solitudes of Craigenputtoch, 
 and taking up his abode in Cheyne Row, had set himself 
 to the task of writing the " French Revolution ; " and 
 among the best informed in society and in literary 
 circles much was already being said of Milnes's young 
 fellow-collegian, Alfred Tennyson, and of the promise 
 which his genius held out to English poetry. 
 
 Through Charles Buller, Milnes early made the
 
 172 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 acquaintance of Carlyle. Mr. Froude gives the year 1839 
 as that in which the friendship between the two men 
 began, but in this he is unquestionably wrong, and there 
 is little doubt that very soon after Milnes became a 
 regular resident in London he was brought into contact 
 with the great genius for whose teaching he had so 
 profound an admiration, and for whom personally he 
 entertained so warm an affection. To some it may seem 
 to be a matter scarcely worth noticing, but the biographer 
 of Lord Houghton cannot pass over in silence the fact 
 that in all that outpouring of Carlyle literature which 
 we have had since the death of the author of " Sartor 
 Resartus," not a word is to be found in any one of 
 Carlyle's letters with regard to Richard Milnes which 
 is not pleasant and appreciative in its character. Almost 
 alone among the men of his generation he seems to have 
 inspired the great writer with a feeling of unmixed 
 regard and friendship, and accordingly almost alone 
 amongst them he escapes that scathing satire which was 
 at times poured forth so freely by Carlyle upon his con- 
 temporaries. The friend of Carlyle and Tennyson was 
 of course certain of a place in the literary society of the 
 day ; but when we remember that Milnes was in addi- 
 tion one of the favourite pupils and the lifelong friend 
 of Connop Thirlwall ; that Landor not only cherished 
 for him a warm personal affection, but had so great an 
 admiration for his genius that he was wont to describe 
 him as the first English poet of his time; and that ever 
 since his Cambridge days he had been the associate of 
 Sterling and Maurice, we get some idea of the advantages
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 173 
 
 under which he entered upon his social career in London. 
 Young as he was, he had already formed an extraordinary 
 number of friendships with worthy and distinguished 
 men. Among those were the Chevalier Bunsen, Hallam 
 the historian, Campbell, Moore, and Lockhart, as well as 
 a great number of the leading politicians and men of 
 fashion of the time. Above all, he had the inestimable 
 advantage of being on terms of the closest intimacy 
 with the members of that brilliant band of Trinity 
 students of whom we have already seen something in 
 these pages. 
 
 One can hardly wonder, remembering the social 
 gifts by which he was to the last distinguished, that 
 Milnes's career in London was, from the very com- 
 mencement, a brilliant success ; and yet it is only fair 
 to state that he laboured under certain serious dis- 
 advantages, and had to overcome prejudices which in 
 some cases were of no common strength. It is im- 
 possible to read the social records of the early days of 
 the present reign, without seeing that in many quarters 
 a violent antipathy was entertained towards the new- 
 comer in the great arena of London. In most" cases, 
 that antipathy may safely be ascribed either to the 
 jealousy or the stupidity of those who displayed it ; but 
 there were other cases in which no such explanation can 
 be offered or accepted. With regard to these the truth 
 unquestionably was that Milnes gave offence where he 
 meant none, by a bearing which was founded upon the 
 traditions and the manners of Continental life rather than 
 upon those which had hitherto ruled in the capital of
 
 174 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 England. He had not lived so much in Italy without 
 acquiring a great deal of that vivacity of manner and 
 naive frankness in conversation which are so charac- 
 teristic of the Italian at home. Nor could a man of 
 his disposition have lived so much in great centres of 
 cultured life, like Rome and Venice, without having 
 acquired more of the air of the man of the world than 
 was ordinarily to be found in one of his years. There 
 was unquestionably a strong disposition in the first 
 instance on the part of some, who afterwards were 
 amongst those most fully alive to the genuine merits 
 of his character, to look upon young Richard Milnes 
 when he took his place in London society, and began 
 his career as the friend and host of men of genius and 
 distinction, as an interloper, who was seeking to intro- 
 duce foreign ways and foreign fashions into the highly 
 conservative fields of English life. No prejudices of 
 this kind, however, could interfere with Milnes's social 
 success, and even before the close of that season of 1836 
 a season memorable in the annals of society as that 
 which witnessed the great trial of which Mrs Norton 
 was the unhappy subject it is evident from contem- 
 poraneous chronicles that Richard Milnes had secured a 
 place of favour in the best social circles in London. 
 Twelve months later, when he had secured a seat in 
 the House of Commons, and had become the occupant 
 of the rooms at No. 26, Pall Mall, which were during 
 many years the scene of his London hospitalities, his 
 position had of course been thoroughly established, and 
 he was generally regarded as one of the important
 
 ENTRAXGE UPON LONDON- LIFE. 176 
 
 figures in society. Bftt even in 1836, when he was 
 still living under his father's roof, he seems to have 
 
 o 
 
 made a conquest of the social world. It was after a 
 season which had been full of novel enjoyment to him, 
 a time in which he had not only renewed his acquaint- 
 ance with many old friends of his college days, hut 
 made innumerable new friendships, some of which were 
 destined to last throughout his life, that he paid another 
 visit to Ireland, where he was again received with 
 characteristic hospitality, alike by friends and by 
 strangers. It was years afterwards that he told the 
 present writer an interesting story in connection with 
 this visit. He was driving, he said, to the house of his 
 friends the O'Briens in one of the national cars, and as 
 the horse's feet beat upon the road, they seemed to 
 hammer out in his own head certain rhythmical ideas, 
 which quickly formed themselves into rhyme. By the 
 time he had reached Cratloe the little poem was com- 
 plete, and immediately on entering his own room he sat 
 down and committed it to paper. It was the well- 
 known song beginning, " I wandered by the brookside," 
 and having the refrain, 
 
 " But the beating of my own heart 
 Was all the sound I heard." 
 
 When he came down to dinner he brought the verses 
 with him, and showed them to his friends. They were 
 unanimous in declaring them to be wholly unworthy 
 of his powers and the reputation he already enjoyed, 
 and they urged upon him the wisdom of committing 
 them at once to the flames. As it happens, the little
 
 176 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 verses, which thus met with so '-cold a reception when 
 they were first launched upon the world, were destined 
 to obtain perhaps a wider fame and popularity than 
 anything else which fell from his pen. From the first 
 moment of their publication they caught the ear of the 
 public; they were set to music almost directly after 
 they had been printed, rival composers competing for 
 the privilege of associating their names with them ; and 
 little more than twelve months after that lonely ride on 
 the Irish highway, when the first idea of the poem came 
 into Milnes's mind, a friend of his, who was sailing down 
 a river in the Southern States of North America, heard 
 the slaves as they hoed in the plantations keeping time 
 by singing a parody of the lines now universally familiar.* 
 Social life in London was not certainly in the first 
 instance unfavourable to intellectual exertion on the part 
 of Milnes. The years between 1830 and 1840 were those 
 in which he produced most of his poetry. I shall speak 
 hereafter of that poetry as a whole ; but bearing in mind 
 its character, the tenderness of feeling, and the graceful- 
 ness of fancy by which it is distinguished, it is interest- 
 ing to remember that it was produced at the very time 
 when the young man was entering upon the fullest en- 
 joyment of the social life which he relished so keenly. 
 Nor did his indulgence in the pleasures of society at all 
 affect his old friendships. MacCarthy, writing to him 
 
 * Milnes was walking in London one day in later years with a friend. 
 Passing the end of a street, he paused, listened eagerly to a wandering 
 siuger whose voice had reached him, and then darting off in pursuit of 
 the man, reappeared quickly with a glow of delight on his face. "I knew 
 it was my song!" he exclaimed, showing a roughly-printed broadside 
 bearing the words of his famous song.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 177 
 
 towards the close of 1836, after bearing something of his 
 success in London, pours forth expressions of his joy at 
 finding that he is still unchanged in face and heart. 
 
 I must confess to you now that I have been guilty of great 
 injustice towards you, that I had thought you were growing old 
 in heart and affection, and had looked on your friendship as on one 
 of the many dreams of youth and hope, from which I am slowly 
 awakening. . . . And therefore I need not use many words 
 to express to you my joy at finding out that my life-dream was 
 true after all ; that you are really what you used to be, that no 
 change has come over your features ; . . and that I can 
 gaze on them once again, and see them smile and beckon as they 
 were wont to do. 
 
 One of Milnes's occupations during this winter of 
 1836, was the procuring of poetical contributions to an 
 annual which Lord Northampton was about to publish 
 for a charitable purpose. That, as the reader knows, 
 was the age of annuals, when each succeeding Christmas 
 brought forth its crop of " Gems," and " Albums," and 
 " Books of Beauty ; " for the most part vapid produc- 
 tions, the memory of which has long since passed away. 
 But there were exceptions to the rale, even in the case 
 of these Christmas Annuals, and such an exception was 
 undoubtedly " The Tribute," the volume for the prepara- 
 tion of which Milnes was responsible almost as largely 
 as Lord Northampton himself. He wrote to all his 
 friends Trench, Alford, Spedding, Aubrey de Vere, 
 Julius Hare, even to Whewell himself to solicit con- 
 tributions, and there were few of them who failed to 
 comply. Amongst those whom he thus importuned for 
 assistance in the work of charity was Alfred Tennyson,
 
 178 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 and the result was a correspondence both interesting and 
 characteristic. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson to R. M. M. 
 
 December, 1836. 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, As I live eight miles from my post town, 
 and only correspond therewith about once a week, you must not 
 wonder if this reaches you somewhat late. Your former brief I 
 received, though some six days behind time, and stamped with 
 the postmarks of every little market town in the county, but I 
 did not think that it demanded an immediate answer, hence my 
 silence. 
 
 That you had promised the Marquis I would write for him 
 something exceeding the average length of annual compositions ; 
 that you had promised him I would write at all I took this for 
 one of those elegant fictions with which you amuse your aunts of 
 evenings, before you get into the small hours when dreams are 
 true. Three summers back, provoked by the incivility of editors, 
 I swore an oath that I would never again have to do with their 
 vapid books, and I brake it in the sweet face of Heaven when I 
 wrote for Lady what's-her-name Wortley. But then her sister 
 wrote to Brookfield and said she (Lady W.) was beautiful, so I 
 could not help it. But whether the Marquis be beautiful or not 
 I don't much mind ; if he be, let him give God thanks and make 
 no boast. To write for people with prefixes to their names is to 
 milk he-goats ; there is neither honour nor profit. Up to this 
 moment I have not even seen " The Keepsake ; " not that I care 
 to see it, but the want of civility decided me not to break mine 
 oath again for man nor woman. And how should such a modest 
 man as I see my small name in collocation with the great ones 
 of Southey, Wordsworth, R. M. M., &c., and not feel myself a 
 barndoor fowl among peacocks ? Your account of the debate at 
 the Union is amusing ; I had never heard of it, for nobody ever 
 writes to me. It is scarcely worth while to put the professor 
 into a passion again. Good-bye. Believe me, 
 
 Always thine, 
 
 A.T.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 179 
 
 Milnes was angry at receiving this refusal from his 
 friend, upon obtaining whose aid he had set his heart, 
 and he indulged in one of those short-lived outbursts of 
 irritation which his warm and sensitive temperament 
 caused to be by no means unfrequent, and which some- 
 times led him to use language that he afterwards deeply 
 regretted. 
 
 Tennyson's reply to an angry epistle may justly be 
 regarded as a model of its class. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson to JR. M. M. 
 
 fan. 10M, 1837. 
 
 Why, what in the name of all the powers, my dear Richard, 
 makes you run me down in this fashion ? Now is my nose out 
 of joint, now is my tail not only curled so tight as to lift me 
 off my hind legs like Alfred CrowquilFs poodle, but fairly 
 between them. Many sticks are broken about me. I am the 
 ass in Homer. I am blown. What has so jaundiced your good- 
 natured eyes as to make them mistake harmless banter for 
 
 insolent irony : harsh terms applicable only to , who, 
 
 big as he is, sits to all posterity astride upon the nipple of 
 literary dandyism, and " takes her milk for gall." " Insolent 
 irony " and " piscatory vanity/' as if you had been writing to 
 St. Anthony, who converted the soft souls of salmon ; but may 
 St. Anthony's fire consume all misapprehension, the spleen-born 
 mother of five-fold more evil on our turnip-spheroid than is 
 malice aforethought. 
 
 Had I been writing to a nervous, morbidly-irritable man, 
 down in the world, stark spoiled with the staggers of a mis- 
 managed imagination, and quite opprest by fortune and by the 
 reviews, it is possible that I might have halted to find expres- 
 sions more suitable to his case ; but that you, who seem at least 
 to take the world as it comes, to doff it and let it pass that you, 
 a man every way prosperous and talented, should have taken pet
 
 180 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 at my unhappy badinage, made me lay down my pipe and stare 
 at the fire for ten minutes, till the stranger fluttered up the 
 chimney. You wish that I had never written that passage. So 
 do I, since it seems to have such offence. Perhaps you likewise 
 found a stumbling-block in the expression, " vapid books/' as 
 the angry inversion of four commas seems to intimate. But 
 are not Annuals vapid ? Or could I possibly mean that what 
 you or Trench or De Vere chose to write therein must be vapid ? 
 I thought you knew me better than even to insinuate these 
 things. Had I spoken the same words to you laughingly in my 
 chair, and with my own emphasis, you would have seen what 
 they really meant, but coming to read them peradventure in a 
 fit of indigestion, or with a slight matutinal headache after your 
 Apostolic symposium, you subject them to such misinterpreta- 
 tion as, if I had not sworn to be true friend to you till my latest 
 death-ruckle, would have gone far to make me indignant. But 
 least said soonest mended ; which comes with peculiar grace from 
 me after all this verbiage. You judge me rightly in supposing 
 that I would not be backward in doing a really charitable deed. 
 I will either bring or send you something for your Annual. It 
 is very problematical whether I shall be able to come and see 
 you as I proposed, so do not return earlier from your tour on my 
 ace mnt ; and if I qome I should only be able to stop a few days, 
 for as I and all my people are going to leave this place very 
 shortly never to return, I have much upon my hands. But 
 whether I see you or no, 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Always thine affectionately, 
 
 A. TENNYSON. 
 
 I have spoken with Charles. He has promised to contribute 
 to your Annual. Frederick will, I daresay, follow his example. 
 See now whether I am not doing my best for you, and whether 
 you had any occasion to threaten me with that black Anacarna 
 and her cocoa-shod coves of niggers. I cannot have her strolling 
 about the land in this way. It is neither good for her repu- 
 tation nor mine. When is Lord Northampton's book to be
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 181 
 
 published, and how long may I wait before I send anything by 
 way of contribution ? 
 
 The poet and his brothers were as good as their 
 word. Each sent a contribution to the " Tribute," which 
 now holds a place of its own in English literature, owin^ 
 to the fact that Alfred Tennyson's contribution to it 
 consisted of the lines beginning : 
 
 " Oh, that 'twere possible, 
 
 After long grief and pain, 
 To find the arms of my true love 
 Round me once again ! " 
 
 which formed the germ of the great dramatic poem of 
 " Maud." 
 
 Another of his friends to whom Milnes applied for 
 help was Landor, who was at this time in England, and 
 the following was the re'sponse : 
 
 Walter Savage Landor to R. M. M. 
 
 Clifton, Nov. Wth, 1836. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, It always gives me pleasure to hear from 
 you. As for my contributions of poetry, they are utterly 
 worthless, and I seldom keep anything. What I do keep I 
 send to Lady Blessington, having told her long ago that I would 
 never publish anything before she had judged whether it were 
 worth a place in any of her publications. I am sure, however, 
 she will more easily pardon me than you will the sending of such 
 verses as you see on the other side. I did not imagine there 
 was anything passable in French poetry between " Mon cher 
 enfantilet" (which far exceeds Simonides's art \dpva/cd) and 
 Beranger; but Madame Genlis has written what I have been 
 trying to retrace, as you see. I will lay a wager that your 
 verses on " my grave Walter " are better than any in the pro- 
 jected book. Were it not that I am set in gold there I would en- 
 treat you to publish them. Mine will inevitably be the worst in
 
 182 THE LIFH OF LORD HOUGBTON. 
 
 the volume. Lest you should think I am affecting modesty, I 
 will dash down that idea, and tell you plainly that all the poetry 
 of all the writers unto usque quaque is not worth my " Death 
 of Clytemnestra," which I wrote in an hour. The worthies of 
 Edinburgh have been attacking me. I never read a number of 
 Blackwood in my life ; this was told the editor, who has ragged 
 me in some passages which were sent to me. Within next week 
 you will have a copy, not of my answer, for I answer no man, 
 but of a satire on these people and others somewhat better. 
 Southey was here last week. We walked together all the fine 
 days, too few ! Thank God that divine man bears up against 
 his heavy calamity. Here is room for a few dry leaves. 
 
 " Suspicions fall 
 
 On great Glen gall 
 When spite and falsehood speak ill. 
 
 When we hear wit 
 
 We attribute it 
 To Alvanley or Jekyll. * 
 
 In whate'er matter 
 
 There is idle chatter, 
 
 At once we father't on 
 
 The luckless Fotherton 
 
 So small capacity 
 
 So large loquacity 
 Has luckless Hatherton, luckless Hatherton." 
 
 Recollections of lines by Madame de Genlis. 
 
 " Another claims your altered vow ; 
 Matilda fades before your eye. 
 Her only wish on earth is now 
 Once to behold you and to die. 
 
 Oh, hasten then, for death comes fast ; 
 In pity too will Edmund come 
 While (youth's and hope's last shadows past) 
 Vain love still hovers o'er the tomb.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 183 
 
 Should mortal paleness overspread 
 A cheek like monumental stone, 
 To meet the stillness of the dead, 
 Say not, ' Matilda, thou art gone.' 
 
 But if at your approach my ear 
 Mark not each footfall still the same, 
 Oh, Edmund, if when you appear, 
 I shudder not through all my frame, 
 
 When all is vanished from my view, 
 If "'tis not you my eyes explore, 
 If my weak heart beats not for you, 
 Say then, Matilda is no more/' 
 
 About this time thirty-two years ago I was condemned to 
 write a charade. This is not an imaginary conversation : 
 
 S. Did you ever find out a charade ? 
 L. I never tried nobody shall ever induce me. 
 S. Could you make one ? 
 
 L. I could make God knows what if you would help me. 
 S. Make a charade then. I will try to help you if you are 
 at fault. 
 
 Charade. 
 
 The first is very near a tree, 
 
 The last my heart has done for thee. 
 
 Now solve me, never mind the trouble, 
 
 It shall repay thee more than double. W. S. L. 
 
 Tre-bled. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Landor's expressions 
 with regard to Milnes's poetry were those of mere 
 flattery. He held strongly to the opinion already 
 mentioned, that Milnes was ahead of all his living con- 
 temporaries as a poet. In Crabbe Robinson's Diary 
 for the year 1838, he speaks of a breakfast he gave, at 
 which Landor was present, and adds :
 
 184 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON 
 
 A great deal of rattling on the part of Landor, who main- 
 tained Blake to be the greatest of poets, and that Milnes is the 
 greatest poet now living in England, &c. 
 
 There were two great houses in London which at 
 that time were recognised centres of social life, and to 
 both of them Milnes had access. One of these was 
 Lansdowne House, to which his early friendship with 
 Lord Lansdowne gave him constant admission. Here, 
 if we may believe Sir Henry Taylor, literary society 
 in London had its home. Lansdowne House must, of 
 course, have been at the same time one of the great 
 resorts of the Whig party ; but it was its literary rather 
 than its political side which attracted Milnes, and made 
 him one of its constant frequenters. 
 
 The other great house was that which during more 
 than one generation has played so prominent a part in 
 London social life the stately building known as Hol- 
 land House, which now remains, alas ! the sole surviving 
 example of the great nobleman's country home within 
 the sound of the streets of London. It was a great 
 privilege to any young man to find himself admitted to 
 the brilliant and cosmopolitan society of Holland House, 
 where Sydney Smith was still the ruling wit, and where 
 Lady Holland's caustic tongue added a flavour to the 
 conversation of the place, which was at times too bitter 
 to be altogether enjoyable. 
 
 There was yet another house famous in the social 
 annals of the time, and frequented by many men of genius, 
 although the reputation which attached to it was dis- 
 tinctly Bohemian. This was the suburban villa known
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 185 
 
 as Grore House, which stood then in the midst of 
 pleasant gardens, long since turned into the arid streets 
 and squares of South Kensington, and the presiding 
 spirit of which was that eccentric woman of genius 
 the Countess of Blessington. With Grore House three 
 names will ever be associated those of Prince Louis 
 Napoleon, of Count D'Orsay, and of Benjamin Disraeli. 
 Landor had long been one of Lady Blessington's most 
 intimate friends, and Grore House was his London home 
 whenever he visited the metropolis. Through him 
 Milnes made the acquaintance of Lady Blessington and 
 D'Orsay, and very early in his social life he became not 
 only a frequenter of the house, but the friend of the 
 three men whose names I have just mentioned. 
 
 A fourth house, like the others famous in society in 
 those days, must also be mentioned the luxurious abode 
 in St. James's. Place where Samuel Rogers lived his life 
 of self-indulgence, and gave hospitable entertainment 
 to successive generations of men of genius. There can 
 be no doubt that Rogers's breakfasts, at which Milnes 
 soon became a familiar figure, excited in the young 
 man's breast a spirit of emulation. Rogers was even 
 then very old, and his day seemed to be passing. When 
 he was gone, that which had become almost an institu- 
 tion in the life of London would have passed away. It 
 seemed to Richard Milnes that to succeed Rogers as the 
 host at whose table men of all parties and creeds could 
 meet, with no other bond of union than their common 
 intellectual superiority, was an object worthy of his 
 ambition ; and we may, I think, fairly assume that when
 
 186 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 he began in his chambers in Pall Mall that series of 
 breakfasts which he continued through so many years of 
 his life, he was distinctly following the example which 
 had been set by the older poet. 
 
 I have already spoken of Milnes's intimacy with 
 another set in the intellectual society of London that 
 of which John Sterling and Frederick Maurice were the 
 leading spirits. By-and-by, as we shall see, this pir- 
 ticular coterie, one in which the tone of thought was 
 somewhat graver than it was in any of the houses I 
 have named, formed a society of its own, a society which 
 ultimately became known as the Sterling Club, and in 
 which Milnes had a prominent place. It is worth while 
 recording the fact that Milnes was thus very early in 
 his social career an intimate member of circles differing 
 so widely from each other as those of Lansdowne House, 
 Holland House, Gore House, and the Sterling Club, 
 because it throws light upon that catholicity of tempera- 
 ment and sympathy for which he was so eminently 
 distinguished throughout his life. Indeed, he had 
 hardly established himself in his bachelor apartments 
 in Pall Mall before his fame as a host who was " always 
 bringing out some society curiosity " had spread abroad. 
 To be the means of making the notoriety of the moment 
 known to the leading members of English society was 
 delightful to him, and as he never cared to weigh too 
 closely the moral claims of such notoriety to his hospi- 
 tality, the result was at times rather startling. Sir 
 Henry Taylor, in his Autobiography, has put on record 
 one of the many stories which were current regarding
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 187 
 
 the universality of Milnes's invitations. It is that 
 which tells how one day at his table someone enquired 
 whether a particular murderer Courvoisier, if I remem- 
 ber rightly had been hanged that morning, and how 
 his sister immediately responded, " I hope so, or Richard 
 will have him at his breakfast party next Thursday." I 
 only mention this story here in order to say that, like 
 many others concerning Millies, it was absolutely with- 
 out foundation. These tales were, however, part of the 
 penalty he had to pay for his early-acquired fame. 
 
 Carlyle, according to Mr. Froude, used to say that 
 if Christ was again on earth Milnes would ask him to 
 breakfast, and the Clubs would all be talking of the 
 good things that Christ had said. " But Milnes then 
 as always," remarks Eroude, accurately interpreting the 
 sentiments of Carlyle himself, " had open eyes for 
 genius, and reverence for it, truer and deeper than most 
 of his contemporaries." Years afterwards Carlyle and 
 Milnes were talking at the Grange, the home of Lord 
 and Lady Ashburton, of the Administration just formed 
 by Sir Robert Peel, and Milnes was evincing some dis- 
 appointment at the fact that he had not been offered a 
 post in it. " No, no," said Carlyle, " Peel knows what 
 he is about ; there is only one post fit for you, and that 
 is the office of perpetual president of the Heaven and 
 Hell Amalgamation Society." There is no need for 
 Milnes's biographer to enter into any defence of this cha- 
 racteristic of the man. It would indeed be a pity if any 
 apology were needed for a characteristic which is at least 
 not a common one in a social life so largely founded as
 
 188 THE LIFE OF LORD HOVGHTON. 
 
 that of England is upon narrow prejudice and violent 
 prepossessions. But one thing at least may be said here. 
 Many of those whose admission into society through the 
 hospitable door of Milnes's dining-room caused at the 
 moment the greatest consternation among fashionable 
 cliques and coteries, were men who have long since 
 by universal consent sequred their place in the best 
 social circles. 
 
 In his interesting sketch of the Miss Berrys con- 
 tained in his volume of " Monographs," Lord Houghton 
 says something of one of the distinguishing features of 
 English life, the absence of that sympathetic inter- 
 course without which conversation as an art can never 
 reach its highest point. " The universal reticence of all 
 men in high political station with us, quite justifies the 
 remark of a traveller that an Englishman refuses to 
 speak just in proportion as he has anything to say, and 
 there is no doubt more adventure related and more 
 mutual interest excited in any French cafe militaire than 
 in the United Service Club, where there is hardly a man 
 present who has not been the witness of, or the actor 
 in, some of the historical events or memorable circum- 
 stances of our age. Neither our language nor our tem- 
 perament favours that sympathetic intercourse where 
 the feature and the gesture are as active as the voice, 
 and in which the pleasure does not so much consist in 
 the thing communicated as in the act of communication. 
 And still less are we inclined to value and cultivate 
 that true art of conversation, that rapid counterplay and 
 vivid exercise of combined intelligences, which bears to
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 189 
 
 the best ordinary speech the relation that serious whist 
 bears to " playing cards," and which presupposes not 
 previous study, but the long and due preparation of the 
 imagination and the intellect." 
 
 Milnes himself gave practical effect to the high 
 conception which he had thus formed of the art 
 of conversation. How brilliant and amusing he was 
 over the dinner-table or the breakfast-table was known 
 to all his friends. Overflowing with information, his 
 mind was lightened by a bright wit, whilst his immense 
 store of appropriate anecdotes enabled him to give point 
 and colour to every topic which was brought under dis- 
 cussion. But those who have enjoyed that table-talk, 
 the charm of which will never be forgotten by those 
 who knew him, hardly perhaps did justice to the care 
 which Milnes bestowed upon this art of conversation. 
 One of his intimates was his old Cambridge friend, 
 Charles Buller, and the two men were acknowledged as 
 rival wits for many a year at the dinner-tables of the 
 West End. I remember Lord Houghton once telling me 
 that when their apparent rivalry in wit and conversation 
 was at its height, he and Buller, when they met at their 
 club of an afternoon, and learned, as was frequently the 
 case, that they were to be guests at the same house in 
 the evening, would as a joke discuss beforehand the 
 topics upon which they were to converse, and occasion- 
 ally hit upon the " brilliant impromptus " by means 
 of which the seeming rivals were to cap each other's 
 jests. 
 
 * " Monographs, Social and Political,' p. 206.
 
 190 THE LIFE OF LOED HOUGH TON. 
 
 There was one form of the art of conversation, indeed, 
 which, about the period when Milnes began his career 
 as a social entertainer, was practised to an almost 
 alarming extent in certain sets in London. This was 
 that kind of dinner-table talk which assumes the form 
 not of a general conversation but of a monologue on 
 the part of one brilliant and gifted performer. Milnes 
 himself has mentioned four men who distinguished 
 themselves in this respect Coleridge, Sydney Smith, 
 Macaulay, and Carlyle. There was no man who lis- 
 tened with keener appreciation to the picturesque and 
 prophetic utterances of Carlyle, or the rich outpourings 
 of Lord Macaulay's infinite knowledge, than did Milnes ; 
 but he himself had the strongest abhorrence of this per- 
 version of the art of conversation, and all who have heard 
 him talk know well that, even in his happiest moments, 
 he never sought to monopolise the attention of the dinner- 
 table, but on the contrary was always as anxious to 
 evoke the wit and the intelligence of others as to dis- 
 play his own. A rare virtue this in our social life, and 
 one which I may fairly maintain bespeaks the posses- 
 sion of other virtues also on the part of the man who 
 exercises it. As I have mentioned Macaulay's name, it 
 may be noted that in 1836 he was still in India, and 
 Milnes and Carlyle and the other new-comers in society 
 knew him only by repute. Macaulay returned in 1838, 
 and shortly after his arrival in London Milnes met him 
 at a breakfast at Eogers's, at which Carlyle was also pre- 
 sent. The fame of Carlyle's utterances for, as I have 
 shown, I can hardly speak of his talk as conversation
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 191 
 
 was then at its zenith, and Rogers's guests had 
 gone hoping to enjoy a rich treat. But Macaulay, his 
 mind overflowing with the stores of knowledge which 
 had been accumulating during his sojourn in India, 
 seized the first opening that presented itself, and having 
 once obtained the ear of the company, never allowed it 
 to escape even for a moment until the party was at an 
 end. Greatly dissatisfied at the issue of a morning 
 from which he had expected so much, Milnes followed 
 Carlyle into the street. " I am so sorry," he said to the 
 philosopher, " that Macaulay would talk so much, and 
 prevent our hearing a single word from you." Carlyle 
 turned round and held up his hands in astonishment. 
 " What," he said, with the accent of Annandale, " was 
 that the Right Honourable Tom ? I had no idea that 
 it was the Right Honourable Tom. Ah, weel, I un- 
 derstand the Right Honourable Tom now." It was 
 the first occasion on which the two historians had met. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1837 that Milnes took up his 
 residence in Pall Mall. Among the letters which he 
 received about that time, I find one from Monteith, tell- 
 ing him that he had met Mr. Gladstone in Glasgow, and 
 they had five minutes' talk about him, of the character 
 of which he had no need to be afraid. Both Gladstone 
 and Monteith had agreed that Milnes needed sympathy 
 more than admiration a very just estimate, but one 
 which only those who knew him best would have 
 arrived at. 
 
 About the same time he was cheered by a letter from 
 M. Rio, telling him that his lines on Venice had been
 
 192 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 translated into Italian, and printed in every Italian 
 newspaper, so that he had become more famous in his 
 beloved Italy as a poet than he was in his native land. 
 
 In the month of May in this year, Carlyle, who had 
 completed his " French Kevolution," made his first 
 appearance before the London public as a lecturer. 
 
 James Spedding to R. M. M. 
 
 Colonial Office, UK April, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Herewith you receive the last groan of 
 the great poet, and I take the opportunity of writing to make 
 you know, if you do not know already, that Carlyle lectures on 
 German literature next month ; the particulars you will find in 
 the enclosed syllabus, which, if it should convey as much know- 
 ledge to you as it does ignorance to me, will be edifying. Of 
 course you will be here to attend the said lectures, but I want 
 you to come up a little before they begin, that you may assist in 
 procuring the attendance of otbers. The list of subscribers is at 
 present not large, and you are just the man to make it grow. 
 As it is Carlyle's first essay in tbis kind, it is important that 
 there should be a respectable muster of hearers. Some name of 
 decided piety is, I believe, rather wanted. Learning, taste, and 
 nobility are represented by Hallam, Rogers, and Lord Lansdowne. 
 H. Taylor has provided a large proportion of family, wit, and 
 beauty, and I have assisted them to a little Apostlehood. We 
 want your name to represent tbe great body of Tories, Roman 
 Catholics, High Churchmen, metaphysicians, poets, and Savage 
 Landor. Come ! Miss Fenwick has had a long letter from 
 Wordsworth, resembling, according to H. T., the journal of a 
 schoolgirl on ber first visit to foreign parts. Yesterday I dined 
 witb Alfred Tennyson at the Cock Tavern, Temple Bar. We 
 had two cbops, one pickle, two cheeses, one pint of stout, one 
 pint of port, and three cigars. When we had finished I had to 
 take his regrets to the Kembles; he could not go because he 
 had the influenza. J. S.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 193 
 
 Milnes did his best to increase the attendance at the 
 lectures, that famous mixture of "play-acting and 
 prophecy," according to the lecturer himself, which did 
 so much to make Carlyle known in London society ; and 
 it is from this period that the warm friendship of the 
 two men must be dated. Carlyle's genius had made 
 the deepest impression upon him. In one of Milnes's 
 Commonplace Books I find these words : " Carlyle's writ- 
 ings make on me the impression of the sound of a single 
 hatchet in the aboriginal forests of North America." 
 
 The London season, when at its height in this year 
 1837, was cut short by an untoward event, the death of 
 William IV., on the 20th June. Before that event took 
 place, however, Milnes himself was called out of London 
 by the very serious illness of his sister, who was for 
 some time in a dangerous condition. Just before this 
 summons he had arranged to take part in a dinner of 
 the Apostles, which was to be held in town, with Charles 
 Buller in the chair. He had given up this engagement 
 because of his sister's illness, and very soon his mind 
 was engrossed in a new direction. 
 
 R. M. M. to Aubrey de Vere. 
 
 Bawtry, March 28*A, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR AUBREY, I write rather to know whether there 
 be a chance, or anything like a chance, of seeing you in Merry 
 England this year than for anything else. I shall be in the 
 country, reading and hearing the birds sing (when the weary 
 weather will let them) most of the spring and summer, unless 
 a dissolution of Parliament gives me an occasion of busying 
 myself. I have lately been staying with Thirl wall, and found
 
 194 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 him much more willing to do justice to the honest men of 
 Exeter than he was last year. Do you remember how cross you 
 were at him for pandering- to your uncle about this matter ? I 
 am in no hurry to publish my poems. 1 am too old to produce 
 them as youthful exercises, so that they will have to come for- 
 ward on their own merits without excuse or veil : hence the 
 assiduous correction of them by judgment and experience is 
 imperative ; and when the world is such that Alfred Tennyson 
 does not think it worth while to write down his compositions, 
 there need be no rash eagerness on my part. It is more than 
 enough if you, and others I love and honour, find pleasure in 
 them ; so on the other side I will write you a sonnet. I know 
 no particulars of good Sir Edward's death ; I suppose it was this 
 subtle devil, influenza. I hope Augustus O'Brien will stand for 
 Rutlandshire on a dissolution ; he will be a great acquisition to 
 the party in the House. They have no one of graceful talent 
 among them. Have you seen Newman's new book on the pro- 
 phetical character ? I have sent for it, but it has not arrived. 
 I hear he said he was conscious he was dealing a severe blow to 
 actual Protestantism. His volume of verses is very interesting 
 and pleasing, with nearly as much pure poetry as one wants in 
 that kind of thing. Has De Vere married, or why are his 
 chariot- wheels so long tarrying? How has your sister borne 
 the ferocity of this lifeless spring ? Pray come and see me here. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 On Cowper's Grave at Olney. 
 
 From this f orlornest place at morn and eve 
 Thus says a voice imperative : " Begone 
 All ye that let your vermin selves creep in 
 Beneath the unheeded thunders of high heaven : 
 Nor welcome they who, when free grace is given 
 To flee from usual life's dominion, 
 Soon as the moving scene or time is gone 
 Return like penitents unfitly shriven.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 195 
 
 But ye who long have wooed the memory 
 
 Of this great victim of sublime despair, 
 
 Encompassed round with evil as with air, 
 
 Yet crying, ' God is good, and sinful he/ 
 
 Remain and feel how better 'tis to drink 
 
 All truth to madness even than shun that fountain's brink. 
 
 R. M. M. to Aubrey de Vere. 
 
 Bawtry, May 2Uh, 1837. 
 
 DEAR AUBBEY, The chariot-wheels of your letter tarried 
 considerably, but I should hardly have paid any attention to 
 them if they had come on a railroad, for I have been possessed 
 for the last month with a thought which you will believe has 
 been as Aaron's rod to all others. My (only) sister has been 
 balancing between life and death; and though it has seemed 
 the same thing to her whether the great Arbiter struck the 
 scale this way or that, it could not be so to me. At the present 
 moment she is not what the learned call out of danger, but 
 the tendency is toward recovery; and she is as easy in body 
 as in mind: so sufficient for the day is the good thereof. It 
 is surely strange that both Gospel and Church are so dumb 
 on the matter of reunion of loving spirits after death. If the 
 bond of affection be in itself indissoluble, there must be same- 
 ness if not a unity of destination for those souls which are 
 thus banded ; and how is this reconcilable with the adjustment 
 of spiritual differences, to say nothing of award of rewards 
 and punishments? Can we conceive a soul at once enjoying 
 intellectual communion with the wise Heathen, affectionate 
 communion with the objects of its earthly love, and spiritual 
 communion with Christ and the saints? Is it necessary that 
 the last should absorb the other two, or, to speak S crip tu rally, 
 is there no abiding life of sympathy between two branches 
 unless they are both grafted into the one and same Vine? 
 Surely, the veriest Christian would hardly dare to violate our
 
 196 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 all-human hopes so far as this ; and yet it is doubtless a much 
 fairer, a much closer deduction from the Christian category of 
 truths than many that are every day drawn and acted upon. 
 I do not know how it is, but when one begins to apply 
 Christianity to anything else but the mere state of one's own 
 moral being, one is hampered on all sides by sorrowful 
 perplexities of this nature. 
 
 Strafford* is like a drawing of Michael Angelo. It is 
 odd* to have to complain nowadays of a style being too broad, 
 but this is the case here. He says himself very truly of the 
 play that it is rather action in character than character in 
 action ; and thus there is a stiffness as of cramp about the 
 very vigour of the piece. But read it. Also read Miss 
 Martineau's "America;" and if you have 1 11s. 6d. to lay 
 up in wise words, buy Carlyle's " French Revolution/' It is 
 strange these two books should have come out within a week 
 a threnode of the old world, a Te Deum of the new, blending 
 in chorus. Miss M.'s treatment of the Slavery question 
 is far more lofty than one would have expected from the 
 school she professes. You will find yourself in company with 
 Tennyson, Taylor, and Trench, in Lord Northampton's 
 " Tribute," which appears next month ; and now as you are 
 less in deed than in desire as to coming to England I have a 
 grace to ask of you. Many of my few friends have humoured 
 me by promising me their 'portraits to decorate a room I am 
 fitting up. Will you let some cunning man in Dublin do yours 
 for me be it in pencil, chalk, or how you please; anything 
 except those miserable, monstrous, black profiles ? Of course, 
 I care more for verisimilitude than art; and as long as this is 
 satisfactory, perhaps the simpler the better. I do not expect 
 too much, feeling too strongly what Southey has so beautifully 
 enunciated on the subject in the " Doctor." Do not refuse me. 
 
 It is, perhaps, the confessorship of the Newmanites which 
 makes them so interesting; but, besides their great honesty, 
 they no doubt understand the principles of Church polity much 
 
 * Robert Browning's play.
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 197 
 
 better than any people in Protestantism. Whether these prin- 
 ciples can be practically worked in Protestantism is another 
 question ; as far as I see, decidedly not. Their spiritual bear- 
 ing on the individual is quite another matter; they want that 
 wonderful combination of firmness and plasticity which dis- 
 tinguished Romanism. She never forgot that her foot was 
 on earth, though her head was in heaven. If my dear sister 
 recovers, I shall probably print a small volume of my 'verses 
 this autumn for friends only. I am delighted to hear that 
 yours (sister as well as poetry) are going on so satisfactorily. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 P.S. The D. in the "Lyra Apostolica" is, I believe, 
 Newman's sign. Landor is at Clifton, eating up his own heart, 
 with no better relish than the bitter herbs of world-contempt 
 and self -exaltation. By-the-bye, by no means omit to get " The 
 Kingdom of Christ/' volume first, published by Darton, High 
 Holborn. It is by Maurice, the " caposetta " of our Apostles, 
 and will interest you exceedingly. 
 
 The death of the king was followed by the dis- 
 solution of Parliament, and Milnes came forward as 
 a candidate for the representation of Pontefract. He 
 stood as a Conservative, the other candidates being 
 W. M. Stanley and Sir Culling Eardley Smith, the 
 latter representing the Radical party. In his 
 address to the electors, June 28th, Mimes says : " I 
 have earnest hopes that the advent of our youthful 
 sovereign will unite all the virtue in the nation on the 
 side of constitutional order." In accordance with the 
 fashion of the time he canvassed personally all the 
 electors, and during the course of the canvass issued 
 another address, giving special thanks to the " fair and 
 generous wives and daughters " of the constituency for
 
 198 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 the manner in which they had received him. It is 
 unfair to reveal the secrets of the electioneering agent, 
 even after a lapse of more than fifty years. Pontefract 
 was presumably no worse than other constituencies of 
 that day, and I shall, therefore, make no more than a 
 passing reference to the fact that in the poll-book which 
 was prepared for the young Conservative candidate there 
 were certain pages devoted to the enumeration of voters 
 who were classed under the characteristic title of 
 "rascals," and others in which the words "head-money" 
 recur with suspicious frequency. The fight was un- 
 doubtedly a hot one while it lasted, but Milnes threw 
 himself into it with spirit, speaking frequently, and 
 evidently gaining courage in doing so, delighting his 
 father by his ease and self-possession, and fulfilling the 
 high hopes of his friends. It was on July 25th that the 
 poll was declared, the result being his return by an over- 
 whelming majority. The figures were Milnes, 754; 
 Stanley, 470; Eardley Smith, 134. This was no 
 dubious triumph, and it was hailed with delight by all 
 his friends. One thing, however, is noticeable in the 
 congratulations which were showered upon him, and 
 that was that, until he actually came forward as a Con- 
 servative candidate, even those who knew him best had 
 been in some doubt as to the precise character of his 
 political opinions. 
 
 Connop Thirlwall, for instance, writing to congratu- 
 late him, says : 
 
 It is rather odd that I should have known a good deal of yon 
 so long, and yet should have remained so ignorant of the colour
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 199 
 
 of your politics as I have always been till within about a year 
 ago. I can hardly bring myself now to consider you as a Tory, 
 or indeed as belonging- to a party at all; and though I am aware 
 how difficult, and even dangerous, it is for a public man to keep 
 aloof from all parties, still my first hope as well as expectation 
 as to your political career is that it may be distinguished by some 
 degree of originality. 
 
 Another friend, Colville, expresses his relief at find- 
 ing that he is a sound Conservative after all. 
 
 It was immediately after the king's death, hut before 
 the dissolution, that he received the following letter : 
 
 W. E. Gladstone to R. M. M. 
 
 House of Commons, June ZQth, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I had heard that your sister was ill, but 
 not of the extreme severity of her illness and the danger she has 
 undergone, and I can only express my sincere pleasure at learning 
 that her state has greatly improved, an improvement which I 
 trust it may please God to continue. . . . We are now 
 beginning to feel tickled by the approaching dissolution. I 
 suppose you adhere to your intention of coming forward for 
 Pontefract, as Pollington retires. The Ministers have, you see, 
 pretty well surrendered their ostensible ground about the Irish 
 Church, so I hope that you and I, should we sit in the approach- 
 ing Parliament, shall not be found in different lobbies on any 
 material divisions. At Newark I have as yet no ground to 
 anticipate a contest ; and if my engagements, but still more if 
 your domestic circumstances, are in a state to allow of it, it will 
 give me much pleasure to visit you. 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE.
 
 200 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 The visit proposed in the above letter did not take 
 place, for on August llth Mr. Gladstone writes from 
 Liverpool to Milnes to say that he is sick and weary 
 with his election peregrinations, and has taken his 
 passage for " Scotland (Fasque, Fettercairn) " to see what 
 grouse he can " persuade into his bag." 
 
 Milnes spent the autumn at Fryston entertaining 
 various friends of his, amongst them being George 
 Parley, a well-known man of letters of his time, 
 whose special reason for going to Fryston was to meet 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Among the little offices of friendship which Milnes 
 was called upon to discharge about this time was one, 
 the description of which is given in a letter from J. W. 
 Blakesley, which sounds rather strangely now. 
 
 I shall send you [said Blakesley] a letter to Harriet 
 Martineau, who wants to get names of persons willing to 
 purchase Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." It seems the booksellers 
 will not reprint the work until they can be sure of selling three 
 hundred copies. I should have thought the cormorants had 
 picked enough from the bones of successful authors to allow 
 them to take poor Carlyle's carcass for better for worse. 
 
 It will be remembered that " Sartor Eesartus " had 
 in the first instance failed to find a publisher in an 
 independent form, and had consequently been given to 
 the world piecemeal in the pages of Frasers Magazine. 
 It is evident from this letter that even after the public 
 had been made acquainted with its wondrous treasures 
 of wit and wisdom, and after Carlyle had gained a 
 footing in the literary society of his day, the publishers
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 201 
 
 were still a timorous race, unprepared to burn their 
 fingers by meddling with the light of the writer's 
 genius unless they could get a guarantee for the sale of 
 three hundred copies of a book, the circulation of which 
 has since been counted by tens, if not hundreds, of 
 thousands. 
 
 I was thinking- to-day [writes Milnes to his friend MacCarthy 
 from Fryston, October 15th, 1837] that the thing I was intended 
 for by Nature is a German woman. I have just that mixture of 
 hdusliche Thdtigkeit and Sentimentalitdl that characterises that 
 category of Nature. I think Goethe would have fallen in love 
 with me, and I am not sure that Platen didn't. 
 
 The allusion to Goethe recalls an incident in 
 the writer's experience. One Sunday morning about 
 the year 1879 I was staying at Fryston with Lord 
 Houghton. I observed that he spent the greater part 
 of the morning in writing. By-and-by he came from 
 his library into the adjoining room where I was sitting, 
 holding; a sheet of paper in his hand. " I have been 
 setting down," he remarked, "the names of all the 
 celebrities I have known in my time." " You must 
 have made a long list," I said. " On the contrary, I 
 am amazed at its shortness, and the greatest name of 
 all is missing the man I might have known and did 
 not know." " Who was that ? " I inquired. " Goethe," 
 was the answer ; " and I was actually at Weimar when 
 he was living, and never went to see him. I can never 
 forgive myself." So in these volumes no reminiscences 
 of the great German will be found. 
 
 On November 20th Parliament was opened by the
 
 202 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 Queen, and Milnes posted up to town with his friend 
 and kinsman James Milnes Graskell, who had also been 
 returned at the General Election as member for Wenlock. 
 The House of which he had become a member had 
 Lord John Russell for its leader, the Opposition being 
 led by Sir Eobert Peel. The principal persons in the 
 Parliament of those days were Lord Palmerston, Lord 
 Morpeth, Mr. Spring Rice, Lord Stanley, Mr. Lytton 
 Bulwer, Tom Buncombe, Hume, and O'Connell. There 
 were other young men of promise and distinction besides 
 Milnes who came to it as new members. Among these 
 the most remarkable was Mr. Disraeli, still known in 
 those days as " young D'Israeli," whose fame as traveller, 
 as novelist, and as social luminary in the Gore House 
 set was already great. 
 
 On December 7th Mr. Disraeli delivered himself of 
 that famous maiden speech * which must be memorable 
 in the history of first appearances, and on the following 
 night Richard Milnes made his own debut as a Par- 
 liamentary orator. His father's reputation was still 
 cherished in the lobbies, and not a little curiosity was 
 excited by the son's performance. Despite the nervous- 
 ness natural to the occasion, it was a distinct and un- 
 equivocal success, affording a curious contrast to the 
 dismal failure of the other new member, whose tem- 
 porary humiliation was, however, but the prelude to so 
 brilliant a triumph. 
 
 * Milnes was sitting next Disraeli, and said, " Yes, old fellow, so 
 it will," in response to Disraeli's words, "The time will come when 
 you will hear me."
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 203 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 December IMh, 1837. 
 
 First and foremost have you got the letter I received for 
 you from, I suppose, Mr. de S. ? It was despatched the middle 
 of this week, addressed to Hotel Meurice, and went in a packet 
 to Lord Canterbury. And you do not suppose that I shall now 
 have time to write you letterets and letteroni as heretofore in 
 the idle warm places of other years? But for this once the 
 world must wait. " Stay there in the ante-chamber, great and 
 political world ; you must amuse yourself without me one quarter 
 of an hour. I must write this letter/' How foolish of you to 
 send that last note, that mere portion of humour by itself ! 
 Why not tell me something about Joseph, and your plans and 
 your and our friends? It was a miserable device to give 
 Government a shilling, and you talk of idleness. How far 
 have you got in the Review ? I saw Miss Seymour the other 
 evening at the Parkes's, who knows you a little. She is a nice- 
 looking girl, with too much colour and a nose too aquiline, but 
 seems, notwithstanding, a talented kind of person. She had 
 been magnetised the day before with complete success, and I 
 met her the day after at M. Dupotet's, the magnetiser's. She 
 was not magnetised that day, her mamma thinking it too 
 public. It was a pity, you know. I was magnetised the day 
 after, having taken old Black with me for precaution. I quite 
 received the influence, but did not let him go on long enough to 
 lay me asleep. Some other cases we saw, particularly that of a 
 cataleptic person, whom he attracted about the room, swaying 
 her with his hand like a toy. There was one case of the 
 epigastric perception; but not a convincing one. A member 
 of Parliament placed in the somnambulist's hand a folded paper 
 of the new workhouse diet. She held it close to her, then tore 
 it up, but would not speak of it. The day after, when again 
 magnetised, she was questioned about it, and gave it very 
 exactly. This is the first instance on record of a person getting a 
 stomachful out of the diet of the new pauper system. S. Wood
 
 204 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 says he hopes we shall soon be able to throw the Speaker 
 in a state of somnambulism, clap a motion on the pit of his 
 stomach, and get him to give it to the House. In that case 
 it will not be necessary to give notice of motions, you see. 
 Speaking of the House, D'Israeli nearly killed it on Thursday 
 night. You have, of course, seen his speech in Galignani. 
 Can you conceive the impudence of the Attorney-General, not 
 knowing him personally, and going up to him in the lobby, 
 saying, " A very pleasant speech of yours, Mr. Disraeli. Will 
 you be kind enough to tell me what Lord John held beside the 
 keys of St. Peter ? " 
 
 " The red cap of liberty, sir." * 
 
 During the performance Peel quite screamed with laughter. 
 This failure, however, did not prevent both Acland and myself 
 from hearing our own voices on the following night, both as 
 extempore as possible. O'Brien puts it about that Acland went 
 this morning in state to St. Paul's to return thanks for his 
 successful debut. Mine was just what I wished, good of its 
 kind, giving promise more than anything else ; an earnest, 
 almost passionate remonstrance against something that had 
 just been let fall, and lasting about five minutes. Stanley 
 [Lord Derby] talked of the " powerful and feeling language of 
 the member for Pomfret ; " and Sir Robert said, " Just the 
 jight thing ; " and I smiled inwardly at both of them. The 
 latter has gained upon me last week by the dinner he gave me 
 yesterday, not entirely for the material of it, nor the compliment 
 of the small party, but from his free demeanour in private 
 society. He was more genial than I should have thought 
 possible, and told stories out of school with good grace. 
 Stanley said he thought the case of the Archbishop of Cologne 
 the most important and remarkable sign of our day, and likely 
 
 * " Notwithstanding the noble Lord, secure on the pedestal of power, 
 may wield in one hand the keys of St. Peter and " Here the hon. 
 member was interrupted with such loud and incessant bursts of laughter 
 that it was impossible to know whether he really closed his sentence or 
 not. See Corning Chronicle, Report on !&Ir. Pjsraeli's Speech, December
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 205 
 
 to have most vital consequences. I tried my theory of the 
 Conservatism of Popery as far as I dared. O'Brien is in town 
 as a petitioner. If the election is declared void, he will have 
 another chance of being murdered to prove Irish tranquillity. 
 Unless I am on the Pension List Committee, it is not unlikely 
 I shall go to Court on Wednesday and pay a few visits. Direct, 
 therefore, still to Boodle's. Love to all lovable. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Stafford O'Brien, writing on the same sheet of paper 
 to MacCarth}^, says : 
 
 I was in the House on Friday when Milnes spoke, or rather 
 answered a remark of Harvey's. He was excellently heard, 
 his manner was very good, and utterly devoid of anything like 
 mannerism or Milnesism, which I feared. Some deem of course 
 I need not give you the speech that Milnes was superior to 
 Acland, inasmuch as he showed more debating power. I do not 
 hold with talkers like this ; but both were very good, and we 
 may both rejoice that our two young Englanders have come out 
 so well. . . . Milnes has decidedly succeeded, he could not 
 tell you that j I have. 
 
 Many and warm were the congratulations offered by 
 his friends to the young Parliamentarian. MacCarthy 
 naturally was one of those most eager to present his 
 felicitations. Writing from Paris, December 15th, 
 1837, he says, "The first news of the speech was in 
 Galignani, whose report most irreverently stated that 
 ' Mr. Acland, Sir Charles Douglas, and Mr. Milnes 
 expressed themselves briefly against the motion ! ' The 
 Times gave a better and fuller account, and your own 
 and O'Brien's testimony at last came to make me quite 
 happy. I had been in a great fright before from the
 
 206 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 tempestuous damnation of Disraeli, but he is of the 
 junge Judenihum, not the young England, so may be 
 damned." 
 
 The reader will not have failed to notice the intro- 
 duction of the words " young England " into some of 
 the foregoing letters. The party subsequently known 
 by that name had not yet any recognised life, but some 
 at least of the young men who were subsequently asso- 
 ciated with it, as well as others who, like Milnes, never 
 joined it, had evidently already fixed upon its title, and 
 were endeavouring to accustom themselves to it. 
 
 With the opening of 1838 two subjects specially 
 occupied Milnes's thoughts ; one of these was a matter of 
 purely domestic interest which affected him not a little, 
 the approaching marriage of his sister to her cousin 
 Lord Galway. The earlier letters, from which I have 
 already given some extracts, will have afforded the reader 
 some faint idea of the depth of the affection which Milnes 
 entertained for his sister. Nothing that has been 
 printed in these pages, however, can afford any adequate 
 conception of the absorbing love which he felt for her. 
 He was attached to his cousin, and thoroughly in sym- 
 pathy with the projected marriage, yet he regarded it 
 as the signal for something like his own bereavement. 
 The one to whom throughout his life his own heart had 
 been most closely bound was now to enter upon a new 
 life, with new ties and new sympathies, and it seemed to 
 him for the moment .that with her marriage must end 
 that perfectly frank and affectionate intercourse which 
 had hitherto subsisted between them. Only those who
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 20? 
 
 knew the sensitiveness of his nature, and the depths of 
 his feelings, will be able to understand the emotion 
 which he openty displayed in view of his sister's approach- 
 ing marriage. For months before and after the event he 
 was, as his letters show, the victim of an extreme 
 depression, and it was long before he entirely recovered 
 his spirits. Happily that recovery was accompanied 
 perhaps, indeed, it may have been occasioned by the 
 consciousness of the fact that his forebodings as to his 
 future relations with his sister had been entirely 
 misplaced, though he could not then know the full 
 truth the truth which time alone could prove that 
 during the half-century of life which sfcill remained to 
 him, he would continue to find in her at all times 
 the kindest, truest, and most devoted of friends and 
 confidants. 
 
 The other subject which occupied his mind at the 
 beginning of 1838 was the publication of two additional 
 volumes of poetry. One of these was " The Memorials 
 of a Residence on the Continent, and Historical Poems." 
 It was issued by Moxon, prefaced by a dedication to 
 his sister on the occasion of her marriage. The other 
 volume was produced during the same month, but for 
 some reason, hardly now to be ascertained, it was in 
 the first instance printed for private circulation only. 
 It was entitled " Poems of Many Years." In these two 
 volumes some of the best productions of Milnes's Muse 
 are to be found, and their appearance excited interest 
 not only among his personal friends, but among the 
 reading public generally.
 
 208 THE LIFE OF LORD H OUGHT ON. 
 
 R. C. Trench to R. M. M. 
 
 Bottley Hill, March 3, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I rejoice much at the prospect of your 
 approaching volumes. Pray send me a copy of them. Moxon 
 will give you with this note a copy of my book with your name 
 inscribed. You will see I have stolen and used three or four 
 times a metre which I think I first heard in a fine Moorish ballad 
 of yours which you read me when here. Are you acquainted 
 with Riickert's poetry, concerning which MacCarthy raves, and 
 of which I have given three or four specimens ? I am inclined 
 to think very highly of it indeed ; there is certainly no living 
 poet (pace tua but I have not yet seen your book) that comes at 
 all near him. Do you ever see Tennyson ? and if so, could you 
 not urge him to take the field ? I think, with the exception of 
 myself and him, everybody sent to " The Tribute " the poorest, or 
 nearly the poorest, things that they had by them. But I suppose 
 that as it was only for a charity, it did not much signify. His 
 poem was magnificent. Let me have a line or two from you 
 some day or other to say how things prosper with you, and 
 
 Believe me very truly yours, 
 
 R. C. TRENCH. 
 
 P.S. Moxon tells me you are going to review me in the 
 British. For all praise, blame, counsel, &c., I thank you 
 beforehand. 
 
 Milnes sent his books when they appeared to his 
 friend and fellow-poet, and Trench wrote, April 26th, 
 thanking him for them, and expressing his admiration 
 of some of the poems, especially of the " very beautiful 
 lines to a brother and sister, which moved poor Mr. 
 Elton, Hallam's uncle, to tears, and made him carry 
 away the book to show them to his daughter." But 
 both Trench and his wife missed some of their greatest
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 209 
 
 favourites, and could only suppose that Milnes was 
 reserving them for another volume. 
 
 It was about this period that Carlyle's correspond- 
 ence with Milnes began. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, 20^ May, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I should like greatly to come to you on 
 Tuesday morning, but I am in so contemptible a state of health 
 (as you may see in the Portman Square cock-pit yonder) that I 
 dare promise nothing. Sometimes I wake at four in the morn- 
 ing, and breakfast as soon after that as possible. What shall I 
 say ? Perhaps you will let me try to come and hope to come, 
 and, if I fail after all, will view me with due pity and tolerance, 
 knowing well enough how it must have been in that case. I 
 will leave it so. You ought to lend me a reading of your book, 
 since it is not for sale. I could do very well with it at present, 
 and will accordingly request that favour of you. 
 
 Believe me always yours faithfully, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Now, too, it was that he entered into personal rela- 
 tions with Sydney Smith, for whose wit he had so 
 great an admiration, and whose genuine kindliness of 
 heart he understood and appreciated, though at times it 
 was veiled under a somewhat crusty outward demeanour. 
 Sydney Smith, indeed, does not appear in the first 
 instance to have appreciated Milnes at his true worth. 
 His English prejudices were to a certain extent roused 
 by the cosmopolitanism of the young man, and more 
 than once he took occasion to turn his peculiarities of 
 manner into ridicule. With it all he understood and 
 admired the warmth of Milnes's heart and the kindliness 
 of his disposition.
 
 210 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGllTON. 
 
 Sydney Smith to R. M. M. 
 
 33, diaries Street, Berkeley Square, 
 
 June im, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I began years ago to breakfast with Rogers, 
 and I must go on unless he leaves off asking me, but I must 
 not make any fresh alliances of this sort, for it deranges me for 
 the whole day, and I am a very old gentleman, and must take 
 care of myself, a duty I owe to my parish, or, rather, I should 
 say, two parishes. But you have, luckily for you, no such plea, 
 and therefore you must come and breakfast with me on Saturday 
 morning next, at ten o'clock precisely. Say that you will do 
 this. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Sydney Smith was not unyielding in his responses 
 to Milnes's invitations, and though he does not appear 
 to have been a constant frequenter of his breakfasts, 
 he showed himself there at times, and thus made the 
 acquaintance of younger men than those whom as a 
 rule he met at the table of Rogers. Whether he was 
 altogether happy in the company of talkers who, if 
 inferior to himself, were still in a certain sense his 
 rivals in his own field, may be doubted. Lord Hough- 
 ton himself has told us in his " Monographs " that when 
 some enterprising entertainer brought him and Mr. 
 Theodore Hook together, the failure was complete ; and 
 he was wont to be somewhat unjust in his criticism of 
 other wits. But whatever might be his defects, his 
 qualities were inimitable, and no man appreciated them 
 more highly than did Milnes. It was not merely his 
 humour, brilliant though it was, which Milnes admired. 
 His large-heartedness, his grasp of great principles, bis
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 211 
 
 love of freedom, his sympathy with the victims of bad 
 laws and of national injustice, his hatred of shams, 
 were all dear to the young man's heart, and there can 
 be no doubt that in his own political career Milnes was 
 to no small extent under the influence of the famous 
 Canon of St. Paul's. The friendship of the two men 
 began so late in Smith's life that it lasted but a few 
 years, Smith himself dying in 1845. It may not, 
 however, be inappropriate to bring together here, with- 
 out regard to date, some of the more characteristic of 
 Sydney Smith's letters. 
 
 Sydney Smith to JR. M. M. 
 
 June 3th, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, If you want to get a place for a relation, 
 you must not delay it till he is born. . . . The same thing 
 with any smaller accommodation. You ask me for tickets on 
 Wednesday to go to St. Paul's on Thursday. My first promise 
 dated 1836. I would, however, have done my possible, but your 
 letter did not arrive till Saturday (Paulo post). The fact is, I 
 have been wandering about the coast for Mrs. Sydney's health, 
 and am taken by the Preventive Service for a brandy merchant 
 waiting an opportunity of running goods on a large scale. I 
 wish you many long and hot dinners with lords and ladies, wits 
 and poets, and am always truly yours, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Sydney Smith to R. M. M. 
 
 July 23rd, 1840. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, If you have really any intention of 
 paying me a visit, I must describe the locale. We live six miles 
 from Taunton, on the Minehead Road. An inn at Taunton is the 
 London Inn. I shall be at home from the end of July to the
 
 212 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 end of October, or rather the 20th of October. You must give 
 me good notice, and wait my answer, for we are often full and 
 often sick. It is but fair to add that nothing can be more 
 melancholy than Combe Florey ; that we have no other 
 neighbours than the parsonism of the country, and that in 
 the country I hibernise, and live by licking my paws. Having 
 stated these distressing truths, and assuring you that (as you like 
 to lay out your life to the best advantage) it is not worth your 
 while to come, I have only to add that we shall be very glad 
 
 to see you. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Sydney Smith to R. M. M. 
 
 Combe Florey, Feb. Ikth, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR Sm, I am very much obliged by your kindness 
 in procuring for me the papier cMmique. Pray let me know 
 what I am in your debt. It is best to be scrupulous and punc- 
 tilious in trifles. I should be very unhappy about McLeod and 
 America if I had not impressed upon myself in the course of a 
 long life that there is always some misery of this kind hanging 
 over us, and that being unhappy does no good. I console my- 
 self with Doddridge's " Expositor " and " The Scholar Armed/' 
 to say nothing of a very popular book called " The Dissenter 
 Tripped Up." I read with great pleasure Lord Fitzwilliam's 
 letter to Marshall, and with anything but pleasure Marshall's 
 absurd and mischievous answer. If I had not lost the inestim- 
 able advantage of being a Yorkshireman, I would comb that flax- 
 dresser into some comeliness and order. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Sydney Smith to R. M. M. 
 
 56, Green St., May llth, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I am very much obliged by your reserv- 
 ing a place for me, but I have a party of persons who are coming
 
 .ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 213 
 
 to breakfast with me all very common persons, I am ashamed 
 to say, who see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and trust 
 to the olfactory nerves to discriminate filth from fragrance. 
 Pray come to us on Thursday, and (oh, Milnes !) save the 
 
 country ! 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 To the following letter some words of introduction 
 are needed. Written in 1842, it has reference to certain 
 jocular titles given to Milnes in jest, and which long 
 clung to him. Common report has always asserted that 
 the author of these names was Sydney Smith. The 
 story commonly told as to the origin of one of them 
 was that one very hot evening in summer, when Lady 
 Holland and a large party of friends were suffering 
 from the stifling atmosphere at Holland House, and 
 a general dulness had crept over the company, Milnes 
 was seen to enter. " Ah ! here comes the cool of the 
 evening," cried Sydney Smith, and immediately every- 
 body grew brighter, and new life seemed to be infused 
 into the party. The letter below replies to the some- 
 what angry remonstrances which Milnes, on learning 
 that this and other nicknames had been applied to him, 
 and that their authorship was ascribed to Sydney Smith, 
 had addressed to the latter. No one will deny that, 
 severe though the letter may be, it is admirable in its 
 way. But the reader who may be inclined to sympathise 
 with Sydney Smith rather than with Milnes ought to 
 know something of the light in which the latter, when 
 age had increased his experience and added to his wisdom, 
 himself regarded the reproof he had received in his youth.
 
 214 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 One day in one of the years between 1870 and 1880, 
 as we were looking over the crowded bookshelves at 
 Fryston, dipping here and there into the apparently 
 inexhaustible treasures of his library, Lord Houghton 
 took down one of the volumes of Lady Holland's 
 " Life of Sydney Smith." The original of the follow- 
 ing letter had been inserted in it, and Lord Houghton 
 himself read it to me, not only with the greatest good- 
 humour, but with undisguised enjoyment of the wit 
 which it displayed. " Don't you think," he said, when 
 he had finished the perusal, " that that was an admir- 
 able letter for an old man to write to a young one who 
 had just played the fool ? " Sydney Smith, with his 
 real regard for Milnes, would himself have been de- 
 lighted if he could have seen the spirit in which his 
 sharp rebuke was received. Indeed, it must be noted 
 that even at the time it caused no coolness in the 
 friendship of the two men. 
 
 Sydney Smith to R. M. M. 
 
 56, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, April 22nd. 
 DEAR MILNES, Never lose your good temper, which is one 
 of your best qualities, and which has carried you hitherto safely 
 through your startling eccentricities. If you turn cross and 
 touchy, you are a lost man. No man can combine the defects 
 of opposite characters. The names of " Cool of the evening/' 
 " London Assurance/' and " In-I-go Jones " are, I give you my 
 word, not mine. They are of no sort of importance ; they are 
 safety valves, and if you could by paying sixpence get rid of 
 them, you had better keep your money. You do me but justice 
 in acknowledging that I have spoken much good of you. I 
 have laughed at you for those follies which I have told you of
 
 ENTRANCE UPON LONDON LIFE. 215 
 
 to your face ; but nobody has more readily and more earnestly 
 asserted that you are a very agreeable, clever man, with a very good 
 heart, unimpeachable in all the relations of life, and that you 
 amply deserve to be retained in the place to which you had too 
 hastily elevated yourself by manners unknown to our cold and 
 phlegmatic people. I thank you for what you say of my good- 
 humour. Lord Dudley, when I took leave of him, said to me, 
 " You have been laughing at me for the last seven years, and 
 you never said anything which I wished unsaid." This pleased 
 me. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 It is perhaps hardly necessary to explain with refer- 
 ence to one of the names given above, that " In-I-go 
 Jones " had its origin in the exploits of the boy Jones, 
 who in the early years of the present reign attained a 
 certain celebrity through the frequency with which he 
 managed to make his way, unperceived by sentinels and 
 servants, into the private apartments of Buckingham 
 Palace, where he was more than once found concealed 
 under a sofa.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Disraeli and Milnes Carlyle's Lectures The Sterling Club Charles Sumner 
 R. W. Emerson Letter from Wordsworth Growing Friendship with 
 Carlyle Visit to the Pyrenees The London Library established 
 Reviews Emerson's Writings A Glimpse of Beau Brummel Milnes in 
 Paris Friendship with the King, Guizot, Thiers, Lamartine, and De 
 Tocqueville Correspondence with Sir Robert Peel Heine Carlyle at 
 Fryston " One Tract More " Thackeray in Yorkshire The New 
 Administration Milnes disappointed Letter to Guizot. 
 
 MILNES' s Parliamentary career did not go so smoothly 
 as might have been anticipated from his first success. 
 Although his abilities were generally recognised, and 
 much was expected of him, he undoubtedly did not 
 make such an impression on the House of Commons as 
 he had hoped to produce. Yet in his first days of 
 Parliamentary life he was courted by not a few. 
 Disraeli, who was then looking about for young men of 
 good family and fine talents with whom to form an 
 offensive and defensive alliance against the world, turned 
 in the first instance to Milnes, 'and proposed to him that 
 they should jointly do battle in the arena of politics. 
 " No," said Milnes, " two of a trade would never agree," 
 and the project fell through. In politics, at all events, 
 Richard Milnes was always in earnest, whatever might 
 be the case with regard to his private or his social life. 
 It was upon the serious aspect of public affairs that he
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 217 
 
 alone cared to direct his attention. His father, as has 
 been seen, was anxious that his son should achieve that 
 success which had once lain within his own reach. 
 Milnes himself was even more ambitious of political 
 than of literary distinction, and very early in his 
 Parliamentary career he began to take a line of his 
 own upon some of those social and political questions 
 which seemed likely to rise to importance in the future. 
 He was troubled, however, by the comparative non- 
 success of the speeches which he made during the 
 Session of 1838. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 March 13^, 1838. 
 
 I wonder whether readiness and comfort in writing to one's 
 friends is one of Carlyle's symptoms of " Health." Certainly 
 Goethe and Walter Scott both wrote most freely and fully, and 
 I at this moment sit down with difficulty to do what I ought to 
 have done a fortnight ago. But then you write just as eloquently 
 and pleasantly when just out of a spasm, and in as morbid a 
 state of mind as Rousseau ever dragged through. No ; there is 
 something more in the matter than I see ; and this must be so, 
 for who has so craving an appetite for sympathy as I have? 
 Who so fond of melancholy gossip ? Good things, whether of 
 creation or invention, are dying so fast within me that I can 
 hardly even indite a letter. I only know I felt the other day 
 that when my sister is married and my poems printed, my 
 mission, such as it is, is well over, and I might as well be lost 
 in space at once as go on formulising any more. I took care 
 Carlyle should hear your objection to his " Cant." I doubt not 
 he has grinned over it by this time. He is to give a course of 
 lectures in May on the confined subject of the history of general 
 literature. I get more and more nervous as to speaking in the 
 House, Jt is improbable that I shall try again this Session.
 
 218 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Had my Canada and Ballot speeches been heard, and been 
 successful, it would most likely have been otherwise. I go out 
 as much as I want, and see plenty of clever and agreeable people, 
 but somehow or other get very little good of them. The thing 
 that has caught me most is the animal magnetism which is 
 slowly progressing. The apostle of it is a very fine simple fellow, 
 as fanciful and exaggerative as an enthusiast ought to be. 
 A strong attempt is making to prove the whole thing mere 
 bawdry, but the experiments at the hospitals defy this. My 
 mother and sister come to town in a fortnight. The nozze take 
 place the week after Easter. She is wonderfully well. A book 
 called " Froude's Remains/' just published, has produced much 
 wonder, pleasure, and scoffing. They are the posthumous con- 
 fessions of a young Oxford Churchman, detailing his ascetic 
 practices, spiritual progress, and dogmatic difficulties. I do not 
 suppose it will reach Paris, or be understood if it did. I go 
 on with small " young Englands " on Sunday evenings, which 
 unfortunately excludes the more severe members Ac-land, Glad- 
 stone, &c. I really think when people keep Friday as a fast, 
 they might make a feast of Sunday ; as it is, Wood and his 
 friends have only two Sundays a week instead of one. Miss S. 
 is in great force, and seems to enjoy going out, though they 
 know but few people. I am not in love, for if I was I should 
 not be so cross and nervous. I almost fear I am in an influenza 
 instead. . . . The best things current are that Rogers said 
 of Lady Parke, " She was so good that when she went to Heaven 
 she would find no difference except that her ankles would be 
 thinner and her head better dressed " and Sydney Smith* to 
 Landseer, who patronisingly offered to let him sit to him for his 
 picture, " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" 
 Also Rogers of Jane Davy, " that she was so dry she would turn 
 all the Deluge into toast and water." Bulwer has brought out 
 an exceedingly pretty play, which, owing to the fewness of the 
 characters, is very well acted. Charles Kean I think a sensible 
 
 * In a note to the sketch of Sydney Smith in the "Monographs," 
 Lord Hoxighton states that Lockhart really said this.
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 219 
 
 and gentlemanly actor, but with no high conceptions or means 
 of realising them. The affair between Fitz and the C goes 
 lingering on. People know for a fact one night that he has 
 been refused, and he is dancing with her the next. Poor O'B. 
 is coming to town, foiled of his Rutlandshire seat, which he had 
 looked forward to for years not but that a little misfortune will 
 be of use to him. I hardly like asking you to write on when 
 you get no value received : still 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The comparative failure of his speeches, to which. 
 Milnes alludes in the foregoing letter, was to some 
 extent due to the very earnestness of purpose which he 
 displayed in politics. In after-dinner oratory he was 
 known to be one of the easiest and most graceful 
 speakers of his time, but the case was very different 
 when he addressed the House of Commons. He always 
 seemed to do so under a sense of constraint, and as he 
 had modelled himself upon the old style of political 
 oratory, he gave his hearers an impression of affectation, 
 which, though unfounded in fact, was decidedly disad- 
 vantageous to him. 
 
 JR. M. M. to Aubrey de Fere. 
 
 House of Commons (? 1838). 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, One has no business to intrude the 
 hurdygurdy of a London mind into the serene and graceful 
 harmonies of your meditative life, but then friendship has its 
 courtesies as well as its sensibilities, and to leave such a letter 
 as yours unanswered would be not only a moral crime but a 
 social error. 
 
 Therefore, I must write you somewhat, and you must take 
 it forgivingly and compassionately. No one could believe that
 
 220 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 so many wise and pleasant people as are certainly to be found in 
 this big town could be living together so long and getting so 
 little good from one another. The most notable things in your 
 way have been Carlyle's lectures, but I daresay the Spring Rice 
 letters have been transcripts of them ; they have been, perhaps, 
 more interesting than anything else, as all picturesque history 
 must be, and he talks as graphically as his "French Revolu- 
 tion ; " his personality is most attractive. There he stands, simple 
 as a child, and his happy thought dances on his lips and in his 
 eyes, and takes word and goes away, and he bids it God speed, 
 whatever it be. 
 
 Tennyson composes every day, but nothing will persuade 
 him to print, or even write it down. ... I have a notion of 
 getting to Naples for the autumn, and Rome for the early 
 winter. That you could and would go with me ! It would 
 nearly do me as much good as all this frivolous society does me 
 harm. 
 
 I know no interesting new books but " Froude's Remains/' 
 Wilberforce is fair reading, but requires much skipping. What 
 a curious mixture of weakness and strength he was ! It gave 
 me great pleasure that O'Brien had courage to break out 
 of this pleasure den into the free air of his own occupations 
 and offices. I trust he already feels the full reward. I have 
 seen Monckton several times ; we have spoken often about 
 you; he seems to like much all of you that he understands. 
 People puff my poems more than enotigh, and now I think it 
 would be literary dandyism not to publish them ; so I shall 
 make them saleable next spring ; by that time probably the 
 world will have forgot all about them, and hardly a copy be 
 sold. 
 
 I see a good deal of the Spring Rices off and on ; 
 he is very good-natured to me, notwithstanding that I have 
 abused the Government in the House. H. Taylor is said to 
 be elaborating something, but in secret ; I believe he has given 
 up Thomas A'Becket. A Mr. Kenyon has just published 
 some decent verses. Have you ever seen any of Blake's poetry?
 
 FIEST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 221 
 
 I think of publishing 1 some selections from him which will 
 astonish those who are astoundable by anything of this kind. 
 All kind things to yours from 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 His old friend and fellow- Apostle, J. W. Blakesley, 
 was a candidate for election at the Athenaeum Club at 
 this time, March, 1838, and on his election he wrote to 
 Milnes as follows : 
 
 /. W. Blakesley to R. M. M. 
 
 Trinity College) Cambridge, 
 
 March 19^, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I have no doubt that I owe no incon- 
 siderable part of my success at the Athenaeum on Monday last to 
 your exertions, and if you are conscious that such is the case, 
 draw on me for.as much gratitude as you think your due; I will 
 honour the cheque. Alfred Tennyson has been with us for the last 
 week. He is looking well and in good spirits, but complains of 
 nervousness. How should he do otherwise, seeing that he smokes 
 the strongest and most stinking tobacco out of a small blackened 
 clay pipe on an average nine hours every day ? He went off to- 
 day by the Wisbeach to Epping, where he complains that there 
 are no sounds of Nature and no society ; equally a want of birds 
 and men. Have you seen Trench's new volume ? Here we all 
 think that the clergyman has swallowed up the poet, and also 
 that it would have been well if the catastrophe had taken place 
 before the latter had written his last book. We are most pain- 
 f ullv disappointed. He seems to expect that some such impression 
 will be produced among his own intimates, for he writes me a 
 most deprecatory letter. Also his children have one and all the 
 whooping-cough a distressing spectacle, he informs me, for a 
 father. If you see Crabb Robinson, remember me to him. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 J. W. BLAKESLEY.
 
 222 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 It was during this summer of 1838 that Sterling 
 founded the little club which was afterwards known by 
 his own name, though in the first instance it was styled 
 the Anonymous Club. Milnes and most of his early 
 friends were among the members. Spedding was the 
 secretary. It fell to the lot of Milnes to ask Blakesley 
 to secure some additional names for the little company. 
 
 /. W. Blakesley to R. M. M. 
 
 14, Lansdowne Place, Brighton, 
 
 July 16a, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Of the four persons to whom I was com- 
 missioned to communicate the project of our new club, two have 
 taken the shilling with great alacrity namely, Lyttelton and 
 Fielding. From Rogers I have not yet heard, although I wrote 
 to him upon the subject before leaving town ; but as I directed 
 my letter to the Club, it is very far from impossible that it has 
 not yet come to his hand. From Acland I had a letter which 
 makes me fear that he will not join. At least, if it came from 
 anybody else I should draw that conclusion from it. He says 
 that he feels that whatever he might gain from such a society, 
 he should contribute nothing to it. This in any other person 
 would only be a courteous mode of declining, but Acland really 
 is so absurdly modest, and has such an unwarrantably low opinion 
 of his own talents and attainments, that in him such an expres- 
 sion need not, I think, be so interpreted. Pray set all manner of 
 people at him who are likely to have any influence over him. 
 . Neither can I at all see why Trench should not have 
 been requested to be one of us. I do not at all agree with 
 Sterling's view of the case, that he would have declined. But, 
 to be sure, I should not have expected any such course from 
 Maurice. 
 
 Rogers refused to join the club, which was probably 
 of too heretical a character in his opinion to be worthy
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 223 
 
 of his patronage. The other eminent men mentioned in 
 Blakesley's letter, including Acland, became members, 
 and had to bear with their colleagues the storm of 
 obloquy which was soon afterwards raised against the 
 Club by the orthodox religious newspapers. 
 
 During this summer of 1838 England received a 
 distinguished visitor from the United States in the 
 person of Charles Sumner, who has left on record some 
 lively reminiscences of society at large at that period, 
 and of Milnes and his friends in particular. 
 
 " Milnes," writes Sumner, describing him, " a 
 member of Parliament, a poet, and a man of fashion, a 
 Tory who does not forget the people, and a man of 
 fashion with sensibilities, love of virtue and merit among 
 the simple, the poor, and the lowly." 
 
 From Sumner's letters it is evident that he met 
 Milnes frequently in society at Holland House, at 
 Eogers's, at Sydney Smith's, and elsewhere ; and he tells 
 how, as the guest of Milnes himself, he sat opposite 
 Bulwer at dinner; Macaulay, Julius Hare, O'Brien, 
 and Monteith being the other guests. The " incessant 
 ringing " of Macaulay's voice on this occasion struck 
 Sumner more particularly by the contrast which it 
 offered to the lisping and effeminate tones of Bulwer. 
 Sumner makes one statement, in the accuracy of which 
 it is difficult to believe. " Young Milnes, whose poems 
 you have doubtless read," he says, " told me that 
 nobody knew of his (Carlyle's) existence, though he 
 (Milnes) entertained for him personally the highest 
 regard." That Carlyle had not yet fully established
 
 224 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 himself and his fame was of course true, but it was hardly 
 possible for Milnes to make such a statement as that 
 reported by Mr. Sumner with regard to one who was 
 even then a lion in the best literary and intellectual 
 society in London. With regard to the second part of 
 this statement, the high regard which Milnes had for 
 Carlyle, there is happily no room for doubt. Curiously 
 enough, at this very time Carlyle and Milnes were in 
 correspondence on the subject of the works of another 
 American writer who was then just coming into notice 
 Mr. Emerson. Emerson had found a warm friend and 
 admirer in England in the person of Harriet Martineau, 
 and by her means his name had been brought to the 
 notice of Carlyle and other eminent men of letters. 
 Milnes was among those who formed a genuine admira- 
 tion for the gifted thinker of the New World, and he 
 was one of the earliest among English writers to print 
 a criticism upon Emerson's essays. 
 
 " There is another little essay of Emerson's the 
 American, entitled ' Nature,' " writes Carlyle, July 13th, 
 1838, to Milnes, " I think John Sterling has it. Thank 
 you for liking that man." Milnes was anxious to see the 
 essay, which had not then been reprinted in this country. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Tuesday. 
 
 DEAR MR. MILNES, That book " Nature/' I am sorry to say, 
 is not discoverable. Search has been made within the house and 
 without, hitherto in vain. Somebody has it, but I know not 
 who, and see not at present much hope of knowing. Perhaps 
 Kenneth of York Street, Covent Garden, has it on sale ; if not,
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 225 
 
 and if, as the probabilities indicate, I cannot unearth it here, 
 what chance is there ? It seems an uneducible case. I give you 
 two fractions of an American book catalogue, where you find a 
 notice of " Nature," and notices of one or two other things 
 perhaps related to your enterprise. As to the immortal Revolu- 
 tion book, I am not altogether sure but the piece of truth I 
 communicated to you may have given you a wrong impression of 
 the whole truth. Come, therefore, into the centre of the business 
 (me duce) since we have got within the circumference. The 
 American edition was of one thousand, price two dollars, and, as 
 all sold off, my share of the profit 150. American booksellers 
 sell at thirteen per cent., that is their share of the retail price of 
 a book you give them to sell for you. The English edition of 
 seven hundred and fifty, price thirty-one shillings and sixpence, 
 is also all sold off except a score of copies, my share of the profit 
 hitherto zero, though the bookseller tells me he has cash for me, 
 the colour of cash, which he hopes " will prove satisfactory were his 
 books once balanced/' English booksellers sell at the rate of 
 forty-two per cent, or so, I find; and are generally reckoned to 
 be knaves more or less besides. It is a commercial phenomenon, 
 their business here at present. I prepared to print a second 
 edition for England and America together. This is a veritable 
 complete state of the case, more fit for a Threadneedle Street 
 accountant than for a West End poetical critic ; which, how- 
 ever, I impart to you in confidence, that what you do see good to 
 say on the subject may be said with entire knowledge of it. 
 My notion is that it is all a misere worthy to be left in pro- 
 foundest secrecy ; unless, perhaps, you will recommend one to 
 swallow keys (like your friend Stello), and die with a pen in 
 one hand and a crust in the other. Is not that a beautiful 
 attitude for dying now, and one often practised in hospitals ? 
 Gilbert Sans-culotte ! I will desire you also to present my 
 compliments to Kitty Bell when you next buy buns from her. 
 God keep you, my good friend, It is a mad world this. 
 
 Yours very truly always, 
 
 T. CARLYLB.
 
 226 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 I find Emerson quoted in a strange, philosophical, gerund- 
 grinder farrago of a book from Cambridge, called " The New 
 Cratylus."* They tell me also your friend Gladstone has a page 
 of him. 
 
 In order to understand the bearing of the foregoing-, 
 two facts must be borne in mind by the reader. First, 
 that Emerson had befriended Carlyle in his relations with 
 the American publishers, and had secured for him the' 
 favourable returns of which he speaks above. And 
 secondly, that a Copyright Bill was now before Parliament, 
 in which Milnes was deeply interested, and in dealing 
 with which he acted as one of the accredited representa- 
 tives of English letters. 
 
 William Wordsworth to R. M. M, 
 
 Rydal Mount, Kendal, 
 
 March 2Qt&, 1838. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I am taking a step which I am all but per- 
 suaded is superfluous, by reminding you that the second reading 
 of Sergeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill stands for April llth, 
 Wednesday. You will not, I trust, withhold from it your 
 strenuous support. The Sergeant tells me the booksellers 
 threaten a very strong opposition, in which they rely upon the aid 
 of the doctrinaires, among which party one of the most eminent, 
 Mr. Hume (lucus a non lucendo), has as you know declared against 
 it already in his place, a pretty place for such an ignoramus. 
 I have read two pamphlets against the bill, both abounding in 
 false statements as to the facts, and the larger especially in 
 monstrous opinions and shallow reasoning. As to perishable 
 literature the motion is obviously indifferent. The only argument 
 against it that I have seen which is entitled to the least considera- 
 tion lies in the fear, or rather, as some assume, the certainty that 
 such an act would check the circulation of good books ; but the 
 
 * The etymological work by Dr. Donaldson.
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 227 
 
 rapid increase of readers is making it daily more and more the 
 interest of authors to send into the world cheap editions, while 
 there cannot be a doubt that with men of moral minds the hope 
 of their children and grandchildren being in some degree benefited 
 by their labours must act as an encouragement to their industry, 
 and a support under the present neglect. What we want is the 
 production of good books. Authors as a body get as much as 
 they deserve by the law standing as it now does ; but how does it 
 treat, confining myself to my own department, men like Burns, 
 like Cowper, like Crabbe, Coleridge, Southey, and many others ? 
 Too much of this ! How came Sir R. Inglis to say the other day 
 in the House on P. Thomson's motion, that Sir Walter Scott 
 had set an example of effectually providing against French piracy 
 by sending his life of Napoleon over in sheets to Paris, or P. 
 Thomson to think he had replied to this inconsiderate observation 
 by saying that such a precaution could only avail for one edition? 
 Why, in America a book which has been treated for with an 
 English author has been reprinted in an inferior type in thirty- 
 six hours. . . . Galignani told me that he wished English 
 copyright existed in France to prevent these injurious competi- 
 tions, so that piracy is in some degree undermining itself. 
 I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 Sincerely and respectfully yours, 
 
 WILLIAM WOBDSWORTH. 
 
 Whilst Milnes was thus doing his duty in the House 
 of Commons by the order to which he was proud to 
 belong, his social life was gradually expanding, and he 
 himself taking an increasingly conspicuous part in 
 society. 
 
 I had designed [writes Carlyle in this summer of 1838] to 
 be at one of your breakfasts again this season, and see once more 
 with eyes what the felicity of life is ; and to-morrow, unless the 
 destinies withstand, shall be the day. 
 
 Writing to his brother a little later, Carlyle tells
 
 228 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 how at this breakfast he had met Bunsen, Hallam, 
 and certain other celebrities of the time. Milnes had 
 indeed taken on himself the task of making Carlyle 
 feel at home in the great world, and he was indefa- 
 tigable in compelling the fashionable personages of the 
 day to meet the Scotch peasant whose genius had 
 already stirred the intellectual world to its depths. 
 D'Orsay the wit and the dandy appears to have been 
 one of those who were thus brought within the orbit 
 of the author of " Sartor Resartus." But there were 
 others more worthy than he of Carlyle's friendship whom 
 Milnes brought to the great writer's feet. Among these 
 was Connop Thiiiwall, Milnes's old friend of Trinity 
 days, not yet a bishop, though on the eve of becoming one. 
 Mr. Froude tells how the first meeting between Carlyle 
 and Thirl wall took place in the rooms of James Sped- 
 ding in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Those pleasant and homely 
 rooms were a favourite resort of Milnes's, and they 
 deserve to be held in remembrance by all the admirers 
 of genius. Milnes himself was present when Carlyle and 
 Thirlwall first became acquainted. The future bishop was 
 described by Carlyle as " a most sarcastic, sceptical, but 
 strong-hearted, strong-headed man, whom he had a real 
 liking for." The conversation, which turned on ques- 
 tions of theology, was broad in its character, and if we 
 may believe Carlyle the orthodox side was maintained by 
 Milnes. " He gave the party dilettante Catholicism and 
 endured Thirlwall's tobacco." By-and-by an additional 
 bond of union between Carlyle and his young friend was 
 established.
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 229 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Wednesday Morning, 1838. 
 
 DEAR MR. MILNES, We are packing up for departure. I 
 cannot say as to Friday morning, but I will decidedly try and 
 hope. This morning I was about writing to you at any rate. In 
 these days I have a horse and go galloping along through all 
 manner of lanes and green shady and windy desert places, much to 
 my benefit. I had set my heart on riding with you one day. 
 To-morrow it must be if at all. Could you appear here, steed 
 fast, without further warning between one and two o'clock, or 
 with warning at whatever hour and place you like to name? 
 We might be merry together under the blessed sunshine for a 
 couple of hours. 
 
 Yours always truly, 
 
 ' *: T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Prom that time forward Milnes was a frequent com- 
 panion of Carlyle in his rides about London and its 
 suburbs. 
 
 In the autumn Milnes went with his friend Col vile 
 to the Pyrenees. 
 
 R. M. M. to Lady Galway. 
 
 London, August 3rd, 1838. 
 
 DEAREST HARRIETTS, .... On Saturday week I start 
 with Colvile, in Mr. Eldridge's green chariot imperial and all, 
 for the Pyrenees. We go by Southampton, but whether by 
 Havre or Jersey and St. Malo we have not yet decided. Pray 
 write directly to Bordeaux, as it can be forwarded if we have 
 got further on our way. Colvile must be back by the 1st 
 November, so perhaps we could combinare to meet at Paris, 
 which would be uncommon pleasant. I suppose you will 
 manage to get over the Stelvio while the Emperor is at Inns- 
 pruck, but I fear the old epileptic will jostle you a good deal 
 There has been a talk these few days of the Duke of Devonshire
 
 230 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 going to Milan as Extraordinary. I knew he was going to the 
 baths at Aix in Savoy for his health, and probably the report is 
 nothing more than this. I wish you would get me any new 
 novel of Tieck's that may have come out, and anything that 
 Windischmann recommends. Do not make yourself sick with 
 " knodels " at the Hirsch, but eat them by all means : they 
 were wunderschon, if I remember right. A review of my poems 
 in the Blackwood this month. The editor says he remembers 
 hearing a man of that name speak surpassingly well in Parlia- 
 ment some thirty years ago, and wonders if he is the poet ; on 
 a little reflection, he guesses it is his son, and he is not far 
 wrong. Both the Westminster and Blackwood quote " The Lay 
 of the Humble." Do you remember my reading it to you in 
 the wee drawing-room at Venice over the fire the night after I 
 came from Greece, when you told me you didn't want to hear it 
 at all ? .... I expect a deal of good poems from my trip if I 
 can only disembarrass myself of disagreeable thoughts, and let 
 myself go quietly and in the fresh air, and be content with 
 talking to mountains without wishing for wise or fine people to 
 answer me. London is not at all unpleasant if one was not 
 fidgeting to be somewhere else : in climate and society it is 
 about February. Corky* has had parties of all kinds ; I dine 
 there to-day to meet the John Russells and a world of Whigs. 
 She wants to give breakfasts like mine, but the one last week 
 was quite a failure. Nobody knows when Parliament will be 
 up; the Lords will have to sit some time after us. I don't 
 know whether my father has written to you ; he makes no great 
 complaint about the hay, but it cannot have been well got in 
 amid all this wet. I believe, to make an almanack, you have 
 nothing to do but put down " Rain, rain, rain/' Esterhazy has 
 left town. Mind and ask him directly you get to Milan by 
 word or letter to get the introduction to Metternich, and ask 
 Zichy to introduce you to Madame Metternich. If you make 
 great love to the old man, he may make you " dama della croce 
 stellata." We have set a-going a new dining club, which 
 
 * The Dowager Countess of Cork his maternal aunt.
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 231 
 
 promises well. Twenty of the most charming men in the 
 universe met last Tuesday. They won't call it Young England, 
 
 however ' Your affectionate 
 
 R. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Bordeaux, Aug. 
 MY DEAE HARUIETTE, Your pleasant letter came safe 
 yesterday, and glad I was to hear you are getting on so pro- 
 sperously. If emperors are riding over you before you get into 
 the Tyro*!, what will it be at Milan ? You certainly snub 
 Munich too much, and ought to have spent two days on each 
 of the buildings. The frescoes in the new palace can hardly be 
 seen through in one. It is altogether ,s well that you did not 
 go in the green chariot, though I must say that no carriage 
 could go more easily than it has done. Two steps went one 
 day, a brace the next, a bolt the one after, and so on all so 
 quietly you would never have known it. However, springs and 
 wheels keep pretty well together, which is the essential part; 
 but the great evil we have to complain of is the cold. The 
 southerer we go, the colderer it gets. Last night we had to 
 wear pea-jackets, and you hardly see a window open at noon. 
 Chill showers meet us here ; what shall we have in the moun- 
 tains? The journey was not uninteresting. Brittany nobly 
 wooded and richly cultivated, but the people and the accommo- 
 dation disagreeable. In La Vendee the inns were better, 
 though the " outs " were not so striking. The towns (Nantes, 
 La Rochelle, &c.) were sightworthy in their way, mostly for 
 churches and fortifications. This is a very palatial city a sort 
 of French Venice. The society is all in the mountains, but we 
 have caught a Cambridge friend, who has settled here, who 
 lionises and dines us. The latter function is finely performed 
 here. We saw Robert le Diable last night in a glorious theatre, 
 but not over-well sung. On Monday we intend starting for Pau, 
 
 and thence up to the different baths Remember to 
 
 inquire for all your old friends at Milan, especially Madame
 
 232 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 Petrarchi, and distribute my regards very liberally We 
 
 are persecuted on the road by a wild Irish heiress, who travels 
 with a menagerie, never wears gloves, shoots with a pistol, and 
 eats walnuts in garlic. She has taken me rather into favour, 
 and sends me the Morning Post. I remember her place not far 
 from 's. The astonishment of the French at her is delight- 
 ful. One gets partridges for dinner without shooting them, but 
 they have very little flavour. You say nothing about our meet- 
 ing at Paris, but I hope you will not hurry away from Italy. I 
 shall write from the Pyrenees. 
 
 Yours and George's ever affectionate 
 E. M. M. 
 
 'To the Same. 
 
 Bagneres de Bigorre, Sept. 20^A, 1838. 
 
 DEAREST HARRIETTE, Your letter came into my hands 
 to-day. I was very thankful for its good contents, and hasten 
 to tell you so, though probably you have left Milan by this 
 time, and I know nowhere else to direct to. I read the account 
 of the Como fete in the French papers, and was in one of my 
 fidgets that you might have missed it. As Sir Frederick Lamb 
 gave you one of his dinners, which are so renomme, he most 
 probably gave you tickets for everything. From the descrip- 
 tion, the Coronation itself does not seem to have been much 
 more striking than the other spectacles. We have made the 
 tour of the baths, and, considering the lateness of the season, 
 have been particularly fortunate in our weather. Indeed, we 
 have not been kept at home a single day since we reached Pau. 
 As for my physic, I am confirmed in my opinion that air and 
 exercise (the diseases the post-horses die of) are not sufficient to 
 keep me well, for, notwithstanding my equitation and mountain 
 air, I have had more indigestion and uncomfortableness than 
 usual in the same time amid London dinners and doziness. Just 
 now I am well enough, and recovering from a bad sprained 
 ankle, which I got from dancing the cachuka down a green alp 
 which was not meant for it. The scenery and all that, we will
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 233 
 
 talk about at Serlby at Christmas. On the whole, I prefer it 
 to Switzerland : less grandeur perhaps, but far more varying 
 and southern in its culture and outlines. There is a bain called 
 San Sauveur which I shall certainly come to when I am 
 
 crippled with gout and sick of the world Pray do not 
 
 hurry out of Italy, however Galway may hear the Squire 
 hollaing for him. Make travelling so pleasant to him that we 
 may all see Constantinople next autumn if you are strong 
 enough. The bath season is over; so we have literally not seen 
 a soul to speak to. I write to-day to Lucca, as you may be 
 there, for all I know. They have taken away Dr. Hooke's chap- 
 laincy for the sermon you heard him preach, and which I could 
 see nothing in to talk about. We go hence to Turin, paying a 
 visit on our way to some friends of MacCarthy's, if they are at 
 home; thence to Paris by some road or other. Colvile must be 
 in town by the 1st of November. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Among the friends of this period with whom Milnes 
 was most frequently brought in contact were the two 
 Miss Berrys. These famous ladies, who had known and 
 been loved by Horace Walpole, were a link between the 
 society of the nineteenth and that of the eighteenth 
 century. " They have been running about Europe ever 
 since the days of Louis Quatorze," was the remark made 
 about them Jby one of Milnes's friends. For a period far 
 exceeding that of the common span of human life they 
 had been intimate with all that was best and brightest 
 in European society. It was no slight tribute to the 
 character and qualities of Milnes himself that he should 
 have been received hy them as a favoured friend, should 
 have been welcomed to their house in Curzon Street, 
 and should, after a long interval of years, have taken up
 
 284 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the rdle once filled by Horace Walpole. After their 
 death it was the hand of Milnes that penned a brief 
 memoir in which their remarkable story was given to 
 the world, as well as an elegiac poem which did justice 
 to their many virtues. 
 
 There was a serious piece of business in which 
 Milnes took an active part towards the close of the 
 year 1838, in conjunction with Carlyle and other 
 friends. Carlyle had been much troubled by the want 
 of a really good subscription library in London. The 
 national library in the British Museum was even 
 then admirable in its way, but no one was allowed to 
 remove a volume from the reading-room, and the 
 treasures of which the library boasted were not therefore 
 accessible to those who wished or who were com- 
 pelled to study at home. Carlyle sought to enlist 
 the sympathies of his friends in a movement for the 
 formation of a new library, which should supply the 
 want he had felt so sorely. He had little difficulty in 
 rallying round him an enthusiastic band of supporters, 
 amongst whom none was of better service than Milnes, 
 though in the first instance he had been somewhat 
 sceptical regarding the scheme. 
 
 James Spedding to R. M. M. 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge University Club, 
 
 January 22nd, 1839. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, What we wish Lord Northampton to do 
 is simply this. If he be willing to become a shareholder in 
 the proposed institution, to allow his name to be announced 
 as a supporter of it. The reason why the proposal cannot be
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 235 
 
 circulated in its present state is that it wants the sanction and 
 guarantee of some known and conspicuous names. People will 
 say, who is the getter-up of the project, what security is there 
 that it is not a job, a booksellers' speculation or a fudge ? Nobody 
 could ask such a question if the names of Lord Lansdowne, Lord 
 Northampton, Lord Aberdeen, Mr. Hallam, Mr. Rogers, &c. 
 &c., were attached to it as patrons or parties interested. 
 
 I do not think your objections .very strong, though I have 
 heard them urged by many people on the scheme being first pro- 
 posed to them. A library on the proposed principle would be 
 worth a great deal to a limited number of subscribers though it 
 were not immense ; if the number of subscribers were very large 
 the funds would be very large also, and the library might be 
 immensified to any extent. As for Club libraries, they are all 
 open to the objection that the books cannot be taken out, and 
 Clubs are not places in which one can read to much purpose. 
 Besides, though there may be few literary men who do not belong 
 to some Club or other, there are many literary men who have 
 wives and families quite capable of reading books if they could 
 get them. Consider how many houses there are in London 
 inhabited by rational beings who can read and write, yet into 
 which no book can find its way unless it be either bought, or 
 borrowed from a friend, or circulated from a new public library. 
 In some of these they make you a present at the end of the year 
 in return for your subscription of a certain number of volumes, 
 stipulating only that they are to be chosen from among the books 
 belonging to the library which have "fallen out of demand/' 
 Alford got Hallam's " Constitutional History " in this way. 
 Neither do I foresee any insuperable difficulty in making people 
 conform to the regulations with regard to time, &c. If they do 
 not conform you turn them out, and consider their money as 
 your own. In short, why should it be harder to get books back 
 in a reasonable time than it is in the Cambridge Library, for 
 instance ? The bottom of my sheet reminds me to leave off. I 
 have not yet heard the result of Rogers's exertions. Carlyle is 
 in hope. Yours ever,
 
 236 THE LIFE OF LOED HOUGHTON. 
 
 That it should have been necessary to address such 
 arguments as those contained in the foregoing letter to 
 a man like Milnes, concerning a project towards which 
 all his sympathies must have been naturally drawn, 
 is perhaps as strong a proof as could be wished of the 
 inherent conservatism of human nature. Of course 
 Milnes put aside the objections he had characteristically 
 urged against an undertaking of which at the bottom of 
 his heart he must have approved, and he did his best to 
 secure substantial patronage for the scheme. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Monday. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, I think you should certainly get the hole- 
 and-corner people brought together some day this week if possible. 
 Let us not waste our feeble glimmer of zeal in battling with the 
 dull recusancy of Mr. A. and Mr. B. Let us see one another 
 face to face, and discover whether the half-dead embers already 
 gleaned will not kindle into red when brought together ; or on the 
 whole, what is to be done by way of fair experiment. As to that, 
 I long to see the matter either in decided motion or else dead and 
 ended. " If London must lie bookless, Heaven and earth will 
 witness," &c. &c. Would not Saturday, a non-parliamentary 
 day, answer ? I thought to have seen you yesterday when I left 
 Lamennais. Cannot you drive here any morning or afternoon ? 
 Till two o'clock I am here, and after five almost always. Alas ! 
 my friend, what a horrible blockhead of a world this is ! 
 
 Ever truly, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 In spite of the discouragements which they had 
 encountered, Carlyle and his friends triumphed even- 
 tually, though it was not until twelve months after the
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 237 
 
 foregoing letter was written that a meeting was held in 
 the Freemasons' Tavern, at which Thirlwall, Bulwer, 
 Gladstone, Cornewall Lewis, Spedding, Yenables, and 
 Milnes, together with a fair sprinkling of the peerage, 
 joined Carlyle in forming the great and admirable institu- 
 tion now known to the world as the London Library. 
 
 During the spring and summer of 1838 Milnes saw 
 a great deal of Charles Sumner, besides making the 
 acquaintance of a still more illustrious citizen of the 
 great Republic, Daniel Webster. 
 
 Mention has already been made of the deep interest 
 which he took in Emerson and his writings. He had, 
 indeed, by means of his own pen, sought to enlarge 
 the circle of English readers of the works of the 
 American philosopher. At that time, however, Emer- 
 son was only known to his English admirers by his 
 "Essays," and it was to supply the deficiency in per- 
 sonal knowledge that Charles Sumner wrote to Milnes 
 as follows : 
 
 Charles Sumner to R. M. M. 
 
 Travellers' Club, March %nd, 1839. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of three 
 brothers, all quite remarkable persons, and he is the only 
 survivor. The other two died young, but everybody hoped 
 great things of them. Their father, I think, was a country 
 clergyman, passing rich on little more than 30 a year. They 
 all, however, received good educations, and were distinguished 
 scholars in our oldest and best University that of Cambridge. 
 Ralph must be now about thirty-eight years old. He has 
 studied theology, has been settled (that is the American word to 
 express the idea) as pastor of an Unitarian congregation in 
 Boston ; was much liked in this character^ but speculated top
 
 238 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 deeply even for Unitarians ; pushed his beliefs and unbeliefs 
 very far ; rejected much of the Christian faith ; espoused much 
 of the Swedenborgian ; was disinclined to administer the Sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper ; and then parted from his congrega- 
 tion in Boston. This was about six years ago ; he then retired 
 to a little country house at Concord, about twenty miles from 
 Boston, within sight of the spot where the first British soldier 
 fell in the war of the Revolution. Here he has kept ever 
 since thinking, reading, and writing ; still regarded as a 
 Christian clergyman, but without any charge. During the 
 winter months delivering lectures in Boston, in character not 
 unlike Carlyle's here, and to audiences brought together in the 
 same way, and for the double purpose of spreading knowledge 
 and getting money. A series of biographies formed one of his 
 courses, and he has several times treated of the true nature and 
 uses of history, and of the way in which it should be written. 
 I need give you no hint about his style or his writings, for you 
 know as much of both as I do. As a speaker in delivering his 
 lectures, sermons, or discourses he is remarkable. His voice is 
 good, his enunciation clear and distinct ; his manner his own, 
 but very striking. He is always self-possessed, and his strange 
 fancies fall upon the ear in the most musical cadences. His 
 voice is now low and then again high, like an ^Eolian harp : but 
 this is natural, not affected, and I think anywhere before an 
 educated audience he would be deemed a remarkable speaker^ 
 In person he is tall and graceful. Some people think him 
 slightly mad (one of his brothers died insane, and the other 
 brother had been insane before his death), others think him 
 almost inspired. Old men are not prepared to receive or listen to 
 or read his thoughts. The young of both classes think highly 
 of him. He has a great influence over many of the young 
 minds of my acquaintance, who always couple him with Carlyle. 
 I think him neither mad nor inspired, but original, thoughtful, 
 and peculiar, with his mind tinged with some habits of specula- 
 tion that are less practical than beautiful, and with a fearless 
 honesty that makes him speak what he thinks, counting little
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 239 
 
 any worldly considerations. In other times he might have been 
 a philosopher or a reformer, but he would always have been 
 tolerant and gentle, and he would have gone into uncomplaining 
 exile if the powers that were bade him. I have hastily dotted 
 down some things about Emerson according to your wish. I 
 hope I have not said too much. When we meet in conversation 
 I can explain whatever is left uncertain in your mind. I should 
 not forget to state that he has been twice married. His first 
 wife died young under twenty, I think. By her he had a small 
 property, which is to him an independence, enabling him to 
 gratify all those " small desires which ask but little room," and 
 which fill the life of a retiring literary man in all countries, and 
 particularly in America. Emerson had no children by his first 
 wife. He loved her and lamented her much, and cherished her 
 memory in the Swedenborgian way. He has since married 
 again a person who sympathises with him. When his child was 
 born, about two yeai's ago, men and women were astonished, and 
 inquired if the infant has wings. This is enough. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNEB. 
 
 Milnes, having written his review of Emerson, was 
 somewhat at a loss in what quarter to find the necessary 
 publicity for it, and he applied to Carlyle for advice 
 upon the subject. The latter willingly undertook to 
 put his friend in communication with the editors. 
 
 T. Carlyle to JR. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, ZSM Dec., 1839. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, You are a man full of blarney and quiz, but 
 you have done well to write on Emerson. I applied to Mill 
 to-day ; shall get his answer soon, and send it off to you 
 straightway. Failing Mill, would you consent to Eraser? 
 Consider this till you hear from me again. One way or other 
 the piece must be printed. Emerson, I understand, is writing a 
 book. I have forgotten the subject, or never knew it.
 
 240 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Poor Miss Martineau has not only lost her ear-trumpet, but 
 her health. They tell me she is in a very infirm though not a 
 dangerous state with her brother-in-law at Newcastle. In haste, 
 
 Ever truly yours, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 It was in the Westminster Review that the article on 
 Emerson was printed. It was a generous and dis- 
 criminating introduction of the American thinker to a 
 new circle of friends and readers, and it elicited the 
 warm thanks of those who were already interested in 
 Emerson's writings. 
 
 You have, indeed, my friend [writes Carlyle], written a very 
 beautiful article. There is a tint of poesy, courtesy, humane 
 insight, a soft graceful coherence, an undertone of pervading 
 melody, which I like and call good. You will write a book one 
 day which we shall all like. In prose it shall be if I may vote. A 
 novel, an emblematic picture of English society as it is ? Done 
 in prose with the spirit of a poet, what a book were that ! 
 
 Emerson may object that he knew of your objections before- 
 hand, that one needs in this world of antagonisms to smite only 
 one side of a thing, while so many millions are everywhere 
 assiduously smiting the other. To which you can answer, " You 
 knew the objections would come. Well, here they do come ! " 
 
 Another objection, that of setting up one Carlyle in the 
 good Emerson's daylight there in that unwarrantable manner, 
 seems to me still graver. How are you to answer that ? Emerson 
 will naturally see the article by-and-by, but a copy sent from you 
 would undoubtedly be welcome to him ; if with a small epistle 
 from your own hand, of course, doubly so. 
 
 Milnes acted upon the suggestion thrown out by 
 Carlyle, and in due time he received from Emerson the 
 following acknowledgment :
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 241 
 
 R. W. Emerson to R. M. M. 
 
 Concord, Mass., 30<7i May, 1840. 
 
 My DEAR SIR, I have received by the hands of Mr. 
 Sumner your friendly note, and the letter from the Westminster 
 Review. I am very well pleased that my little tracts, now of 
 such old date, should have been esteemed by you worthy of 
 public criticism ; and I accept it as the hint of a good genius that 
 I fell into the hands of friends in the old Fatherland, where 
 every American has a sort of pre-existent citizenship and a 
 corresponding value of a good name. These essays never looked 
 for any notice beyond the narrow precincts of the community for 
 which they were written, and I hoped before this time to have 
 set them aside by some more adequate statements on the great 
 questions which engage at present all thinking men. I know they 
 stand in need of great correction, and yet will you forgive me if 
 I say that I hope to win your assent to bolder and broader 
 generalisations than these which have struck you as viciously 
 partial? I have never been able to announce my faith with 
 fulness, and perhaps never shall be ; but are we not continually, 
 as our eyes open, shamed out of the limitations we have con- 
 ceded ? It is of no importance to me, even though I have not 
 (if I have not) a glimpse of the means by which better relations 
 are to be established in society and a higher education attained, 
 if I can see that all means lie in the power of that which affirms 
 the need of reform. Of course I have no expectation of any 
 good to result from social arguments, which are only mirrors and 
 reverberations of a few individuals. The hope of man resides in 
 the private heart, and what it can achieve by translating that 
 into sense. And this hope, in our reasonable moments, is always 
 immense, and refuses to be diminished by any deduction of 
 experience ; inasmuch as our experience is always dishonest, 
 unequal, whilst the idea is always total, accusing and inexorable 
 to our excuses. 
 
 I am trespassing on the privileges of a letter by such grave 
 allusions, but I please myself with conversing with a poet to 
 whose verses I have owed some happy moments. Poetry seems
 
 242 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 to me to conceive a vaster aim than it lias yet attempted ; the 
 aim of each artist takes hold on a remoter success, and something- 
 nearer to Nature, and which more commands Nature, than the 
 Greek beauty, we may yet realise. I derive my hope, as far as it 
 grows, out of facts, of course only from the observation of select 
 persons. For although the whole society is vulgar, yet one 
 person seems to abolish all other lives ; at least, makes it super- 
 fluous to take account of them. 
 
 I shall hear, my dear Sir, with joy of every accession of love 
 and honour to your name, and am your obliged friend and servant, 
 
 E. W. EMERSON. 
 
 In the autumn of 1839 Milnes revisited Scotland, 
 one of his objects in doing so being to take part, as a 
 spectator, in the great social event of the year, the 
 famous Eglinton tournament, the memory of which 
 has not yet faded away ; though pouring rain made 
 the spectacle so eagerly anticipated slightly ridiculous. 
 He returned south by way of the lakes, and paid a 
 visit en route to Wordsworth. 
 
 E. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Edinburgh, Oct. 2Uh, 1839. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, There is little likelihood of a letter reaching 
 you at Paris now, and yours to Fryston has been only just for- 
 warded to me. It was exactly what I expected and wanted from 
 you. I have been touring about Scotland the last two months, 
 so missed answering yours from Munich. 1 shall be in York- 
 shire in about a fortnight, but do not press you to come down. 
 My present intention is to be at Paris by the end of December, 
 to remain till the meeting of Parliament. 
 
 Amongst Milnes's constant correspondents was Eliot 
 Warburton.
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 243 
 
 Eliot Warburton to R. M. M. 
 
 Dec., 1839. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, You have got into a habit of writing- to 
 me the most inconsiderable little letters, so carelessly writ that 
 " from," " for/' " and/' and " to/' are ever exchanging their 
 conventional meaning, and so unf ull of anything, and so mention- 
 less of yourself, that next to not hearing from you at all they 
 are of the saddest. Now tell me this thing, were you of a truth 
 of a profane party who crowned old Wordsworth in a pageant at 
 Lowther? Are you going to do that impossible thing, to spend 
 Christmas in Paris ? Wot you not that the day will be there only 
 the 25th of December? Why do not you make Lady Galway 
 exchange this cruel, dark, damp climate for Italy? Did not 
 your malignant English fogs still her rich voice, so that she 
 was long silent in song until that one mild evening when the 
 spell broke and the music was again free ? Do you remember on 
 returning from the Adelphi, it is now years ago ? The days we 
 fling behind us, how rapidly they change into solemn, weighty, 
 and responsible years like the stones of Deucalion an.d Pyrrha. 
 Why are you only thinking of another volume? Is 
 it not true that once entered on a higher career there is no step 
 but the grave ? ... Do you ever mean to come to Ireland 
 again? You treat my proposition with as much scorn as if 
 steam had not shrivelled up England nor shrunken up the 
 Channel. 
 
 I insert this letter chiefly because it throws light 
 upon one of the difficulties of Milnes's biographer, at 
 this period. The social engagements in which he was 
 now absorbed seem to have left him hardly any time 
 for correspondence with his old friends, and there is 
 scarcely one of them who about this period does not 
 indulge in grievous lamentations over his failure to keep 
 up communication with them. Warburton mentions
 
 244 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the rumour he had heard of Milnes's intention to go to 
 Paris for the Christmas. It was something more than 
 a rumour. He had resolved to make a somewhat length- 
 ened sojourn in the French capital for the special 
 purpose of studying society and politics there. And 
 here it may be remarked in passing that in the autumn 
 his father and mother had made a tour in France, in the 
 course of which they had encountered the father's old 
 friend, Beau Brummel. Mrs. Milnes in her journal 
 gives us a pathetic glimpse of the once famous dandy in 
 his days of sorest misfortune. 
 
 We went to Caen, and who should place himself just opposite 
 to us but Beau Brummel, the miserable wreck of fallen fortunes 
 and devotion to the world. The people told us he was quite 
 imbecile, and that whatever p la t they put before him, he ate. 
 He looked well, and though his coat was threadbare, there was 
 still a pretension about his dress, and his wig was curled and 
 arranged most tastefully. He walked feebly, and had a look of 
 vacancy. He gave us a smile of recognition, and said he 
 remembered our giving him and his little dog a dinner every 
 day while we were there before. At that time, I remember, he 
 showed us the gold plate given him by George IV., whose 
 intimacy and friendship for him were once notorious. 
 
 Milnes thoroughly enjoyed himself in Paris, and 
 according to his wont went everywhere and saw every- 
 body in whom he felt any interest ; but, alas ! no letters 
 of his remain to record his impressions. Instead we 
 have invitations from the King and the various Ministers, 
 of whom the most important was M. Gruizot, to dinners 
 and receptions, tickets of admission to the Law Courts 
 where sensational trials were in progress, and to Les
 
 FIBST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 245 
 
 Invalides on the occasion of the second funeral of 
 Napoleon ; and other indications that he turned his time, 
 according to his wont, to the best possible advantage 
 from his own point of view. The visit was of import- 
 ance because it made him the friend of Gruizot and other 
 distinguished Frenchmen of the Parliamentary regime, 
 among whom the names of Thiers and Lamartine must 
 not pass unnoticed. Happily, too, in his commonplace 
 books Milnes jotted down sundry sayings of the distin- 
 guished men whom he met on this occasion, from which 
 a few quotations may be made. 
 
 Among the other eminent men whose acquaintance 
 Milnes made during this visit was M. de Tocqueville. 
 The friendship thus begun was never broken. De 
 Tocqueville made it his business to assist Milnes in his 
 desire to meet the leading political celebrities of the 
 hour, and it was by his good offices that he became 
 acquainted with Barrot, Berryer, Comte de Tracy, Leon 
 Eaucher, and others. De Tocqueville, in the first 
 instance, clearly regarded Milnes as a politician of 
 importance. " I desire to make your stay in Paris," he 
 wrote, " both agreeable and useful. I desire this 
 firstly, for your own sake, but also for the public cause ; 
 for the only chance of peace in our respective countries 
 depends on our knowing each other thoroughly." As 
 the years passed, De Tocqueville ceased to regard Milnes 
 as an English envoy, and came to love him for his own 
 sake alone. More than twenty years after their first 
 meeting in Paris, in 1861, Milnes, in an article in the 
 Quarterly Review, written after De Tocqueville's death,
 
 246 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 gave the world an account of the character of this 
 eminent and most estimable Frenchman. . 
 
 With the King and his family Milnes formed a 
 friendship which was destined to endure. He was, at 
 the same time, however, keenly alive to the anomalous 
 political situation of the France of that period, and he 
 noted in his commonplace book not a few expressions 
 used by men of influence which were distinctly deroga- 
 tory to the dignity, if not to the character, of Louis 
 Philippe. Montalembert, for example, is recorded as 
 saying, " The cruel part of Louis Philippe's situation is 
 that he has nothing chivalrous to support him ; it is 
 putting up a grocer and his family to be shot at." 
 " I came from the East," says Montalembert, in 
 another place, " all anxiety to calm the King's en- 
 thusiasm about Egypt, and the first thing he said to 
 me was, ' Whether Syria belongs to the Sultan or the 
 Pasha, it doesn't matter a button to me. " 
 
 It is only fair to append to these cynical utterances 
 of Montalembert regarding' his constitutional sovereign, 
 a criticism upon the cynic himself by Gustave de 
 Beaumont : " Montalembert is an English aristocrat 
 foisted into the middle of French democracy." 
 
 Paris was at the time of Milnes's visit undergoing 
 the process of fortification, and in the light of sub- 
 sequent events it is curious to read the recorded sayings 
 of French statesmen on the subject of the forts and the 
 work they were meant to do. Gruizot, for example, told 
 Milnes that the " great use of the fortifications of Paris 
 was that the Parisians might never need to make use of
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 247 
 
 them ; " whilst a cabman who drove him to the scene 
 of the work, remarked pathetically, " They are going to 
 destroy the Bois de Boulogne to destroy, you know, 
 is always jolly." 
 
 Montalembert's view was expressed as follows : 
 " The fortifications are already begun in a most 
 characteristically democratic manner, by cutting down 
 the trees of the Bois de Boulogne. Whatever takes 
 place, the Liberals will at least have had the pleasure 
 of destroying something." 
 
 The King's opinion on the subject was different to 
 any other. " There has always been," he said to Milnes, 
 " and always will be in Paris, a party strong enough to 
 overthrow any established Government, when seconded 
 by a foreign army. This the fortifications of Paris will 
 prevent," Again, in talking to Montalembert, Louis 
 Philippe remarked, " The fortifications of Paris will pre- 
 vent M. Nicolas from coming to say a Greek mass there." 
 
 M. Carne feared "that when Paris had got its 
 fortifications, like a woman with a new ornament, she 
 would never rest till she had tried the effect of them." 
 
 Of the King and M. Guizot, Milnes saw a great deal. 
 He was entrusted by both with messages to Sir Robert 
 Peel ; and it was on his return from Paris in January, 
 that he addressed the following letter to Sir Robert : 
 
 JR. M. M. to Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 Boulogne-sur-Mer, Jan. 24^, 1841. 
 
 DEAR Sm ROBERT, I had hoped to be sure of seeing you 
 on Monday evening or Tuesday morning, but the wind to-day 
 is so high and so adverse that no boat can start ; the same may
 
 248 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 be the case to-morrow. I think it better therefore to write to 
 you, as both the King- and M. Guizot wish that you should 
 receive some communication from them before the meeting of 
 Parliament. They both most strongly urge the necessity of 
 great moderation in the expression of opinion on our side of the 
 House. 
 
 The King said, "Tell Sir Robert Peel that I place all 
 confidence in his declaration of the importance of the French 
 alliance in February last, and that I trust he can prevent any of 
 his friends from injuring my position and that of my Ministry." 
 
 M. Guizot went the length of saying, "My Ministry depends 
 for its existence on the conduct of England/' A letter from the 
 Duke was shown in Paris, in which he expressed his feeling of 
 the necessity of England's keeping up with France an increase of 
 armaments, and he added, " When both are armed, then, vogue la 
 galere." This looks rather energetic from so peaceful an 
 authority ; and though the French Government have no wish 
 that we should encourage the French war spirit by any show of 
 weakness (and indeed this very necessity of outlay seems 
 to me the best card we have to play off against Lord 
 Palmerston), yet they are anxious to escape from phrases, 
 such as Lord M/s* " Sweep the seas/' which become forts 
 detaches, from which the enemy can attack them with at least 
 momentary success. 
 
 Berryer was putting about Paris a report that " Lord 
 Aberdeen intended to speak strongly in favour of the violent 
 policy of Lord Palmerston, and to urge the decheance of the 
 Pasha/' This would be a hard shock for Guizot's Government, 
 which in fact rests upon the notion that the mauvais precede was 
 Lord Palmerston's own doing, and not the enunciation of the 
 general opinion of English statesmen. 
 
 From the little you said to me at Drayton I am so convinced 
 of the correctness of your views with regard to France, and so 
 sure by my own experience of the impolicy of Lord Palmerston's 
 real or pretended confidence in the tranquillity and submission of 
 
 * Lord Minto.
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 249 
 
 that country, that I have no hesitation in saying that a continua- 
 tion of his policy, or more correctly of the conduct of his policy, 
 must end in an European war. The King- and Guizot both told 
 me to tell you they dare take no steps towards disarmament, and 
 Thiers publicly says he will make Lord Palmerston cost more to 
 England than did ever before the support of a Minister to a nation. 
 Peace rests in France upon Guizot and the King : without them 
 the more material interests could not keep the people quiet, and 
 although Guizot is unpopular to an incredible degree, even 
 among his own supporters, and the poor King distracted between 
 his love of peace and England, and his conviction that his throne 
 depends upon the belief in his national feelings (he said, " If my 
 nationality is suspected, I am lost ") can hardly be depended 
 upon in any imminent crisis ; although he asserts, and I doubt 
 not with sincerity, that if a Ministry urges him to war with 
 England, he will break them or be broken by them. 
 
 Excuse, my dear Sir, this hurried scribble, but the discomfort 
 and distraction of travelling, or, rather, resting when you want 
 to get on, are very great. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Your obedient and obliged, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 Will you tell Freemantle I am travelling with a good pair, 
 Hobhouse, Sir John's brother. 
 
 Those who up to this point have only seen Milries 
 as the poet and the social favourite may be surprised 
 to find him thus conveying the sentiments of the 
 Monarch and the leading Ministers of one nation to the 
 foremost statesman of another. He had, however, the 
 art of inviting confidence on the part of others besides 
 the men of letters and of fashion with whom he chiefly 
 lived. I have already spoken of the serious light in 
 which he viewed political life and public work, It was
 
 250 TIIE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 not as the mere lounger that he went to Paris at this 
 period, but as the student of affairs, anxious to arrive 
 by personal observation and communication at a true 
 understanding of the state of things in France at a 
 critical moment in the relations of that country with 
 England. How well he succeeded was shown not 
 merely by the faci that he was entrusted with con- 
 fidential communications from the King and M. Guizot 
 to Sir Robert Peel, but by the warmth of the friend- 
 ships which he formed with the most distinguished 
 Frenchmen of the day. 
 
 The letter to Sir Robert Peel given above was crossed 
 by one from Peel himself, replying to a previous com- 
 munication so far " as it was possible to do through the 
 post-office." In this letter Peel expressed his hope that 
 on their side of the House, at least, " every speaker 
 would be fully impressed with a sense of the difficulties 
 with which M. Guizot had to deal, and would do nothing 
 to add to them." 
 
 It was not only with statesmen and royalties that 
 Milnes became familiar during this memorable visit to 
 Paris. It was then that he first formed a personal 
 acquaintance with the poet Heine, for whose genius he 
 had so warm an admiration, and who, on his side, re- 
 garded the young Englishman with true affection. 
 
 It was to Lady Duff Gordon that Milnes was in- 
 debted for his introduction to Heine. In what light 
 Heine himself regarded the young Englishman was 
 shown by a letter of his, written not long before his 
 death, to Lady Duff Gordon :
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 251 
 
 Yes [he said] , I do not know what possessed me to dislike 
 the English, and to be so spiteful towards them, but it really was 
 only petulance. I never hated them ; indeed, I never knew 
 them. I was only once in England, but knew no one, and found 
 London very dreary, and the people in the streets odious. But 
 England has revenged herself well; she has sent me most 
 excellent friends thyself and Milnes that good Milnes and 
 others. 
 
 Years afterwards, in July, 1856, there appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Review a notice of Heine's poems and 
 life, which attracted not a little attention, not only from 
 the sympathetic character of the criticism of his poems, 
 but from the special knowledge it displayed of the 
 poet's life and character. It was from the pen of the 
 " good Milnes." 
 
 Yet another writer helped Milnes to pass his time 
 pleasantly in the French capital. This was Thackeray, 
 who was already his friend, their friendship dating 
 from their college days, and who accompanied him to 
 that second funeral of Napoleon of which the novelist 
 has left so vivid an account. 
 
 During the spring of 1841 he was able to carry out 
 a long- cherished intention by securing Carlyle as his 
 guest in bis father's bouse at Eryston. His objec was 
 not merely, or ratber not entirely, hospitality, tbougb 
 he was deligbted at being able to bring tbe great genius, 
 whose knowledge of English country life was as yet chiefly 
 from tbe outside, into the midst of the pleasant atmo- 
 sphere of sucb a borne as Fryston. He wished to bring the 
 writer and philosopher into contact witb bis fatber, and 
 to see tbe effect wbich one original mind bad on another.
 
 252 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Friday (March, 1841). 
 
 DEAR MILNES, If you really do want me to go with you, 
 come down hither and tell me practically in reasonable words 
 what the possibilities, limitations, difficulties, laws and conditions 
 of the enterprise are. I will then answer you yes or no; most 
 probably yes. I am at home to-night ; I will wait for you to- 
 morrow till half-past one. If you like neither of these dates 
 name another. Or perhaps, incurable Hoaxer, you do not mean 
 to go at all, even yourself. 
 
 Yours, with more regard than you deserve, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 But Milnes was in earnest, and on April 5th he had 
 the privilege of finding himself the companion o 
 Carlyle in a railway carriage bound for the North. Sir 
 Robert Peel, as it happened, was also travelling to his 
 home by the same train, and accompanied them as far 
 as Tamworth. 
 
 Milnes and I got on beautifully [writes Carlyle, describing 
 the journey to his wife] . He read " Oxford tracts," &c., all the 
 way, argued and talked in the smartest manner. ... I 
 managed to smoke three cigars, two of them in the railway, in 
 spite of regulations. 
 
 This was penned from Derby, where the travellers 
 railway communications in those days not being so 
 simple and easy as they now are rested for the night. 
 Next morning they continued their journey, and in due 
 course arrived at Fryston. 
 
 Richard [again writes Carlyle to his wife] made me descend 
 some two miles off our appointed goal and walk homewards 
 by a shorter way through woods, over knolls, &c. Walking
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 253 
 
 was not my forte. However, I persevered, and did well 
 enough, over rough-looking places some of them. We got 
 at last to the Fryston mansion a large irregular pile of various 
 ages, rising up among ragged old woods in the rough, large 
 park, also all sprinkled with trees, grazed by sheep and horses ; 
 a park chiefly beautiful because it did not set up for beauty. 
 Ancient-looking female figures were visible through the windows 
 as we drew nigh. Mrs. Milnes, a tall, ancient woman, apparently 
 of weak health, of motherly kind heart, of old-fashioned stately 
 politeness, a prepossessing woman, welcomed us at the door of 
 the drawing-room, " in the silence of the stately hall." 
 
 I am lodged in a bedroom with four enormous windows, 
 which look out over woody garden spaces and other silent 
 ruralities, the apartment furnished as for Prince Albert and 
 Queen Victory. The most absurd place I ever lived in (when I 
 look at myself and my equipment) in this world. I am charged 
 to smoke in it, too. 
 
 I have a fire in it all day. The bed seems to be about eight feet 
 wide ; a ladder conducts you to it if you like. Of my paces the 
 room measures fifteen from end to end, forty- five feet long, height 
 and width proportionate, with ancient dead-looking portraits of 
 queens, kings, Straffords and principalities, &c., really the un- 
 comfortablest acme of luxurious comfort that any Diogenes 
 was set into in these late years.* 
 
 No such apartment as that which he describes in the 
 above epistle is to be found at Fryston, unless it be 
 the dining-room, where it is hardly to be supposed that 
 the author of " Sartor Besartus " was lodged on this 
 occasion, when other guests besides himself shared the 
 hospitality of the Milnes's. 
 
 But at the time of Carlyle's visit there was a large 
 bedroom on the first floor, afterwards divided into bed- 
 
 * From "Thomas Carlyle, History of his Life in London." By 
 James Anthony Froude. London : Longmans and Co. 1884.
 
 254 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 room and sitting-room for Lord Houghton himself, 
 where it seems probable that the visitor was lodged. It 
 was not, perhaps, quite so magnificent as the description 
 given above would lead the reader to suppose ; it is 
 probable, however, that this was the first occasion on 
 which Carlyle had ever been a guest in a large house, 
 and his imagination may have been affected by his 
 novel surroundings. Stories still linger about Fryston 
 regarding the great author's first visit to the place. 
 Lord Houghton himself used to tell how when Carlyle, 
 having been greeted by his mother, was ushered into the 
 morning room, now the beautiful drawing-room of the 
 house, Mr. Milnes, who was sitting there smoking, rose, 
 and in his courtliest and kindliest manner welcomed his 
 son's distinguished guest, apologising at the same time for 
 his own occupation, as he indicated the cigar which he 
 held in his hand. " Indeed, sir," said Carlyle, " I think 
 that this is about the most sensible occupation which 
 any man could have, and if you don't object, I will just 
 join you in it at once," which he accordingly did. In 
 the conversation the two men, each in his way distin- 
 guished, had over this first cigar, Mr. Milnes, on hearing 
 Carlyle express his admiration of the prospect from the 
 windows of the room, pointed out the single tall 
 chimney of some manufactory on the far horizon, and 
 expressed his regret that it should recently have been 
 erected, and thus spoiled the rustic character of the 
 view. " Spoiled the view ! " said Carlyle ; " why, sir, 
 I think that is just the pleasantest feature in the 
 whole bit of scenery. It shows us that somebody
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 255 
 
 is doing something in this part of the world, at any 
 rate." 
 
 But perhaps the best account of Carlyle's doings and 
 feelings during this visit to Fryston is to be found in 
 the following letter to his wife, hitherto unpublished, 
 which by a curious chance fell into the hands of Lord 
 Houghton himself after the death of the writer : 
 
 T. Carlyle to Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
 Fryston, 10^ April, 1841. 
 
 Many thanks, dear bairn, for your brisk, kind little letter, 
 which was handed in to me yesterday morning. The flunkey in 
 red-quilted coat walked solemnly round the breakfast table with 
 his silver salver, laying letter after letter on it for this and the 
 other, and behold, at last, there was one for me too. I escaped 
 with it into the air to read it there at leisure. Happily nothing 
 is wrong, nothing is worse than I expected, all is rather better. 
 
 I have no time or means to-day to send you right news of 
 what is going on here, it would take such a length of time to 
 make any clear description of it. I merely write to signify that 
 I am still swimming along in this wondrous element, and that 
 nothing goes amiss with me as yet. That will season your slice 
 of bread for you on Saturday sufficiently. Pour a glass of 
 sherry for yourself, and read such news thankfully to the relish 
 of that. 
 
 All would be well, and supremely well, with me here, if I 
 could but sleep. A small faculty but an important one ! You 
 know my talent that way, especially on such lionising occasions. 
 Ah, me ! Nevertheless, after the most tumultuous watchings, 
 shruggings, and tumblings through the night watches, I get up 
 wonderfully cheery. A cigar smoked in the open sunshine amid 
 the sound of trees, with one's foot on the soft grass, sets me quite 
 up again ; and I meet the household at their " half-past ten " 
 breakfast with a cheerful heart. We dine about eight, and 
 I am here acting as a lion can't get out of it tout est dit !
 
 256 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 But I have had one long- ride, and mean to get another this day 
 (unless the rain return) . It is above all a new kind of shatter- 
 ment that I suffer, and therefore a relief from the old. I believe 
 I am getting quieter and better in spite of the very devil. 
 Enough of that for one time. 
 
 " Richard/' I find, lays himself out while in this quarter to 
 do hospitalities, and of course to collect notabilities about him 
 and play them off one against the other. I am his trump card 
 at present. The Sessions are at Pontef ract even now, and many 
 lawyers there. These last two nights he has brought a trio of 
 barristers to dine producing champagne, &c. Plate of Marry 
 silver, four or five embroidered lackeys, and the rest of it, are 
 the order of all days. Our first trio consisted of Sir Francis 
 Doyle (a good young man whom I liked), another elderly 
 wigsman (name forgotten), and little Roebuck ! He is practis- 
 ing as advocate now, that little Roebuck, as lean, acrid, conten- 
 tious, and loquacious as ever. He flew at me, do what I would, 
 some three or four times like a kind of cockatrice had to be 
 swept back again; far more to the general entertainment than 
 to mine. He does not fly into a shriek like Maurice, that is his 
 quality; but he is a very impertinent little unproductive gentle- 
 man, and I suppose has made many a man inclined to shriek. 
 We parted good friends with small wish on my part or his to 
 meet again. Last night our three was admitted to be a kind of 
 failure, three greater blockheads the lie lang nicht ye wadna find 
 in Christendee. Richard had to exert himself ; but he is really 
 dexterous, the villain. He pricks into you with questions, with 
 remarks, with all kinds of fly tackle to make you bite does 
 generally contrive to get you into some sort of speech. And 
 then his good humour is extreme ; you look in his face and forgive 
 him all his tricks. The three blockheads at length made a 
 stiff rectangular bow (protruding the hydrastisy in a very curious 
 way) and took themselves off. 
 
 To-night we are to have Lord Wharncliffe, called hereabouts 
 the dragon of Wantley,* a clever-looking man as I judged him 
 
 Properly " Wortley."
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 257 
 
 yesterday by face to be. My private wish were that / lay some 
 leagues off his orbit ; but on the whole what ill will he do me ? 
 I have to dine at any rate. 
 
 Besides these strays and waifs, we have had, and are likely 
 to have, certain Yorkshire cousins, male and female, from the 
 northern dales rosy-faced persons who "do thee neither ill 
 nor good." Richard's sister (see " Poetic Memorials ") is also 
 here these two days until to-morrow. They call her Harriette 
 and Ladyship " Will Ladyship have fowl ? " and seem to have 
 made a pet of her from the beginning. Even this has not en- 
 tirely spoiled her. I think she is decidedly worth something. 
 About the height of Richard, which makes a respectable 
 stature for a gown (nay, I think she must be some inches 
 taller), the same face as he, but translated into the female cut, 
 and surmounted with lace and braided hair ; of a satirical, witty 
 turn, not wanting affability, but rather wanting art of speech ; 
 above all rather afraid of me : she sings, plays, reads German, 
 Italian, &c., to great lengths, looks really beautiful, but some- 
 what mooney, with her large blue eyes, and indeed I do believe 
 has more in her than we yet see. Her husband, the Viscount 
 Galway, is a furious, everlasting hunter of foxes I mean furious 
 on the foxes, good to all other things and men ; a cousin of her 
 own, Monckton by surname. They live in Nottinghamshire, 
 some thirty miles off, and " Richard will take me down thither." 
 We shall see as to that. 
 
 With the rest of the household, dear Donaldson aunts in- 
 cluded, I get on as well as need be. The mother is a very good 
 woman, with a mild, high-sailing way, to which in old times 
 her figure and beauty must have corresponded well. The old 
 gentleman likes me better daily, since he finds / won't bite. He 
 is said to be greatly altered since his accident (of breaking a 
 limb last year), as indeed he may well be, having been a great 
 rider, and suddenly shut out from all exercise this many months. 
 A man's faculties would get terribly rusted in that case. He has 
 flashes of wit, of intelligence, and almost originality. At all 
 events, he wants not "flashes of silence." Most part of his
 
 258 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 time he sits in his library smoking and ruminating, shrunken 
 up, I daresay, in innumerable whims and half-diseased thoughts, 
 though full of good nature. I like him very much. These are 
 our dramatis persona. They are all off on Good Friday to 
 church ; I alone left here, scribbling to Goody better than 
 Good Friday to me ? I believe I shall have to go on Sunday. 
 I will not if I can possibly escape : I have even religious 
 scruples about it I really begin to have. 
 
 What course awaits me after a day or two I do not at all 
 know. The Spring Rice Marshalls (from Leeds) are invited for 
 Monday, and the Corn Law Rhymer, none of whom I hope will 
 come. Consider it ! Of course I must stay till after Monday, 
 but, certainly, if I do not get into the way of sleeping better I 
 ought to be gone somewhither as soon as possible; which 
 " whither " it shall be will gradually grow clearer. I think of 
 the sea and Hull : it is far cheaper, and not more, but less 
 uncomfortable for me. . . . Does Jeffrey come back to 
 Chelsea ? Tell him I am still alive. Never mind those 
 beggarly newspaper reviews, laudatory, condemnatory, or 
 whatever they be. What is a whole "potato basket " of them 
 worth ? Zero, or a minus quantity. 
 
 Shame ! There is the clock striking one. A full hour and 
 more since I began. Not another word. . . . 
 
 Enough, enough ; adieu, dear good bairn. God send us both 
 better, my lassie. It is a pity we were not. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Interesting as this picture of the Fryston household, 
 drawn by so masterly a pen, would be in any case, it is 
 even more interesting because of the certainty that it 
 expresses the true sentiments of the writer, put into 
 words the revelation of which to any other than his 
 wife he never contemplated. From Fryston Carlyle
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 259 
 
 went to Serlby to visit Lady Gralway, and then resumed 
 his journey to Scotland. 
 
 To Milnes himself, after the conclusion of his visit, 
 Carlyle writes in a strain of simple friendliness. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, 25 April, 1841. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Accept my salutations out of my mother's 
 cottage in poor old native Annandale ! They will reach you on 
 the other side of the Cumberland mountains in a scene differing 
 
 o 
 
 from this as green Earth differs from Hades though this too 
 is earth, were I not too spectrish at present ! I found my 
 mother taken suddenly unwell at a daughter's house some twenty 
 miles off this, and had to hasten thitherward without halt. That 
 is the reason of my delay in writing to you. Happily all is now 
 right again, and we are here in safety, met one other time under 
 this sun. 
 
 The moors are silent as death a strange unwonted blessing 
 to me. The sun shines with a kind of metallic brightness, 
 beautifying even moors and simple furrow fields. Specks of 
 snow still checker the blue of Skiddaw and Helvellyn my noble 
 friends. 
 
 Ah me ! These brooks still gush along as they did thirty years 
 ago, as they did three thousand years ago ; and with me in that 
 period, in that latter period especially, so much has altered. I 
 study to live silent as the moors themselves, and feel, as I always 
 do here, extremely like a ghost which indeed I am and you are. 
 Yet outside these windows larks are singing far up over their 
 earth nests : we are alive withal, as I understand it. Oh, Pusey- 
 isms, Shovel-hatisms, and all Isms that are or were, hold your 
 foolish scraggy jaw; all the jargon you can utter, is it not a kind of 
 personal insult in the presence of that entirely unutterable Fact ? 
 
 Dear Milnes, I beg you to continue to have some regard 
 for me. Enclosed is a small money debt converted into 
 gold ; the debt of thankfulness I owe will not be soon
 
 260 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 paid. You are upon the whole a good man though with 
 terrible perversities. 
 
 I shall be proud if Lady Galway and her husband will re- 
 member me at all. I desire you to offer my best regards to your 
 good mother, to your aunts, and your father. Fryston shall 
 be memorable to me ; Fryston and the inhabitants thereof. 
 You too, you rogue, in spite of all you pretend, have you 
 not a faintly perceptible, but undeniable degree of kindness 
 for me ? In not many days I hope to see you again in Pall 
 Mall. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 They did not meet quite so soon as Carlyle 
 anticipated. Milnes was at this period busily engaged 
 in writing his " One Tract More," * that eloquent and 
 earnest plea for toleration for the Anglo-Catholic en- 
 thusiasm, which was not without its effect upon the 
 minds of his fellow-countrymen at a critical moment, 
 and which at all events proved that a man did not 
 require to be a Puseyite in order to understand and to 
 sympathise with the aspirations of those who were 
 seeking to bring about a great spiritual revolution 
 within the Church of England. The pamphlet excited 
 wide-spread interest, and among the many letters 
 addressed to its author after its appearance there are one 
 or two which are still worthy of being quoted. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, in replying, said, " I read your little 
 book after my wife's party last night with great delight 
 and warm admiration ; so much so that I would not 
 write to thank you for it until I had this afternoon 
 
 * Cardinal Newman favourably alludes to it in a note in his "Apologia."
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 261 
 
 enjoyed an opportunity of looking over it again in cool 
 blood, to see that I might speak plain truth to you." 
 He went on to discuss three special parts of the tract 
 as worthy of praise, showing Milnes to have " handled 
 the most delicate subjects with the greatest felicity, the 
 most profound appreciation, and the strictest adherence 
 to truth." These special points were the sketch of the 
 English Eeformation ; the statement of the true idea of 
 toleration ; and the discussion of the charge of Romanis- 
 ing. After touching upon one or two points, in which 
 he was not in entire agreement with Milnes, he closed 
 by expressing the pleasure with which he had read the 
 tract, and his regret that it was not the alpha instead 
 of the omega of a series. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. . 
 
 London, Monday (? June, 1841). 
 
 I am still here waiting for my father, who has not been at 
 all well ; the warm weather which has been a comfort to every- 
 body else has made him ill. When I have seen him I shall know 
 whether I can go to Brussels on Wednesday or not, as I wish to 
 do. My little " One Tract More " has a regular and quiet sale, 
 which shows, I hope, that it is doing good. I intend to enlarge 
 the second edition. I would advise you to go on as well as you 
 can with your German letters, and I have no doubt that I can 
 get them profitably published for you in a collected form or in 
 Fraser's Magazine. Do you think you could write a good review 
 of Schlosser's History, with extracts of some of the most 
 amusing passages ? If you could do this and give it a Conserva- 
 tive sense, I have hopes I could get it into the Quarterly. 
 Lockhart frequently asks me to write him something, and would 
 like, I think, to show me a civility. There is a stupid article on
 
 262 THE LIFE OF LORD IIOUGHTON. 
 
 my poems in the Dublin Review, without any allusion to the 
 religious peculiarities and tendencies of them, which is the only 
 thing the reviewer had business with. Farewell; I will write 
 again, and my address is always Pall Mall. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The year was an agitated one, so far as English 
 politics were concerned. It witnessed the dissolution of 
 Parliament, and the defeat of the Liberal ministry in 
 the country, with the consequent formation of the 
 administration of Sir Robert Peel. Milnes issued his 
 address to the electors of Pontefract on the 14th of 
 June, 1841, claiming that he had given his " strenuous 
 opposition to Her Majesty's present Administration, not 
 so much for any particular bad principles they held, as 
 because they have no principles whatever." At the 
 same time he claimed that in following the Tory party 
 he had never surrendered the exercise of his private 
 judgment, but, on the contrary, had voted against Sir 
 Robert Peel in favour of a large remission of capital 
 punishments. 
 
 As yet, you will be glad to know [he writes to MacCarthy], 
 I have no .opposition at Pomfret; my opponent Gully, the 
 athlete, has retired after having examined the matter, and I 
 hardly anticipate any serious contest. My virtuous constituents 
 will, however, hardly allow me and Lord Pollington to walk over 
 the course. They told my father they must have a third man 
 from somewhere or other, whom they would draw into the town in 
 triumph and then vote against. This will probably be the issue. 
 I am much more afraid of an Election Committee. Lord John 
 has been trying to get enacted a clause in his Bribery Bill by
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 263 
 
 which a matt found guilty of giving a sandwich to a voter, is to 
 be disqualified from serving in Parliament for the rest of his 
 natural life ; he was, however, obliged to withdraw it. 
 My friend Bishop Thirlwall has made a capital debut in favour 
 of the Jews. The whole Bench wept over him as a renegade 
 brother, but he took it very easy. 
 
 Whilst the election was in full progress, Milnes was 
 called away to serve on the Grand Jury at York. He 
 had expected to receive a visit from Thackeray, who 
 happened to be in the North of England, and his 
 engagement at York threatened to interfere with his 
 reception of his friend. 
 
 W. M. Thackeray to R. M. M. 
 
 Saturday, 10^ July, 1841. 
 
 Stockton-on-Tees. 
 
 MY DEAR R. M. M., You have inflicted upon me the most 
 cruel blow possible ; for I had hoped to come to you on Monday, 
 staying Tuesday, and be-offing Wednesday ; for I must have 
 two days in London, and be back in Paris on Sunday. 1 shall 
 look out for you Monday at the Grand Jury room at York, and 
 regret heartily that I am not allowed to have a couple of days' 
 quiet talk with you in your paternal groves, after the cursed 
 racket of this infernal election. I shall not of course conceal 
 from you that the Tories in this Division have met with a heavy 
 blow and great discouragement. . . . If I do not call you 
 by your right address on the cover, it is because you persist in 
 addressing me as John, whereas my name is 
 
 WILLIAM THACKERAY. 
 
 On second thoughts I won't call you Thomas Milnes, Esq., 
 as I intended, lest mistakes should arise, and you should be 
 deprived of this letter.
 
 264 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 Fortunately Thackeray was able to extend his stay 
 in England, with the result that after all he did visit 
 Fryston, the first of many occasions on which he was a 
 guest under the roof, the chimney-pots of which had 
 been described by Carlyle as " the very windpipes of 
 hospitality." Thackeray spent nearly a week with his 
 friend. This was the occasion to which reference has 
 already been made, when Mr. Milnes told his son's 
 guest that he could smoke anywhere except in Richard's 
 room. Thackeray enjoyed the life of the place, at once 
 refined, intellectual, and free from conventional restraints. 
 " Fryston," he remarked to a friend afterwards, " com- 
 bines all the graces of the chateau and the tavern." 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Fryston, July 6th, 1841. 
 
 DEAK MACCARTHY, I have been just as busy about my 
 election as if it had been most hardly contested. My opponent 
 came and went away, and came again in a very worrying way, 
 and you know that I always look to the worst of things. I am 
 now as much or more anxious about the County Election, which 
 will be a neck-to-neck race. We have already a sufficient 
 majority to make Sir Robert Peel Minister, and I trust to his 
 wisdom and moderation to get any majority he wants afterwards ; 
 if the ultra Tories choose to throw him over, he cannot help that, 
 and in that case would probably give up public life altogether. 
 I look forward with little pleasure to the next Parliament, which 
 will be full of stupid violence and blind party spirit, at best, at 
 first. I intend staying in Yorkshire for the present. 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Milnes was duly returned once more as member for 
 Pontefract, but as the foregoing note indicates, it was
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 265 
 
 with somewhat depressed feelings that he regarded the 
 political future. He believed, and certainly not without 
 reason, that he had established a claim to office, but the 
 real diffidence which lay at the bottom of a character 
 that on the surface was somewhat aggressive in manner, 
 and that depression of spirits which was natural to him 
 when he was thinking of himself and his own prospects, 
 made him despair of receiving the recognition to which 
 he believed himself to be entitled. It was amid the 
 anxieties and perturbations of the hour that he again 
 asked Carlyle to be his guest at Fryston. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, 19 July, 1841. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Many thanks for your letter, and for your 
 kind remembrance of me in the Courthouse of York. Ponte- 
 fract, too, has a Courthouse, as you say ; an ancient, solid- 
 minded, wry-necked dragon, imperturbable amid cockatrice Roe- 
 bucks and the sinners of the Riding. On leather seats sits 
 many a cnstos rotulorum sits a bright bevy of Fryston friends ; 
 ushers distributed letters on long poles ; poor old Barney, with 
 eyes wide staring in terror, " sowld him a bit of hay/' but will 
 not perjure himself : all this, and what surrounds it, stand in 
 very lively memory with me, too. 
 
 For a fortnight and a day I have been here in the utmost 
 extreme of seclusion ; sunk in Naturunschauung deep as a Druid; 
 sunk in reflections that cannot be spoken, in indolence that need 
 not be spoken ! It is very wholesome for me. Like a " chapped 
 flute " (or scrannel pipe) which you steep in the ditch until it close 
 again and become a whole flute or scrannel. I spent about a 
 week in coming hither by Newcastle, &c. At Tynemouth I had 
 a swim in the beautiful blue sea ; saw Harriet Martineau ; saw 
 the North Shields election ; admired the rugged energy of that
 
 266 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 population and how completely Annandale Scotch they are. 
 From the Humber to the Forth, still more from the Tyne to the 
 Forth, I find no real distinction at all, except what John Knox 
 introduced : it is all Scotch Scotch in features and face, in 
 character, in dialect and speech. You, too, if you behave your- 
 self, shall be accounted Scotch ! They are all Danes, these 
 people, stalwart Normans; terrible sea-kings; are now terrible 
 drainers of morasses, terrible spinners of yarn, coal-borers, 
 removers of mountains ; " a people terrible from the beginning." 
 The windy Celts of Galloway you see not many miles from this, 
 on the edge of Nithsdale. Is it not a considerable blessing to 
 have escaped being born a Celt ? 
 
 As for poor Harriet (who asked for you among other things), 
 I found her confined to a sofa, dangerously ill, I believe, though 
 not in immediate danger ; for the rest, brisk, alert, invincible 
 as ever. There is a kind of prepared completeness in Harriet, 
 which does honour to nature and the Socinian formulae. In my 
 travels I have met with few more valiant women. Poor Harriet! 
 She was absolutely affected, amiable, almost sublime to me 
 there. Sunt lachryma rerum. How are all human souls 
 crushed in by this formula or that, by this good fortune or 
 that ; and hardly any formula supportably fits a man, and the 
 most are not coats, but strait-waistcoats ; very lamentable ! 
 Shall we not in these circumstances say, " One Tract More/' oh, 
 Richard Milnes ? 
 
 How can you ask me back to Fryston when the smoke of my 
 tobacco is hardly yet cleared from that sublime bedroom ? I 
 must not think of it again yet for indefinite periods of time. 
 Meanwhile, surely I hold all things there in the liveliest remem- 
 brance. Whoever is interested in that most important fact 
 ought to be apprised of it on occasion. From valet Frederick 
 up to the lord of the manor and lady of the manor I can make 
 an embossed image of it all at any time, and be very glad to 
 contemplate it all. Good be at Fryston always ! 
 
 To-morrow I go to catch my wife from the steamer at Annan, 
 carry her up to Nithsdale her mother's country for a few
 
 FIRST TEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 267 
 
 days. After that we proceed to take possession of a certain 
 small furnished cottage situated apart in solitude and sea gravel 
 on the north beach of the Solway. . . . If at the end of 
 August any trace of a decided wish to see London again dis- 
 closes itself, I will return then. ... I believe on the 
 whole I must by-and-by endeavour to provide myself some kind 
 of permanent hut or inverted tub somewhere or other under the 
 free canopy in this soil of Britain, that I may fly thither at any 
 time out of Babylon when it is like to kill me. I grudge to 
 leave London altogether, yet cannot afford to be killed by it just 
 yet. Why does not a pious man like you think of founding 
 some kind of modern priest's cell amid the rocks of Wantley, 
 for example, but safe from the dragon ; a low, sheltered 
 tugurium, with two apartments 12 feet by 16, and an aged 
 woman, dumb and not entirely deaf, to look after it and boil a 
 kettle when required; whither many a half -distracted poet 
 (modern priest if we are ever again to have priests) might run 
 and hide himself from all living, and so save himself sane, and 
 write, perhaps, things epical instead of things Bulwerical and 
 Cecilical ? Positively it should be thought of. It would suit 
 you better than passing suicidal Corn Laws, you misguided man ! 
 A real Squire's bane I define these laws to be ; sweet to the tooth 
 of Squire, but rapidly accelerating all squires, as if they needed 
 acceleration in their course downward. Really that is my cool 
 judgment of it. Sir Peel is a great man; can bribe, coerce, 
 palaver, gain a majority of seventy ; but Sir Peel cannot make 
 water run permanently upwards, or an English nation walk on the 
 crown of their heads. I will leave him to try his hand at that ! 
 Ah me ! To-day my reading is one Herr Mone on the heathen- 
 dom of the old North, a sublime thing according to Herr Mone, 
 that old heathendom, deeper, or as deep, and rather truer than 
 any Christendom we have now. Did I ever tell you how near I 
 was bursting into absolute tears over your old fat-sided parson 
 at Fryston that day ? It is literally a kind of fact. The droning 
 hollowness of the poor old man, droning as out of old ages of 
 old eternities things unspeakable into things unbearable, empty
 
 268 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 as the braying of an ass, was infinitely pathetic in that inood of 
 mine. Adieu, dear Milnes ; God be merciful to us all. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 From the closing passage in the above letter it will 
 be seen that Carlyle did go to church after all during 
 his first visit to Fryston. 
 
 Peel formed his Administration, and Milnes's fore- 
 bodings regarding his own fate were confirmed. No 
 office was offered to him, though men unquestionably 
 his inferiors in talent and knowledge were admitted 
 into the Government. He was destined thus early in 
 his political career to learn the price, as he had already 
 experienced the advantages, of that political indepen- 
 dence of which he was proud. Still, the mortification 
 to himself was severe, and in writing to his friend 
 MacCarthy he did not conceal it. The latter sought to 
 console him. 
 
 C. J. MacCarthy to R. M. M. 
 
 Chejostow, Sunday (? Aug., 1841). 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, Your short letter gave me pain, because I 
 thought it revealed pain in you. I was not much disappointed, 
 though I was grieved for you. I agree with yon that you will 
 not be the worse for biding your time, though I wish it had 
 come now. Lord Bacon says that hope is a very good breakfast 
 but a very bad supper. You and I may console ourselves that 
 we are at most making of it an early lunch, and may yet expect 
 to dine on more substantial fare. How far are you going, and 
 how long ? I hope the lightness of travel will restore to you 
 something of the chit-chat of old times, and that in the quiet 
 of reprieved ambition you will become again what you were ten
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 269 
 
 years ago, and write me long letters, and think about art and 
 literature and sunshine, and bask and loiter in pleasant fancies. 
 . I do not know whether it is to my credit or to yours, 
 or to both our credits, that I do not find my love for you the 
 least changed in kind or degree by all I have gone through and 
 all you have done for me, but can chat with you as well as ever, 
 and think of you as fondly. A common man would laugh at 
 my wonder at not finding my friendship diminished or changed 
 by the benefits received from my friend, or the sufferings he has 
 alleviated ; but you are not one of these, and will know what I 
 mean. Ever since I knew you, you have been the chief person 
 in my life ; a friend and brother and confessor, the end and aim 
 now of all my thoughts and actions and hopes. . . . The 
 present form of public affairs cannot, I should think, last much 
 longer ; Peel must surely in time slough away the Knatchbulls 
 and Gladstones and such-like, and then your time will be come. 
 You will, of course, cultivate as much as possible your political 
 connections in France, and accustom yourself while you have the 
 opportunity to talk and read the language assiduously. Pray do 
 not neglect this last piece of advice. . . . You are too wise, 
 I am sure, to let this disappointment alter your political creeds 
 or shake your adherence to your party. I much approve of 
 your late plan of conduct as far as I have been able to see it. 
 Your short practical speeches and working beneath the sur- 
 face . . . 
 
 Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 C. J. MACCARTHY. 
 
 Milnes did not need the advice of his friend as to the 
 desirableness of his cultivating his political connections 
 in France. At the direct request both of the King 
 and of M. Guizot, he had kept them informed of 
 the state of political feeling in England, and as the 
 reader has already seen, he had also been the medium 
 through whom these high personages had communicated
 
 270 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 their views to the leader of the Tory party in England. 
 He now wrote to M. Gruizot to inform him of the result 
 of the election. 
 
 R. M. M. to M. Guizot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, Sept. 1th, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have always intended to give you such 
 information as lay in my way as to the constitution and personnel 
 of the new Conservative Ministry, and now that the appoint- 
 ments are concluded I will not delay doing so. The two most 
 striking characteristics of the Government are no doubt its 
 regard for former official service and its observance of aristocratic 
 connection. All the men who took the risks of office with Sir 
 Robert Peel in 1835 are amply rewarded. Lord Haddington, 
 then Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, is now at the head of the 
 Admiralty, not much to the satisfaction of those who remember 
 that Canning, his great friend and patron, never saw anything 
 in him worthy of official distinction, and gave him a peerage 
 without a place. His being a Scotchman is also against his 
 popularity ; the patronage of the Admiralty having taken so 
 very palpably a northern direction in the long Administration of 
 Lord Melville and the late one of Lord Minto. Goulburn, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, is an alter ego of Peel, and perhaps 
 his most intimate friend. Lord Canterbury, not being able to 
 take anything better than his pension, has got for his son, an 
 untried and very young man, the important office of Under- 
 secretary of the Home Department. The son and nephew of 
 Lord Ashburton, who was regarded as a sort of apostate from 
 the Whigs to Peel, have both got places. Lord Fitzgerald 
 refused to take office, but is not unlikely to accept some high 
 diplomatic appointment, and I should be very glad if he went to 
 Paris. I regard him as one of the most intelligent and agree- 
 able men of the party (perhaps the most so among the Lords), 
 and I am sure he would be very popular with all of you. Glad- 
 stone's appointment to the Board of Trade is not very distinguished 
 in itself, but at the present moment when the Corn Law fills up
 
 FIRST YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 271 
 
 so large a place in public and party interests, it has acquired a 
 great importance, and will give him great and frequent means 
 of displaying his fine abilities. My two friends, Sidney Herbert 
 (Lord Pembroke's brother) and Lord Eliot, are the Secretaries 
 for the Admiralty and Ireland. This last is perhaps the best 
 that Peel has made. I do not know a man of more noble and 
 moderate spirit, more fully conscious of every responsibility he 
 undertakes, more free from selfishness and almost from party 
 ambition; he will stand nobly between the two fires of that 
 unhappy country, and if his moral courage is equal to his good 
 intention, he will do better than Lord Morpeth, and that is say- 
 ing a good deal. His chief, Lord de Grey, is a nobleman of 
 great wealth and fine temper, with some perceptions of heart, 
 but perhaps a little too much of the beau Sabreur to keep all 
 about him as quiet as he ought to do. These appointments are, 
 however, at once seen to be good, for they are unpopular with 
 the Orangemen. The Duke of Buckingham and Sir Edward 
 Knatchbull do not do the harm by being in the Cabinet that 
 might be supposed; they represent the landed nobility and 
 gentry of England, and thus whatever modification of the Corn 
 Law takes place, as long as they remain there, can meet with no 
 opposition from those two great interests. As independent men 
 they might have given a great deal more trouble than they now 
 vail do, and I myself have always applauded the prudence which 
 places a concealed enemy as much as possible within your grasp. 
 Peel has now got so strong a grip of the aristocracy that he 
 must either drag them along with him in his advance or perish 
 in the attempt. I will not admit the supposition that they can 
 master him. Neither the high Tories, nor Stanley, nor Graham 
 have had much to do with the distribution of offices. This Peel 
 has kept much to himself, and you may thus be surprised that I 
 occupy no place. But I have no right to complain, when Peel 
 has, in fact, taken upon himself the only post I had the least 
 desire to fill that of Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs. 
 There is no Under- Secretary in the House of Commons, and 
 he will therefore have to meet Palmerston himself, which is, I
 
 272 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 suppose, his real desire. For my own part I cannot help think- 
 ing that he might have trusted to my discretion ; but it is 
 possible that Lord Aberdeen may have made some decisive 
 objection, owing both to my known Liberal inclinations in 
 foreign matters and to the circumstance that a nephew of his 
 Lordship's was very anxious to get the appointment. Sir Robert 
 Peel will not lose any support I have in my power to give him, 
 as I fully appreciate the difficulties of his position, and yet can- 
 not help wishing that he had been able to give his Administration 
 a more popular character. Sir Stratford Canning has refused 
 Canada (to which Sir Charles Bagot is appointed), and has 
 taken a place about Court, to the surprise of the diplomatic 
 world. I hope this is not a scheme of Lord Aberdeen's to get 
 rid of the services of such a conscientious diplomatic servant. 
 The Court is more moral and still more stupid than before, 
 and I cannot help fearing that the Queen, who has hitherto 
 behaved with great courage and self-possession, will find the 
 change very disagreeable. My cousin, Mr. Gaskell, has got a 
 seat at the Treasury Board, which will do very well for him. 
 If it were not for my father's uncertain health I should rejoice 
 that my independence of office gave me the opportunity of being 
 a good deal abroad, and you would not be long without a visit 
 from me. Charles Buller, who is sitting by me, begs me to 
 return you his grateful thanks for your kind remembrance of 
 him, and Gladstone would do the same if he were not a hundred 
 miles off, managing his election. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Your grateful and obliged friend, 
 
 R. M. MILNES. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington urged Peel to give places to as 
 many as possible of the young nobility, that there might be 
 some of them trained in habits of public life.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 The Copyright Question The Corn Laws The Queen's Ball Journey to the 
 East Correspondence with Peel His Friendship with MacCarthy Tenny- 
 son's Pension Carlyle and Milnes Southey's Widow Charles Buller 
 Milnes's Position in Parliament Correspondence with "W. E. Gladstone, 
 
 DURING the winter of 1841 Milnes did not, according to 
 his wont, go abroad. He spent it in the quiet of his 
 home at Fryston. 
 
 As I am no sportsman [he writes, Jan. 23rd, 1842, to M. 
 Guizot] , I have only my books and an intelligent friend or two. 
 This is a great contrast to the interest of your magnificent 
 hospitality to me last winter, but I trust not the less useful 
 to myself. 
 
 More than ever at this point in his career he seems 
 to have been determined to make a serious effort to gain 
 a place of his own in the political world. The social 
 fame of which he already enjoyed so large a share, and 
 the literary reputation which had come to him in 
 abundance, altogether failed to satisfy his ambition. 
 He wished to serve his country as a public man, and 
 above all to give proof of the fact that he was something 
 more than a mere litterateur or the brilliant talker and 
 host. The reader has already seen something of the 
 care with which he studied foreign politics, and un- 
 questionably if there was one object in life dearer to him
 
 274 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 than another, it was the attainment of a position in 
 which he might have had a leading share in controlling 
 the Foreign Policy of the United Kingdom. To this 
 position Milnes was never destined to rise ; yet those 
 who knew him best will bear me out when I say that 
 he was far more completely equipped for the post of 
 Foreign Secretary than the majority of politicians, 
 and that so far as knowledge of Continental countries, 
 of their leading men, of their schools of thought, 
 and of their lines of policy was concerned, there was 
 hardly one of his contemporaries who could have 
 claimed to be his superior. It was his misfortune 
 that London society, which had taken to him from his 
 first entrance into it, was not disposed to regard him 
 in his own light as a serious man of affairs. His bril- 
 liant social success, and the constant though ephemeral 
 triumphs which he gained in connection with his con- 
 tributions to periodical literature, added to the more 
 solid reputation which he enjoyed as a poet, stood in the 
 way of the political advancement to which he aspired. 
 Again and again in later life, in discussing his own 
 career or the career of other men, with those who under- 
 stood him best, he deplored the fact that in England 
 popular opinion always insists upon drawing a broad 
 line of demarcation between the man of letters and the 
 man of affairs. He himself was one of many who had 
 suffered from this national prejudice men whose success 
 in one field of labour has been fatal to any attempts to 
 win laurels in another. But the reader who wishes to 
 know something of the real life of Milnes himself, must
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 275 
 
 at least take passing note of the serious efforts which he 
 made to serve his country in the House of Commons. 
 He who was so fond of the brighter and lighter side of 
 social life, and whose time was so easily dissipated 
 in happy conversation with his chosen friends, spared no 
 pains, shrank from no sacrifices, in order to fit himself 
 for a post of usefulness in the service of the public. 
 
 Among the questions which in the early part of 1842 
 specially engaged his attention was that of a Copyright 
 Bill. He had laboured in the cause before, but the 
 cause itself had not been successful; and he now 
 proposed to make a fresh attempt to carry a measure 
 through Parliament. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Fryston, Jan. Ylth, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAE GLADSTONE, If the matter does not fall into better 
 hands, I intend to try and get the modified Copyright Bill through 
 Parliament early in the session. As Lord Monteagle's Chancellor- 
 ship did not prevent him from taking an active part in Talf ourd's, 
 I trust your official position will not prevent you from helping 
 me. ... 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 W. E. Gladstone to R. M. M. 
 
 London, Jan. 19M, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Lord Monteagle has been interesting 
 himself about a Copyright Bill, and communicated with some 
 parties upon it. I would recommend you to write to him. Some 
 time back I saw a statement, I know not whether well founded 
 or not, that Thesiger had taken up the question. This is not 
 meant to divert or discourage you, as I need hardly specify, but
 
 276 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 to prevent any cross purposes. I begged Lord Monteagle to 
 propitiate Macaulay. I trust that a moderate term dating from 
 death might be had without violent opposition, or the "confused 
 splutter " of the former proceedings. . . . I do not appi-ehend 
 there will be any difficulty in my exercising a private judgment 
 in favour of your Copyright Bill. 
 
 Your most sincere, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 It was Lord Mahon and not Milnes who actually 
 brought in the Copyright Bill, that which is still in 
 force, and which gives to the English author and his 
 representatives the possession of his own works for 
 a term of forty-two years as a minimum. But if the 
 Bill was Lord Mabon's, no one supported it more 
 strenuously than Milnes, and in the principal debate on 
 the measure in the House of Commons, on April 6th, he 
 replied to its chief assailant, Dr. Wakley, who, in 
 decrying the rights of authors as opposed to the in- 
 terests of the public, had so far forgotten himself as to 
 read in a mocking manner some of Wordsworth's verses. 
 Milnes was not the man to allow the idol of his College 
 days to be turned into ridicule in this fashion in the 
 House of Commons, and he retorted in a speech which 
 at the time made a deep impression upon the public, and 
 contributed materially to the success of Lord Mahon's 
 measure. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Templand, Thornley, Dumfriesshire, 
 
 l()th April, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Thanks for your castigation of the 
 Vandal Wakley, which I have read this morning. The sound
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 277 
 
 to me is as that of one " whose speech is of bullocks " a sound 
 disgraceful to your Commons' House called Honourable. You 
 did well to rebuke him. Nay, the "natural man" (whose 
 thoughts indeed are enmity to God) regrets rather that instead 
 of the whipping of polished reprimand it had not been a right 
 leathern dog or horse whip or solid American cowskin ; but this, 
 I suppose, the forms of your Honourable House would not permit. 
 Mr. Macaulay, too, finds that his last year's excursion was on the 
 wrong tack ; that even at the risk of smelling of the shop, he 
 had better take the common one. This Bill, not so bad a one, 
 seems likely to pass. Thanks for the day of small things. 
 
 I am here these five weeks you know on what mournful 
 errand. * For the last three weeks and more I have been as 
 nearly as possible in perfect solitude, alone with my own ugly 
 self, with my own sorrows and sins which are ugly enough, and 
 God's universe which is beautiful and terrible ever as of old. It 
 is long since I had a time so like a Sabbath : full of sadness ; 
 but not miserable, perhaps almost blessed rather. " Blessed are 
 the dead : " is it not even so ? 
 
 This night is to be the last of that sort of existence. To- 
 morrow morning all bursts up into an explosion of packers, 
 carpenters, &c. &c. In three days more we have no longer any 
 habitation here. The place that once well knew us " knows us 
 no more again at all for ever/' 
 
 Often in these silent spring days have I remembered where I 
 was last year this time,t and converted it all into elegiac figure 
 (very beautiful even so, and perhaps most beautiful so), as at any 
 time, not to speak of this time, most things turn to elegy with 
 me. What can I do ? Unspoken elegy ; this great old earth, 
 is she not built on silent graves over-canopied with silent stars ? 
 Perhaps in some ten days more I shall return to those pavements 
 of yours ; I look on them from this distance with a kind of 
 shudder. But the end of man is not a thought; not a manufac- 
 ture of unspoken elegies. A lions ! 
 
 * Mrs. Carlyle's mother had just died, 
 f Fryston.
 
 278 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 My poor wife has suffered and still suffers from one of the sorest 
 wounds a human heart can experience here below. We have but 
 one mother; no second is appointed us. If you ever went by 
 Chelsea it might be a kindness to call for my poor Jane. 
 
 Accept at any rate my salutation from the mountains, my 
 blessing and best wishes. 
 
 Always yours with affection, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 It was during the same session as that which saw 
 the settlement of the Copyright question that Milnes called 
 the attention of the House of Commons to one of the 
 grievous anomalies that were still to be found in the 
 English Constitution, the existence of a law under which 
 persons might be, and within a very few years actually 
 had been, sent to prison for non-attendance on public 
 worship. There is nothing surprising in the fact that on 
 such a question as this he took a strong view in favour 
 of liberty of conscience and the right of the individual ; 
 but the fact that it was from the Tory benches that he 
 called attention to this grievous wrong is significant, as 
 marking the independence of his action throughout his 
 political career. 
 
 The question of the Corn Laws was now absorbing 
 public attention, both in and out of the House of 
 Commons, and Milnes spoke frequently in the debates 
 on the subject, supporting Sir Eobert Peel as a rule in 
 his measures of alleviation (such as the Sliding Scale 
 Act), though frequently expressing his regret that those 
 measures were not of a more liberal character. His 
 pen was in constant requisition at this period, and it 
 was probably the attention which had been excited by
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 279 
 
 his " One Tract More " which led him to publish his 
 "Thoughts on Purity of Election," not as a magazine 
 or review article, but as an independent pamphlet. 
 
 He maintained during these years a tolerably regular 
 correspondence with Mr. Sumner, many of whose letters 
 are of exceptional interest. 
 
 Cftarles Sumner to R. M. M. 
 
 Boston, Aug. 1st, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, My special inducement to write at this 
 moment, beyond the acknowledgment of your last pleasant letter, 
 is to let you know that I gave the Lyells for you the sheets of an 
 article in the July number of the North American Review on 
 recent English poets, which may perhaps interest you. The 
 little group dealt with are yourself, Miss Barrett, Sterling, and 
 Doyle. The writer of the article is a young friend of mine, Mr. 
 George S. Hillard, a person of exquisite taste and accomplishments, 
 and who has a most sincere admiration of your productions. . . . 
 Tennyson's poems have been reprinted in Boston, and the re- 
 print is a precise copy of the English edition in size, type, and 
 paper, so that it is difficult to distinguish the two editions. 
 It is reprinted for the benefit of the author, to whom the 
 publisher hopes to remit some honorarium. Emerson and his 
 followers are ardent admirers of Tennyson, and it is their 
 enthusiastic unhesitating praise that induced a bookseller to 
 undertake the reprint. There are some things in the second 
 volume which I admire very much. " Locksley Hall" has some 
 magnificent verses, and others hardly intelligible. " Godiva " is 
 unequalled as a narrative in verse, and the little stories of Lady 
 Clare and the Lord of Burleigh are told in beautiful measure. I 
 am struck with the melody of his verse, its silver ring, and its 
 high poetic fancy ; but does it not want elevated thought and 
 manliness ? And yet, in its way, what can be more exquisite 
 than GEnone making Mount Ida echo with her complaints? 
 Was her story ever told in a sweeter strain in any language ?
 
 280 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 I understand that Emerson is afraid that Tennyson, since he 
 published his first volume, has become a " fine gentleman/' by 
 which, I suppose, he means that his free thought and voluntary 
 numbers will be constrained by the conventions of the world. 
 
 I enjoyed very much your clever jeu d' esprit on the Queen's 
 ball,* and the joke was much enhanced in this country on the 
 debate being received as true. It was reprinted in most of our 
 newspapers, and drew forth many comments. I copy a sentence 
 in a letter which I have received from a friend in South Carolina. 
 " Have you seen that debate in the Chambre on the British 
 Queen and Albert, representing Monarchists who beat the French, 
 and Carlists, Thiersists, and all taking part in it? How 
 despicable! The French are in politics a parcel of coquettish 
 girls.- 
 
 So grim-visaged war will smooth his wrinkled front. All 
 our differences will be adjusted. Lord Ashburton has evinced 
 an earnest disposition to peace, and I need not say that Webster 
 has cordially responded to it. I am glad the Boundary question 
 has gone now to the limbo where are 
 
 " Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tossed, 
 And fluttered into rags." 
 
 I think the whole negotiation when it sees the light will be 
 much to the credit of both negotiators. . . . Longfellow, 
 
 * Milnes and Charles Buller had written a very clever jew d? esprit in 
 the shape of a report of an imaginary debate in the French Chamber on 
 the question of a Fancy Ball at Buckingham Palace, at which, among 
 other historic characters represented, were some of those English 
 sovereigns who had beaten the French, whilst the staff of the Frencli 
 Embassy were to come in with ropes round their necks, like the burgesses 
 of Calais before Edward III. The lively squib was only meant to 
 amuse the readers of the morning newspaper in which it appeared ; but, 
 to the surprise of its authors, it was taken seriously elsewhere than in 
 South Carolina. Sir James Graham, on reading it, rushed off to Sir 
 Robert Peel in great agitation, saying, " There is the devil to pay in 
 France over this foolish ball." Fortunately, Peel himself was in the 
 secret, and subsequently told Milues the story of Graham's alarm.
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EA8T. 281 
 
 who is a most amiable friend of mine, is now at Marienberg, by 
 Boppart, on the Rhine. I think he will pass through London 
 in September or October. If you by any accident should be 
 there, I trust he may have the pleasure of seeing you. Dickens 
 was so kind as to invite him to stay with him. Lord Morpeth 
 has shot off among the Indians, so that he lost the Great 
 Western on the 10th, which he had intended to take. He has 
 seen the country very thoroughly, and has made himself very 
 popular everywhere. Have you seen his lines on Niagara? The 
 best ever written on the great Fall. When shall we have yours? 
 Let me hear from you soon. 
 
 Believe me, ever and ever yours, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNEB. 
 
 T. Carlyle to E. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, August Ylth, 1842. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, . . . . I have made a tour in the Netherlands, 
 of thirty hours' extent, since I wrote to you : literally a fact. 
 Spring Rice took me in one of his revenue cutters a voyage 
 really worth making. The doll gods and gingerbread idolatries 
 of that people, with the fruit of long centuries of industry and 
 healthy victorious energy growing up beside all that, were very 
 striking to me. Les braves Beiges ! They are a Deutsch people ; 
 I could read their language when I saw it printed : but the 
 educated of them all affect to be a kind of mongrel French, and 
 go about in moustachios and sugar-loaf hats the blockheads ! 
 They have still a remnant of quasi- worship among them (respect- 
 abler, perhaps, than our remnant of "sincere-cant"), and crowds 
 of the nastiest ugly fat priests, whom you could not occasion- 
 ally divest yourself of a horrible passing desire to slaughter, and 
 cure as bacon. 
 
 What a melancholy and strange thing is that Chartist hunger- 
 insurrection in your end of the Island ! What a country is it 
 where the Governing class turns a deaf ear to all considerations,
 
 282 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 and will hear nothing till it hear the actual alarm-bell droning ; 
 see nothing till it see Irving' s fires blazing ! 
 
 I declare myself made very sad with these things ; it seems 
 to me a long tract of black and ever blacker days is beginning 
 for England. A man ought not to vote for Corn- Laws ; hang it, 
 no ! But I will not quarrel with Richard Milnes, let him vote 
 for what he may. O Peel, Peel ! O Carlyle, Carlyle, for it is 
 Ikon too, and all the world ! 
 
 Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 A longer journey than any which he had previously 
 taken occupied Milnes during the latter part of 1842 
 and the spring of the following year. This was a visit 
 to the Levant and Egypt, the literary fruits of which 
 he afterwards gave to the world in the volume of poems 
 called "Palm Leaves." In his preface to this little 
 volume the author explains that he would probably have 
 written an account of his tour, which occupied the 
 greater part of a year, but for one decisive consideration 
 " his ignorance of the languages of the countries he 
 was visiting." He saw much, however, and observed 
 much during his tour, and according to his wont, he 
 made himself at home in the society of many different 
 cities. At Athens, where he again found himself after 
 an interval of many years ; at Constantinople, where he 
 was admitted to the intimate friendship of Sir Stratford 
 Canning ; at Smyrna, at Cairo, and on the Nile, he lost 
 no opportunity of drinking-in the spirit of the local 
 life, and of making himself familiar not merely with 
 manners and customs, but with modes of thought which 
 were unfamiliar to him.
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 283 
 
 All the more is it to be regretted that he confined 
 his reminiscences of his travels to the volume of poetry 
 I have mentioned, and to one or two letters to friends 
 in England. He did, it is true, keep a journal of his 
 voyage on the Nile, but it is of so fragmentary a 
 character as to be of little use for the purposes of a 
 biography. Nor are many anecdotes preserved regard- 
 ing his personal adventures during his absence from 
 home. His friends, it is true, assumed many things 
 regarding him, and the character of these assumptions 
 may be gathered from the fact that in a copy of " Palm 
 Leaves," once the property of Harriet Martineau, and 
 now in the library at Fryston, certain sketches, evidently 
 from the pen of Mr. Thackeray, have been introduced, 
 in which Milnes is depicted in the full enjoyment of the 
 rights and privileges of an Eastern Pasha, one of the 
 sketches going so far as to represent him in the act of 
 removing the head of a presumably faithless spouse. 
 Nowadays Eastern travel has become so common that 
 those who indulge in it are free from the remarks and 
 conjectures which fifty years ago attached to the 
 Oriental traveller. Milnes's fame among his friends, 
 however, and above all that happy faculty which he 
 possessed of making himself at home everywhere and 
 in every class of society, gave rise to a specially 
 luxuriant crop of tales regarding his personal adven- 
 tures, tales for which there is no reason to suppose that 
 there was in his case any better foundation than in 
 that of any of his contemporaries.
 
 284 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to G. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Smyrna, Nov. Zlth, 1842. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, My sister has sent me your letter of 
 August 28th, and I send this to her to transmit to you. . . . 
 Before I left England I ordered some English papers to be sent 
 you regularly, and my sister says she has speeded you some. I 
 wrote to Colvile from Constantinople, telling him to tell you 
 of my whereabouts. I have been in Greece again, and wrote an 
 indignant sonnet on the little progress ten years had made there. 
 The selection of King Otho has certainly been most infelicitous. 
 I do not think him the mere duffer that most people make him 
 out. But he seems to have no faculty for his position, and he 
 has got a foolish little pretty wife, fond of dress and dancing, 
 who increases his unpopularity. He has built a great stucco 
 barrack under Hymettus by way of a palace, which has spent 
 all his private income and disfigured the town. It will be a 
 great mercy if his notion of playing a miniature Louis Philippe 
 among parties and persons in Gre.-ce does not bring on him an 
 Alibaud or Fieschi. 
 
 I had always heard that the Franks of the Levant kept 
 themselves very much apart from the Turks, but I had no notion 
 how absolutely apart they were. Here and at Constantinople 
 there is nothing but an odd dress or two to warn you, you are 
 not in some French or Italian town ; and there is not only no 
 intercourse with the Orientals, but no mention of them in con- 
 versation, no allusion to their existence. No wonder that 
 travellers write so ignorantly. Indeed, I can't see how they are 
 to do otherwise if they write at all. I dined with the Foreign 
 Minister, and was talked of as if I had banqueted at the 
 Zoological Gardens. All this makes a tour here much less interest- 
 ing than it might be. I am going to Egypt to see that old lion 
 Mehemet Ali, and then to England. The time of year compels 
 me to give up Syria, which I do not care much about except 
 for Jerusalem, where our new Bishopric is getting on very well, 
 except that one of the chaplains has somewhat complicated his 
 spiritual functions by setting up as a brandy merchant. The
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 285 
 
 English Church is rising to completion on Mount Zion. We 
 have great news from China, not for the glory but for the peace 
 sake. It will, however, be the death of the grande nation if the 
 Emperor insists upon the English having a monopoly of the 
 trade, and refuses the establishment of the Consulates of other 
 nations ; and even without this one hardly sees how France can 
 come forward and ask to share the advantages of our peace after 
 having so furiously slanged against the wickedness of the war. 
 Now that we have got the Cabul prisoners and destroyed all the 
 fortresses, we are to evacuate Afghanistan, thus leaving behind 
 us a frontier exasperated against English power and delighted at 
 any time to take part against us. But "the Duke'" says it 
 could not be occupied, and he must be right ; at least, it is most 
 comfortable to think so. 
 
 One would almost wish you a wreck once a week for some- 
 thing to do. Tell me whether you get any American books, or 
 it will be absurd my sending you a hot-pressed octavo, when you 
 get the same for twenty, cents in a Yankee newspaper, especially 
 with such a book-devourer as you are, who eat up three volumes 
 per hour. 
 
 I have said nothing of the "stability of the Ottoman 
 Empire/' the great slang of these parts. I think it will last you 
 and me out. When the crash comes it will probably come in 
 some way totally different from what any of us have expected, and 
 be attended with results that have come into nobody's head. 
 
 You can write to me to Serlby, Bawtry, Yorkshire. 
 
 It should be said that MacCarthy, who had now 
 entered the public service, was at this time filling 
 a post at Turk's Islands which had been obtained for 
 him through Milnes's influence, whence he still kept up 
 his regular correspondence with his old friend. 
 
 R. M. M. to Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 Private. Smyrna, Nov. 28^, 1842. 
 
 DEAR SIR ROBERT PEEL, It is just possible you may have 
 some Christmas leisure to read a gossiping letter ; if not, pray
 
 286 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 throw this into the fire, for I can tell you nothing that you do 
 not know, or at least cannot know from a hundred better sources 
 of information. I have spent the last two or three months in 
 Greece and Turkey. The former country I had visited some ten 
 years ago, and I felt quite indignant at the little advance which 
 it has made since its independence, until I reflected how slow the 
 progress of a country exhausted by revolution must necessarily 
 be. There is security of person and property, an increase in 
 some branches of production, such as the currant vine, and a 
 few roads are in process of construction ; but whatever good 
 one finds cannot, I fear, be attributed to the Government. All 
 one could hear of the acts of the King and the authorities was 
 so stupid, or worse, that one almost felt sure there must be 
 another side of the question, but I was sorry to be unable to 
 find any other excuses than arise from the difficulties of the 
 case and the incapacity of those who have to deal with them. 
 There is no need to make out the King a monster of perfidy 
 and tyranny to explain his conduct. Taken as a young man 
 whose mind has been subtilised, not refined, by a Jesuit 
 education, who carries a natural frivolity into acquired habits 
 of industry, who tries to act a miniature Louis Philippe among 
 the parties and persons with 'whom he is surrounded, with 
 about the same proportion of ability between himself and 
 that personage that there is between his ministers and Guizot 
 or Thiers, and his conduct is very explicable. The great evil 
 is in the absence of some master-mind which should control 
 the King. I suppose Mavrocordati is the best of the Greeks, 
 but he is always a party man, and has enemies whom the 
 King is able to play off against him. 
 
 It is unfortunate that the Foreign Ministers have been 
 compelled by circumstances to interfere as they have done almost 
 with the personal expenditure of the Sovereign, so that he 
 evidently regards them as spies upon his affairs, and derives no 
 advantage from their presence and advice. He has built a huge 
 palace, the design, I believe, of his father, which might look 
 massive and imposing in the middle of a Bavarian sand-plain,
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 287 
 
 but is simply heavy and disfiguring under the shadow of the 
 Parthenon. His pretty, dressy wife, too, does him no good, as 
 she does nothing to please or attach the people. I think it is 
 matter of deep regret that the form of the Constitution was not 
 fixed at first. It may be very true that the country is not fit for 
 representative government, but almost anything must be better 
 than the action of indefinite desires and confused hopes on so ex- 
 citable a people. If it comes into some Greek's head that the Con- 
 stitution may be got by removing the King, his life is not safe an 
 hour. The parties most to blame in the whole concern appear to me 
 to have been the Regency, who have laid no one solid foundation, 
 supplied no one of the national necessities, and have left to this 
 poor young man such a task as the best head and heart would 
 surmount with difficulty, 
 
 "The stability of the Ottoman Empire" is become such 
 diplomatic slang that one can hardly write about it, yet after all 
 it is the absorbing subject of one's reflections in Turkey. It 
 is quite true that one feels at Constantinople that the Turks are 
 only encamped in Europe, that it is to all intents and purposes a 
 Greek town with mosques in it, and that the Turks are there to 
 govern and to pray. This governing is carried to such an extent 
 that every Turk not in office or public employment is in fact in 
 disgrace, and holds himself retired from society. But it is quite 
 true that no part of the element cJiretien about which the French 
 talk so much, is fit or indeed has any inclination to assume the 
 supremacy, and that so long as the Porte governs its Christian 
 subjects with moderation, and abstains from capricious insolence, 
 and is impressionable by the suggestions of Foreign Ministers on 
 such points, there is every reason to suppose that they will prefer 
 its authority to that of any other Government. The chief 
 difficulty of the Porte seems to be that of affording sufficient pro- 
 tection against local tyranny and injustice in the more distant 
 parts of the Empire, in which the Sultan's authority is little 
 regarded. As regards the advantage of personal intercourse with 
 the Turks, you have no more at Constantinople than in London, 
 except as a matter of business. They are never alluded to in
 
 288 THE LIFE OF LORD EOUGHTON. 
 
 French society, and though I dined with the Reis Effendi, 
 I can hardly say I learned anything Oriental on the banks of the 
 Bosphorus. 
 
 The Russians are building a most pompous palace that looks 
 as if it expected the Emperor immediately ; which, in this country 
 of representation, contrasts sharply with the log-houses where the 
 French and our Embassy are established. The French palace is 
 half rebuilt, but has been stopped for the last two years for want of 
 funds, which has still a worse appearance than the ruins of ours. 
 
 I had intended to go hence to Beyroot, but as that place is 
 now blockaded by the insurgents, and the Pasha all but in their 
 hands, I should be unable to travel about, and must content my- 
 self with visiting the " old man wonderful " in Egypt. . . . 
 We received the Indian and China news at Constantinople, and 
 our London friend Bourqueney evinced an affectionate sympathy 
 which would get him stoned at Paris. 
 
 Will you present my respectful regards to Lady Peel. 
 
 Believe me, &c., 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 The friends who were amusing themselves by in- 
 venting and retailing fables as to the life which Milnes 
 was leading in the East, would doubtless have been sur- 
 prised if they had been permitted to read this letter, 
 with its proofs of the writer's clear insight into the 
 great political factors then at work in that quarter of 
 the world, and his sober judgment upon men and things. 
 In the copy of " Palm Leaves " to which I have already 
 alluded, Miss Martineau has written on the title-page, 
 " Worthily read only in the East or by philosophers 
 who are at home everywhere." And it is hardly an 
 exaggeration to say that so far had the author imbibed 
 the spirit of the East, that the ordinary reader who 
 knew nothing of that spirit must have been at a loss
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 289 
 
 to understand Milnes's views upon many questions. To 
 a true-souled woman like Harriet Martineau there was 
 nothing obscure or questionable about them, and she at 
 least, as the annotations in her copy of " Palm Leaves " 
 attest, believed that Milnes brought back from this 
 journey to the East a store of golden grain. 
 
 At Cairo, Milnes was received by Mehemet Ali, with 
 whom he had an interview of considerable interest. 
 He did not stay long, however, in the Egyptian capital, 
 and on the 27th December started on his journey up 
 the Nile, on which he spent two months. The journal 
 which he kept from day to day while in the boat 
 unfortunately tells us little more than the state of the 
 weather and the quarter from which the wind blew. 
 Many Englishmen were on the river at the same time 
 as Milnes, so that he had no lack of company, not only 
 at Karnak and Philse, where he meditated among the 
 tombs and amused himself in deciphering inscriptions, 
 but at the various stopping-places. The journey 
 seems, however, to have been a monotonous one, and 
 one can imagine, in spite of the impression which was 
 made upon his mind by the almost immeasurable an- 
 tiquity of the memorials of the past which he saw, that 
 he found the time pass slowly. Here is an entry for 
 one day : 
 
 All day drifted down, 
 Wind quite contrary ; 
 
 Dined in my dressing-gown, 
 And sculled when it was airy; 
 
 Smoked a new pipe-stick, 
 
 Which almost made me sick.
 
 290 THE LIFE OF LORD BOUGHT ON. 
 
 Mrs. Milnes notes in her diary that in March of 
 this year, 1843, she heard a gentleman at a party in 
 London tell how in going down the Nile he heard 
 someone singing in a boat near him, and at once said, 
 " That is Milnes's voice." 
 
 It was not till the close of May that Milnes him- 
 self returned to England, having travelled by way of 
 Malta, where he had a vexatious detention in quarantine, 
 and Marseilles. 
 
 One of the first to welcome him was Carlyle. 
 
 T. Carlyle to E. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, May 19M, 1843. 
 
 CARO Mio, In good hour hast thou returned. The 
 impatience of the public was fast mounting towards anxiety. 
 Everybody said, We cannot want our Milnes ! I am here on 
 Saturday morning entirely free, and if you came before one 
 o'clock we could fly out into the lanes and escape the profanum 
 vulgus. I am also at home, I think, every evening till Tuesday. 
 Thirdly, I will call at Pall Mall, No. 26, the first day I pass 
 within wind of it, and so let us meet quam primum. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 He was quickly at home again in his social haunts, 
 and busy as of old in the House of Commons. Such 
 leisure as he had was given to the preparation of " Palm 
 Leaves " for the press. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 May 30^, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I should have written to you by the 
 last packet, but that I wished to lay before some high quarters 
 the suggestions you had written regarding Colonial customs.
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 291 
 
 Gladstone, who is now President of the Board of Trade and in 
 the Cabinet, wrote to me two days ago, as follows : " The sub- 
 ject on which MacCarthy writes is onje on which we have moved 
 the Treasury twelve months ago. I took advantage of his 
 extract to stir the matter a little, with what chance of success I 
 do not know enough of the circumstances to judge. But at 
 all events, I think your friend's observations on the subject will 
 do nothing to weaken his character and claim for promotion. I 
 much regret that I have no official influence upon the appoint- 
 ments in that department, but if at any time anything should be 
 in my power you will find me willing/' I only hope the vacancy 
 at Nassau will not occur just yet, and that I may have due 
 warning of it. ... Sir Robert is a terrible stickler for 
 priority of claims, and has a horror, it seems to me, of putting 
 anybody (except a lord) in any place which can be suspected of 
 having been obtained by favouritism. He is very civil to me, 
 and I have no objection to asking him for anything so reasonable 
 whenever the proper time for so doing arrives. I got back to 
 England about twenty days ago, returning through quarantine 
 at Malta, the Holy Week at Rome, and a few days and dinners 
 at Paris. I went to the English College, and saw the little 
 room where I first saw you. Dr. Baggs seemed to be managing 
 the thing successfully, and was talked of as likely to get an 
 English bishopric. His Holiness had lost his polypus, and was 
 likely to live ten years, and Cardinal Acton was thought to have 
 a chance of succeeding him. The English society had been 
 detestable slang lords and ladies, Russian Grand Duchesses, all 
 sorts of blackguards and blackguardesses from London rolling 
 about in the Borghese, and Lady Davy disgusted with the whole. 
 Kestner had hurt his leg seriously, but it was getting better, 
 though he said he had " still much sentiment in his chin bone/' 
 Lady Clare had turned Romanist, and had been followed by 
 other friends of hers. Lord Chesterfield had had printed cards 
 of the meets of the hounds : " Monday, at Cecilia Metella ; on 
 Wednesday at the Coliseum, and on Saturday at the Ponte 
 Molle." It was an effort to get from the Italian spring,
 
 292 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 especially as Rio wanted me to go with him to Urbino and other 
 out-of-the-way parts, where he was going to get materials for 
 the concluding volumes of his Christian Art. But I saw that 
 public questions of some interest were coming on in Parliament, 
 and did not think I had a right to be away longer. At Paris, 
 I saw M. Guizot, who is very strong in the infinite weakness of 
 his opponents ; Lamartine, who has leapt over the centre gauclie, 
 and declared himself all but a Chartist ; G. Sand, who is tres 
 rongee, and writing a book I shall send you when it is finished ; 
 Tocqueville, who is in strong opposition with the Government 
 for what he calls materialising France; and Louis Philippe, 
 who has not got an additional grey hair for all the sorrows and 
 troubles of his last two years. Montalembert was returning 
 from Madeira with his wife quite set up by her wonderful 
 pleasure. They told me in London it had been the dullest 
 session and season ever known. I can see at once the working 
 of a social change; the gradual pauperisation of the upper 
 classes is distinct and tangible. I never saw so many houses to 
 let. Barouches are turning into flies, chariots into broughams. 
 There are fewer balls ; and it is getting rather respectable than 
 not, to have little money to spend. As long as they were 
 rich the aristocracy preached up the indispensableness of wealth, 
 and now they are getting poor they will declaim against the 
 vulgar ostentation of it. Although the declination will pervade 
 the whole rank of landed proprietors, and small ones such as 
 ourselves are the first to feel it, I cannot help thinking the 
 general social effect will be a good one, and that we may get 
 something in compensation for luxury which nobody enjoyed, 
 and pleasures which left everybody discontented. Colvile is 
 looking well and cheerfuller. He is more rdpandu and appreciated 
 than he used to be, and is, I think, gratified by it. O'Brien 
 has spoken well in the House of Commons, and all the better 
 for having been ill during winter. His mind seems somewhat 
 less flaunty, and his self-complacency somewhat subdued. Lady 
 James laughs as silverly as ever ; her daughter not married, and 
 her son in the Guards. There is still much talk
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 293 
 
 about Puseyism. A sermon of Dr. Pusey's is actually under 
 the examination of a Board of Heresy at Oxford. The Bishop 
 of London has tried to steer between the two parties, and has 
 been worried into slight paralysis in consequence ; part of his 
 diocese openly refusing to regard his instructions. I found 
 them very full of Puseyism at Rome ; and Baggs had read a 
 discourse in which he cited largely the work of an " intelligente 
 laico intitulato Un Tratello dipiu." * Carlyle has written a book 
 which is, as Mademoiselle Dejazet says of a certain passion, 
 " toujours la meme et toujours naive." It would be very 
 dangerous if turned into the vernacular and generally read. It 
 is most unjust and insulting to all but the utterly ignorant 
 and helpless, calling Peel " Sir Jabez Windbag," and every 
 attempt at legislation or good of any kind a " Morrison's pill." 
 It has sold very well ; and the author looks a little fatter and 
 better for it. Rogers keeps wonderfully well, though a little 
 deafer and crosser than I left him, going on as usual, saying 
 hard things and doing soft ones. Miss Wynn is well, and 
 always inquires after you ; there seems no more chance of her 
 becoming Madame v. Ense. My sister is just come to town 
 for a few weeks, and in pretty good health. I wish I could say 
 the same of my mother, who causes us considerable anxiousness. 
 My father is as strong as he was before his accident, and says 
 he does not intend to give me such a chance again. He talks 
 of shutting up Fryston for some time as costing too much to 
 live at. Of myself I have little to tell you. I go on piano, 
 piano, expecting daily less of the world and getting less too. 
 I am contracting my acquaintance, losing my desire of knowing 
 and liking everybody, and becoming like other people, having 
 got little good out of my originality except that of letting it 
 have its usual run. And now for yourself. I can do nothing 
 but congratulate ; go on bravely fighting against the tedious 
 hours, and some good must come to you in the end. I must 
 rejoice that you are in a line of decent independence of me, and 
 of everything but your own conduct. If I can end by seeing 
 
 * " One Tract More."
 
 294 THE LIFE OF LORD HOVGHTON. 
 
 you fairly righted in the world, I shall not have lived in vain; 
 but all still is in your own hands, your own mind ; and again 
 and again God bless you ! 
 
 R. M. MILNES. 
 
 We are all in a great row about Factory Education. The 
 Dissenters have shown a bitterness and fanaticism worthy of the 
 palmiest days of the Church. The Government have acted 
 wisely and weakly, but will, I hope, put out a little strength 
 to carry the matter through, and not throw the whole onus on 
 such as me, who am risking my seat at Pomfret for them. 
 
 There is a passage towards the close of the foregoing 
 letter that in which Milnes speaks of MacCarthy's 
 personal affairs which affords an opportunity for some 
 allusion to one of the traits of the writer's character 
 which can never be overlooked. I allude to the 
 generous aid which he was constantly giving to his 
 personal friends and to others who had claims upon his 
 sympathy. As the reader has already heen told, it is 
 not my purpose in these pages to lay before the world 
 a catalogue of Milnes' benefactions, but it is only right 
 that I should explain the passage in the letter to 
 MacCarthy by the statement that Milnes had not only 
 procured for him his appointment in the public service, 
 but had helped him to the utmost of his ability in other 
 ways. Throughout his life Sir Charles MacCarthy never 
 forgot his obligations to his friend ; but it was rarely 
 indeed, and only in response to the direct observations of 
 MacCarthy himself, that Milnes ever referred to them. 
 
 Appeals of every kind were, however, constantly 
 pouring in upon Milnes, and his purse which was not 
 at this period of his life, if, indeed, it ever was, a heavy
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 295 
 
 one was ever in danger of exhaustion in consequence 
 of his ready response to these petitions for assistance. 
 Nor was it to his personal generosity alone that 
 appeals were made. Sir Eobert Peel had formed a habit 
 of consulting him with regard to the bestowal of the 
 slender pecuniary assistance which is all that the Crown 
 reserves for men and women of genius, or those who are 
 dependent upon them. It was about this period that a 
 curious question of this kind was referred to Milnes by 
 Sir Eobert Peel. The friends of the great poet who 
 had been Milnes's fellow-student at Cambridge were 
 anxious that he should be placed in a position which 
 would enable him to devote himself entirely to the culti- 
 vation of his muse. They accordingly resolved to apply 
 to the Prime Minister on his behalf for a pension which, 
 though moderate in amount, would relieve him from the 
 necessity of entering upon any profession. It was 
 through Milnes that they hoped to reach the ear of Sir 
 Eobert Peel. No one was more friendly to the project 
 than was the subject of this memoir, bnt, as usual, he 
 encountered the first suggestion of the scheme by a 
 number of objections more or less cogent. It was a stage 
 through which he always passed in his relations with 
 any object with which he had real and hearty sympathy. 
 His love of paradox demanded gratification in the first 
 instance, and it was not until he had played the part of 
 devil's advocate that he ever heartily espoused any cause. 
 
 An amusing story has been told regarding him at this 
 stage of the movement on behalf of Tennyson. 
 
 " Eichard Milnes," said Carlyle one day, withdrawing
 
 296 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 his pipe from his mouth, as they were seated together 
 in the little house in Cheyne Row, " when are you going 
 to get that pension for Alfred Tennyson ? " 
 
 " My dear Carlyle," responded Milnes, " the thing is 
 not so easy as you seem to suppose. What will my 
 constituents say if I do get the pension for Tennyson ? 
 They know nothing ahout him or his poetry, and they 
 will probably think he is some poor relation of my own, 
 and that the whole affair is a job." 
 
 Solemn and emphatic was Carlyle's response. 
 
 " Richard Milnes, on the Day of Judgment, when 
 the Lord asks you why you didn't get that pension for 
 Alfred Tennyson, it will not do to lay the blame on 
 your constituents ; it is you that will be damned." 
 
 Nobody knew better than Carlyle that there was not 
 the slightest danger of Milnes incurring the Divine 
 wrath on this score. As a matter of fact, Peel was 
 already in communication with him on the subject of 
 Tennyson's pension, and very singular were the circum- 
 stances surrounding the question. Two applications 
 had been made to Peel for a pension of 200. One 
 was on behalf of Tennyson, a young man in whose 
 glorious future comparatively few at that time believed, 
 whilst the other came from the friends of Sheridan 
 Knowles, the dramatic author, on whose behalf age and 
 infirmity, as well as past services to English literature, 
 were with reason pleaded. Peel consulted Milnes as to 
 the course which he ought to take, accompanying the 
 appeal by the statement that for himself he knew abso- 
 lutely nothing either of Mr. Tennyson or of Mr. Knowles.
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 297 
 
 " What ! " said Milnes, " have you never seen the 
 name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill ? " 
 
 " No/' replied Peel. 
 
 "And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's?" 
 
 " No," was again the answer, accompanied by a 
 request that Milnes would let him see something which 
 Tennyson had written. Accordingly Milnes sent to Sir 
 Robert Peel the two poems of " Locksley Hall " and 
 " Ulysses," accompanied by a letter from himself, in 
 which he gave his own opinion, to the effect that if the 
 pension were merely to be bestowed as a charitable gift, 
 Sheridan Knowles, infirm and poor, and past his prime, 
 was the proper recipient of it ; but that if, on the other 
 hand, it were to be bestowed in the interests of English 
 literature and of the nation at large, then, beyond all 
 question, it should be given to Alfred Tennyson, in 
 order that his splendid faculties might not be diverted 
 from their proper use by the sordid anxieties of a 
 struggle for existence. Peel took the public view of 
 the question, and bestowed the pension upon Tennyson, 
 though it is satisfactory to know that before very long 
 he was enabled to confer a pension of the same amount 
 upon Sheridan Knowles. The part which Milnes had 
 taken in this and similar transactions will explain how 
 it was that he received such a letter as the following : 
 
 W. S. Landor to R. M. M. 
 
 Bath, April 4M, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Doubtless you have heard of poor 
 Southey's death a thing desirable to himself, if, indeed, he had 
 any consciousness desirable, too, although sorrowful, to his
 
 298 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 friends. His widow I have never seen, but she regularly sent 
 me accounts of him during all his illness. Before she married 
 him she was well aware into what a state he was hastening, and 
 she married him because she felt certain that no other would 
 take the same care of him as she would. What saint or martyr 
 ever reached this sublimity of self-devotion? It is only now 
 that I am informed to a certainty of her losing one-half of her 
 small income by her marriage. His " Life of Dr. Bell " would 
 have brought him a thousand pounds quite sufficient to replace 
 the loss by an annuity. A few weeks darkened and intercepted 
 this view totally ; but is it possible that an administration which 
 he so zealously and efficiently supported will forget his services ? 
 I have heard that a seat in Parliament and a baronetcy once 
 were offered to him. When we consider what worthless men 
 have been gratified with both, there is no great virtue in his 
 refusal. But his widow is worn out with watching and anxiety, 
 and his slender fortune is much diminished by his long malady. 
 She herself, as you know, has written admirable things. There 
 is one chapter on " Churchyards/' which the united faculties of 
 Sterne and Addison would scarcely have produced. However, 
 not her merits, but his, call upon the nation for some testimonial 
 a very small pension for a very few years (I fear I am over- 
 rating its duration) would exonerate the country from its debt 
 of honour, and save from destitution the widow of that man who 
 in our times has done it the most honour. Pray, my dear 
 Milnes, exert your great and noble faculties on behalf of a man 
 whose principles and pursuits were the same as yours a man 
 who defended with more vigour and consistency than any other 
 the laws and religion of his country. Do not let my application 
 be injurious to him. If the Whigs were in power I could make 
 it to none of them, for Southey was their adversary, and I for 
 my part was resolved to owe them nothing. I never gave them 
 a vote, and never influenced one in their favour. If you cannot 
 obtain for the widow of the wisest and most virtuous man in 
 England what will defend her from poverty, I swear to you that 
 I, who am obliged to live on a tenth of my income, will offer her
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 299 
 
 the fifth. You see to what an extent the Tories have the power 
 of fining me for my misdeeds. 
 
 Believe me, dear Milnes, 
 
 Sincerely yours, W. S. LANDOR. 
 
 This letter was addressed to Milnes before his return 
 from Egypt, and when he received it in London he found 
 that the application had already been made to the Prime 
 Minister on behalf of Mrs. Southey, and that it had 
 failed. He offered, however, to renew the attempt if 
 Landor thought it desirable. 
 
 W. 8. Landor to R. M. M. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, I was not aware of your being in Egypt 
 when I wrote to you. Peel is an unlikely man to change a 
 resolution when nothing is to be gained by it beside the esteem 
 of honest men. Pray do not try him again. Southey was only 
 the best man and the best writer of the age in which he lived, 
 and the strongest support of Peel's administration ; but Southey 
 is dead, and no edifice can stand on a dead body. He can work 
 no more for Church or kingdom : they owe him large wages, 
 but, as nobody demands them, nobody will pay them. 
 
 Midst all sorts of blunders, political and military, what 
 think you of Napier in India ? What think you of this elephant 
 in the midst of jackals and monkeys ? Only one battle since 
 the creation ever equalled his that of Poictiers ; for Clive, the 
 most wonderful of our military men, fought against poor 
 soldiers Napier against men who baffled Alexander himself 
 the bravest men upon earth, excepting ours. They will not make 
 him a duke ; perhaps they will not make him what they made 
 such rapscallions as Abinger, &c., &c., &c. Were I Napier, and 
 they offered me a mere barony, I would fringe my glove with 
 gold lace, and slap their muzzles till they bled. This is the man 
 to make Governor of India and Duke of Hyderabad. . . . 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 W. S. LANDOR.
 
 300 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 JR. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, June 30, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR MACCARTHY, There has been nothing eventful 
 in this month to write about, but you will be glad of a letter for 
 its own sake. We are shivering through the summer as well as 
 we can, and this will probably find you at your hottest. To me, 
 with the sensation of Egyptian light and warmth still on me, this 
 continual chill and damp is absolutely pain, and makes Fleet Ditch 
 of the stream of my intellect. There are, however, certain moral 
 heats in the atmosphere Repeal in Ireland and Anti-Puseyism at 
 Oxford. Colvile has written a little pamphlet he may probably 
 send you on the analogy of the cries of the Jansenists and the 
 Puseyites clever enough, but rather stilted. The real meaning 
 of silencing Pusey for two years is that Oxford found itself in 
 an odd position towards the Government, which has declared 
 itself as decidedly anti-Puseyite, and feared not to get its fair 
 share of patronage if it went on in any identification with 
 Puseyism. I and other friends of Pusey think he would do best 
 to take the censure quietly, and not publish his accused sermon, 
 any appeal ad populum being entirely at variance with Pusey's 
 frequent preachments about passive obedience ; but he will most 
 probably print it. The " awkward squad " of Puseyism, on the 
 other hand, have been disgracing themselves by hitting at 
 Everett while taking his degree, because he had been an Unit- 
 arian minister. The last Sydney Smith is, " that he must 
 believe in apostolic succession, there being no other way of 
 accounting for the descent of the Bishop of Exeter from Judas 
 Iscariot/' O'Connell, poet as he is, believes that he can frighten 
 us into Repeal by his gigantic meetings. He does not intend 
 to come to blows : blows, however, may come in spite of him, 
 but I hope not. I have mooted once more in the House of 
 Commons the subject of the payment of the Roman Catholic 
 Church in Ireland (which D'Orsay says is " impayable ") , and I 
 find a very great feeling on the question generally to prevail in 
 the House. The real difficulty will be with the country, and 
 especially the Dissenters, who are so cocky at having beat the
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 301 
 
 Government on the education measures that they think they 
 have everything in their own hands. John Manners has spoken 
 in favour of an embassy to Rome, and I do not believe Peel to be 
 unfavourable to it. The great lion of the month is the King of 
 Hanover, who goes about in an unwonted state of popularity 
 that is to say, generally unhissed. Brougham has struck up an 
 intimate friendship with him, having insulted him all his life 
 in both Houses. Lord Grey is dying, Lord Carlisle failing 
 fast. The Lords will soon get the best disposable talent of the 
 country, and there must then be an opening in the Commons of 
 some width. I have seen your young friend, and thought him 
 remarkably pleasant in his manner. I am sorry that I can be of 
 so little use to him, but I will keep him in my eye. We have 
 had Dr. Howe, of Laura Bridgman notoriety, here. He told me 
 not of one, but of many cases he had seen of persons being blind 
 seeing with the mesmeric sense. I wish you would see whether 
 you have any clairvoyants in Turk's Island. . . . 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 R. M. MlLNES. 
 
 Milnes' proposal for the endowment of the Catholic 
 Church in Ireland was part of that " levelling-up " 
 policy of which he was for many years the advocate. 
 It had its friends and adherents in the House of 
 Commons as well as in the country, but it was not 
 destined to succeed. 
 
 Connop Thirl wall, now Bishop of St. David's, kept 
 up his correspondence with his old friend. * 
 
 Bishop of St. David's to R. M. M. 
 
 Abergwili, July 3rd, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I am very glad that you adhere to your 
 purpose of coming to me this year. You have, at all events, a 
 better chance of finding my house standing and me in it than 
 you would have if you postponed your visit. Hitherto I have
 
 302 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 only been a spectator of our late war.* If I am destined to 
 take any other part in it, I can only expect that it will be that 
 of sufferer. It is a melancholy change to find that we are to be 
 continually under military protection. I saw your well-meant 
 attempt, which earned you the cordial approbation of the Morning 
 Chronicle. I wish the Irish Roman Catholic clergy could be 
 endowed, for then it might be hoped that they would cease to 
 conspire against England ; but I am afraid, if such a thing was 
 ever practicable, it would now be too late. The unanimity of 
 the English Parliament in favour of such a measure would be 
 only an additional objection with the repealing priesthood. 
 Besides, they have now hopes of a perhaps equal advantage 
 obtained in a way more congenial to their feelings, as well as 
 more consistent with the preservation of their influence. If I 
 did not know the strength of Anglo- Catholic faith, I should 
 have 'been surprised at the confidence which Lord John Manners 
 expressed in the purity of O'ConnelFs intentions. I have asked 
 Carlyle to come and see me after next Wednesday week, the 
 llth. I wish you could have been here with him. I have very 
 little doubt that the people here (who took Milman for Reginald 
 Heber) will believe Carlyle to be the celebrated atheist, an 
 opinion which he will probably confirm by his demeanour. 
 Could you contrive to get Spedding to join him ? 
 
 Yours ever, 
 C. ST. DAVID'S. 
 
 Bishop of St. David's to R. M. M. 
 
 Abergwili, Z\st July, 1843. 
 
 DfeAR MILNES, Carlyle has been, seen, and gone this 
 morning. He rolled away with the mail to Gloucester, where, 
 and at Worcester, he is going to look for vestiges of Cromwell, 
 and so to proceed to Liverpool, and thence to Snowdon, or 
 whithersoever else the destinies and possibilities may convey 
 him. He stayed here 3 days, on one of which he enjoyed the 
 
 * Wales was at this time in a very disturbed state, owing to the 
 Rebecca riots.
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. S03 
 
 appropriate felicity of meeting the Judge of Assize, lawyers,, 
 justices of the peace, peace-preserving warriors, and a host of 
 equally congenial people. Otherwise matters passed off appar- 
 ently very much to his satisfaction. I mounted him upon a 
 high strong horse, and we scoured the country together, he 
 with a cigar in his mouth and arrayed in a "gray savagery 
 of three sacks with a hem ! " expressing much compassion for 
 all mankind, but particularly for the poor inarticulate little 
 Welsh creatures who could only smile when he asked them 
 the way. The sight of the gates and houses lately demolished 
 by Rebecca did not appear to distress him in the least. As 
 to yourself, come by. all means in September rather than in 
 October, that you may see the country still green, and the 
 garden in flowers; but, whatever you do, avoid the last week 
 in September, that you may not be taken for a candidate for 
 orders (my butler described Cavlyle to me as Mr. Macaulay). 
 . . . I think the Government has some right to be out 
 of humour with you. Out of mere hankering after popularity 
 you make common cause against it with people who would 
 as willingly endow the Church of Buddha, or the fetish of 
 Ashantee, as you would be reluctant to allow a penny to the 
 Presbyterians if they were 999 in every 1,000 in Ireland. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. ST. DAVID'S. 
 
 I cannot let this packet go [writes Charles Sumner, Aug. 1st, 
 1843] without thanking you earnestly for your most nattering 
 kindness to my friends the Howes. He wrote heartily of 
 your hospitality, and of a breakfast where he was much pleased 
 with Charles Buller. He cannot forget your breakfasts. My 
 friend Longfellow is a most happy married man. Miss 
 Appleton is his beautiful wife. Have you seen his Spanish 
 Student, a play ? 
 
 The friendship of Buller and Milnes did not diminish 
 as time passed, and the former was a constant guest at 
 the breakfast table at 26, Pall Mall. He did not spare
 
 304 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the eccentricities of his friend, but Milnes liked him 
 none the less because at times he sharpened his fine wit 
 at his expense. " I often think how puzzled your 
 Maker must be to account for your conduct," was one of 
 Buller's remarks which Milnes has noted in his common- 
 place-book. Another which deserves to be quoted not 
 for any personal application, but because of the insight 
 which it affords into the English character, was Buller's 
 allusion to the " high sense of personal honour, and the 
 low feeling of public duty, which, distinguishes our 
 political men and the English aristocracy in general." 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy, 
 
 September 12th, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAK FRIEND, I have sent you a box of intellectual 
 food of all kinds, and which I hope you will get soon after 
 this letter. It contains Thirlwall's " Greece/' and G-. Sand's 
 " Consuelo," Mill's " Logic/' and an Eton Atlas, plus sermons 
 and poems in fact, everything you ask for, and everything I 
 could lay my hand on, and the chinks are filled up with Debats 
 and old reviews. ... I earnestly hope there will be no 
 mistake about it ; but since I have lost all my carpets and pipes 
 and rugs, which I shipped from Smyrna and have not since been 
 heard of, I hardly believe anything can cross the sea securely. 
 I hope you will like " Consuelo " very much. I think it first- 
 rate. I am at this moment with the Bishop of St. David's 
 near Carmarthen, and shall be about in Wales and Cornwall till 
 the end of October, then to Fryston till Parliament meets. 
 My sister is in Scotland, and well. This country is on the 
 brink of becoming as bad as Ireland. The serious fun of 
 breaking the turnpike gates has ended in fire and bloodshed. 
 People are shot at most nights, and whatever magistrate makes 
 himself offensive to the Rebeccaites has his farms burnt. 
 There is real severe poverty at the bottom of the affair, and, I
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 305 
 
 should fear, not much sympathy for the poor on the part of the 
 squireens, who seem to rule the land. I should not be surprised 
 if some districts had to be put under martial law during the 
 winter, for under the present system the marauders elude police 
 and military. No one will inform, no one will resist, and, more 
 than all, no juries will convict. Ireland pauses during- the 
 harvest. It is always a perilous thing for O'Connell to take a 
 fresh step, and this extra Parliament will be a hard one to 
 manage. When I was at Neuilly last year, I asked Louis 
 Philippe whether he had ever thought of inviting our Queen to 
 France. He seemed pleased with the notion, and put many 
 questions as to the feasibility of it, and lo ! the end of my 
 suggestion she has been there. The visit seems to have gone 
 off admirably, and the anti-Anglican party quite taken aback. 
 The articles of the Opposition papers about it are charming, the 
 National especially asserting that Victoria's chief object is to 
 wheedle the old king into a commercial treaty to aggrandise 
 England and ruin France. I have been much shocked by the 
 tragedy of a clever, amiable young artist, who travelled in Egypt 
 with Sir T. Phillips of Newport and myself, going mad and 
 murdering his father. The poor fellow got to France, but, I 
 see, has just been taken up in the act of murdering some one 
 else. A strange world we live in ! I . saw Bunsen in the 
 country a week or two ago. He is busyissimo with 
 " ^gyptiaca," two volumes of which are all but published. 
 He knocks over the Jewish history implacably ; makes Moses 
 the father of modern history, and the ancient history before 
 his time to fill up considerably more than six thousand years. 
 Abraham ceases to be a person, and Moses and Joseph turn 
 out to be the same, and such like invasions on orthodoxy. I 
 should think even his diplomatic character will not save him 
 from Anglican excommunication. I would have sent you 
 Dr. Pusey's sermon, but that it is hardly worth while. It 
 deserved to be condemned for its length, and if the sentence 
 was interpreted in this way it might do good. ... 
 
 Yours affectionately, R. M. MILNES.
 
 306 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 Although the season was at an end, and Milnes, as 
 the reader has seen, was out of town, passing the recess 
 in visiting his friends or in entertaining guests at 
 Fryston, he did not lose his touch with the literary 
 society of London. In all his wide circle of acquaint- 
 ances there was no one to whom he remained more 
 faithful than to Mrs. Procter, the wife of the dis- 
 tinguished poet known as Barry Cornwall. Of Mr. 
 Procter's place in literary history there is no need to 
 speak. He and his wife were the intimate friends of 
 Thackeray, Dickens, John Forster, and the other promi- 
 nent figures in the literary world of that period, and it 
 was inevitable that Milnes should be brought much into 
 contact with them. Mrs. Procter outlived her husband 
 and her gifted daughter Adelaide for many years. She 
 outlived, indeed, most of her contemporaries, including 
 Lord Houghton; but so long as Milnes lived, she was 
 one of his dearest friends and most welcome guests. 
 The letters from her pen which I shall quote from time 
 to time in these pages will not only furnish interesting 
 glimpses of the literary society in which she moved, but 
 incidentally will throw light upon Milnes's relations 
 with it. 
 
 Mrs. Procter to R. M. M. 
 13, Upper Harley Street, 9 Oct., 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. MILNES, Many thanks for your note. It 
 is very kind and very like you to think of me when I am ill. I 
 am really very poorly, although I have no complaint. I am so 
 thin that my shadow can never be less, and I can only manage 
 to sit up for a few hours during the day. I am going into the 
 country, and mean to get well if I can. It makes me very
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 307 
 
 happy to hear of your merry party. There is no real enjoyment 
 of one's friends' company equal to living in the same house with 
 them. Emily and my second daughter Agnes leave me for 
 Chambery on Saturday. Of Eliot Warburton I hear nothing. 
 Thackeray wrote to Forster a few days since, and says that he 
 will give a guinea for a note from Mrs. Procter. This is the 
 first offer that has been made for any literary work of mine. 
 Mr. Kinglake is in Switzerland, reading Rousseau. I saw 
 Carlyle some time since indeed, the day after his return home. 
 He was, as usual, very like himself, and totally unlike any other 
 two-legged animal. To speak with him is like opening some 
 rare and rich book. One is the better for it for some days. His 
 society is a fine antidote against London life, which you tell me 
 makes all people alike. This I deny. You are exactly what you 
 were when I first knew you. Believe me, that what is real 
 remains, and that fifty years of town life will do you no harm. 
 I am sadly in want of books ; tell me of something to read, or 
 never mind that if you will only write to me again. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. B. PROCTER. 
 
 Mrs. Procter to R. M. M. 
 
 " Star and Garter," Richmond, Oct. llth, 1843. 
 MY DEAR MR. MILNES, I am a complete convert to the 
 saying that there is good in everything. I perceive the advan- 
 tages of illness when you are so good as to write to me. ... I 
 
 rejoice that was black-balled. The nonsense he talked 
 
 one day alone at Lady Gal way's about Addison ought to condemn 
 him. He will be a bishop; his cat-like creeping qualities 
 will secure the mitre ; besides, his " sweet wife/' whom every one 
 praises, will help him on. Did you ever see his book about 
 the Jews, which was suppressed ? This speaks well for it. I 
 return your portrait; if it had been like, I should certainly 
 have kept it, and stood the chance of a suit at law for its 
 recovery. I read of you at Sir John Hanmer's, where Severn!
 
 308 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 also was, I hear. I hope that amongst " Palm Leaves " you 
 will reprint your scattered poems. I saw only yesterday some 
 lines on the Railroad, and you must reprint the lines on Fanny 
 Elssler. The only way to treat the world is to trample on it, 
 and then it respects you. Thank you again and again for 
 writing to me. 
 
 Carlyle was at this time in town, engrossed in the 
 preparation of his " Cromwell." 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Oct. 19^, 1843. 
 
 DEAB MILNES, Wherever on the face of this earth you are, 
 let me have a word from you once more. The sound of your 
 voice is become very desirable, even the picture of the sound of 
 it. Ah me ! I did design to send you tidings of me long ago, 
 but I have been unfortunate a weary, forlorn, most sickly 
 wanderer, and could only sit silent, looking grimly into the 
 Infinite of Black and Bright an inarticulate Infinite ! What 
 " can be " said of it ? You remember Cowper's crow perched 
 on the top of the weathercock, and therefrom taking " general 
 views." He looks abroad, too, into the general sum of things, 
 
 " And says what says he ? ' Caw ! ' " 
 
 I, too, might have written " Caw ! " could the post have 
 carried such a syllable with due intonation, but it would not. 
 Some six weeks ago I returned home, the weariest man on 
 all the earth, lay down on sofas to read and other inanity 
 till the mud whirlpools should subside again, which now at 
 length, thank God, they begin to do; and so once more I 
 address myself to the Honourable Member for Pomfret, and 
 say, " Oh, Hon. Mem., speak to me." 
 
 To ThirlwalFs for three days I did go. Memorable days ! 
 Saw myself kneeling in Laud's chapel; not without reflections, 
 not without amusement; found the Bishop a most lovable 
 man; then emerged into secular life again, to Cromwell's 
 Battlefields, bare Welsh wildernesses and innumerable visions ;
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 309 
 
 and on the whole will give you no history of myself at present, 
 my time being brief. 
 
 For, in fact, the cause or excuse for my writing is a question 
 I have to put. In one of the chaotic volumes I am reading 
 there turns up a trace, not indubitable, yet of some promise, that 
 a certain Henry Darley, member two hundred years ago for 
 Malton, " took notes of the Long Parliament." Notes of the 
 Long Parliament why, it were almost as if we had a Times 
 report of the debate between Agamemnon and the divine 
 Achilles. That was the flower of all Parliaments. The greatest 
 that ever had been, and also the greatest that ever will be ; the 
 notes of it are worth hunting like books of the Sybil ! Well, 
 this Darley, as I laboriously make out, was the son of a Sir 
 Richard Darley, Kt., whose place was Buttercrambe, some ten 
 miles or so to the north-east of York; but Sir R. had 
 another son, Richard, who at a later period of the Parliament 
 was member for Northallerton. He himself had "suffered 
 losses " for the Covenant's sake, and he at the end of the war 
 got 5,000 allowed him for compensation of the same. This 
 is all I can dig out as yet that has essential reference to the 
 Darleys. Now the question is, Do you know who at present 
 holds that same Manor of Buttercramle ? Can you ask him if 
 he got it, by descent or otherwise, from the Darleys ; and, above 
 all, what in heaven's name has become of the Darley papers ? 
 I really wish you would make a little inquiry about this affair. 
 It strikes me you may fall in with some Yorkshire antiquary, 
 failing him of Buttercrambe, who could throw light on it, not 
 without advantage, for, as I say, the Long Parliament is a for 
 ever memorable one. Let me add, however, that I have another 
 trace of Long Parliament notes, and that this Darley one is not 
 an indubitable, but only a high or almost highest probability. 
 And so, my good friend, adieu again. One never meets but to 
 part ; it is the law of living here below, and true good souls are 
 wrapt in such swathings and casings, each in his own wrappage 
 up to the very eyes, and cannot kiss and embrace with souls ! 
 God pity us 1 
 
 T. CARLYLE.
 
 310 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 At the very time when Carlyle addressed this letter 
 to Milnes, the latter was thinking seriously not of the 
 Long Parliament, but of his own position in the Par- 
 liament of the day. He had heen doubly disappointed 
 in his career in the House of Commons. Knowing so 
 much as he did of foreign affairs, and feeling a just 
 confidence in his own powers confidence which was 
 certainly never overweening he had felt it as a bitter 
 disappointment when Sir Robert Peel, in forming his 
 Administration, failed to offer him the post of Under 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs the one office which he 
 coveted. .Peel, it should be said, was on terms of warm 
 friendship with him, and was an ardent admirer of his 
 talents as a poet and a writer, but, as has already been 
 pointed out, it was this very fact which stood in the 
 way of Milnes's political advancement. Sir Robert Peel 
 could never believe that a man of letters was likely to 
 succeed as a man of affairs. The two classes, in his 
 opinion, stood apart, divided the one from the other by 
 an impassable gulf. Whilst therefore he appreciated not 
 only all that was bright and lovable in the character of 
 Milnes, but his undoubted abilities, and whilst he was 
 quite ready to profit by his peculiar knowledge of 
 foreign affairs, his intimacies with the leading statesmen 
 of France and other countries, he apparently never so 
 much as thought of admitting him to his Administra- 
 tion. This was the first and perhaps the keenest disap- 
 pointment of Milnes in his Parliamentary career; but 
 hardly less severe was the disappointment occasioned 
 by the fact that, in pursuing a career of honourable
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 311 
 
 independence, and in speaking his own opinions and 
 well-matured sentiments on the public questions of the 
 day, he should fail not merely to win the applause of the 
 House of Commons, but even to secure the approbation 
 of his own constituents. It was about this time that 
 he received a memorial, signed by many of the most 
 influential of his supporters at Pontefract, dissenting in 
 strong though respectful language from his proposals 
 for the endowment of the Catholic Church in Ireland. 
 
 With another section of the same party he had been 
 brought into collision by his votes and speeches on the 
 Factory Bills, so that he had some reason for the dis- 
 couragement which he unquestionably felt, and his 
 desire to quit Parliament and find a more congenial 
 sphere of work was by no means surprising. He 
 communicated with Mr. Gladstone on the subject. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Private. Carclow, Penryn, Oct. 20^, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, I could not come and invade your 
 Scottish leisure, but I am going to ask you to give me a few- 
 moments out of your busier time. I am anxious for your advice 
 on a matter of some importance to myself, though probably of 
 none to anyone else. I see Henry Bulwer is going to Spain, . 
 aud I am thinking of applying to Sir Robert Peel to allow me 
 to occupy his late post of Secretary of Legation at Paris. I am 
 inclined to do this for the direct reison that I believe such an 
 office would suit my capacities, and that I have been in some 
 degree fitted for it by a very long and varied residence on the 
 Continent I have also given more attention to Foreign Affairs 
 than is usual with young Englishmen, and I heartily coincide 
 with all I know of the foreign policy of the present Government. 
 But I own that I am chiefly guided by an indirect feeling that
 
 312 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 my present situation in the House of Commons is most uncom- 
 fortable, I may say painful, and yet I am unwilling to 
 altogether abandon public life. Constituted as I am, I cannot 
 take Parliament as a mere amusement, or even as one of many 
 occupations, and therefore I am always in the dilemma either of 
 officiously obtruding my support on a Government (thank God) 
 too strong to want it, or of following out an independent line 
 of action. The former position I feel to be almost ridiculous, 
 and the latter brings me into full conflict of sentiment. My 
 sense of public duty and my loyalty to (I will not say affection 
 for) Sir R. Peel will not permit me to go along with the 
 energetic and enterprising portion of my own party, as I have 
 frequently shown during the last session, so that I am necessarily 
 stranded on uneasy insignificance. I am anxious therefore to 
 escape into some occupation for which I am more apt. I happen 
 to want neither position nor money, but I do desire to satisfy 
 an ambition of usefulness, unless I am to retire entirely into my 
 books. Do you think, then, that such an application as I have 
 mentioned would be a proper one for me to make, and that my 
 motives in making it would be fairly judged and understood ? 
 I can promise the return of a Conservative at Pomfret, and I 
 can reassume my seat whenever it might be convenient You 
 will not grudge me a line of counsel, and will believe me 
 
 Your faithful and obliged 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 W. K Gladstone to R. M. M. 
 
 Private. Whitehall, Oct. 23rd, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Your letter is dated the 20th, but it 
 only reached me this morning. I sent at once to the Foreign 
 Office in order to learn whether the post at Paris is still 
 open ; but Mr. Addington, who alone is in town, does not 
 know. He thinks, however, that it has been filled up. This, 
 however, even if it be true, does not remove the occasion for 
 my writing, which I should still be inclined to do, even if
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 313 
 
 I had learned that you had yourself acted without hearing 
 from me. 
 
 I am so little acquainted either with our foreign policy 
 or with diplomatic life that I should give but a very bad 
 opinion upon the subject of any man's suitableness for any post 
 connected with them; but I feel confident that on this score 
 your proposal cannot be open to objection. It appears, how- 
 ever, that a repulsive rather than an attractive force has been 
 that which is mainly operative in disposing you to apply for the 
 Secretaryship of Legation at Paris, and I cannot help expressing 
 the hope that you will not on any such ground carry your half- 
 matured intention into effect. I see nothing in the character 
 of your Parliamentary position which should make your friends 
 rejoice in your being removed from it. " Uneasy," in my opinion, 
 must be the position of every member of Parliament who thinks 
 independently in these times, or in any that are likely to succeed 
 them ; and in proportion as a man's course of thought deviates 
 from the ordinary line, his seat must less and less resemble a 
 bed of roses ; but I see nothing of insignificance belonging to 
 you in or out of the House of Commons ; and I certainly am one 
 of those who think that in point of significance those whom you 
 term " an energetic and enterprising portion " of the party have 
 gained nothing by their late erratic movements. By " signifi- 
 cance/' however, I mean, not the notoriety of the moment, but 
 permanent weight and the promise of power to be useful. And 
 in this sentence I do not include Lord John Manners' philan- 
 thropic efforts : these appear to me quite distinct from the 
 political errors of himself and his friends. To me, certainly, 
 it seems that even you have some opinions about Irish matters 
 that are not fit for practice ; but I am the last man who has 
 a right to make this a charge, or to urge or acquiesce in it as a 
 reason for departure from Parliament. I should, however, say 
 that, in some points of view, your position is a very happy one. 
 Whereas in none, as I conceive, ought it to prompt you to desire 
 a change of the nature which you are inclined to contemplate. 
 It would be very like a surrender of Parliament for good, and,
 
 314 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 much as you are qualified to appreciate foreign travel, I doubt 
 whether you would find it so congenial a lot, on the whole, as 
 that which you now possess if your sphere of public employment 
 should remove you altogether from English life. 
 
 As to the question with which you wind up, I can see no 
 impropriety in your application. I am sure your motives in 
 making it would be rightly construed ; but I mistrust it, because 
 it is avowedly founded in the main on a dissatisfaction which I 
 think unjust. 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Your attached friend, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Private. Carclow, Oct. Z$th, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, I am grateful for your friendly 
 interest and counsel, and I am in the uncommon case of desiring 
 to follow the advice I asked for. I have all but determined to 
 make no application to Sir Robert Peel on the subject of the 
 diplomatic appointment in question, and chiefly, I own, because 
 I see little chance of getting it. It is so probable that Mr. 
 Wellesley has already received it that I should lose whatever 
 advantage it may be to one in the way of Parliamentary inde- 
 pendence to have never applied, directly or indirectly, for any 
 Government employment, and this with very little use or corre- 
 sponding advantage. I cannot, however, conceal from myself 
 that your letter has strongly suggested to me that I may be 
 performing, almost unconsciously, a humble duty in remaining 
 in the House of Commons at the present moment. Although 
 feeling, as I before expressed, my insignificance very acutely in 
 the failure of my efforts to turn to what I believe good purposes 
 the ambitious activity of other members who are about my Par- 
 liamentary contemporaries, and vexed as I am continually at my 
 inability to divest their schemes of the personal animosity which 
 I believe to be most ardent, I may, perhaps, be exercising some
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 315 
 
 infinitesimal influence for good which I ought not to abandon on 
 mere ground of personal discontent. I have, too, little right 
 to complain of isolation in opinion when I find that the 
 grievance is common to most thoughtful men of my own 
 generation, and when, perchance, even you suffer from it as 
 much as I can do. . . 
 
 I am 
 
 Yours always obliged, 
 
 R. M. MlLNES. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone hailed with pleasure Milnes's determi- 
 nation to remain for the present in Parliament, though, 
 in accordance with a request from the latter, he spoke 
 to Sir Robert Peel on the subject of his friend's desire 
 for a release at all events, temporarily from Parlia- 
 mentary life. The " Young England " party was now 
 pushing itself to the front, and its members had made 
 overtures to Milnes for his support ; but his views upon 
 many important questions were widely at variance with 
 theirs, whilst there was nothing in the position of the 
 party to attract his personal sympathy, and, as the reader 
 of the foregoing letter has seen, he held resolutely aloof 
 from the combination. 
 
 E. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 October Nth, 184-3. 
 
 . . . . I have been staying the last two months in Wales 
 and Cornwall. After I left Thirl wall's, whence I wrote to you, 
 I went to see Venables, an old Cantab, and thence to James 
 Stewart's, or rather Lord Bute's, at Cardiff. They keep the 
 Marquis's house there, and seem on the whole on very good 
 terms with him. It is said he always talks of their boy as his 
 heir ; but as he is little above forty and all but blind, it will be 
 a great act of self-denial if he does not marry again indeed, much
 
 316 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 greater than a Marquis is likely to be capable of .... 
 Nothing new in the way of books, except an article on Puseyism 
 in one of the Reviews, attributed to Gladstone. I should think 
 Peel must wish to shy the book at his head. * The great 
 minister has been just presiding at an agricultural dinner to his 
 tenants, where he said that if any of them would find a bull of 
 great merit in their part of the country, he would purchase it, 
 totally regardless of the price, for the benefit of his tenants. He 
 also averred that if any one of his tenants-at-will applied to him 
 for a lease, " he should hesitate long, he did not hesitate to avow, 
 before he refused the application." There is a general notion 
 that the prosecution of O'Connell will fail ; the informations are 
 most meagre, and the prosecutor, the Irish Attorney-General, 
 most incompetent Perhaps Peel after all does not care much 
 about the success of the affair, as after such an issue he can 
 either say, " I have tried the ordinary course of law ; this has 
 failed, therefore give me extraordinary powers ; " or, " I have 
 done all the law permits in the way of coercion, therefore 
 nothing remains but to try further measures of concession, such 
 as paying the priesthood, increasing the franchise," &c. I have 
 been so out of humour with politics of late that I have thought 
 of applying for a diplomatic post, but Gladstone has urged me 
 so strongly to remain in Parliament at present, that I mean to 
 try another Session ; and if I cannot " orienter " myself a little 
 better in the political wilderness, I shall try and get out of it at 
 least, for a time. My sister has just returned from Scotland 
 after a successful tour, and is pretty well. I return to York- 
 shire in a week, to remain there till Parliament meets, except 
 perhaps a jaunt to Ireland about the time of the great Celt's 
 trial. I think I met the Lady B. you mention on the hustings 
 with Father Mathew, whom I much patronised in London. He 
 
 * Lord Honghton used to tell how he was staying at Drayton when 
 Mr. Gladstone's famous essay on Church and State reached the hands of 
 Sir Robert Peel. Peel turned over the pages of the book with somewhat 
 scornful curiosity, and after a hasty survey of its contents threw the 
 volume on the floor, exclaiming as he did so, " That young man will ruin 
 his fine political career if he persists in writing trash like this."
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 317 
 
 seemed to me to be quite the stuff avowed saints are made of 
 a man so full of his idea that it overflows on all around him. 
 God bless you. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R M. MILNES. 
 
 Milnes stayed at Bawtry and Fryston during the 
 winter, writing an article on Russia for the Edinburgh 
 Review, and completing the preparation of " Palm 
 Leaves." 
 
 Writing early in January to MacCarthy, he tells 
 him of the failure of the O'Connell trial, and adds 
 
 I spent last Sunday at Oscott. The Bishop (Wiseman) 
 much thinner, and looking all the better for it He seemed in 
 excellent spirits, and the whole affair very prosperous. He has 
 got a capital man with him, quite the cream of converts whom 
 I have seen, a Dr. Logan, in whom he appears to place implicit 
 confidence. He is a charming companion, and quite up to the 
 great question of our time. Delabarre Bodenham dined with 
 O'Connell in his " dungeon" last week. One day they were 
 twenty, the next near thirty, and had a magic lantern and cards 
 and music in the evening. They were delighted in the success 
 of the French at Tangiers, and Mr. Barrett of the " Pilot " 
 called out, " God bless the French ; there are 20,000 Irish ready 
 for them whenever they choose/' I rather think of six weeks 
 of Berlin this winter, to rub up my German and see whether the 
 King is a humbug.
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 " Palm Leaves " Reviewing Disraeli Maynooth "Wordsworth and Milnes 
 Letter from De Tocqueville Thomas Campbell Relations of England and 
 France Disraeli at Fryston His Sketch of Milnes Milnes visits Berlin 
 Fjxtracts from Commonplace Book Assists Thomas Hood A Political Storm 
 Another Disappointment. 
 
 IT was not until the winter of 1844 that Milnes was 
 able to pay the visit to Berlin to which we have seen 
 him looking forward. The spring of the year brought 
 him once more prominently into notice in his character 
 of author and poet, inasmuch as it witnessed the appear- 
 ance in the Edinburgh Review of his article upon Custine 
 and the publication of " Palm Leaves," in which are 
 gathered up the impressions made upon his mind during 
 his sojourn in the East. The article on Custine excited 
 considerable attention, and the editor of the Edinburgh 
 Mr. McVey Napier in transmitting to the author a 
 liberal honorarium, expressed his warm appreciation 
 both of its style and of its substance. As for " Palm 
 Leaves," it was hailed with delight by his friends, and 
 though it was not destined to attain the popularity of 
 his earlier poems, there was much in it which received 
 the commendation of the critics, and which deserved to 
 live. The spirit of the book, as I have already pointed 
 out, was hardly that familiar to the ordinary English
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 319 
 
 
 
 reader ; and it is not surprising that on the copy belong- 
 ing to Harriet Martineau that eminent woman wrote 
 upon the title-page the lines I have already quoted. 
 
 Another contribution to the press during the spring 
 of 1844 was an article on the famous political novel of 
 Mr. Disraeli, which Milnes contributed to Hood's Maga- 
 zine. The reader has seen that between Milnes and 
 the " Young England " school, of which Mr. Disraeli 
 had constituted himself the literary mouthpiece, there 
 was a distinct antagonism. In early days Milnes and 
 some of his college associates had dreamt of a " Young 
 England " of another type, and inspired by a different 
 man ; and he had never yielded to the solicitations of 
 those who were anxious that he should now cast in his lot 
 with the little group of idealists who were trying to 
 make the " Young England " party a reality in the State. 
 His criticism upon "Coningsby " was not, therefore, one 
 of unmixed approval, although it did full justice to the 
 sincerity of its author and the excellence of the inten- 
 tions which he shared with his political associates. 
 
 Among those who read it with appreciation was Miss 
 Berry, of whose house Milnes was now a constant 
 frequenter. 
 
 Well, dear Real England [wrote Miss Berry], you owe Mr. 
 Disraeli much for giving you such an opportunity of avowing 
 and leading the national Libeial ideas of government and of our 
 political situation which you have so well expressed. I am sorry 
 you cannot give me an opportunity of talking over this with 
 you to-morrow. . . . But I could not so long delay telling 
 you how much I like it, and how I wish to see more of a real 
 England in her real tone of feeling.
 
 320 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 NOT was it Miss Berry alone who approved of the 
 article ; a more important person, under the circum- 
 stances the author of " Coningsby " himself was 
 pleased to give similar expression to his feelings. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli to R. M. M. 
 
 Grosvenor Gate, June 2nd, 1844. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, I cannot tell you how I regret that when 
 you called at Grosvenor Gate yesterday we had not read " The 
 Few Remarks," which only reached me last night. Had I done 
 so, I would have thanked you for one of those criticisms which 
 honour alike the critic and the criticised, and we could have 
 discussed together the points of controversy, assisted by Mrs. 
 Disraeli, who has several puissant arguments for you in store, 
 though she, as well as myself, appreciates comments that at the 
 same time indicate the thoughtful mind, the cultivated taste, 
 and the refined pen. Thank you very much. 
 
 Ever yours faithfully, 
 
 B. DISRAELI. 
 
 The Session this year was an uncomfortable one for 
 men who had opinions of their own on such questions 
 as those of the relations between the Government and 
 the Catholic Church in Ireland. Milnes, who, in spite 
 of the lukewarmness of his friends and the open disap- 
 probation of his constituents, was still eager to press 
 upon Parliament his scheme for the endowment of the 
 Catholic clergy, was, it need hardly be said, a warm 
 supporter of Peel's proposal for a grant to Maynooth 
 College, a course on his part which, as we shall see, 
 brought him again into collision with some, at least, of 
 the electors of Pomfret.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 321 
 
 I have never voted blindly and subserviently with the Govern- 
 ment [he wrote to one of his supporters, who happened at the 
 time to be Mayor of Pomfret] ; but I do not deny that the fact 
 of this Bill (the Maynooth grant) emanating from the Duke of 
 Wellington and Sir Robert Peel (who opposed Catholic emanci- 
 pation till Ireland was on the brink of civil war), from Lord 
 Stanley and Sir J. Graham (who gave up office rather than 
 touch the Protestant Church in Ireland), and from the son of 
 the Duke of Newcastle, predisposed me in its favour, especially 
 when coupled with the certain knowledge that, if defeated in this 
 measure, Sir Robert Peel would abandon office to a party pledged 
 to great changes in the Protestant Establishment in Ireland. 
 
 It is not necessary to repeat the arguments which he 
 urged in vindication of his action in the matter, but his 
 closing words to the Mayor of Pomfret may fitly find a 
 place here : 
 
 The whole truth of the matter [he wrote] is in this distinc- 
 tion, that this and similar questions must be regarded from an 
 Irish, not an English point of view, just as we make concessions 
 and regulations in our colonies which we would not do at home. 
 Ireland is there, and we cannot get rid of her without ruining 
 the Empire. She is governed by Roman Catholic priests, whom 
 we cannot convert and must not persecute. She compels us to 
 keep up an immense army in time of peace, and prevents us from 
 going safely to war. I have voted money to give those priests 
 as good an education as I can get them to take, and, unless 
 you can tell me some better, wiser, and cheaper way of improving 
 Ireland and its government, I believe I have done right. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartJiy. 
 
 Pall Mall, Feb. 29M, 1844. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, ... I am now settled in town for the 
 Session, which has opened very strong for the Government, a
 
 322 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 nine days' debate having closed with a majority of 100, and 
 the Opposition unable to make any head against them. It was 
 the most brilliant debate I have heard iii the rfouse of Com- 
 mons, and satisfactory on higher grounds. No single Orange 
 speech ; and I alluded to the possibility of seeing purple stock- 
 ings in the House of Lords some day soon. So I hope we may get 
 some toleration for you poor Papists at last. . . . O'Connell 
 excites a good deal of interest just now. He was partially 
 cheered as he entered the House of Commons, has had a most 
 passionate reception at the Anti-Corn Law League at Covent 
 Garden, and is to have a grand dinner on the 12th. He looks 
 worn and HI, and his best friends speak despondingly of him. 
 He made an excellent gentlemanly speech in the House of 
 Commons, but with little animation. The " base bloody "Whigs " 
 are in a great quandary how to behave towards him, having 
 tried to convict him themselves and failed. They are furious 
 at the present Government's success, but at the same time 
 are afraid to pledge themselves to too much friendship for the 
 future. Colvile is not looking well a good deal thinner than he 
 was. . . . Old Rogers lives, and goes on breakfasting, but 
 is a good deal estranged from me ; I rather think he is the loser 
 by it. I have a little volume of Oriental poems in the press 
 called " Palm Leaves " ; I doubt their success, and am not sure 
 of their merit. I find impressions require so much more working 
 tip with me than they used to do in the fair old times of Italy 
 and Greece ; and though, perhaps, they come out more plastically 
 correct, I am conscious that they are less true and genial ; but I 
 write better and easier prose (more like yours) ; that, perhaps, is 
 the compensation. . . . You may have got from America 
 some translations of Frederica Bremer from the Swedish. They 
 have had immense success here. Prescott's " Mexico " has also 
 pleased much. What think you of " Consuelo "? A continua- 
 tion, giving Albert's second life, is nearly ready. God bless 
 you, my dear friend. Be of good heart.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 323 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, March YltJi, 1844. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, There came last night a second copy of the 
 " Palm Leaves/' which also, by a kind of droit d'aubaine, may I 
 not crave your leave to keep, having already in view a good use 
 for it ? I hope, moreover, you have sent a copy to Emerson, 
 whom intrinsically and extrinsically it will much gratify. The 
 way to him is by one Green (or the successor of Green), a book- 
 seller in Newgate Street. One of my copies I read through 
 after tea, which feat of itself, either after or before tea, is a very 
 surprising one for any kind of poetry with me in these days. 
 Truly, I feel called upon to say that I like this volume better 
 than any of your others, and indeed well ; that I find a real voice 
 of song in it, breathings of genuine mild wisdom, uttered 
 musically under the palm-trees of the East by a Western 
 man. You recognise my friend Mahomet, and say and sing 
 things audible and heart-affecting concerning him. Thanks for 
 such a book in my own name and that of all. 
 
 And now, recognising Mahomet, good heavens ! .why do we 
 not set about emulating him ? Life with us is not a dilettantism, 
 any more than it was with him. We are born servants, bound 
 to be ready with blood and life, to what he called Allah : we too, 
 every soul of us. One of the things I like in this book is the 
 visible increase of earnestness. May it go on increasing ! On 
 the whole, if Young England would altogether fling its shovel- 
 hat into the lumber-room, much more cast its purple stockings 
 to the nettles, and, honestly recognising what was dead, and, 
 leaving the dead to bury that, address itself frankly to the 
 magnificent, but as yet chaotic and appalling, Future, in the 
 spirit of the Past and Present, telling men at every turn that 
 it knew and saw for ever clearly the body of the Past to be dead 
 (and even to be damnable if it pretended still to be alive and go 
 about in a galvanic state), what achievements might not Young 
 England perhaps manage for us ! Whatsoever was noble and 
 manful among us, in terrible want of a rallying-point at present, 
 might rally then and march. But alas, alas ! Well, I wish
 
 324 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 you every felicity, and pray that the end of idol worship (wood 
 idols and logic idols) may be swift. And with thanks for such 
 graceful melodies, whispering " Palm Leaves/' and many other 
 
 things, am 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Factory legislation shared with Maynooth the atten- 
 tion of the country during the Session. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartky. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, March 24^, 1844. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, .... We have had some curious 
 political workings since I wrote last. Lord Ashley, in his pro- 
 position to limit the labour of women and young people under 
 eighteen in the factories to ten hours per diem, has twice beat 
 the Government, who persist in a limitation of twelve hours. 
 This question is convulsing the country, and dislocating parties in 
 the strangest way. We Humanitarians have Lord John Russell, 
 Lord Howick, Charles Buller, Sir K Inglis, T. Duncombe, &c., 
 with, us ; and the Government have all the pure political econo- 
 mists, including the League. The final row is deferred till aftor 
 Easter, when, it is said, the Government mean to make it a 
 question of resignation. I hardly see how they can do this on 
 BO very special a matter, but time will show. I shall oppose 
 them to the utmost ; that is all I know. ... I am uncer- 
 tain whether I go to Paris or not at Easter ; it is hardly worth 
 while for a fortnight, but I should like to hear what they think 
 of my review of Custine, and to felicitate M. Guizot on 
 having settled himself and France at least for another year. 
 He has got a good majority on his Secret Service motion I 
 think, 56 ; and though Louis Philippe has been snubbed by the 
 return to the Chambre of the Legitimist deputies whom he 
 declared to be fetris, I don't think Guizot minds it much. The 
 Due d'Angouleme is not dead, as was reported, but cannot live 
 long, which will put Henri de France in the disagreeable position 
 of being Henri V., or nobody. By-the-bye, I hear that Custine's
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 325 
 
 abuse of Russia has had the effect of restoring him to society in 
 France, and that now he is visited and invited by everybody. 
 What a curious complication of moral and intellectual valuation ! 
 . . . . The book " Palm Leaves " is selling well. 
 
 Milnes did not go to Paris at Easter, as he liad 
 thought of doing. He explained his reason for not 
 doing so in a letter to M. Gruizot. 
 
 K M. M. to M. Guizot. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, April UTi, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I find myself so hampered with business, 
 private and public, that I have no hope of paying you a Paschal 
 visit, and thus I send you, what I meant to have brought, my 
 article (in the Edinfairgh Review] on Custine, which I should 
 be flattered by your liking. My Eastern book you will read 
 some ten years hence, when you are " defunctus officio." Since 
 I wrote to you, we have had the agitation of the Ten Hours 
 Bill ; as I am an aide-de-camp of Ashley's, I am probably one- 
 sided ; but I own I much regret that the Government, having 
 gone so far as their Bill does go, did not advance a little farther, 
 and take the ten hours for women and young persons. . . . 
 The Government will probably have a majority after Easter, 
 wrung from the House by the threats or the persuasions common 
 to all Governments ; but on the whole they will no doubt suffer 
 much on the question in public consideration. One of the best 
 jokes is that Ashley is to form an Administration ; but whether 
 it will last ten hours or twelve, nobody can decide. . . . You 
 have got Lord Brougham at Paris ; he is furious about the 
 factory system and our interference. It is curious how he now 
 takes all the sides opposed to popular sympathy. You will have 
 seen our good friends the Grotes; he is going to give us a 
 really great history. I do not like to take the liberty of sending 
 my Russian article to the King, but you perhaps might mention 
 it to him, as I have heard he has interested himself a good deal 
 about the book. Macaulay's article on Bare^re, in the same
 
 326 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 number, is well worth reading 1 . I trust your King- will he ahle 
 to come here at least before the Emperor Nicholas ; the latter 
 told one of our diplomates that he would come here, though 
 with a single aide-de-camp. 
 
 The State Fancy Ball was one of the features of the 
 season. Milnes went to it dressed as Chaucer, in an 
 attire the details of which were superintended by 
 Macready. It was " grave and simple " dark green 
 cloth, amher satin, and squirrel fur being the com- 
 ponents of it. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gaily Knight [he wrote to his aunt] go to 
 the ball as remains of Saracenic architecture. When the 
 Duchess of Sutherland was told Lord W. was to be her partner 
 for the quadrille, she said, " How dull it will be for him to be 
 so long with some one of a decent character ! " 
 
 Wordsworth, as Mr. Aubrey de Vere has told us, 
 having heard of the character in which Milnes meant to 
 appear at the ball, remarked, "If Monckton Milnes 
 goes as Chaucer, the father of English poetry, all that is 
 left for me is to go as Monckton Milnes." 
 
 Charles Sumner to R. M. M. 
 
 Boston, May 1st, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Many thanks for the new volume of 
 poems, which are graceful and refined, and full of beautiful 
 truth and sympathy. Longfellow has the copy which you were 
 good enough to send him, but I have not seen him since I heard 
 of his wife reading it to him. I like much your gentle 
 and pleasant dealing with Custine. It gave repose after the 
 clangour of Macaulay's article. It seems that he followed you 
 in the debate on Ireland you follow him in the Review. My 
 special object in writing now is to ask your countenance for 
 the publication of a volume of your poems in the United
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 327 
 
 States. I have long hoped to see an American edition of 
 your poems, but untoward circumstances have interfered till 
 now ; among these was the considerable importation of English 
 copies, which was thought to have drawn off part of the 
 American market. The same publishers, Ticknor and Co., who 
 have recently brought out Barry Cornwall, now propose a 
 selection from your four volumes. . . . Now, my dear 
 Milnes, if you take interest enough in this reprint,, pray send 
 me a list of the pieces which you would prefer to see in a col- 
 lection of one or two volumes. . . . You will see that 
 Pennsylvania has at last resolved to tax herself to find the 
 interest already accrued, and to pay interest after August next. 
 I regret very much that Sydney Smith sold out at 40 per cent. 
 " The drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania " have done their 
 duty, but why have they been so dilatory about it ? 
 Ever and ever yours, 
 
 CHAKLES SUMNEH. 
 
 A. de Tocqiieville to R. M. M. 
 (On receiving a copy of " Palm Leaves/') 
 
 Clairain pres Compiegne, May 29^, 1844. 
 
 It would be unpardonable on my part, my dear Milnes, not 
 to have thanked you yet for what you sent me, if since then I 
 had not been as much overwhelmed with work, with difficulties 
 and annoyances, as a Prime Minister a misfortune from which 
 a member of the Opposition ought, in all justice, to be free ! 
 But the reason thereof is that I have been made a Reporter of 
 the Prison Laws. I fancy you have nothing similar in your 
 Parliamentary machine. The Reporter is, in a measure, a 
 responsible editor of the law ; all criticisms are sent to him he 
 has to deal with these, and settle all points of opposition and 
 disagreement. And when such discussions take up a whole 
 month, as they did in this case, it is no joke, I swear to you, to 
 be a Reporter. 
 
 However, here I am, safely out of the fray, and with a
 
 328 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 majority of a hundred voices a result which helps me to forget 
 and forgive all bygones. After the voting, I came away to the 
 country for a little relaxation, where I have at last found time 
 to read you. You know that what is most difficult to under- 
 stand in a language that is not one's own, is poetry. It will, 
 therefore, be but poor praise if I say that I think your " Palm 
 Leaves" very remarkable, and that they deserve the special 
 attention, not only of those who like beautiful verses, but who 
 look on poetry as the true, though coloured, reflex of real objects. 
 One seems to be inhaling an Oriental atmosphere in reading 
 you. I wanted to tell you of this impression, as I think that 
 praise in itself. Madame de Tocqueville, who is much better able 
 to judge than myself, shares my impression, and wishes me to 
 tell you so. 
 
 The only thing is that you appear to me, like Lamartine, 
 to have returned from the East too much the Mussulman. I 
 cannot make out why in these days so many distinguished 
 minds evince this tendency. For my part, my contact with 
 Islamism (you know that through Algeria we are brought into 
 daily relations with Mohammedan institutions) produces the very 
 opposite effect on me. The more I see of that religion, the more 
 convinced I am that from it springs the gradual downfall of the 
 Mussulman. Mahomet's mistake, which was to weld together a 
 code of civil and political institutions with a religious belief, in such 
 a way as to impose on the former the immovability which is in 
 the nature of the latter, wao in itself enough to doom its followers 
 to inferiority first, and then to unavoidable destruction. Chris- 
 tianity derived its grandeur and sanctity from never having 
 entered any paths but those of religion, leaving the rest to follow 
 with the progress and free development of the human mind. 
 But here I am beginning a chapter, and forgetting that I am 
 supposed to be writing a letter. Having happily recollected in 
 time, I will now close and beg you to believe me, &c. &c. &c., 
 
 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 P.S. The day of our departure from Paris Madame de 
 Tocqueville received a letter in which you introduced Mr.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 329 
 
 Warburton to her. I immediately wrote and expressed our 
 regret at leaving Paris without seeing him. But on my return 
 I shall hasten to look him up. 
 
 The month of June, 1844, proved fatal to the poet 
 Campbell, between whom and Milnes a friendship of 
 very long standing existed. Mention has already been 
 made of the fact that Campbell's sister had been a 
 governess in the house of Mr. B,. P. Milnes during the 
 early years of his sisters, the aunts of R. M. Milnes. In 
 Campbell's correspondence an interesting letter is to be 
 found, describing his first visit to the house of Mr. Pem- 
 berton Milnes. Justly jealous of the position which he had 
 achieved for himself by his own genius, he appears to have 
 gone to the house of his sister's employer somewhat fearful 
 of the reception with which he would meet ; but his fears 
 had been dispelled in the most delightful fashion by the 
 friendliness of the greeting he had received both from 
 Mr. Milnes and his wife ; and from that time forward a 
 warm friendship had subsisted between Campbell and 
 the Milnes family. It was immediately after the death 
 of Campbell himself that Milnes appealed to Sir Robert 
 Peel to obtain for Campbell's nearest surviving relative 
 (a nephew) an appointment in the Civil Service. The 
 appeal was successful, Sir Robert giving expression to 
 the pleasure with which he found himself able to do 
 anything for the relative of so distinguished a man of 
 letters as Campbell; and yet, though Milnes was thus 
 eager to do anything in his power to assist the connec- 
 tions of his old friend, he was not among the more 
 ardent admirers of Campbell's genius.
 
 330 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 July \st, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, . . . Thomas Campbell is to be 
 buried in Westminster Abbey on Wednesday. On the whole, he 
 has got Poets' Corner cheap : " le coin retire des reveurs de 
 Tempire " holds few men who have not done more. What would 
 the " Pleasures of Hope " be written now ? " Hohenlinden " 
 and " Ye Mariners of England " are very good, but not better 
 than " Sir John Moore/' by some Irish parson who sleeps 
 quietly amidst his bogs. . . . We have had a sort of 
 Ministerial crisis, which made a little row for three days. The 
 Government were beat on a matter of detail by a combination of 
 the High Protection party and the Whigs, and were only saved 
 on a revision of the vote by eleven ultra- Radical Leaguers voting 
 with them. Sir Robert lost both tact and temper, and, it is said, 
 resigned for himself and Gladstone, but was begged to 
 reconsider it. The row, however, was no sooner over than a 
 tremendous hubbub was raised against Sir James Graham for 
 having issued a warrant to open the letters of Mazzini, an 
 Italian refugee, who has been organising a " Young Italian " 
 descent on Italy from Malta. Graham foolishly owned to the 
 warrant, and then shut up, and refused to utter a syllable. 
 You will see the papers are full of nothing else the Times 
 particularly. What makes the injustice the greater is that the 
 affair, right or wrong, must rest with the Foreign Office, and can 
 have nothing to do with Graham. My family are all tolerably 
 well, my father devoted to his rurality. Sir F. Doyle is going 
 to marry the younger Miss Wynn, and they are to begin with 
 500 per annum and the hope of a place. Wiseman has been 
 indoctrinating the Lords with Roman law on the case of the 
 Duke of Sussex's marriage. They say he did it remarkably 
 well. 
 
 I remain yours always, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 331 
 
 E. M. M. to Us Father. 
 
 June Zlst, 1844. 
 
 The whole state of things is very worrying. Peel is 
 absolutely indefensible ; he is asking from his party all the 
 blind confidence the country gentlemen placed in Mr. Pitt, all 
 the affectionate devotion Mr. Canning won from his friends, 
 and all the adherence Lord John and the Whigs get from their 
 "family compact/' without himself fulfilling any one of the 
 engagements on his side. 
 
 They will get over this Session, from its lateness and a 
 vague despair of doing anything better; but, without some 
 internal change, another Session must finish them. Peel's 
 speech was the oddest compound of candour, ill-temper, humi- 
 liation, menace, and a hundred other motives ; -it gave you the 
 impression of a petulant woman crying, " I can't and I won't 
 stand this any longer." It was a bad speech, too, in manner 
 and diction. 
 
 Lord Stanley pleased me excessively; it was as good as 
 possible, and really, I think, won votes ; its temperate and 
 reasonable tone came with the sort of advantage that an ill- 
 tempered man has when he chooses to be good-humoured ; the 
 House were flattered that Stanley thought it worth while to be 
 conciliating. R. M. M. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 All your suggestions are excellent, but with this defect, 
 that it is exactly those qualifications which have prevented me 
 from being more attended to and regarded. How can the Duke 
 of Richmond, who states that one of his tenants pays more in rates 
 than the whole of the League, or Sir Robert Peel, who asserts 
 that the price of food has no effect on wages, care for a man of 
 guarded assertions and careful declarations? That is exactly 
 what G. means by not keeping one's nose to the ground. 
 
 Two Lordships of the Treasury and the Clerkship of the 
 Ordnance are vacant to-day and more expected, all, except 
 Mahon's, requiring re-election ; this must embarrass the
 
 332 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Government. When Peel spoke about patronage, &c., he looked 
 so markedly at me, that both Buller and Charteris, who were on 
 each side, burst out laughing. My answer would have been, 
 " In this case you had no right to select at all." 
 
 It is impossible not to feel that, whatever the issue may be, 
 Peel, as a leader, is done for. He may coalesce with Lord John, 
 or retire into private life; but as to holding men together after 
 this, it is impossible. He has forfeited the only kind of con- 
 fidence left him, viz., that in his practical management of 
 affairs. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 I have your political diatribe. Peel, of course, knows all 
 you can tell him, but does not choose to say it that's all. He 
 evidently won't argue the case, but is determined to make the 
 most of difficulties, and to force the measure down the throat of 
 the country. I never saw him more haughty and uncompro- 
 mising. You see, he won't even yield the Factory Bill, which 
 would have enabled him to take Ashley into the Government. 
 Lord Courtenay is not a bad appointment if true, and Devon- 
 shire returns him I never knew till the other day who 
 
 was the author of the article on Lords Grey and Spencer, which 
 came in quite late, and forced me to cut mine short. It was 
 Lord John's, and is abominably written. I go to town on 
 Tuesday, but have written to Mr. Graely to-day to present the 
 petition. What say you to John Manners's letter ? It would 
 not have done for a less conspicuous person, but suits him, I 
 think, very well. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 E. M. M. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 My accident, which prevented me from voting, was being 
 very late at Dickens's dinner nothing more unfortunate. Pray 
 take care what you write to me, as the Government read
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 333 
 
 everybody's letters. A young lady undertook to convert 
 Mazzini to Protestantism, and is dreadfully disgusted on 
 Graham having studied all her controversy. Mrs. Carlyle, 
 too, is in a great way at all her letters to him having been 
 overhauled. 
 
 I think I shall keep in the south during August, and come 
 to Yorkshire the middle of September. I expect the Scientifics 
 at Fryston the first week of October, and perhaps " Groter 
 Grandi Glover" to lighten them. Duke* will tell you all about 
 me. This thunderous weather has made me very nervously 
 electrical; I could see the sparks coming out of my fingers in 
 the dark. I am going to see the somnambulist Alexis this 
 afternoon. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The relations between England and France were at 
 this time somewhat troubled, owing to the Tahiti affair, 
 which had excited the strongest indignation in the minds 
 of Englishmen. It had been hoped that the visit which 
 Louis Philippe was about to pay to the Queen, in return 
 for that which she had paid to the French monarch, 
 would help to allay the popular excitement ; but so 
 strong was the feeling on both sides that it seemed 
 likely the visit would be indefinitely postponed. 
 
 R. M. M. to M. Guizot. 
 
 Fryston, Pontefract, Aug. 31st, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I cannot express to you with what deep 
 regret I have read this morning in the papers that your King is 
 not coming to England this year, and it is not only vexatious 
 because it will be taken as a triumph by your war faction and 
 
 * Mr. Mannaduke Wyvill, cousin of B. M. Milnes.
 
 334 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 our Palmerston party, but because it frustrates the hope that 
 you and Lord Aberdeen would have been able to come to a 
 better understanding by a week's mutual conference than you 
 can possibly do by diplomatic correspondence. Lord Palmerston 
 came down upon the House with his slave trade speech quite 
 unexpectedly, or else you would have heard from far more 
 important persons than myself the expression of how unsatis- 
 factory we regard the present state of the right of search 
 question to be, and how ready we should be to come to some 
 other arrangement. I am sure, too, from Sir Robert Peel's 
 manner when Mr. Shiel brought forward the question of Algiers, 
 that he and Lord Aberdeen were only looking out for an oppor- 
 tunity to settle the affair of the " exequatur." It is quite true 
 that a strong feeling against what they call French aggression 
 is rising up in the House of Commons, particularly among the 
 country gentlemen ; and if matters go on in an irritating direc- 
 tion, I fear Sir Robert will have a very hard struggle with 
 Palmerston and such friends of his as Watt and Macaulay next 
 Session. I don't think anybody cares much about Tahiti except 
 the Dissenters, and they are in such an inconsistent position in 
 raising a war-cry that they will exercise but little influence. 
 Morocco is a different matter, and the threat of the French Lake 
 is continually before our eyes. With all your hard experience of 
 African colonisation, we conjecture the sole object you (not indi- 
 vidually, but the country) could have at present in occupying 
 any Moorish possessions would be to bully England. The Queen 
 is going to Scotland for the air ; she is to travel as nearly 
 incognita as possible, and will not pay many visits. The young 
 prince is to have the old English name of Alfred. 
 
 With all regards to your excellent and amiable family 
 I remain 
 
 Yours always and obliged, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES,
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 335 
 
 Fortunately, M. Guizot and Louis Philippe were as 
 anxious as any Englishman could have been to restore 
 the good understanding between the two countries, 
 and the Tahiti difficulty was accordingly settled in 
 September, with the result that the French King came 
 over to England on his promised visit in October. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 September 1th, 1844. 
 
 DEAR GLADSTONE, Do you happen to have a loose copy of 
 your review of " Ellen Middleton " ? and if so, could you send 
 me one to Serlby ? I and others want much to see it, and they 
 had lost theirs at Hagley. I had a very pleasant visit there, 
 and am now at Hanmer's, previous to entertaining " scientifics " 
 at the York meeting. I had never any fear about the French 
 matters ; the grievances were much too complicated not to be 
 settled by a skilful diplomacy : it is your simple faet which is 
 the hard thing to compromise. 
 
 It is to me a new jurisprudential consideration that our Court 
 of Ultimate Appeal, which is to overrule the decisions of all those 
 judges whom we are authorised to believe as far denuded as men 
 can be of political partialities, is to consist of five or six gentlemen 
 who, however pure-minded they may be, are submitted to the 
 inevitable, though perhaps imperceptible, influences of party 
 conflicts, and whose opinions must thus be coloured, as certainly 
 as is the stream by the soil over which it runs. I do not see 
 that you will get over this difficulty by extending the jurisdiction 
 to the whole House, who would be still more subject to party 
 ties. The evil lies in the constitution of the House itself, in 
 having a political tribunal as ultimate judge in political trials. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 E M. MlLNES. 
 
 The latter part of the foregoing letter refers to the
 
 336 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 well-known difficulty which arose from the appeal of 
 O'Connell against the sentence passed upon him in the 
 lower Courts to the House of Lords. Five Law Lords 
 heard the appeal ; and whilst two (Lord Lyndhurst and 
 Lord Brougham) were of opinion that the sentence of 
 the Court below should be affirmed, three (Lords 
 Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell) thought that the 
 sentence should be reversed, and the conviction quashed. 
 At that time every Peer had a right to vote in the 
 Court of Appeal, whether he happened to be lawyer 
 or layman ; and, but for a strong appeal addressed to 
 the House by Lord Wharncliffe, it is probable that on 
 this occasion the country would have witnessed the 
 scandal of a solemn political trial being decided by a 
 purely and avowedly partisan vote. Happily, better 
 counsels prevailed, and the decision was left to the Law 
 Lords alone; the result being the reversal of the 
 sentence upon O'Connell and his associates. Mr. 
 Gladstone's reply expressed his general concurrence 
 with Milnes as to the probable issue of the French 
 questions, and admitted the force of his remarks as to 
 the House of Lords and the O'Connell trial. 
 
 In October Mr. Disraeli and his wife visited Fryston 
 as the guests of Mr. Pemberton Milnes. During their 
 stay Milnes himself delivered a lecture at Pomfret on 
 the history of Pomfret Castle. There were amateur 
 theatricals, too, at the house, in which Milnes distin- 
 guished himself by his performance of Mrs. Cramp. 
 Years before, he had been one of the most popular 
 members of the Cambridge Amateur Dramatic Club, and
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 337 
 
 his assistance was at all times eagerly sought by those 
 of his friends who were engaged in amateur perform- 
 ances. As he grew older he retained his liking for 
 acting, and never lost his interest in the dramatic art 
 or in dramatic artists, whether amateur or professional. 
 The present may be a suitable point at which to 
 quote one of the many sketches of Lord Houghton with 
 which Mr. Disraeli enlivened the pages of his novels. 
 It is the portrait of Mr. Vavasour in " Tancred," and is 
 Mr. Disraeli's conception of Milnes about the period in 
 his life with which I am now dealing. 
 
 Mr. Vavasour was a social favourite, a poet, and a real poet, 
 quite a troubadour, as well as a member of Parliament ; travelled, 
 sweet tempered and good hearted, very amusing and very 
 clever. With catholic sympathies and an eclectic turn of mind, 
 Mr. Vavasour saw something good in everybody and everything, 
 which is certainly amiable, and perhaps just, but disqualifies 
 a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires 
 for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice. Mr. Vavasour's 
 breakfasts were renowned. Whatever your creed, class, or 
 merit one might almost add, your character you were a wel- 
 come guest at his matutinal meal, provided you were celebrated. 
 That qualification, however, was rigidly enforced. Individuals 
 met at his hospitable house who had never met before, but who 
 for years had been cherishing in solitude mutual detestation 
 with all the irritable exaggeration of the literary character. 
 He prided himself on figuring as the social medium by which 
 rival reputations became acquainted, and paid each other in his 
 presence the compliments which veiled their ineffable disgust. 
 All this was very well in the Albany, and only funny ; but 
 when he collected his menageries at his ancestral hall in a 
 distant county, the sport sometimes became tragic. A real 
 philosopher, alike from his genial disposition, and from the
 
 338 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 influence of his rich and various information, Vavasour moved 
 amid the strife, sympathising with every one; and perhaps, 
 after all, the philanthropy which was his boast was not untinged 
 by a dash of humour, of which rare and charming quality he 
 possessed no inconsiderate portion. Vavasour liked to know 
 everybody who was known, and to see everything which ought 
 to be seen. His life was a gyration of energetic curiosity, an 
 insatiable whirl of social celebrity. There was not a congrega- 
 tion of sages and philosophers in any part of Europe which he 
 did not attend as a brother. He was present at the camp of 
 Kalisch in his Yeomanry uniform, and assisted at the festivals 
 of Barcelona in an Andalusian jacket. He was everywhere and 
 at everything ; he had gone down in a diving bell, gone up in 
 a balloon. As for his acquaintances, he was welcomed in 
 every land ; his universal sympathies seemed omnipotent. 
 Emperor and king, Jacobin and Carbonari, alike cherished him. 
 He was the steward of Polish balls, and the vindicator of 
 Russian humanity; he dined with Louis Philippe and gave 
 dinners to Louis Blanc. 
 
 The reader who has followed this narrative is already 
 able to correct some of the exaggerations into which the 
 novelist has fallen in this description. True it un- 
 doubtedly is, but it does not contain the whole truth ; 
 whilst in one important particular it is essentially false. 
 Mere celebrity was never the key to the attentions of 
 Milnes ; merit of some kind, distinction, perhaps singu- 
 larity, certainly originality, all these were claims which 
 he cheerfully recognised ; but I have told my story so 
 far in vain if the reader has not already learned that 
 Milnes' sympathies were as easily bestirred, and his 
 kind heart moved, on behalf of the obscure as on behalf 
 of those who had already achieved fame, and who had 
 no need of his patronage. For the rest, the brilliant
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 339 
 
 picture drawn by Mr. Disraeli of the social favourite 
 welcomed in every land and in every circle, the friend 
 not only of classes the most different, but of individuals 
 and orders the most antagonistic, is one the accuracy of 
 which cannot be questioned. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Oct. .14^, 1844. 
 
 . . . Louis Philippe is here for a day or two ; does not 
 leave Windsor, and sees nobody but dukes and courtiers. He 
 went, however, over his old house at Twickenham, full of memories 
 indeed for him ! The Emperor of Russia is doing his very best 
 to get up a war between England and France, offering us " tout le 
 corps de son empire," and promising to stick by English interests 
 as long as he has a ship or a soldier. God grant this Cossack 
 Satan may not seduce us ! But people foolish people who make 
 public opinion certainly talk much more glibly of war than 
 they did. You must have been amused at the name of " Young 
 England/' which we started so long ago, being usurped by 
 opinions so different and so inferior a tone of thought. It is, 
 however, a good phenomenon in its way, and one of its products 
 Lord John Manners a very fine promising fellow. The worst 
 of them is that they are going about the country talking educa- 
 tion and liberality, and getting immense honour for the very 
 things for which the Radicals have been called all possible black- 
 guards and atheists a few years ago. It is just the unfairness of 
 the parable of " wages " which so shocks the young Christian 
 political economist. Montalembert has published his three 
 speeches in a little book, and has written a swinging letter on 
 Puseyism, for which he has neither mercy nor sympathy. He 
 denounces it as an insolent imposture. 
 
 I should think you could get "Lord Eldon's Life" from 
 America. It is a capital piece of political gossiping. Stanley's 
 " Life of Arnold " is a good book, too. There is a delightful
 
 340 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Voltairean volume on the East, called " Eothen," which I will 
 send you some day if you do not see it before. You will by this 
 time have got over the hot weather, and are starting, I hope, for 
 a healthy winter. If all goes well with my sister,* I shall con- 
 front the cold of Berlin, and hope to see a good deal of Varnhagen, 
 who promised me much intellectual hospitality. I have a notion 
 I shall find the King what the Yorkshiremen call " a little soft/' 
 but very good. Bunsen is in higher favour with him than ever. 
 Colvile has seen a good deal of Comte de Senfft at Munich, and 
 has been delighted with him. 
 
 Your affectionate, 
 
 R. M. MILNES. 
 
 In December Milnes at last carried out his purpose 
 of visiting Berlin, and, arriving in the Prussian capital, he 
 was immediately received with the greatest cordiality 
 and hospitality by many of the leading celebrities of the 
 city, among whom Baron Humboldt was conspicuous. 
 
 One of tbe attractions of the Prussian capital to 
 Milnes at this time was the presence in it of George 
 von Bunsen, the son of Baron von Bunsen. Young 
 von Bunsen was a mere youth at the time ; but he was 
 the son of a friend whom he greatly respected, and 
 Milnes made it his business to see as much as possible 
 of him during his stay in Berlin. The friendship 
 which then began was continued to the end of his life, 
 and thenceforth George von Bunsen took his place in 
 tbat circle of inner friends to whom Milnes opened his 
 heart with a freedom of which the world had no 
 suspicion. 
 
 It is unfortunate that comparatively few of his letters 
 
 * Lady Galway had just given birth to a son.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITEPARY LIFE. 341 
 
 from Germany are extant, for his observations of Prussian 
 society and German politics at that critical period in the 
 history of Europe, when the revolutionary forces that 
 came to a head in 1848 were already beginning to show 
 themselves above the surface, would have been pecu- 
 liarly interesting. I have spoken of the " Commonplace 
 Books " which Milnes kept during many years, and a 
 few extracts from that which was written about the time 
 of his Prussian visit will give the reader some idea of 
 the varied subjects which engaged his attention whilst 
 residing in the Prussian capital. I shall give these 
 extracts exactly as I find them in Milnes' handwriting, 
 nor will they lose any part of their effect from their 
 terseness. 
 
 From " Commonplace Book." 
 
 King of Prussia, taking leave of King of Bavaria: "My 
 dear brother, do promise me to make no more verses/' Answer : 
 " My dear brother, do promise me to make no more promises/' 
 
 I like the town of Brunswick the curious gabled houses in 
 the broad streets, the handsome palace, with the people passing 
 freely through its gardens and by its windows, the tame crows 
 pecking about in the quiet spaces, and the strange old churches, 
 with their two towers united by huge florid windows. Of the 
 princes, too, in the Cathedral vault, eight have fallen in brave 
 battle. Few Royal houses, if any, can say as much. 
 
 The solitude of Hanover is such that Zimmermann himself 
 could not stand it and died there. 
 
 In Germany all the books are in sheets, and all the beds 
 without. 
 
 Humboldt to myself : " Moi qui suis le pere eternel de torn 
 les voyageurs." 
 
 Princess Radziwill saying they had got to ask one to dinner 
 such an immense time before sometimes even five days.
 
 342 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Extreme rarity of notes or letters in Berlin society, probably 
 originating in the fear of not writing good French and a sharp 
 spirit of criticism of language. 
 
 The Princess of Prussia the best princess on any stage. 
 
 Horses covered with leopard skins to protect them while 
 standing out 
 
 The window frames covered with green moss outside. 
 
 Had capital dinner at the Baron de Renduffe's, Portuguese 
 Minister. Jambon d'ours au vin de Cypres, gelinottes (hasel- 
 huhn), gateau au creme de noix, Maharaca, a Brazilian sweetmeat 
 like quince. 
 
 The droschky drivers give you a lottery ticket for every jaunt 
 you take, and these are drawn at the end of the month with 
 considerable prizes. The Berlin people delight in all kinds of 
 lotteries. 
 
 When there is a regular " hof/' none of the Royal family 
 are supposed to take any part except the King and Queen. It 
 is strictly the Queen's reception, and thus the other princesses 
 follow her in procession, and stand along the wall of each room 
 while she is going round, but not even speaking to one 
 another. 
 
 Madame de Liegnitz had no pages to hold her train, which 
 was of a cometary length. 
 
 The wonderful Vaudeville figure of the Countess de Roede, 
 the " Hofmeisterin," with a black or purple ribbon across her 
 bosom as a badge. 
 
 At a " Trauercour " the Queen sits on the throne veiled in 
 a half-dark room, and the company pass with muffled swords 
 and epaulettes. 
 
 The late Prince of Schwarzburg Sondershausen, hearing that 
 a deputation was coming to ask for a Constitution, telling them 
 he would address them from a window, appearing with a 
 double-barrelled gun, and declaring he would shoot whoever 
 said anything to displease him. (They have one now under 
 his son, which met the other day, and dispersed in three days, 
 having voted money to build a new palace.)
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 343 
 
 The wives of the bourgeois ministers, though bearing the 
 title of Excellency, never go to Court, nor their families. The 
 King made Bunsen sit at a table with the Excellencies, which 
 made an immense indignation. 
 
 Neander and his sister have lived inseparable all their lives ; 
 when he has been ill, she has been sleeping on a mattress at his 
 door, to be ready if he wanted anything. She is said to be the 
 author of a great part of the Church History, and to have 
 inspired the whole. Her health is always drunk by the students 
 on his Feiertag (Jan. 16). In the answer to them, I heard he 
 warned them against substituting any letter for the spirit of 
 God, and told them not to believe in, or follow any man, or any 
 man's work, but God's spirit, as shown in and through men. A 
 congratulatory letter was read from some Scotch students of the 
 Free Church, thanking him for the " intellectual and religious 
 life which they had learned as German students under his 
 direction and counsel/' 
 
 Beier, who is revising the "Wunderhorn," saying, when I had 
 left the room, " Is it possible an Englishman can be so lovable?" 
 
 Bettine to me : " You write about the beating of your 
 heart, so it never really beats, you old bachelor, you ! " 
 
 At two dinners I went to in Berlin the lady of the house 
 was sent for to make fourteen. 
 
 I dined at Berlin with Renduffe (Portuguese), Dalmatic 
 (French), Antonini (Neapolitan), Meyerndorff (Russian), am- 
 bassadors ; Redern, Werther, Arnim, V. Radowitz, Pentz, the 
 King, the three Princes, Gudin, Elliot, Ward, and Lord 
 Westmoreland. 
 
 Parties at the King's", two Princes', Bulow's, Leucterfeld's, 
 Werther's, Arnim's, Savigny's, Cornelius's, Raikes's. I could 
 not stay for the Austrian Ambassador's. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Berlin, Jan. YltK, 1845. 
 
 All thanks for your long, chatty letter. It arrived in the 
 midst of a cold fog which wanted much warming. My present 
 intention is to leave this the middle of next week, and go
 
 344 THE LIFE OF LORD EOUGHTON. 
 
 leisurely home by Frankfort, so as to arrive in town for the 
 next debate after the Address, whatever it may be ; so do not 
 forward any more letters here, but send them to Koln, which 
 I must pass anyhow. Lord Westmoreland has been the last 
 week with his friends of Hanover, and my lady ill, so that the 
 house has been quite shut up. The anti-Bunsenites have been 
 quite successful one way or the other in preventing- the King 
 from having any talk with me. As I have done all that was 
 civil, and Lord Westmoreland always shown his good-will to 
 me, I cannot care about this politically or socially ; and am only 
 worried that two such men as Bunsen and Humboldt should 
 have put themselves in a false position for me. The former was 
 evidently anxious that the King should quite win me over ; and 
 I am not sorry that I am now left to speak or write whatever 
 I please, without any fear of a charge of Custinism. For a 
 stranger, the etiquette of society here is very gSnant ; you 
 cannot dance opposite a lady in a quadrille without being 
 introduced to her. The learned people, on the contrary, are 
 simple and unpedantic, and very good company; they are, 
 however, too busy to have much time to give to mere talk. The 
 tendency of things here is eminently practical, as we shall soon 
 find by an increase of the duty on our twist. Everybody 
 speaks of the industrial development of the country, which 
 means nothing more nor less than Protection. I believe the 
 Ministers would be Free Traders if they could, but public opinion 
 is too strong for them. The most important arrival here is that 
 of Lord Lichfield's horse Elis, bought by a Silesian count for 
 about 10,000. He came by railroad the day before yesterday 
 with a lot of other English horses. M. Gudin, the French 
 painter, who married a daughter of Lord James Hay, is one of 
 the pleasantest foreigners. There was a great hitch about her 
 presentation at Court, having married a painter, but she was 
 let in by a side way. The wives of Ministers who are not noble, 
 such as Bunsen, cannot go to Court, nor their families ; and the 
 Court here does not only mean the King's parties, but those of 
 all the Princes, making at least half the society. . .
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 345 
 
 I rather think G ladstone's railway policy is the right one ; you 
 may have to pay a little more for a monopolising line, but it 
 would be much better managed than a series of small inde- 
 pendent ones, which after all are just as likely to be made 
 monopolies themselves. 
 
 Whilst Milnes was in Berlin, from which he did 
 not return until the middle of February, the Quarterly 
 Review appeared with an article upon his " Palm 
 Leaves " that attracted considerable attention. The 
 article was not so much a criticism of his poetry as an 
 attack upon his principles, which were handled with a 
 severity that was only to be justified by the writer's 
 ignorance of Milnes's love of paradox and startling 
 assertion. Among his friends the criticism, coming 
 from so influential an organ of opinion, caused both 
 uneasiness and indignation ; and Milnes came back to 
 find that in his own set a small storm was raging over 
 the merits of himself and his critic. 
 
 Eliot Warburton to R. M. M. 
 
 Kildare St. Club, Dublin, Feb. 12^, 1845. 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Receive a hearty welcome home ! I 
 rejoice to hear that you are in England, and desire much to see 
 you. I have just had the most pained letter from a man who 
 reviewed you in the last Quarterly on finding, he says, that 
 his article was considered an attack on you, and that his 
 unlucky pen seemed to have a curse on it, for his heartfelt 
 praise was considered irony, while his bantering was taken to 
 express real bitterness. I confess, though the writer did not 
 appreciate you as much as the rest of the world, I know, do 
 appreciate you, I think that the fair impression derivable from 
 the article in question is on the whole tributary to your fame. 
 I think I should feel as jealous of this as any man may well be
 
 346 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 over another's ; but if I knew nothing of you except what is 
 apparent in this Review I should picture to myself a combina- 
 tion of Beckford, Sheridan; and Alfred Tennyson character- 
 istics and powers that few, if any, have ever attained to. 
 Moreover, of one too much talked of, and too well known not 
 to have his name upon the oyster-shell, yet should I not take 
 this to be an oyster-shell. 
 
 I hope you will soon be in town. Pray write to me 
 soon, and 
 
 Believe me ever yours faithfully and affectionately, 
 
 ELIOT WARBURTON. 
 
 The writer of the article himself addressed a mutual 
 friend on the subject of his unlucky strictures, telling 
 him how much he had been distressed at finding 
 that he was supposed to have written a bitter attack 
 upon a man from whom he had never received any- 
 thing but kindness, and for whom, on his part, he 
 entertained a warm affection. " If I found that I had 
 hurt Milnes's feelings, I should be inclined to vow that, 
 except for political purposes, I would never again use 
 the public press." 
 
 The episode is of interest because the critic who was 
 thus misconceived by Milnes's enthusiastic friends was 
 none other than Mr. Kinglake, the author of " Eothen." 
 That Milnes himself did not feel aggrieved by the 
 criticism which, if somewhat too serious, was still 
 entirely fair is proved by the fact that we find him 
 corresponding in the friendliest manner with Mr. King- 
 lake himself immediately after the discussion to which I 
 have referred. The subject of this new correspondence 
 was the condition of Thomas Hood the poet, and of
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 347 
 
 his family. Hood was dying in circumstances which 
 say little for the public appreciation of a great genius. 
 Long before this his wants had been made known to 
 Milnes by one of his friends, and for months no man 
 had done more to relieve Hood's distresses and to soothe 
 his mind than the author of " Palm Leaves." The help 
 which he gave was not the easy benevolence of a mere 
 gift in money. Money was provided when required, but 
 Hood's independence of spirit was carefully respected. 
 He was at that time the editor and proprietor of the 
 magazine known as Hood's Own, and Milnes found that 
 the distressed poet preferred to receive assistance in the 
 shape of gratuitous literary work for his magazine rather 
 than in money. Cheerfully and zealously he laid himself 
 out to render all the help he could in this manner to the 
 author of " The Song of the Shirt." None but those 
 who are themselves engaged in literary work can fully 
 appreciate the extent of the sacrifice which he thus made. 
 Nor was it only his own pen which was freely placed at 
 the service of the dying poet; he canvassed right and 
 left among his friends for contributions to the magazine. 
 
 Mr. Kinglake to R. M. M. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, Feb. list, 1845. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Poor Hood ! It is most painful to refuse 
 such a request as that which your note contains, and especially, 
 if I may say so, when it comes through you. Could it not be 
 contrived to buy an article from some competent litterateur ? If 
 so, I would gladly send 10 for that purpose. Of course, poor 
 Hood would not know but what the article had been given him. 
 I am ashamed to be driven to this coarsely English trick of
 
 348 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 offering- money (you ask for a stone, and I give you bread) ; but 
 it would be seriously injurious to me if the author of " Eothen " 
 were afficked as contributing to a magazine. My frailty in 
 publishing a book has already, I fear, hurt me in my profes- 
 sion, and a small sin of this kind would bring me into still deeper 
 disgrace with the solicitors. The moment I know from you that 
 I can contribute in the way that I have mentioned without giving 
 offence I will send my cheque. I shall see you on Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 Always truly yours, 
 
 A. W. KINGLAKE. 
 
 Hood's painful struggle with death lasted for some 
 months, and during the whole of that time Milnes did 
 what he could to sustain his spirits and to surround his 
 family with comforts. He was once more in the thick 
 of the social and political life of London. His breakfast 
 tables had hegun again, and he was engaged by his 
 attendance upon Parliament ; but he was ready at any 
 moment to withdraw himself from any engagement in 
 order that he might either cheer Hood by a visit or 
 help to support him by the use of his pen. Some of the 
 letters of Mr. F. 0. Ward, who acted on behalf of 
 Hood's family, may be cited because of the picture they 
 afford of the gloomy close of the poet's life, and because 
 also of the light which they throw upon Milnes's 
 character. 
 
 Mr. F. 0. Ward to R. M. M. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Thanks for your note, as prompt and as 
 kind as usual a real service instead of an elegantly turned 
 excuse. I sat up all last night trying to write, but very unsuc- 
 cessfully. My mind is overwhelmed with harass about Hood 
 and his family (who are weeping around him) and the magazine,
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 849 
 
 the position of which is, of course, most precarious ; but I feel 
 bound to try to do myself what I ask others to do. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 F. O. WARD. 
 
 12, Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, 
 
 May UTiy 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Poor Hood has gone at last released 
 from sufferings the most protracted and terrible I ever wit- 
 nessed. He died on Saturday afternoon at 5.30. I want 
 exceedingly to speak to you, and called yesterday, but you were 
 out. Will you give me an appointment ? . . . 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 F. O. WARD. 
 
 Some question was raised as to where and how the 
 poet should be buried. Milnes was consulted in the 
 matter, and urgently recommended his burial at Kensal 
 Green. His death had excited no small measure of 
 public sympathy on behalf of his family, and there was 
 every desire, now that he himself was beyond the reach 
 of human aid, to render him an abundant degree of 
 posthumous honour. 
 
 Mr. F. 0. Ward to R. M. M. 
 
 12, Cork Street, May Itli, 1845. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, Mrs. Hood perceived the justice of your 
 remarks, and it is resolved to adopt your suggestion and bury him 
 in the Kensal Green Cemetery. It is arranged that the funeral 
 train shall be there at 12 o'clock on Saturday exactly, so that 
 those who come to pay respect to his memory by following him 
 to the grave may not be inconvenienced. I am very anxious 
 that he should receive proper honour, and I regret exceedingly 
 that Sir B. Peel is too busy to come. When his scattered works
 
 350 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 come to be collected and finally appreciated, they will justify 
 the enthusiasm of his warmest admirers, and make it a pleasant 
 remembrance to have paid him this last respect. I hope you will 
 mention the time and place fixed among your more eminent 
 friends, that they may have the opportunity, if they wish, of 
 attending. I should have called, but have been occupied all 
 day in discussing and completing the arrangements for the 
 funeral. I am shocked with the manner of the undertakers 
 dilating on their " finest velvet/' their " double row of nails/' 
 their " best burnished glory ." They advised a brass name-plate 
 on the coffin, because it would " wear better " I What an epigram 
 on human pride 1 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 F. O. WARD. 
 
 A subscription was raised for Hood's family, and 
 Milnes took a leading part in the work, which happily 
 resulted in the collection of a sum sufficient to place 
 Mrs. Hood in comfort for the remainder of her days. 
 
 How this distressed family [writes Mr. Ward to Milnes], 
 how all their friends, how I, how every one who is concerned in 
 the fate of literary men and their surviving relatives, will ever 
 be able sufficiently to acknowledge your quiet, continuous, and 
 most successful activity on their behalf, I am sure I cannot 
 tell. The extent and facility of your influence astonishes me; 
 and I am sure it will be a happiness to you through many 
 years to reflect that, chiefly through your freely given, dis- 
 interested efforts, the family of so great a poet, and so excellent 
 a man, are enjoying if not such a position as in a juster state 
 of society would have been assured to them at least a modest 
 competence. I sometimes think that there will, perhaps, come 
 hours at the end of life when we shall look back upon our 
 writings and speakings and toilings, much doubting whether 
 after all they were not laborious trifling, and only happy and 
 secure in this conviction that whenever we did kindly, we did 
 well.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 351 
 
 The incident of Milnes's connection with Hood in 
 the time of his distress was only one of many such, 
 experiences in the course of his busy and sparkling life ; 
 and there were many names besides that of the author 
 of " The Song of the Shirt " some of them names 
 still held in high reverence among living English 
 authors which, in those hours of reflection at the close 
 of life alluded to by Mr. Ward, must have called up in 
 the breast of Lord Houghton the most soothing of all 
 the memories that can attend advancing age and de- 
 clining strength. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Serlby, March ZQtk, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, We are here, a large 
 
 family party, assembled for the christening of my sister's son 
 and heir,* a fine bambino. Colvile read me your pleasant letter. 
 It rejoiced me to hear you had. so much to do as to have hardly 
 time to think. If I am to be imprisoned at all, let it be with 
 hard labour. Pray let me know whenever you hear of a probable 
 vacancy in your part of the world, which you would prefer to 
 being where you are. The Chairman of the Board cannot last 
 long, and I am pretty intimate with his probable successor. 
 Let me know whether you can get an American edition of 
 Thiers's History ; if not, I must send it you whenever any of 
 these Turks return. It is, without exception, the most mis- 
 chievous of books, for not only does it claim for the violent 
 aggressions of the counter- Revolution all the indemnity that 
 the most ardent Democrats have allowed to the propaganda of 
 the Revolution itself, but by holding out the right of search 
 and the occupation of Egypt as the two most sacred causes for 
 which France can engage in war, it does its utmost to keep the 
 belligerent feelings in that country awake, and to encourage 
 The present Viscount Gal way.
 
 352 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTOtf. 
 
 suspicion of and animosity to England. It is coloured 
 throughout with allusions to the present and future state of 
 France, which give it a pamphleteering look, and detract from 
 its historical dignity. Even in his battles he never hovers 
 observant over the field, as a great historian should do, but is 
 always himself in the French lines, and generally in the thickest 
 of the fray. Disraeli has got a new book in the press. His 
 Philippics of late have been capital, most artistic and telling. 
 It is the fashion to say he only injures himself by them, and 
 this may be true for the moment ; but he must take a long 
 range (like Captain Warner), and twenty such speeches must 
 tell in the country. I am so angry with Peel for passing over 
 out-and-out the best speaker among us younger men for a pack 
 of illiterate lordlings, that I am not sorry to see the consequences. 
 Disraeli has no Christian sentimentalities about him ; none of 
 your forgiveness of injuries; he is a son of the old jealous 
 implacable Jehovah ; a regular " hip and thigh/' " root and 
 branch" sort of Urmensch. Goethe would have delighted in 
 him. . . . Peel brings in a Bill next week to make May- 
 nooth a great seminary, and ,to establish two colleges like 
 the London one in Ireland. There will be a huge Protestant 
 row for a month or so, and we pro-Protestants will be threatened 
 with the loss of our seats. O'Connell is very low ; this eccle- 
 siastical schism has let many persons behind the curtain, and 
 the Irish Church turns out to be no more united than any other. 
 Strange to see the English Government taking an Ultramontane 
 line and supporting the Jesuits. The Italians know how long 
 ago this ought to have been done. Young Ireland would 
 separate from Rome to-morrow if they dared. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Did you ever meet Kinglake (Eothen) at my rooms ? .He 
 has had immense success. I now rather wish I had written his 
 book, which I could have done at least, nearly. 
 
 Considering the views entertained by Milnes on tlie
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 353 
 
 question of Catholic Education and the treatment of 
 the Catholic Church in Ireland, it is not surprising that 
 the reawakening of theological passions occasioned by 
 Sir Robert Peel's action on the question of Maynooth 
 should have brought a storm about the ears of the 
 member for Pomfret. He had already given proof of 
 his resolute independence ; he was now once more called 
 upon to withstand the attack of an important section of 
 his own followers. 
 
 We have the less reason to be surprised at the anger 
 of his ultra- Protestant constituents, because at the very 
 time when their fury on the question of Maynooth was 
 at its height, Milnes, with that calm disregard of times 
 and seasons so far as they affected his personal interests, 
 which distinguished him, put forth his pamphlet on the 
 " Real Union of England and Ireland." In this pamph- 
 let he called upon the Conservative party to do justice 
 to Ireland, and to avert the repeal of the Union, which 
 he feared must otherwise come, by endowing the Catholic 
 Church. His proposals, which were stated with all his 
 accustomed force and clearness, won for him the approval 
 of not a few independent thinkers ; but met with an 
 absolute rejection at the hands of the political party to 
 which he more particularly appealed. 
 
 E. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Hay 30^, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAE, FRIEND, I have not written for some posts, 
 having been busier than usual. We have been in a state of 
 religious tumult worse, I fancy, than anything during the 
 Catholic Emancipation squabble. My constituents have been
 
 354 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 especially savage. The whole electoral body, headed by parsons 
 (from Episcopal to Ranter), raged against me for six weeks, 
 pledging themselves never to support me again, and ending by 
 asking me to resign. The storm seems, however, to be blowing 
 over wonderfully ; and by this time next week the Maynooth 
 Bill will be law, and the English people, submitting with their 
 usual good sense to absolute necessity, will probably forget all 
 about it. I have, however, done the worst against myself by 
 writing a libretto you shall have as soon as I can send it 
 without ruining you. The Duke de Broglie has been in London 
 some time, and has made himself so much pleasanter than he 
 does in Paris, that his mission has been as successful socially as 
 politically. M. Guizot is getting all right. Thiers talks of 
 coming here ; but I fancy it is all talk. We are amazingly 
 proud of all our mechanical civilisation, and yet could not 
 prevent six persons being burned to death in a hotel in the 
 West End before twelve o'clock a few nights ago. It was full 
 of persons, come up for the Drawing Room, and was next door 
 to my publisher, Moxon. I was at his house the morning after, 
 when a milliner came with the Court dress of one poor lady who 
 lay in cinders. . . . My family are going on well, though 
 my father is easily knocked up. As for myself, I am shut up in 
 a Railroad Committee all day, and likely to be till the end of 
 the Session. Although a great number of railroads will be 
 thrown out, yet an enormous number, say one hundred, will 
 pass ; and from the employment of capital and labour we may 
 anticipate some prosperous years, after which, in all probability, 
 we shall have a frightful reaction. Did I tell you Sir Francis 
 Doyle, who married Miss Wynn, has got a hard-working 
 place of 1,000 per annum, after an immense amount of 
 asking from all his friends ? The spring has hardly begun 
 
 here. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The storm at Pomfret blew over, though Milnes 
 continued under suspicion on the part of his ultra
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 855 
 
 Protestant constituents. Next to the burning question 
 of the Corn Laws the agitation against which was now 
 at its height the question which most largely occupied 
 the attention of the public at this period was that of the 
 extension of the railway system a work that was now 
 advancing by leaps and bounds. Milnes, as the heir to 
 a considerable estate, the value of which could not fail 
 to be affected by an increase of the railway accommoda- 
 tion, had his own personal interest in this question, 
 which engaged a large portion of the time of Parliament, 
 and distracted the attention of its members from matters 
 of more purely political interest. 
 
 R. M. M. to Lady Galway. 
 
 1845. 
 
 Papa seems much better and in good spirits. He prowls 
 about the committee-rooms, and seems to amuse himself. He 
 has been once or twice to play whist at Boodles. The Due de 
 Nemours comes over to dance the Minuet with the Queen.* The 
 King of the French has lent all the Crown jewels to the duchess, 
 so she will quite cut our Queen out, and even Lady Londonderry, 
 who goes as Maria Theresa. Old Liverpool is very stiff on his 
 legs, but has got a dancing mistress. O'Brien and Lord Exeter 
 dance together an hour every day. My pamphlet, " The Real 
 Union of England and Ireland/' is not worth the postage, as 
 
 can get it for you. I think it is the best thing I have 
 
 ever written in prose. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J.MacCartfy. 
 
 Pall Mall, June 26^, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, Since my last month's missive I have 
 been daily enclosed in a Railway Committee, and at this moment 
 have to decide between the locomotive and atmospheric systems, 
 
 * At the State Ball at Buckingham Palace.
 
 356 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 about which I feel I am no more fit to judge than any other 
 member of Parliament. The extent of railroad speculation has 
 been perfectly awful, and the loss will be proportionate. The 
 lobbies of the House of Commons have been like an Exchange, 
 with carrier pigeons going off to the City with the decisions and 
 turns of Committees. Mine has now sat six weeks, and will 
 last ten days more. I don't dislike it on the whole, having a 
 great pleasure in feeling myself an infinitesimal wheel in this 
 world-machine of ours. . . . The Government seem stronger 
 than ever. The Maynooth storm is lulled whether exhausted 
 or not remains to be seen. I rather think not, and that it will 
 break out on the next occasion, though we must set against this 
 the usual sense of the English people to see when they are beaten. 
 The Bishop of St. David's made a failure in the House of Lords 
 by delivering an excellent charge a good essay and a bad 
 speech. The Times has gone into open opposition to the Govern- 
 ment on all points except foreign policy : it is conducted with most 
 spiteful ability, and made good use of, by Disraeli. I seconded 
 Charles Buller's motion against Lord Stanley on New Zealand. 
 The case was so good in itself, it hardly required the very great 
 ability that Buller showed. The Government were obliged to 
 give in, and promised everything ; but I fear the mismanage- 
 ment has already gone so far that great evil is to be apprehended. 
 What an impracticability to establish land claims in a country 
 where the land was bought with sealing-wax, blankets, and 
 Jews' harps, and where the best native title is to have killed and 
 eaten the previous possessor ! I shall be glad to find you have 
 got over your summer well. The weather here has been very 
 hot, and the promise of harvest magnificent another year's lease 
 for the Corn Laws. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 He wrote to Carlyle, proposing that he and Mrs. 
 Carlyle should visit Fryston during the autumn.
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 357 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, July 27th, 1845. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, You are very kind and good. Your note 
 will be a pleasure to my little partner when she receives it, as it 
 is to me already, for which be due praise and thanks to all the 
 parties instrumental therein. If it please Heaven, we shall see 
 Fryston one day or other ; but the truth is, my wife is off to 
 Lancashire, to Wales, and the green world a week ago ; and I 
 here sit wrestling and wriggling over the fag-end of " Cromwell " 
 near dead with it, and cannot stir anywhither till that be 
 done probably not for a month yet. I am then bound for 
 Scotland, to see my good old mother once again in this world. 
 Can yet set no time for that or anything, and do not promise 
 myself to accomplish any further expedition till a new reason 
 come. Shall I not see you again before you go ? If you had 
 a horse, and would come and ride with me some day, a great 
 deal of pleasant talk might be accomplished. But there is no 
 use in wishing. May good go with you whitherward soever ! 
 This I will wish for my own private behoof, if for no others. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Fryston, August 12t&, 1845. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, . . . The Session subsided dully. I 
 should have been glad to have had the place at the Board of 
 Control that Emerson Tennent has vacated, but Sir Robert has 
 given it to Mahon, who astonished everybody by taking it, as he 
 had refused the Foreign Under-Secretaryship when the Tories 
 came in. Me Arthur took charge of a little packet of books for 
 you, which I hope will arrive safe. ... I took some part 
 in the debate on New Zealand, in which Lord Stanley came out 
 very ill. It was clear he had never troubled himself thoroughly 
 to understand the question, or had so prejudiced himself that he 
 could come to no good conclusion. The Government were at 
 last forced into justice by events, rather than reason. I have no 
 large plans for the autumn and winter. A visit to Tocqueville,
 
 358 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 in Normandy, is as much as I shall accomplish in the foreign 
 way. My servant Frederick has just left me to set up 
 for himself in a public-house ; he will probably be ruined in 
 about two years, and have to return to his old life, having 
 lost his habits of service and his good manners. My sister 
 goes on in capital health. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. MlLNES. 
 
 One of the events of literary interest of the time was 
 the appearance of Dickens as an amateur actor on the 
 
 stage. 
 
 Mrs. Procter to R. M. M. 
 
 August 9th, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR MB. MILNKS, I am sadly disappointed. I had 
 hoped to have seen you before I quitted England, and received 
 your blessing. On Saturday next we go ; already a large black 
 trunk has come home, looking like a coffin. Have you heard 
 that Mr. Dickens and Mr. Forster are going to act, at the 
 St. James's Theatre, Every Man in His Humour Forster, 
 Kitely (Kean's part), and Dickens, Bob Adell? It will be 
 in about a mouth. Mr. Thackeray has offered to sing between 
 the Acts, but they decline his services. This is the only piece of 
 news I have heard. When I return, the latter end of October, 
 I shall hope to find some words from you, and 
 
 Trust you, be it night or day, 
 I shall receive it royally. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. B. PROCTER. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartly. 
 
 Bawtry, Christmas Day, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I cannot employ this day better than 
 in wishing you a happy Christmas, and in expressing my sincere 
 satisfaction at the contentment and health of mind manifested
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 359 
 
 in all your late letters. We are back at this house again, .my 
 father liking it much better than Fryston, both for its own sake 
 and for being nearer Serlby.* I dreamt last night of you and 
 Edward Vavasour being here Alas ! The third Vavasour has 
 come back from New Zealand, and is not to return, but to marry 
 Lord Calvert's daughter. . . . You will probably know 
 that Newman has joined the Church of Rome, taking about 
 thirty clergy and twice as many laymen with him, and Wiseman 
 has called on the Bishop of Paris to appoint solemn prayers 
 for the conversion of England. I fancy the Roman Catholic 
 hierarchy here must be somewhat embarrassed how to employ 
 their wealth of converts, most of them active intelligent men 
 who have come to the Roman Church for the ideal they could 
 not find in the Anglican, and who are not susceptible to the 
 usual temptations of hierarchical ambition. Newman has pub- 
 lished a very learned subtle book on the developments of 
 Christianity in the Roman Church, quite throwing over the 
 notion that the Church of Rome does not add to the Apostolic 
 teaching, and distinctly avowing that the Real Presence and the 
 deification of the Virgin (his phrase) are doctrines revealed in 
 later times by the Church. We have had a quantity of political 
 jugglery the last fortnight. Peel proposed something to his 
 Cabinet, on which they outvoted him. He resigned ; the Queen 
 sent for John Russell, who ten days before had declared 
 himself a Leaguer on the corn question. He was a week in 
 forming his Government, and, having settled to do so, sent for 
 the new Lord Grey to offer him the Colonial Office. Lord Grey 
 said he must first know whether Palmerston was to have the 
 Foreign Office, and being told he was, declined serving in the 
 Cabinet altogether. Lord John, disgusted, threw up the whole 
 matter; Peel returned to office, summoned his old colleagues, 
 offered to make it up ; they or he came to terms, except Stanley, 
 and they are all in again, with Gladstone in Stanley's place. 
 It is assumed (I think gratuitously) that Peel is going to repeal 
 the Corn Laws, and on this agriculturists are raving about, and 
 
 * The residence of Lady Galway.
 
 360 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the Carlton has become a den of scorpions. I am a moderate 
 Protectionist, and thus shall please neither party ; via media 
 never answers in politics, and somehow or other I never can get 
 out of it. My Laodicean spirit is the ruin of ine. From having 
 lived with all sorts of people, and seen good in all, the broad 
 black lines of judgment that people usually draw seem to me 
 false and foolish, and I think my own finer ones just as distinct, 
 though no one can see them but myself. They have just done 
 me the honour of reprinting my poems in Boston. I have not 
 yet seen the edition, though a copy is lying at my rooms in 
 London. By-the-bye, you had better direct Carlton Club, Pall 
 Mall, for the future, as I am not sure that I continue my 
 lodgings. . . . Carlyle's "Cromwell" is a valuable book, 
 fanatical as its hero at least 
 God bless you. 
 
 Milnes's prospects in the political world were not at 
 this time bright. He had again been disappointed in 
 his justifiable expectation of office, Peel having once 
 more passed him over. This, however, was a dis- 
 appointment to which he may almost be said to have 
 become accustomed. There were other and more 
 serious causes of" dissatisfaction with his position in 
 Parliament and in public life, and these weighed upon 
 his spirits. He found that he was no longer in 
 sympathy with that Conservative party to which his 
 father was so deeply attached, and yet at the same 
 time he knew that upOD many points he differed widely 
 from the members of the opposite party. He had 
 quarrelled with the Nonconformists on the question of 
 Maynooth. He was prepared to quarrel with the Pro- 
 tectionists on the question of the Corn Laws. A letter 
 which, in the spring of this year, he had addressed to
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 361 
 
 his father, at a time when a project was on foot for 
 securing him as Conservative candidate for North Not- 
 tinghamshire, throws light upon the position in which 
 he stood. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 March 3rd, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I am glad you gave up all thoughts 
 of my representing North Notts. In the present state of 
 things I would rather be out of Parliament altogether than 
 represent any county, except the West Riding ; for, in truth, in 
 this and coming contests between the towns and the country, 
 all my feelings are with the towns, and would have been so all 
 the time that the old municipalities fought and beat the feudal 
 system. You say, the towns may pass and the land rests. 
 What is Italy without Rome, what Syria without Jerusalem, 
 what Egypt without Thebes and Alexandria ? 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 A few months after the above letter was written 
 Milnes suffered what was a real blow to his political 
 aspirations. The post which of all others he coveted 
 in the Government, and for which he was unquestionably 
 best fitted, became vacant, and he was again passed 
 over. His disappointment was severe. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Private. Bawtry, Jan. \4eth, 1846. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, I hear that Lord Canning has 
 resigned the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. It is no 
 secret to those who have in any way interested themselves in 
 my welfare that I have aimed at occupying that post, and I 
 have aspired to it because I believe myself I trust, without 
 presumption better fitted for it by my special reading and
 
 362 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 personal observation than my contemporaries generally, who take 
 little or no interest in foreign politics, and because I thought 
 that with Sir Robert Peel at hand to conduct matters of primary 
 importance in the House of Commons my very slender Par- 
 liamentary ability might be sufficient for the purpose. I have 
 now for near nine years earnestly, conscientiously, and indepen- 
 dently, in and out of the House of Commons, with voice and 
 with pen, supported Sir Robert Peel and his policy ; and though 
 no one can think more humbly than I do of the absolute value 
 of that support, yet relatively to others I may remember with 
 satisfaction that I have never been tempted into personal dis- 
 respect or political faction by the bait of immediate Parlia- 
 mentary success or electoral popularity. If, therefore, Sir 
 Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen confer this office on any other 
 member of Parliament of lower Parliamentary standing than 
 myself, I am compelled to take it as an intimation of their 
 opinion of my inability to share the public service in any depart- 
 ment, and to prepare myself to act upon that belief. Of all the 
 moral difficulties I have encountered in my intercourse with the 
 world, I have suffered far the most from the problem of recon- 
 ciling that self-respect, without which public life is disgraceful, 
 and that desire of effecting some practical good in one's genera- 
 tion, without which it is useless, with an entire freedom from 
 selfish motives ; and knowing with what subtlety evil influences 
 work upon the spirit, I own I dread the effect that a sense of 
 personal injustice may have on my decision of questions likely 
 soon to be brought before every member of Parliament, and to 
 the consideration of which I had hoped to bring a mind un- 
 touched by bitter feelings. Of course I do not ask you to 
 interfere with the departments of other Ministers; but, I 
 confess, it would be grateful to me if, through the pure channel 
 of your friendship, the plain facts of this note reached Sir 
 Robert Peel. The kindly intercourse with which he honoured 
 me when in Opposition has, probably of necessity, been so 
 remitted of late years that it would be impertinent in me to 
 approach him on any footing of intimacy, and I cannot make
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 363 
 
 a direct application on a subject which appears to be my 
 individual advantage, but which is really the resolution of the 
 question whether I can do any good to others, or improve 
 myself, by remaining any longer in public life. 
 I am, my dear friend, 
 
 Yours very truly and obliged, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 There is no need to offer one word in defence of the 
 tone of the foregoing letter, nor will any one who 
 knew the writer at that period in his life feel that the 
 consciousness which he displayed of his fitness for the 
 post to which he aspired was not amply justified. A 
 later generation which knew Lord Houghton in another 
 phase of his varied life, and which associated him 
 rather with the social and literary than with the 
 political interests of his country, may possibly feel 
 passing surprise at the fact that he should have thus 
 earnestly insisted upon his right to take an important 
 post in the Government of his country. But no such 
 surprise would have been felt by his contemporaries. This 
 letter of Jan. 14th may be said to have marked the 
 turning-point in his life. If Sir Eobert Peel had put 
 aside the prejudice which he entertained against the 
 admission of men of letters into the official ring, and 
 had frankly recognised the claims of one for whom he 
 had professed, at one time, a warm friendship and 
 admiration, the career of the subject of this memoir 
 might have been altogether different from what it was ; 
 and those who knew him best will feel most confident 
 that, in such a case, he would have justified the hopes 
 of his friends and of the outer world.
 
 364 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 But it was not to be ; the coveted door was closed 
 in his face, and there can be no doubt that from that 
 time forward, whilst Milnes continued to display as keen 
 and intelligent an interest as he had ever done in the 
 politics of his country, and above all in those questions 
 which affected our relations with other Powers, there 
 was a shadow upon his own Parliamentary career which 
 never wholly passed away. 
 
 Milnes's disappointment at finding that he was once 
 more passed over was not lessened by the fact that the 
 person who was preferred to himself was Mr. George 
 Smythe, afterwards Lord Strangford, with whom his 
 personal relations were not altogether cordial, and 
 who had entered into something like a rivalry with him 
 in the field of foreign politics. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Private. Bawtry, Jan. 19^, 1846. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, When I wrote to you, I was not 
 aware that Mr. Smythe had obtained the Under-Secretaryship, 
 though I heard it was probable he might do this. Under the 
 circumstances, you have done for me all I could desire. 
 If the subject ever comes up again, I should be glad Sir Robert 
 Peel should know that I entirely demur to the expression of 
 " candidate for office " as applied to myself. I am, fortunately, 
 in no need either of the emolument or reputation of place. I 
 have never thought of the subject except as a means of usefulness 
 and activity, nor regretted the want of it except from a convic- 
 tion that my difficulty in making my way in the House of 
 Commons was immeasurably increased by the very fair assump- 
 tion that I was not fit to take up the time of the House if those 
 who knew me best thought me incapable of mixing in public 
 affairs, I do not think I have ever complained to you or any one
 
 POLITICAL AND LITERARY LIFE. 365 
 
 else of having been passed over in 1841, nor should I have now 
 dreamt of occupying you or Sir Robert Peel with so unimportant 
 a matter had I not taken especial pains to render myself fit for 
 that particular department. Lord Aberdeen certainly told me, 
 unasked, that he had invincible objections against having a 
 representative in the House of Commons, which I suppose he 
 would not have volunteered to do except with an application to 
 myself, and I hardly think he would have shown the present 
 preference had he known the several circumstances. I am not 
 ashamed to confess myself thoroughly disappointed. I am forced 
 to look to new objects of thought, to new subjects of observation. 
 No ingenuity could have made the blow more provoking from 
 the hands of the man to whom I have shown the most public 
 respect, through those of the one for whom I entertain the most 
 private dislike. But in morals, as in physics, if well used, the 
 bitter braces. Your kindness and good-will I shall never forget. 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHANGE OP VIEW S. 
 
 The Crisis of Protection Letter to Guizot Peel's Retirement Milnes joins the 
 Liberal Party Death of his Mother Letter from Robert Browning Carlyle 
 in Yorkshire W. E. Forster Friendship with the Duke of Wellington 
 A Characteristic Letter Visit to the Peninsula Withdrawal from the 
 Carlton Club "Events of 1848" Dispute with Mr. George Smythe 
 Challenges Him Extracts from Commonplace Book Louis Philippe and 
 Milnes Lord Malmesbury's Mis-statement. 
 
 THE country was now at the most critical stage of the 
 great struggle upon the Corn Laws. Milnes, as the 
 reader has seen, had frankly avowed to his father that 
 in any contest between the towns and the counties or, 
 in other words, between the manufacturing and agri- 
 cultural interests his own sympathies would compel him 
 to take the side of the former. It was not surprising, 
 therefore, that he was among those Conservatives who 
 awaited with intense anxiety the action of Sir Robert 
 Peel, hoping almost against hope that, in view of the 
 serious and threatening condition of things which had 
 arisen in the country, he would cast all considerations 
 of mere party upon one side, and boldly take the only 
 course by which the nation could be saved from impend- 
 ing disaster. The keen personal disappointment which 
 he had suffered by the refusal of Sir Robert Peel to give 
 him the post he had coveted had no effect upon him so 
 far as his political action was concerned, and he refused
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 367 
 
 to allow himself to be drawn into the schemes and 
 intrigues of that section of the Conservative party 
 which was now in almost open revolt against the Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 On December 4th, 1845, the Times had startled the 
 world by the announcement that at the commencement 
 of the Session Ministers would recommend an immediate 
 Gonsideration of the Corn Laws, with a view to their 
 total repeal, and, though indignant denial had been forth- 
 coming, there was a wide-spread belief that the announce- 
 ment was founded upon fact. Peel had found his 
 difficulties with his party and his Ministry so grave that 
 he had placed his resignation in the hands of the Queen 
 on December 5th, and he only now remained in office 
 because of Lord John Eussell's inability to form a 
 Government to take the place of his own. In circum- 
 stances at once so confused and so critical, it is not 
 surprising that the opening of the Session of Parliament 
 was awaited throughout the country with the keenest 
 interest. 
 
 According to his wont during many years, Milnes 
 wrote to M. Guizot to explain, as far as might be, to the 
 French Minister the situation in England. 
 
 R. M. M. to M. Guizot. 
 
 Jan. \1th, 1846. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have not written to you for so long that I 
 hardly know how to begin. I should, indeed, have made the 
 attempt to throw some gleam of light on the confused political 
 circumstances of the last month, but I was restrained by the 
 consciousness that I could add very little, if anything, to the 
 news you were daily receiving, and that I should not be justified
 
 368 (THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 in taking up your precious time in conjectures, gossip, and sus- 
 picions. Now all is settled for the moment, and the country 
 waits on tiptoe for the 22nd not, indeed, silent, but with a deep 
 undercurrent of discontent and querulous anger. I have been 
 in the country for some time, and have seen the working of 
 men's minds in different parts. It is undeniable that people 
 talk in a very different way about the repeal of the Corn Law 
 from what they would have done six months ago. The defiant 
 party is certainly small, and the agriculturists generally so 
 totally without organisation or union of purpose that they really 
 seem at Peers mercy. All parties will, I think, meet Parliament 
 in a creditable position except those gentlemen whoso far differed 
 from Sir Robert as to break up his Cabinet and throw the country 
 into a political crisis, and then came back again as if nothing 
 had happened. It is possible Sir Robert Peel made some concession 
 to them, but he has such a reputation for persisting in his own 
 way that nobody believes it. For myself, I am rather in a 
 fortunate position, never having taken up any high Protection 
 grounds with my constituents, and having pressed a lower scale 
 upon Sir Robert's attention in 1842. 
 
 There is no doubt that the fundamental reason of Lord John's 
 incapacity to form a Cabinet was that he could get no distinct 
 promise of support in his Free Trade measures from Sir R. Peel. 
 Graham seemed more willing to enter into an engagement ; but 
 as the Whigs could not muster more than 251 votes, Lord 
 John was too delighted to make Lord Grey a scapegoat and get 
 well out of it.* It would certainly have been much more con- 
 venient for Sir Robert Peel that Lord John should have proposed 
 his " total repeal," and then to have brought forward his own 
 scheme as a Conservative amendment and mitigation of Whig 
 rashness, than to have to bring it forward as an integral measure, 
 disgusting to his friends and unsatisfactory to his opponents. 
 
 The last number of the Edinburgh Review contains a short 
 
 * Lord John Russell's attempt to form a Cabinet in the previous month 
 had been frustrated by Lord Grey's refusal to take office if Lord 
 Palinerston became Foreign Secretary.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 369 
 
 article of mine on the political state of Prussia. It comes out 
 at an unfortunate moment here, as people are too anxious to 
 read anything; and, from the last news, that unhappy King 
 seems to have resolved on a line of policy which will require 
 something stronger than pamphlets to alter. I earnestly wish 
 the foolish question of our recognition of Algeria could be once 
 well settled ; since the Sultan's reception of the Duke of 
 Montpensier, I cannot conceive what difficulty there can be. 
 M. Thiers must have completely incapacitated himself from any 
 further abuse of the " entente cordiale " by the friendly pro- 
 fessions he lavished on all of us during his visit to England ; 
 and the respectful manner in which he spoke of the King and 
 yourself gave me the impression that he did not contemplate 
 any very vigorous opposition to the Government. With kind 
 remembrances to all your excellent family, and best wishes for 
 the New Year, 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Yours always and obliged, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 Parliament met on the 22nd, the Queen opening the 
 Session in person, and the long-expected declaration by 
 Sir Robert Peel was made. It practically amounted to 
 the announcement of his own conversion to the Free 
 Trade doctrines which had so long been preached in 
 vain by Cobden and Bright ; and it gave Mr. Disraeli 
 the chance, for which he had during many Sessions been 
 waiting patiently, of putting himself forward as the 
 most powerful and implacable antagonist of the Minister 
 who had failed to recognise his genius. Milnes, though 
 he sought to devise a method of reconciliation between 
 the Protectionists and their old leader, steadily refused 
 to be drawn into the camp in which Disraeli was now 
 the virtual chief.
 
 S70 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 fl. H. M. to his Father. 
 
 (? March, 1846.) 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER In this " bouleversement" anybody is in 
 a position for anything ; and I really could not bring myself 
 to support Siy Robert unconditionally, any more than to go with 
 the Protectionists. I am not under the faintest shadow of a 
 pledge to Pomfret, and, even if I were, I had better eat my own 
 words now at the general banquet, than live on that food for 
 the rest of my life. 
 
 O'B/s speech was the most successful thing I have heard in 
 the House of Commons ; it was no cleverer than I knew him to 
 be before, but it was the first time the House found it out ; and 
 then his sentimentality suited at once the interests of his party 
 and the tone of the debate. 
 
 I never heard anything like the howl when Graham 
 " disposed " of everything he had formerly said. Your old 
 friend Goulburn looks most wretched, and G. Bentinck has been 
 mauling him this morning. 
 
 Our political Verwirrung [he writes to MacCarthy, March 1 6, 
 1846] continues as wild as ever; all combinations are possible 
 Peel and Cobden, Lord John and the High Tories ; anything after 
 an election, or even before. Peel has behaved to his party as 
 Washington did to the old horse that had borne him through all 
 his battles sold him ; but sold them to the country. He is 
 acting with a rash courage and singleness of object unlike his 
 whole life, making probabilities futile and calculations impossible. 
 The Lords will probably carry the measure by about 30. I 
 tried to come in as a mediator, and proposed a low duty and to 
 let 1849 provide for itself, but both extremities were too strong ; 
 and I got so little encouragement that I withdrew the motion, 
 after a flare-up. The Protectionists, though beaten, will still 
 remain a powerful party not strong enough to form a Govern- 
 ment themselves, but able to cripple and weaken every other, 
 resting as they do on the strong basis of the prejudices and the 
 ignorance of the community. All my family are going on
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 371 
 
 thrivingly ; my father a decided Protectionist, and proposing 
 the member for the county in a brilliant Philippic against Peel, 
 while I am supporting him ; but as Sir T. Acland and Tom 
 went different ways, what might not be expected ? O'Brien * 
 is mating the most of his occasion ; the country party are so 
 thankful for his glitter and grace to shed over their dull sobriety 
 that he is invaluable to them. We Peel-servatives are for the 
 moment in an awkward position, which, however, will right 
 itself. I only wish I liked or reverenced the man himself ; but 
 I cannot do it, though I try very hard, and write and speak in 
 puff of him. The American matter f looks better. Polk has 
 sent here a clever new Secretary of Legation, a stump orator of 
 the first order. He told us the other morning that the war 
 between us would last thirty years ; that they made up their 
 minds to have every flag swept from the ocean, and all the great 
 cities destroyed ; and that only after that would the war really 
 begin. 
 
 The Corn Bill passed the House of Commons on 
 the 15th of May by a majority of 98 votes, and was at 
 once sent up to the House of Lords, where the Peers 
 accepted it without any very strenuous opposition. On 
 the day of the triumph of the Grovernment in the Lower 
 House, Milnes wrote again to his friend. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 May \5th, 1846. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, All the row of London, and the repeal of 
 the Corn Law, and the probable change of Government, cannot 
 excuse me from delaying any longer to give you a letter, and, 
 indeed, I cannot plead any great occupation or agreeable life as 
 an apology for a longer silence than usual ; but somehow or 
 other the multiplicity of small events in London is a great 
 impediment to writing to a distance. One feels a continual 
 
 * Augustus Stafford O'Brien. f Oregon question.
 
 372 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 desire to integrate one's life, and then perhaps one might have 
 something 1 worth telling. Nothing can be well uupleasanter 
 than the course of political events at least, to a man of any 
 sensibility. The Government that is, in fact, Sir Robert Peel 
 has been led on by a series of accidents into a perfect quagmire 
 of political action. The words treason and treachery, so freely 
 applied to it, are not the right ones, but the whole transaction 
 has indisputably that appearance. Peel seems in the hard 
 dilemma of having deceived his supporters for the last five 
 years, or of having foreseen nothing, and trusted himself, without 
 will or conduct, to the current of popular opinion. The truth 
 probably comprises both faults ; and the result certainly is that 
 I have lost my confidence in his prudence and management of 
 men, and look upon him with a sort of compassion for his 
 reckless honesty, a quality of all others disagreeable in a political 
 leader. My own impression is (and in this I am very singular) 
 that he will struggle through the Session one way or other. 
 The hardest tussle will no doubt be upon sugar, and there all 
 his new Free Trade talk will tell against him. I took advantage 
 of the moment to get your brother into a public office, which I 
 hope he will like, and that it will like him. Gladstone has not 
 yet got a seat in Parliament, and I fancy the Colonies cannot 
 much longer like to go on unrepresented a Secretary of State 
 out of Parliament for five months of the Session, and with no 
 Under-Secretary in Parliament, is an anomaly even in these 
 days. Palmerston has made a most judicious visit to Paris, and 
 was very civilly entreated by all parties there. He talked 
 "entente cordiale " in very decent French, and his wife showed 
 the French the best specimen of an English lady of fashion. Of 
 course he makes more of their civilities than was exactly 
 intended, but there is no great harm in that. " The Modern 
 Timon" is evidently Bulwer's, though he denies it to his most 
 intimate friends. I suspect you read the best bits ; for to such 
 an idolater of form as you are, the whole would be very dis- 
 agreeable. I never saw a poem with so much agreeable sentiment 
 and such clumsy uncomfortable diction. There is a good novel,
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 373 
 
 called " Emilia Wyndham," by a Mrs. Marsh; you will pro- 
 bably get it in an American newspaper for five cents. Nobody 
 seems to anticipate war with the United States. One does not see 
 exactly why, but there is a conviction that the peace party there 
 will be able to prevent events coming to extremities. I hope 
 soon to have Sir T. Freemantle Chairman of the Customs, and 
 then shall seriously set about getting you removed to something 
 better than the exile you have borne so well. God bless you ! 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 It was whilst Parliament was absorbed in this great 
 struggle that Milnes himself took the first step in a 
 work which for the remainder of his life engaged much 
 of his time and thought. This was the introduction of 
 a Bill for the establishment of Reformatories for juve- 
 nile offenders. The proposal was scoffed at by many 
 politicians of eminence when it was first put forward. 
 To them it seemed to be an emanation of the poet's 
 imagination, rather than the reasonable proposal of a 
 practical man. But Milnes had not simulated that 
 interest in the most forlorn class of our population 
 which he had expressed in his poems. He was con- 
 vinced that legislation might do much to dam at its 
 source the stream of social sewage by which the great 
 ocean of crime was being fed ; and in spite of many 
 rebuffs he persevered with his proposal, until he had the 
 great happiness of seeing Reformatories established 
 under the sanction of the law, and of becoming himself 
 the president of the first and greatest of these noble 
 institutions that at Red Hill. The reader will find in 
 the subsequent course of this narrative but few traces of
 
 374 THE LIFE OF LORD BOUQHTON. 
 
 Milnes's work in this direction. It was something to be 
 done rather than talked or written about. But side by 
 side with his curious and fascinating social life, with his 
 breakfast-parties in Pall Mall, his appearances at Holland 
 and Lansdowne houses, his constant visits to the Con- 
 tinent, his literary labours and friendships, and all the 
 thousand and one features which gave such fulness to 
 his social life, there went on, hardly noticed by the 
 outer world, another life of steady, earnest, and unselfish 
 labour on behalf of a class who had been too long the 
 victims of p iblic neglect. 
 
 Milnes's staunch friendship for MacCarthy led him 
 constantly to seek means of serving his absent friend, 
 nor was he unsuccessful, for it was not very long after 
 he had written the above letter that he secured for 
 MacCarthy the promise of a better post in that island of 
 Ceylon of which he eventually became Governor. His 
 forecast as to the fate of Ministers in the Session was 
 not realised. They did, indeed, carry their Corn Bill, 
 in spite of all opposition, but it was only to be defeated 
 on an Irish Coercion Bill through a combination of Pro- 
 tectionists, Whigs, Radicals, and Irish members. It 
 was the vote of his old supporters, however, which turned 
 the balance, and led to the fall of the great Minister, 
 whose place was taken by Lord John Russell. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, July 15^, 1846. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I have waited longer than usual in 
 answering your letter. . . . The Peel Government closed 
 dramatically. The same night the Lords passed the Corn Bill
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 875 
 
 they were placed in a great minority in the Commons. The new 
 Government has come in without an effort ; their members have 
 been re-elected nearly without opposition. If they act prudently, 
 they have such a chance as no Administration has ever had 
 before. Their line is plainly to get rid of the old Whig reputa- 
 tion of being bad men of business ; to avoid needless affronts, 
 even to prejudices ; and to fall if it must be so among the 
 ruins of some great abuse. I have had little part lately in any 
 public matter, and have contented myself with a letter to my 
 constituents, giving my reasons for intending to give Lord John 
 a fair independent support. The House wears the strangest 
 aspect ; the High Protectionists sitting with the Radicals, and 
 Sir R. Inglis shouldering J.oseph Hume. The new appoint- 
 ments are good on the whole. Buller, Ward, Hawes, &c., are a 
 great infusion of popular intelligence ; and but for the old Whig 
 leaven of three Pagets, and three Howards, and three Greys, and 
 some dandies, it would be the ablest Administration collected for 
 many years. My health has not been what it should be ; I have 
 been troubled with all the symptoms of the gouty diathesis, and 
 I think of running to Carlsbad as soon as I can get away from 
 town. My family have all been at Brighton (which is now a 
 suburb of London) for the last three months : all well on the 
 whole. The heat has been so savage that not only we Italians, 
 but the East Indians, have suffered much from it. I never knew 
 hot nights so oppressive and hot days so little agreeable. We 
 have no new books worth regarding Grote's " History of 
 Greece " the only real acquisition, and that written so as to give 
 much offence to purists in language, and some to purists in 
 religion. The only lion in the way of literature has been 
 Grafin Hahn-Hahn, a plain woman with one eye, but so intelligent 
 and light in hand that she won favour in all eyes, although 
 encumbered with a Reisegefdhrte, whose name she did not bear, 
 and who was thus difficult to place in an intelligible position in 
 England. The barbarian Ibrahim Pasha has been about for 
 two months, and has been much feted. They make him say 
 rather a pretty thing : " In France I saw, and was received by,
 
 376 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the Court; here I see, and am received by, the people/' It is 
 not known who made this for him. The old Pasha is so jealous 
 of him that he is gone to Constantinople to show that he can get 
 feted too. My next will probably be from Germany. Till then, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 I have given Milnes's observations of the political 
 crisis at somewhat unusual length, because of the effect 
 which the political changes he records had upon his own 
 position. He had never, even in his earliest days, been 
 a strong Conservative at heart. To no man was the 
 falsehood of extremes more distasteful ; and throughout 
 his political career he had shown himself to be singularly 
 independent of mere party considerations or obligations. 
 He now practically severed himself from his old political 
 connections ; but as I have revealed the keen disap- 
 pointment which he experienced when he was passed 
 over by Sir Robert Peel in December, 1845, it is bare 
 justice to him to point out that in leaving the Conserva- 
 tive ranks, and in ranging himself under the flag of the 
 Liberal Prime Minister, he gave no one the slightest 
 pretext for alleging that personal pique had influenced 
 him. Whilst Peel was in office, he was true to him, 
 even though the majority of his supporters had rebelled. 
 His resignation, and the complete break-up of the old 
 Protectionist party, gave all his followers an opportunity 
 of reconsidering their position. There were some dis- 
 tinguished men whose loyalty to Peel was characterised 
 by a personal devotion which would have led them to 
 follow him even although they* had done so utterly
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 377 
 
 alone. Milnes was not one of these ; his correspondence 
 shows that for several years before the break-up of the 
 Conservative Administration his attitude towards Peel 
 was hardly sympathetic. His political views led him to 
 incline more and more towards the Liberal side, and he 
 had lost his own personal admiration for the Tory 
 leader. In these circumstances, instead of joining the 
 little band known to history as Peelites, and altogether 
 unable to remain within the ranks of the devoted Pro- 
 tectionists, he preferred to take the simple and straight- 
 forward course of openly allying himself with the new 
 Administration. From that time forward his political 
 life was spent within the fold of the Liberal party. 
 
 The autumn of 1846 was devoted to social life in 
 England, Milnes not wishing for several reasons to 
 leave the country. The state of politics made it 
 desirable that he should remain within easy reach of 
 his constituents ; but another and more urgent reason 
 for not indulging in his love of foreign travel was the 
 precarious state of his mother's health. Mrs. Milnes 
 had been able to visit London during the summer, and 
 in her diary she mentions how, on reaching her son's 
 house, she found him, with a party, at breakfast, " the 
 Pasha just arrived, Prince Louis, Count D'Orsay, and 
 Cobden." From London she went to Brighton, where 
 she had a severe attack of English cholera, from the 
 effects of which she never seems really to have recovered. 
 To the last she manifested the keenest interest in her 
 son's career, and was never happier than when she was 
 able to entertain his friends at Fryston or Bawtry. But
 
 378 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 her diary of the last few months of her life affords 
 touching proof of her growing infirmity, and of how, 
 with sore reluctance, she was compelled more and more 
 to withdraw herself from that bright circle of wit and 
 culture in which her son formed so prominent a figure. 
 They had expected a visit from the Disraelis during 
 the autumn, but were compelled, owing to the state of 
 Mrs. Milnes's health, to put them off. 
 Writing to his father, Milnes says 
 
 Mrs. Dizzy is so much more your invitee than mine that 
 you had better write her a line, merely saying- that my mother 
 will not be up to a party. I will put off Knight and Gregory, 
 my only guests. I am, indeed, thankful for my mother's 
 tranquil state of mind ; I pray it may continue so ; and we should 
 be grateful that we are able to surround her with all that care 
 and affection can supply. 
 
 In December, there being a slight improvement in 
 his mother's condition, Milnes had the pleasure of 
 entertaining at Fryston his friend MacCarthy, who, 
 having come to England from Turk's Island, was now 
 about to start for Ceylon. Two other old friends, 
 Venables and Lushington, joined the party ; and his 
 mother records on the last page of her diary that 
 "Richard read aloud 'Mrs. Perkins's Ball,' by 
 Thackeray." The last entry contained in the journal 
 which Mrs. Milnes kept throughout her married life 
 is dated Jan. llth, 1847, and refers to the growing 
 intelligence of her grandson, the present Lord Galway. 
 From that time her decline was continuous, and on the 
 1st of May she died at Serlby, the house from which
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 379 
 
 she had been married, and of which her daughter (Lady 
 Gal way) was at that time the mistress.* 
 
 The blow was a severe one to Milnes, who now 
 for the first time in his life was brought face to face 
 with death, and it was long ere he recovered his usual 
 spirits. 
 
 In his Commonplace Book for the year, under date 
 May 1st, he notes 
 
 It is a good moral instruction to examine yourself after the 
 death of one you have loved, and test your duty by the feelings 
 you then experience. 
 
 Again that underlying melancholy which, unsus- 
 pected as it was by the majority of his friends, was 
 still the keynote of his character, is made visible in the 
 following, written at the same time : 
 
 Providence seems to have surrounded death with so much 
 pain and so many circumstances of horror and repugnance in 
 order to prevent men from loving it too well, and embracing it 
 too eagerly as a refuge from the vicissitude and vacancy 
 of life. 
 
 His thoughts were diverted from his grief by the 
 pressure of political affairs. Parliament was dissolved 
 in the summer, and Milnes had to stand a sharp contest 
 for his seat at Pontefract ; his action with regard to 
 
 * Mrs. Milnes was born at Claremont, at that time the property of her 
 father. Many years afterwards, when Lord Houghton was staying at 
 Claremont as the guest of the Duke of Albany, he mentioned the fact to 
 his host. " Ah, what a relief," said His Royal Highness, " to hear of 
 anyone being born here ! Until now I have only heard of people having 
 died in this house ; " and he insisted upon taking Lord Houghton through 
 the spacious building, to see if they could identify the room where his 
 mother had been born.
 
 380 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Maynooth and the endowment of the Roman Catholic 
 Church in Ireland having roused bitter opposition to 
 him on one side, whilst his abandonment of Protection 
 had necessarily alienated many of his old friends on the 
 other. But though he lost his old position at the head 
 of the poll, and only secured a narrow majority of 
 19 votes over his opponent, Mr. Preston, he had the 
 satisfaction of being again returned. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartTiy. 
 
 Fryston, Aug. \5th, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I ought to have written before, but 
 personal events came so thick on me that I have had hardly 
 time or inclination for a quiet talk over the seas with anyone. 
 After a most trying contest I am again M.P. The Clergy and 
 the Methodists entered into a holy league against me, and spared 
 neither truth nor money to turn me out for what the fools call 
 my Popery. All they have done has been to put me to a great 
 deal of expense and annoyance, and themselves to much more. 
 Hawes* is naturally much annoyed at his Lambeth defeat, and 
 it is poor encouragement to any Government to go and take 
 Ministers out of the great middle class when such as he are 
 thrown over. I understand Macaulay with his Whig religion 
 being very unacceptable to the Edinburghians, but Hawes kept 
 up so completely the type of the respectable and intelligent 
 bourgeois that I should have thought it a great prize for them to 
 have a representative in whose success they themselves were 
 honoured. The Government are not pleased with the result of 
 the elections, although their numerical majority is improved, yet 
 it is annoying that no single man has been elected as a Russell- 
 ite; that some of their best officials are without seats; and 
 that the popular candidates have all been Radicals. But though 
 
 * Sir Benjamin Hawes, whose daughter MacCarthy subsequently 
 married.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 381 
 
 the party may be weak, the Government may be strong. No 
 other party has gained any more, and I do not at all give in 
 to the prevalent cackle that the Whigs cannot go on. 
 
 Now for Ceylon ; imprimis, pray thank Sir E. Tennent for 
 his kind note, and tell him I would write to him if I could tell 
 him anything more than the newspapers. Give Arthur Buller, 
 too, all my regards. I was a little disappointed at the tone of 
 your letter, but your feverishness explained it. I wanted you 
 to be more content, not with having got more money, but with 
 having got more notable work and with the just consideration 
 paid you. H. Lushington has been annoyed at finding his 
 Malta secretaryship is only a thousand per annum, and would, 
 I think, have given it up, but that they gave him leave for the 
 summer. I am sure you could never have done half as much 
 there as you may where you now are, and with all my sense of 
 your fitnesses I would not exchange the one for the other for 
 you for even higher salary. The nearness to home is nothing. 
 If all goes well for some time longer, you can come to Malta, 
 and find someone there to take back to Colombo. Send me a 
 sketch of your house by the hand of some fair designer. I have 
 a good general idea of the scenery from books. My father 
 thinks you should write a volume or two on " Colonial 
 Legislation," with scraps of old learning, and a dedication to 
 Lord Grey ; but I think you had better leave your mark on 
 the Government of Ceylon before you write your name out in 
 any other way. But there can be no harm in noting down your 
 hourly experience. My present project is to leave England the 
 beginning of September, pass a few days at Lisbon, run over 
 Andalusia, and spend a month with Bulwer at Madrid. My 
 father's health is so uncertain that I can fix nothing; but, if all 
 goes well, I may make this an agreeable and instructive tour. 
 All it wants is your multilingual faculty. O'Brien has gone 
 and done the foolish thing of changing his name. He is now 
 Mr. Stafford, his grandmother having borne that name. You 
 will see that Urquhart and his mad Catholic Anstey are both 
 in Parliament. I cannot take much amusement in the extrava-
 
 382 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 gances of my fellow-men, else one might anticipate much fun 
 from the encounter of this idiotic fanaticism with Palmerston's 
 cocky common sense. I do not suppose Havves's defeat will alter 
 his position. One Under-Secretary must be out of the House 
 of Commons; and Lord John likes defending Colonial matters 
 
 himself. 
 
 I remain your affectionate 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 MacCarthy was not the only old friend whom 
 Mijnes had in the East. Sir James Colvile, his old 
 Trinity College contemporary, was now acting as Ad- 
 vocate-General at Calcutta, whence he regularly cor- 
 responded with him. 
 
 Sir James Cofaile to R. M. M. 
 
 Darj heeling, Oct. \\th, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Since I have been here I have read 
 your article on " Tancred," * which pleased me much, though 
 you might, perhaps, have put a little more pepper into your 
 review of Dizzy and his theory. On the subject of the emanci- 
 pation of the Jews, I was much struck with your observations 
 upon that which, to my mind, is the strongest argument for 
 Jewish disabilities namely, their distinctive nationality. . . . 
 I am living here in a Babel of tribes and nations, and, to make 
 them more interesting, I am living with an eminent ethnologist, 
 who for more than twenty-five years has had, and profited by, 
 peculiar opportunities of studying the varieties of men that 
 inhabit the Sub-Himalaya. He is Mr. Hodgson (better known 
 to the world in general as a naturalist), who for many years was 
 our Resident in Nepaul, and then occupied his leisure in these 
 researches. He was, notwithstanding, an excellent public 
 servant; but Lord Ellenborough, because he was a civilian, 
 and had been esteemed by Lord Auckland, chose to vote him an 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, 1847.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 383 
 
 ornithological humbug, and, by one of the most wanton acts of 
 his capricious tyranny, recalled him. Hodgson, in disgust, 
 unfortunately for himself, resigned the service. Had he not 
 done so, he would probably by this time have found his way back 
 to Nepaul. As it is, not feeling comfortable in Europe, he has 
 returned to these hills, and continues, but with crippled means, 
 his scientific labours as a private gentleman. He is a very 
 taking, well-informed person, and I have learned more about 
 India from him in these few weeks than I have learned at 
 Calcutta in nearly two years. . . . October 12th. A mail 
 in. The result of the elections seems to be something not very 
 decisive, and to give importance to Peel's squadron ; but, with 
 a little see-sawing, Ministers ought to do well. I was sorry 
 to see that you have had the expense of a contest, though a 
 successful one. How do the magnates of the West Riding 
 like Richard Cobden for their representative ? He is the Aris- 
 tides of the League, and I suspect our FitzWilliams and Co. 
 would not be sorry to ostracise him. . . . What an odd 
 story is this of the French duke and his wife ! * -Pray heaven 
 this Eugene Sueism does not obtain in good society ! " Save 
 our old nobility," as John Manners says, " from the dagger and 
 the bowl " : they should be content with Doctors' Commons, 
 and eschew the Old Bailey. I was much pleased to hear of 
 
 's marriage and also of 's. Why, as I said to 
 
 O'Brien, don't you let me hear of yours? It is time you 
 should take steps to be known to posterity by your olive 
 branches as well as by your " Palm Leaves," particularly 
 since Miss Berry says you are grown too fat to be a poet. 
 Always most sincerely yours, 
 
 JAMES COLVILE. 
 
 Among the men of letters whose friendship Milnes 
 had made before this period was Mr. Browning, for 
 whom, as well as for his illustrious wife, Milnes enter- 
 tained a sincere personal affection. 
 * Due de Praslin.
 
 384 THE LIFE OF LOED SOUGHTON. 
 
 floberi Browning to R. M. M. 
 
 Pisa, March Zlst, 1847. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, "When I left England, I bade my sister at 
 home open all letters sent to me, and only forward the pith 
 of them, but a little note of your writing was all pith, so I 
 got it in its entireness, and very pleasantly your voice sounded 
 in the few words of it as I read them here under the grim 
 Campanella, the top of which, with the real honest balconies 
 in these parts, will just hit the roof of this huge old Collegio 
 Ferdinando, " where Bartolo/' of crabbed memory, " once 
 taught," as the inscription states, and where I now teach 
 you patience, if your good nature reads to the end. Well, your 
 good wishes for my sake have been wonderfully realised ; my 
 wife is quite well, and, now that the weather permits, we begin 
 our spring progress, Florence being the first stage, whence, when 
 the heat obliges, we mean to go the round of Siena, Colle, 
 Volterra, Lucca, Pescia, Prato, Pistoia, Bologna, and so get, at 
 the year's end, to Venice for the winter, next winter to that (if 
 one dares look forward so far) finding us in Rome. 
 
 Now I want to speak to you, and your old kindness will 
 understand, I am sure. A six months' residence in Pisa is 
 favourable to a great deal of speculation and political study, and 
 though last week's papers prove that a capital speech about 
 Krakow may be studied in Pall Mall as well as on the spot, yet 
 here what shall I say ? here one sees more clearly than else- 
 where that why, only that England needs must not loiter 
 behind the very Grand Turkian policy, but send a Minister before 
 the year ends to this fine fellow, Pio Nono as certain, that is, 
 as that his name will be Lord Somebody against which the 
 time is not yet come to complain. But I should like to have to 
 remember that I asked you, whose sympathy I am sure of, to 
 mention in the proper quarter, should you see occasion, that I 
 would be glad and proud to be the secretary to such an embassy, 
 and to work like a horse in my vocation. You know I have 
 studied Italian literature sedulously. Governments nowadays
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 385 
 
 give poets pensions : I believe one may dun them into it. Now, 
 I and my wife " keep our pen out of lenders' books, and defy 
 the foul fiend.'" We are quite independent, through God's good- 
 ness, and trust to continue so ; but, as I say, I should like to 
 remember at a future day that I proposed (and through the inter- 
 vention of such a person as yourself, if you will lend it to me) to 
 deserve well of my generation by doing in this matter what many 
 circumstances embolden me to think few others could do so well. 
 One gets excited at least, here on the spot by this tiptoe 
 strained expectation of poor dear Italy, and yet, if I had not 
 known you, I believe I should have looked on with the other 
 bystanders. It is hateful to ask, but I ask nothing; indeed, 
 rather I concede a very sincere promise to go on bookmaking (as 
 my wife shall) to the end of our natural life, and making the 
 public a present of our hard work without a pretension to the 
 Pension List. Will you think of this and me ? Whatever comes, 
 I hope to remain in Italy for years ; so let me shake your hand 
 over the sea, and take that much by your motion. 
 
 Ever yours faithfully, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 The Government did not send a mission to Pio 
 Nono. Ere long, indeed, events in Rome took an 
 altogether unexpected turn, and the Diplomatic Service 
 consequently lost the opportunity of securing the ser- 
 vices of Mr. Browning. 
 
 After the election Milnes who, like the rest of the 
 world, was deeply concerned by the state of affairs in Ire- 
 land, where the famine was now at its height went over 
 to Rawdon to see Mr. W. E. Forster, whose acquaintance 
 he had made some time previously at Bradford, and in 
 whom he had been quick to detect the presence of those 
 great qualities which were afterwards to be employed 
 with so much advantage to the people of England.
 
 386 THE LIFE OF LORD ROUGttTON. 
 
 Carlyle was at that time staying with Forster, and had 
 written to Milnes as follows : 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Rawdon, near Leeds, August \th, 1847. 
 DEAR MILNES, Are you at present in these parts ? My 
 wife and I have been in Derbyshire, drinking the Matlock 
 waters, looking into bottomless ennui of Buxton, into Haddon 
 Hall, and the wonders of the DeviFs apparatus in the Peak, and we 
 have now arrived at fixed quarters for a few days, and are capable 
 of looking deliberately before and after. If you are at Fryston, 
 I will give you a meeting any day at any spot near mid-distance, 
 and hold with you a solemn conference of more than an hour's 
 continuance. This place is seven miles beyond Leeds. I saw 
 Temple Newsam and other old localities connected with you as 
 we rolled along hither on Monday evening last. My humane 
 landlord really a good Samaritan, and an excellent, cheerful, 
 intelligent young man, whom you would like allows me a horse 
 horses ; and I should, as always, like well to see you. Our 
 length of stay here is undetermined; cannot readily be long. 
 Pray consider what can be done, and let us do it. We read your 
 election squibs fresh and fresh at Addiscombe ; learned af terwards 
 with due loyalty that you were re-elected, though with difficulty. 
 Is not the ten-pound franchise going curiouswards ? Is not the 
 thrice-miraculous Parliament rather like to go a curious road 
 before very long ? Whitherward, think you ? We are Quakers 
 here or, rather, ex- Quakers of a Liberal and even elegant 
 trim, to whom George Fox, in his leather suit, is, as it were, 
 mostly an object of art, and little remains of Quakerism but the 
 spring-well clearness and cleanness and the divine silence really 
 one of the divinest things to a poor worried creature on this 
 beautiful hill-top. Address W. E. Forster here, and let us know 
 soon what is to be expected of you. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. CARLYLE.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 387 
 
 Milnes went over at once to Rawdon, and spent 
 a pleasant day under Mr. Forster's roof in the com- 
 pany of his two friends. " And seldom has one small 
 house in a West Eiding valley sheltered four more 
 remarkable persons than were then gathered together." 
 Forster himself, in a letter to his friend Barclay Fox, 
 gives an account of the meeting of Milnes and Carlyle. 
 " Monckton Milnes came yesterday, and left this morn- 
 ing a pleasant companionable little man, well fed and 
 fattening, with some small remnant of poetry in his 
 eyes and nowhere else ; delighting in paradoxes, but 
 good-humoured ones ; defending all manner of people 
 and principles, in order to provoke Carlyle to abuse them, 
 in which laudable enterprise he must have succeeded 
 to his heart's content, and for a time we had a most 
 amusing evening, reminding me of a naughty boy 
 rubbing a fierce cat's tail backwards, and getting in 
 between furious growls and fiery sparks. He managed 
 to avoid the threatened scratches." Between Forster 
 and Milnes the friendship which had begun when they 
 first met continued to the end of their days. Unques- 
 tionably, they were the two most distinguished 
 Yorkshiremen of their time, and although they differed 
 as widely as two men well could in personal charac- 
 teristics and views of life, there were such strong bonds 
 of sympathy between them that their friendship ripened 
 into a real affection and regard. Forster was at that 
 time unknown in the fashionable world. He was still 
 the young Yorkshire manufacturer, of strong intelligence, 
 lively ambition, and advanced political opinions, who
 
 388 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 had captured the hearts of not a few leaders of thought 
 in London Carlyle among the rest but to whom the 
 great world of politics and society was still as a sealed 
 volume. Milnes, who had taken to him from the first, 
 made it his business during many years to lose no oppor- 
 tunity of serving his friend as he best could, by bringing 
 him into contact with those upon whom and through 
 whom he could wield the greatest amount of influence 
 for good. Nor can I account it the least of the many 
 services of this kind which Milnes rendered to his own 
 generation that he should have had so large a part in 
 bringing into his own proper sphere the man who was 
 destined to carry the Education Bill. 
 
 How wide was the range of social influence which 
 Milnes in those days wielded, may be gathered from the 
 fact that among those with whom he was then intimate 
 was the recognised leader of English society, the Duke 
 of Wellington. Between the great captain and the 
 young poet a real friendship existed. The Duke de- 
 lighted in Milnes's talk, consulted him upon literary 
 subjects, and was always happy to receive him as a 
 guest. The friendship which existed between Milnes 
 and the illustrious hero of Waterloo was extended to 
 the second Duke, who kept up a lifelong correspondence 
 with the subject of this memoir. To say that Milnes 
 shared the national reverence for the character and 
 achievements of the great soldier is to understate the 
 truth ; but whilst he yielded to no man in his appre- 
 ciation of the grand simplicity of Wellington's character, 
 he had an appreciation scarcely less keen of the qualities
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 389 
 
 of his son, the second Duke. "Never," said he in 
 conversation with the present writer, "has there been 
 an instance more striking of the disadvantage of great 
 birth than that which the present (the second) Duke of 
 Wellington affords. He would have been one of the 
 greatest men in England if he had not been so com- 
 pletely overshadowed by the reputation of his father.'* 
 There was no better judge of character than Monckton 
 Milnes, and even the friends of the late Duke of 
 Wellington may not be sorry to hear the opinion which 
 he had formed of that distinguished person. It was one 
 of those judgments which run counter to the prevalent 
 opinion of the world, but it was, at least, honestly 
 formed, and is not unworthy of being recorded. 
 
 Among Milnes's papers some interesting relics of the 
 great Duke are to be found, for his family seem to have 
 regarded it as part of their duty to keep the member for 
 Pontefract informed of all the more notable sayings of 
 the hero. Here, for example, is a letter of this year 
 (1847), written by the Duke in reply to a correspondent 
 who had sought to elicit from him some expression of 
 opinion with regard to the famous equestrian statue 
 which at that time had just been erected in front of 
 Apsley House. The letter was sent to Milnes by one 
 of the Duke's relatives ; and it is not without interest 
 as an illustration of the character of the writer. 
 
 London, July 3rd, 1847. (At 
 
 F. M. (the Duke of Wellington) presents his compliments 
 to Mr. Edkins. It is certainly true that anybody is at liberty
 
 300 THE LIFE OF LORD 
 
 to inquire the opinion of the Duke of Wellington O n any 
 subject, but he hopes that the Duke of Wellington has the 
 liberty, which all other individuals have, to decline to give 
 an opinion. When certain respected individuals about two 
 years ago expressed their desire that the Duke should give 
 sittings to an artist to enable him to construct an equestrian 
 statue of himself which they were desirous of erecting, and 
 which he was informed that his Gracious Sovereign had desired 
 might be placed on the land adjoining the entrance into the 
 Green Park from Hyde Park Corner, in commemoration of by- 
 gone events and transactions in which he had acted a part, he 
 consented, on condition that, excepting to sit to the artist, he 
 should from that time forward have nothing to do with the 
 work, or, to use his own words, should be considered as dead. 
 He has accordingly, from that time forward, had no relation 
 with the work in question. He has seen it as others have nay, 
 more frequently than others, as it is placed opposite the windows 
 of his house ; but, as was becoming, he has uniformly avoided 
 to give any opinion on the work or on the position in which it 
 is placed. He desires to persevere in this course, which is the 
 most becoming for an individual in a discussion on a statue of 
 himself, intended to commemorate to posterity transactions .in 
 which he has acted a part. 
 
 After the death of the Duke, a woman, who had by 
 a betrayal of confidence come into possession of certain 
 letters of a very private character written by a relative 
 of his of a former generation, wrote to the second Duke 
 offering to sell these letters to him, under a transparent 
 threat of publishing them in the event of his declining 
 to pay blackmail. The Duke showed a sense of humour, 
 and a sagacity worthy of his illustrious father, in the 
 manner in which he dealt with this insolent application. 
 He forwarded the woman's letter to Lord Houghton,
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 391 
 
 simply writing across it the words : " I have told her 
 you may like to buy them." It is needless to say that, 
 in presence of so cool and clever a rebuff, she abandoned 
 her purpose, and did not even attempt to make money 
 of her ill-acquired property by offering it to so well- 
 known a collector of social curiosities as Lord Houghton. 
 Milnes, as he mentioned in one of his letters to 
 MacCarthy, had resolved to spend the autumn in a 
 tour in the Peninsula. One of his reasons for wishing 
 to visit Spain was the fact that Sir Henry Bulwer was 
 at that time acting as Minister at Madrid, and was 
 anxious to entertain him there. Another reason was, 
 that a visit to the Peninsula had been suggested to 
 him by Lord Palmerston, in order that he might acquire 
 some knowledge, by personal observation, of the state 
 of political affairs in Spain. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Alverstoke, Sunday, Sept., 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, .... Lockhart and Croker are 
 here ; the former talks of joining me by the next packet ; he 
 knows enough of Spain to make his company very acceptable 
 The latter is more contradictious than ever, and talks incessantly 
 of two subjects : Praslin and Peel. He says, the latter owes 
 everything to his wonderful natural memory. Among other 
 facts, we heard to-night that Scarlett made very near 500,000 
 before he got on the Bench, and Halford 300,000 in guineas 
 before he ceased to practise. Lady Ashburton has heard that our 
 bribery at Pontefract was frightful. Mrs. P. wrote to Miss 
 Eden that I was detected going about in a blouse, with a yellow 
 handkerchief, giving handfuls of sovereigns. I met Charles 
 Villiers at dinner at the Rothschilds', which was in the German
 
 392 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 way for the Duchess of Gloucester, at 4 o'clock, and the con- 
 sequence was that some of the great company arrived at 7.30, 
 just after H.R.H. had retired. Villiers has determined to sit 
 for Wolverhampton, and seemed very angry that Hawes had 
 been spying about for the seat. ... . 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 E. M. MlLNBS. 
 
 R. M. M. to Miss Caroline Milnes. 
 
 Alverstoke, Sept. th, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR CAROLINE, I will attend to 'a note, with- 
 out, however, any very great hope of being able to assist him. 
 I find in influential men such a huge difference between treating 
 you in all kindness in private, and obliging you in public 
 matters. I suppose they think it best to use their patronage to 
 a great extent in conciliating those whom they cannot please in 
 any other way. I do not know either what is the extent of the 
 favour applied for. I remember once asking for an Indian 
 Assistant- Surgeonship, and I was told I might just as well ask 
 for the Presidency of the Board of Control. I start to-morrow. 
 There will be enough wind to make me very ill, and effectually 
 to check any gallantry towards Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, 
 who is my fellow-passenger. I am going- out to-day in Lord 
 Ashburton's yacht as a sort of practice. Tell Louisa I accept 
 her prayers for my internal state much more than for my ex- 
 ternal welfare. If it be true that the soul is only made perfect 
 through struggles and sufferings, and that prosperity is the 
 greatest of temptations, I don't understand praying for one's 
 temporal advantages, or freedom from danger, or that of others 
 in whom we are interested. I quite sympathise with Arch- 
 bishop Whately's dislike to a public prayer against the Irish 
 famine, as it might prove ultimately the greatest blessing to 
 that country. I met the Duchess of Gloucester at dinner on 
 Saturday, looking very old. There was still a sprinkling of
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 393 
 
 fine people about town. Lord Palmerston is much annoyed at 
 having to go into the Highlands, with so many matters of 
 importance which are daily being referred to him, but the Queen 
 would not let him off. 
 
 R. N. M. to his Father. 
 
 Lisbon, Sept. 10M, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I do not know whether you will receive 
 before this a letter* I wrote by Vigo, from the Bay of .Biscay, 
 telling you of my safe and not disagreeable transit. I was quite 
 used to the sea after the second day. The weather here has 
 been charming ; clear sky, with generally a fresh wind the place 
 quite as delightful as I expected. The parts near the river very 
 like Venice, those on the hills like Constantinople, and the 
 general aspect like Naples. The breadth and sweep of the 
 Tagus surprises me. It looks more like a strait than a river. 
 There is, luckily, not much sight-seeing, for the ups and downs 
 of the town are very trying. The churches are gaudy, and with 
 wretched art about them, with the exception of one near the 
 mouth of the river, which is the most graceful adaptation of all 
 possible modern ideas to Gothic architecture, quite the cathedral 
 of the people who won India and Brazil. Political matters look 
 even worse than at a distance ; they have got all the partisan- 
 ship of a constitutional Government without any of its checks 
 and forms, and thus Ministries are upset and offices occupied by 
 revolutions and bloodshed, instead of by debates and majorities. 
 As far as I yet see, I think we have much misapprehended and 
 underrated the Royalist party, who detest Don Miguel per- 
 sonally, but who hold to the old institutions, which perhaps 
 after all should rather have been modified than entirely sub- 
 verted, as they have been. The Queen is an ugly likeness of 
 Lady Caroline Lascelles, and is well spoken of by almost all 
 parties a dull good woman. The Coburg King is very hand- 
 some and pleasant-mannered. I have been presented this 
 
 * Missing.
 
 394 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 morning at a very gay and showy levee, and the King said he 
 must see me again, which is a bore, as it may interfere with 
 other projects. Sir H. Seymour takes great pains to let me 
 know what is going on. I have dined with him and the French 
 Minister, and go with him to Cintra on Saturday. Marshal 
 Saldanha thanked me for my speech, and said I was the English- 
 man who knew most about the matter. Rather an equivocal 
 compliment. You might really have come on here without any 
 trouble, and would, I think, have been amused. The Hotel is 
 good enough for anything. I have just missed seeing Sir 
 Charles Napier in his glory, which would have been very 
 amusing. He left the Port the day I arrived, but has orders to 
 keep within reach of telegraph. The finances seem in a frightful 
 state ; the last loan for 16,000, and contracted at an immense 
 sacrifice. I met their best man of business, Count Toyal, at 
 Seymour's to-day. Write always to Cadiz, though I may go 
 first to Gibraltar. Let me hear you keep well, and have got 
 Hudson's money. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 In explanation of the last sentence in the foregoing 
 letter, it should be said that the railway projects which 
 were now being carried out so extensively throughout 
 England were of special importance to the Milnes 
 family, a large portion of their land being required for 
 the construction of lines. It was, in fact, owing to this 
 circumstance, and to the sale for building purposes of a 
 portion of his estate which lay within the great borough 
 of Leeds, that Mr. Pemberton Milnes was enabled to 
 restore the family fortunes, and to recoup himself for 
 the sacrifice which he and his son had made when they 
 paid a sum of more than 100,000 for the purpose of 
 .clearing Bodes Milnes's liabilities.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 395 
 
 It. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 Lisbon, Sept. 22nd, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, A chance steamer is going to England, 
 and will take this. I have not yet received your letters, but hope 
 to do so to-morrow morning, and leave this by midday not but 
 that, if I had time, I should certainly have stayed here, the state of 
 the country being most " parlously " interesting. The throne and 
 the debt are both most difficult to support, and when the exhaus- 
 tion of the late contest is over, a Regency and a bankruptcy may 
 take place any day. The change in the weather the end of last 
 week was so sudden that I suffered much from it, but the 
 returning heat has cured my cold. At Cintra I wore a great- 
 coat, and the Seymours had fires every evening. This destroyed 
 the chief charm of the place, which consists in its being a refuge 
 from the sun, and obscured the blue sea, which should frame the 
 picture of serrated crags, groves of orange-trees, and abundant 
 fountains. The bad weather drove in the squadron, and I dined 
 yesterday with Napier (here Viscount St. Vincent), having passed 
 the morning at Pombal's country seat. I dine with Napier to- 
 day, to meet all the chiefs of the rebels, now amnestied, and who, 
 but for our intervention, would at this moment have been masters 
 of the country. Napier is of great use here, as the Queen will 
 take home-truths from him no one else could say to her. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 K,. M. M. 
 
 \. ^ ~ 
 
 The same to the same. 
 
 Seville, Oct. 2nd, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I hope to catch the steamer to Gibraltar 
 on Monday next, and send you this by her return. The heat 
 or, rather, the sight-seeing and the heat have been rather too 
 much for me, and I have not enjoyed this place as much as I 
 might have done had my nerves and stomach kept in a normal 
 state. Now that the air is clear, and I rest in the middle of the
 
 396 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 day, I hope to be soon right again. The glory of this place is 
 its cathedral quite different in its style of grandeur from all 
 Catholic edifices I have seen before. The dimensions of all about 
 it are superb, and the ornaments, though cumbrous themselves, 
 not disproportionate. Murillo comes out here as a great 
 historical painter. There are no street scenes of his, such as 
 the one at Munich you so much admire, to be found here, but 
 his saints and virgins are magnificent. The inferior Spanish 
 masters, too, suit the churches very well, and have a gloomy 
 appropriateness which makes up for many of their defects. The 
 town is very Oriental ; each house has its grated door and its 
 pillared court within, like the "atria" at Pompeii. This is 
 generally filled with flowers, with a fountain in the middle, and 
 the walls all round are hung with pictures and prints ; and the 
 grandeur in the portico. In the evening all these are lit up, 
 and the effect of the narrow streets is most gay and pleasant. 
 The authorities of the town have been very civil, and I dine with 
 the military governor to-morrow. Potocki is still with me, and 
 very facile a vivre, which is Equality of a travelling companion. 
 All the Spaniards I have yet seen anything of are Moderados 
 that is, Conservatives and thus I have heard nothing but abuse 
 of Palmerston and Bulwer. The latter is accused of everything 
 that goes wrong in the country, including the conduct of the 
 Queen. There is a large liquorice manufactory here. The 
 article grows wild on the banks of the river, and has never been 
 cultivated. They sell the juice at about 50 per ton. The 
 importation to America to make up the chewing tobacco is as 
 large as that to England. 
 
 I am your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 From Gibraltar, Milnes wrote to his sister, expressing 
 his delight with the cleanliness and beauty of the place. 
 From thence he made his way by steamer and diligence 
 tv Madrid, where Sir Henry J3ulwer W a. expecting him.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 397 
 
 His arrival in the Spanish capital gave rise to remarks 
 in the press to the effect that a distinguished English 
 traveller had been sent out on a special mission of a 
 delicate character, and much curiosity was excited in 
 Spanish society as to the distinguished stranger a mis- 
 understanding which all who knew Milnes well, feel 
 convinced he greatly relished. 
 
 Malaga, October lUh, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR HARRIETTE, I duly received your letter and its 
 enclosures, and the combined effort of the aunts. I suppose I 
 shall not hear again of you till I reach Madrid. This I am in 
 no great hurry to do, as the Cortes do not meet as early as 
 Bulwer expected. We heard of the coup d'etat by which 
 Bulwer's Ministry was upset, on our arrival here; it was a 
 matter of money, in which the French must always beat us, and 
 Serrano, the Queen's admirer, is to be made a duke. He per- 
 suaded her to take Narvaez with much difficulty. Palmerston 
 told me he thought it most likely Serrano was bribed by Louis 
 Philippe, and would throw us over. With all your love for 
 queens, don't you think this a very nasty state of things ? I 
 am not at all surprised at my father's affairs hanging fire at 
 this moment. If he gets any money, while all the world seem 
 to be losing it, he must be very lucky. Tiie storm, however, 
 must soon blow over, and I have no doubt Peel will show in 
 February that it is just what he anticipated, and how much 
 worse it would have been but for his divine prudence and fore- 
 thought Sir R. Wilson was all civility at Gibraltar, and 
 
 made himself as agreeable to us as he is odious to his garrison, 
 whom he governs in a foreign kind of way, stinting all their 
 amusements and liberties. He hates a single officer to be on 
 leave, and thinks their military duties quite diversion enough. 
 He has no taste for society ; and though he gives a quantity of 
 dinners, nobody is pleased. To us he was really very agreeable. 
 Puke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar and his son happened to be there
 
 398 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 on their way to spend the winter with Queen Adelaide at 
 Madeira. We went about everywhere with them over the 
 fortress, and on Saturday to Tangiers in a war steamer, which 
 brought us on here. Lady Emmeline was very nice, and I was 
 sorry we could not tempt her on with us to the poetical glories 
 of the Alhambra. She had no man-servant with her, and 
 seemed anxious to get on to Malta, where she winters. Her 
 little girl is very like John Manners's. The Rock must be a 
 sadly dull residence.: they try to make it as much like England 
 as possible, and the villas might be at Fulham. The officers 
 make up for the want of amusement by luxurious living, and 
 the iced champagne and French menus must astonish any stray 
 
 Spaniard who gets admitted The hounds went out for 
 
 the first time the day we left. The Spanish horses are hardy 
 little animals, and go far over ground no English horses could. 
 I got a ride into Africa at Tangiers with a French employe there 
 who was ten years secretary to Abdul Kader, and then betrayed 
 him to the French. The town is made up of European con- 
 sulates, who are well paid, and live comfortably in a most 
 picturesque Moorish citadel. I think you have got Hay's 
 " Western Barbary " in the library. The hotel is kept by two 
 elderly Scotchwomen, who came over as milliners and stay- 
 makers, but found it better to set up an inn clean enough and 
 have been there some sixteen years, speaking nothing but the 
 broadest Caledonian, and drinking toddy to a great extent. It 
 was most absurd to hear them knocking the Moors about, and 
 asking us all if we knew the country about Elgin. The weather 
 is clearing up after some rainy days, and we went last night to 
 a ball on board a French war-brig in the port here, and thus saw 
 some of the beauties of Malaga, and very striking they were, 
 and well dressed from Paris. The English Consul's daughters, 
 however, having just come from England, had the latest 
 fashions, and danced, as the German prince said, " unglaullich 
 gut." The ship was dressed in the rich vegetation of this 
 climate, the mainmast made into a palm-tree, and the sides 
 fringed with aloes, a large wreath of cypress mixed with flowers
 
 CHANGE OF viflws. 399 
 
 suspended from the top. The German ducalities go to Granada 
 in the diligence, and Patocci and I on horseback. A traveller 
 has just told me that, by the former way, he was obliged to tie 
 his air-cushion on his head, to protect it from bumping against 
 the top of the carriage. So the riding must be at least as con- 
 venient. I expect to be in Madrid in about a fortnight. Write 
 there through the Foreign Office. Thank my aunts especially 
 Fanny, as the busiest for their letter. Ask Georgie if he 
 remembers me. Keep my father quiet, and I am 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 R. M. M. to Lady Galway. 
 
 Madrid, Nov. l<tth, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR HARRIETTE, I shall probably hear from you by 
 the next courier, but you may like to tear from me again, since 
 I am alone here not much alone, however, for I have Bulwer's 
 house and that of the resident Rothschild to dine at whenever I 
 choose, and have got to know some of the best men. I have 
 also been to see the Alveans, who are a pleasant family, the 
 mother good-humoured and friendly, and the daughters 
 especially one, Charlotte Bennett's god-daughter intelligent 
 and agreeable. They have good music at their house, and seem 
 repandues in society. The state of politics is inconceivable till 
 you see it, and rumour catches at everything and everybody, as 
 the enclosed scrap of newspaper will show you. There has this 
 week been what they call a crisis. The Queen does not like 
 General Narvaez, her present Minister, and got into communi- 
 cation with some members of her late Government, and the 
 decrees for appointing them were all drawn out and ready for sig- 
 nature. However, they told the editor of a newspaper what was 
 going on, and he let out something to some woman about the 
 palace, who went and told the Queen-Mother, who rushed to the 
 Queen, pretended to know all that was going on, frightened the
 
 400 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUQHTON. 
 
 Queen, sent for Narvaez, who found the decrees in the Queen's 
 possession, tore them up, and sent his officers to see the general 
 who was named to succeed him, and conduct him out of Madrid 
 to the frontier. The whole intrigue was attributed to Bulwer, who, 
 at the most, was in the secret; and all the Government papers are 
 now attacking him furiously, while he has no paper to defend 
 him, having no money from home to pay the editors. One 
 paper, at the time of the marriages, cost us 250 per month, 
 while the French here have any amount of money and decora- 
 tions to dispose of. ... The weather here is a clear cold, 
 not disagreeable, but requiring fires and care: the wind is 
 very piercing. Poor Bulwer is left with everything in his hands, 
 and is worked to death. In the French Legations all the 
 Attaches act as spies, and learn everything; ours, on the 
 contrary, do not even know the language. The pictures are 
 glorious Velasquez's above all. The famous Raphaels have 
 been repainted and patched till they look like tea-boards. Write 
 to the Embassy at Paris, 'through Cunningham, and 
 
 Believe me your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The new Parliament met on November 18th, but 
 Milnes remained abroad, spending some time in Paris. 
 One of the questions which agitated the political world 
 in England was that raised by the return of Baron 
 Rothschild as member for the City of London. A 
 characteristic letter of Mr. Pemberton Milnes to his 
 son is worth printing : 
 
 R. P. Milnes to R. M. M. 
 
 Bawtry, Nov. 30^, 1847. 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I am not sorry you are missing this 
 Session, particularly the Jew Bill (I don't think Mr. Roth- 
 schild's dinners should be set against the strong, though silly,
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 401 
 
 prejudice at Pontefract), and that there is such plausible reason 
 of absence. They think you are at Madrid, I having- written to 
 that effect a fortnight ago to , who applied for a subscrip- 
 tion to a girls' school. I told her you had seen a man killed at 
 a bull-fight, which, I daresay, has gone the round of every house 
 at Pontefract. We heard that Dr. B. knows you are on an 
 important secret mission. You can get at the Embassy or the 
 news-room a file of the Times, the commercial leaders of which 
 you should get up. Think on C. Wood's statement on Friday 
 of sixty millions being sunk in railways within the last year 
 and a half ; it is hardly credible, but the fact must be so. How 
 I wish, for the first time, that Peel was in, to have to bear the 
 brunt of bringing us to this pass, and the responsibility of 
 getting us out of it ! Free Trade, restricted currency, and that 
 currency convertible to gold and gold only we must have 
 quinquennial shocks and a constitution of iron to stand them. 
 Neither Lord George (Bentinck) nor D'lzzy can argue it aright, 
 the former so extravagant and unfair in his way of stating it, 
 and D'Izzy so unpractical. I do not know what Herries may 
 do. Peel will have his scoff that we of the land have been 
 exempted. The true answer, that eight millions of Irish are 
 now to eat the corn they before sent us, he will also turn to his 
 own favour, but who anticipated this ? 
 
 Your ever affectionate 
 
 R. P. M. 
 
 A few days later Milnes returned to town, and 
 writing to MacCarthy told him of the last step he had 
 taken in severing himself from his old political associates 
 by his withdrawal from the Carlton Club. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 London, Dec. Zlst, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR FEIEND, I send you a line via Hawes. My 
 native land received me a week ago ; I shall be at home with a
 
 402 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGIITON. 
 
 visit or two to Ministerial houses for the vacation. I have not 
 seen A. Buller, who would have told me a great deal about you. 
 
 . I am rejoiced to have got well off. I don't 
 
 doubt that he hates me for the obligation I have conferred upon 
 him without being able to satisfy his vanity or his ambition. 
 Lord Grey has made somewhat of a hash of New Zealand and its 
 Constitution, which Governor Grey has returned in an envelope, 
 and my lord is obliged to eat. For my own part, I could not 
 understand how anything so rigid and unpliable was sent 
 sixteen thousand miles when adaptation to temporary circum- 
 stances would have seemed the first necessity. I am going to 
 break off the last link of Peelery, the Carlton Club, and mean 
 to pass an observant, undemonstrative Session. Lamartine 
 cleared 12,000 by the first edition of his " Girondins " ; no bad 
 writing that. Lord John Russell has gone and brought all the 
 Church about his ears in re Hampden ; but I am now learning, 
 after having been always tolerant of my enemies, to be tolerant 
 of my friends. . 
 
 I am your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Milnes's formal renunciation of Conservatism, and 
 his enlistment under the banner of Lord John Russell, 
 excited much interest amongst his friends, most of 
 whom had been conscious of the fact that the Tory 
 party could never provide him with a congenial home. 
 His failure to make that mark in Parliamentary life to 
 which his talents entitled him though due in no small 
 measure to his own peculiar idiosyncrasy was also 
 attributed by some of them to the jealousy he had 
 excited in the Conservative ranks, and they hoped that 
 better fortunes might attend him now that he had 
 formally allied himself with the opposite party.
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 403 
 
 Writing to him from Liverpool, January 4th, 1848, 
 Eliot Warburton said 
 
 I have to thank you for a very pleasant letter. I got it as 
 I was going to dine with Lord Clarendon, where the intelligence 
 of your secession to the Johnian faction excited great interest. 
 I hope that now you are actually committed to a principle, you 
 will do justice to your high talents and to your future. 
 
 But strong as was Milnes's desire to attain a position 
 of influence in politics, no change in his political allegi- 
 ance could affect the salient features of his character. 
 As a Liberal he was precisely what he had been as a 
 supporter of the Tory Government, full of enthusiastic 
 impulses curbed by cynical reflections ; always ready, as 
 he observes in a letter I have just quoted, to show a 
 delightful tolerance to his enemies, but unfortunately, 
 alsof always quick to see the weak points in the armour 
 of his friends ; a many-sided man with a keenness of 
 vision and a catholicity of sympathy which made it 
 absolutely impossible that he should ever sink into the 
 mere partisan, or should ever hope to tread successfully 
 the path of the seeker after office. Still, what he had 
 to do he did with all his heart. His present function 
 in life was to increase his stock of political knowledge, 
 especially his knowledge of foreign affairs. The events 
 of 1848, it need hardly be said, interested him intensely. 
 It is unfortunate for the purposes of this biography that 
 his friend and correspondent MacCarthy came over to 
 England in this year for the purpose of being married, 
 and that, consequently, there is a considerable break in 
 the series of letters from which I have quoted so largely
 
 404 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 a blank which cannot be supplied from any other sources 
 available for the purpose of this biography. We know, 
 however, that no sooner had the flames of revolution 
 appeared in Paris than Milnes set off to observe what 
 was happening there for himself. In Paris he was 
 found by Mr. Forster, who was also attracted to the 
 spot, staying at Meurice's Hotel, " fraternising with 
 everybody," and making himself equally at home in the 
 salons of the Legitimists and the soirees of the Com- 
 munists. It added, of course, immensely to his interest 
 in the movements in Paris that he was on terms of 
 personal intimacy with most of the leading men in the 
 France of that day, from the King downwards. His 
 curiosity was insatiable, and was in no degree limited 
 by his likes or dislikes. There, as in London, he was 
 eager to learn something, by personal intercourse, o the 
 characters of all the men who had made themselves 
 prominent ; and in this pursuit of knowledge he had no 
 scruples as to the personal reputation of those whom he 
 invited to his table, or with whom he entered into the 
 most close and confidential intercourse. But whilst he 
 was thus absolutely free from prejudice in the search 
 after knowledge, the reader must not suppose that he 
 had no fixed views of his own on the great questions of 
 right and wrong which were raised during the storm 
 of 1848, His sympathies and his principles were as 
 strong as they had ever been, and were all ranged on the 
 side of Liberty. Much, as he esteemed M. Guizot and 
 the other bulwarks of the Orleanist regime, he had never 
 felt satisfied with the monarchy of Louis Philippe, or
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 405 
 
 with the manner in which the King's Grovernment con- 
 trolled the destinies of France. He regarded, therefore, 
 with something more than mere curiosity the re- 
 establishment of the Republic. When in due time his 
 old acquaintance of Gore House, his companion of many 
 a social gathering, Prince Louis Napoleon, became 
 President, his interest was still further accentuated, and 
 he was eager to make use of his confidential friend- 
 ship with the President in order to extend his acquaint- 
 ance with men and affairs in the country. But when 
 the crime of the 2nd of December was committed, and 
 the Second Empire was founded upon a monstrous 
 breach of all law, Milnes had no hesitation in show- 
 ing on which side his sympathies lay. In spite of 
 repeated invitations, it was years before he could bring, 
 himself to resume his old familiar relations with 
 Napoleon III.,* and from that time until the ex- 
 Emperor returned to England a broken and ruined 
 exile, Milnes declined by any act or word of his to 
 appear to condone the coup d'etat. This, it need hardly 
 be said, was a much heavier sacrifice on the part of such 
 a man as Milnes than it would have been in the case 
 of some men. 
 
 I have anticipated the course of my narrative in 
 order to mention it here, because it is only right that 
 those who may be inclined to smile at Milnes 's never- 
 tiring curiosity regarding men and affairs, should not 
 
 * Once, I believe, in his official capacity as Chairman of one of the 
 sections of the 1867 Exhibition, he did attend a function at the Tuileries, 
 but of the old private intercourse there was none for years.
 
 406 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 fall into the mistake of supposing that his cosmo- 
 politanism in interest and in sympathy had dimmed his 
 perception of the great principles of truth and justice. 
 
 How far, indeed, this was from being the case, 
 Milnes, as the reader will shortly learn, was soon to 
 give proof by one of the ablest of the many productions 
 of his facile and graceful pen. In the summer and 
 autumn of 18.48, however, deeply as he was interested 
 in political affairs, he was turning his attention to a 
 more serious piece of literary work than* any which 
 he had yet undertaken, apart from his poetry. This 
 was his well-known edition of the " Life and Letters of 
 Keats/' 
 
 E. M. M. to Lady Galway. 
 
 March 3rd, 1848. 
 
 DEAREST HARRIETTE, The King and Queen have arrived at 
 Newhaven, near Brighton, in a packet Palmy sent for them. I 
 saw the young Guizots to-day; they escaped with an English 
 companion, and are taken in at friends of hers in Bryanston 
 Square. The poor things were wonderfully cheerful, and did 
 not seem to fear anything grave for their father, although, of 
 course, they are extremely anxious, knowing nothing of him 
 since the Due de Broglie had hid him. The Duchess of Orleans 
 and her discrowned child are gone to Germany. Everybody 
 says the Government will last as long as Lamartine is there; 
 beyond him is a fathomless abyss. Mademoiselle Guizot told 
 me she saw the poor Queen's caps and bonnets carried on pikes 
 through the streets. This is better than the heads of '91. 
 My father told me to offer them to stay at Bawtry for the 
 summer, which I shall do. Madame de Lieven, whom I call 
 " the Founder of the Republic/' has arrived at the Clarendon. 
 What do you say to going with me to Paris at Easter ?
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 407 
 
 MacCarthy is to be married on the 25th. My father has 
 offered them Fryston for the honeymoon. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 R. M. M. 
 
 JR. M. H. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 September 29tk, 1848. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, We have just had one of those autumnal 
 summers (one of those Indian summers that old Gentz said 
 Fanny Ellsler gave him) which turn the English year topsy- 
 turvy. It is now over, and we are back to the old climate again. 
 Since I left London I have been visiting about, but fell upon 
 nothing worth sending so far as you, so you must suppose me 
 just as you left me neither better nor worse. My father has let 
 Bavvtry to a railway director, whose wife promises to take great 
 care of the furniture, declaring that " 'er 'ome is 'er 'obby." 
 And all our squabbles about railway compensation promise to be 
 soon at an end one way or another. I suppose we shall get to 
 Fryston during the winter, and as the house is diminished by 
 having unfurnished all the best rooms, my father will not feel 
 himself so painfully over-housed as he always says he is there. 
 Great European matters are still in a state of considerable 
 fusion in fact, there is what Bancroft complained of in Salisbury 
 Plain, "a tottal want of settlement/' Austria evincing the 
 wonderful galvanic energy of old organisation in her huge dead 
 body. I anticipate war. The Italian question is with France 
 one of personal honour j a duel they must fight if they do not 
 get satisfaction, however disagreeable or even unreasonable they 
 think it. Austria has not the pluck to adopt the only great 
 policy, that of declaring Lombardy and Venetia independent, 
 under an Austrian prince, but goes on worrying and insulting 
 the Italians as much as ever, and doing all she can to reconcile 
 them with the Piedmontese. Rome is settling down, and has 
 got a clever Minister in Rossi, Guizot's Minister of Public In- 
 struction j and both the Sicilians and Neapolitans have suffered
 
 408 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 so much in the siege of Messina that some terms may be 
 arranged between them. How curious the internecine hatred of 
 these two peoples is ! Is it in the Saracenic blood in Sicily? 
 Everybody is glad to have Gustave de Beaumont in London. 
 When he first came, he spoke of the Republic comme 
 d'une mauvaise connaissance, but now is more prudent. Louis 
 Napoleon has taken his seat, and will soon, in all probability, 
 achieve his own extinction. His policy would have been to 
 have shammed ill till the election for President. Louis Blanc is 
 in London, and has much pleased those who have seen him by 
 his earnestness and absence of egoism. It was reported that he 
 took refuge at Fryston, but I don't know him to speak to. The 
 last political event is the death of Lord George Bentinck, who 
 fell down in a spasm of the heart, and never moved again. 
 There is a quantity of puff and froth about him in the papers, 
 and he " may stand in bronze in some protected square," but he 
 exercised no real influence over anything or anybody. He had a 
 marvellous memory, but so had the learned pig, and I never saw 
 in him a scintilla of statesmanship. D'Israeli alone will really 
 regret him, both because he was fond of him, and made an 
 excellent use for himself of the dticality of his friend. Among 
 the blunders of my " Life of Keats " I find I have killed your 
 Archdeacon Bailey, who is said to be thriving and prosperous. 
 You never mentioned him to me, and in recounting all Keats's 
 affectionate intercourse with him, I never thought of anything 
 less than that he was alive and probably known to you. I think 
 it was Tom Hood who told me he was dead. Let me know 
 about him ; he may be archidiaconised out of all his poetry and 
 geniality. At the time Keats knew him at Oxford there must 
 have been at least some good receptivity about him. Lord Elgin 
 gives up Canada on account of his wife's health, and probably 
 because he cannot manage the Government. I really cannot fancy 
 who Lord Grey will send. I don't know a Grey who will go. 
 Buller would be the man to send, but then the possible peerage 
 must be exhausted first. Remember me most kindly to your wife, 
 and let rae hear from you all about yourself and your doings, and
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 409 
 
 don't write comments on stale English affairs as Colvile does. I 
 see, you have had a little revolt produced, I suppose, by your 
 new scheme of taxation ; I daresay with good reason. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 Alas ! when Milnes next wrote to Ceylon the name 
 of the old friend whom he had mentioned as fit for the 
 Government of Canada was no longer to be counted 
 among those of the living. I have already said something 
 of the real union which existed between Charles Buller 
 and Milnes, a union which dated from their early youth. 
 Together they filled a conspicuous place in society, as 
 colleagues rather than as rivals, and for Boiler's genius 
 Milnes always had a real reverence. The premature 
 death of the former fell upon a large circle as a heavy 
 and unexpected blow. 
 
 R. M. M. to Mrs. HacCarthy. 
 
 Dec. Uh, 1848. 
 
 DEAR MRS. MACCAETHY, I can hardly answer your letter ; 
 I can do no more than say that your happiness will always add 
 much to mine, and that if I have contributed to it I can be repaid 
 in no other way. Let Charles go on prosperous and contented, 
 and you with him, and I shall always feel that I have lived to 
 some purpose, and that is no mean comfort in the troubles and 
 tumults of life. By the same post as yours came a long 
 interesting letter about Keats from Archdeacon Bailey. I know 
 people cannot always be judged of by their letters (though they 
 must be like them somehow), but he ought to be a good, genial 
 man, with interest in books and art. Would you give him a 
 line to say I will write to him by the next mail, and send him a 
 copy of the book ? Lord Grey has not behaved kindly to me 
 about my cousin, and I shall take care, to keep pretty clear
 
 410 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 of the Colonial Office for the future. You will hear by this mail 
 of Buller's death. It is an irreparable loss to me, for he was the 
 single public man with whom I always sympathised, and who 
 seemed to understand me at least, as well as I did myself ; and I 
 feel so deeply what the country has lost in him, that all the 
 banal public praise, and the comparisons with Lord Georges and 
 Homers, make me only indignant. Macaulay's History is out 
 this week. The extracts I have seen are very agreeable, and the 
 book, apart from its judgments, will be most instructive. The 
 press is certainly very vigorous against your rebellion and its 
 repression, and I have seen no public defence, though one may 
 have appeared. I should think some reduction of your present 
 staff inevitable, and, as long as you are safe, desirable. You 
 must cure yourself of a longing for society as well as you can. 
 Read "Paul and Virginie " and "Atala." Remember all 
 the disagreeable people you would be forced to meet and hold 
 intercourse with ; think of any de'sagr6ments you may have had 
 in society; get up a right colonial backwoods kind of spirit. 
 Look on Europe rather with pity than interest. Think of the 
 Pope turned out of Rome, and you safe and comfortable 
 under a pepper- tree. Your letters had now better come to 
 26, Pall Mall. 
 
 Believe me yours, with grateful and deep feeling, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 The close of 1848 found Milnes engaged in writing 
 " A Letter to the Marquis of Lansdowne " on the events 
 of the year, especially in relation to Great Britain. I 
 have not hitherto presented to the reader any extracts 
 from Milnes's numerous pamphlets and review articles, 
 nor do I propose to interpolate here any lengthy quota- 
 tions from his letter to Lord Lansdowne. It is, how- 
 ever, a striking and instructive production, not more 
 admirable in the style in which it is written than in the
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 411 
 
 spirit which it evinces. English public opinion had 
 fluctuated violently during that year of storm and revo- 
 lution; and whereas at the outset there had been a 
 widespread sympathy in this country with those who 
 were fighting on the Continent against despotic rulers 
 and oppressive institutions, " the swing of the pen- 
 dulum " had brought about that which is apparently the 
 inevitable reaction, and those who in the early part of the 
 year had cheered the Liberal forces throughout Europe 
 in their attacks upon the citadels of privilege were now 
 heard still more loudly denouncing the excesses which 
 had been committed in the name of Liberty, and demand- 
 ing that English sympathy should be withdrawn from 
 the revolutionary party, no matter under what circum- 
 stances that party had been called into existence. 
 Milnes boldly took that which was unquestionably the 
 unpopular side in his own circle, if not throughout the 
 country, and in his letter to Lord Lansdowne set forth 
 the reasons which made him feel that the Liberals of 
 the Continent had not proved themselves unworthy of 
 the sympathy of free England by the course of events 
 in 1848. He condemned with severity the common 
 temper of his fellow-countrymen with regard to foreign 
 affairs. 
 
 Our disregard of the political condition of other nations [he 
 wrote] is always liable to be proud, selfish, and unjust. At one 
 moment we reprobate every disturbance of social order in foreign 
 countries, just as if our own order and freedom had not been won 
 by civil war, by resistance to power, and by the punishment of 
 evil-doers in high places ; at another we exhaust our indignation 
 and scorn against the meanness and effeminacy of men who
 
 412 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 submit to lie under the terror of brute force, or, still more, under 
 the oppression of an alien rule, and justify the tyranny by the 
 nature and the habits of a slave. Forgetful of our own 
 ancestors, who in the field of battle, on the scaffold, in exile or 
 captivity, have raised, stone by stone, the edifice of our civil life, 
 we mock at the sacrifices, the labours, and the martyrdoms of 
 other patriots who have not succeeded in realising at once all 
 their hopes and aims, but whose blood and tears -may be just as 
 fruitful as those of our progenitors. Unconscious or careless of 
 the many fortuitous circumstances and natural advantages to 
 which we owe our independence and our blessings, we look with 
 contempt on all other less-favoured nations, and, by a curious 
 confusion of ideas, assume them to be incapable of freedom, 
 simply because we do not see them free. And too often, thankless 
 to Providence for all He has enabled us to do, we seem to regard 
 the blessings of self-government as the special property of 
 Englishmen, and the more safely secured to our possession in 
 proportion as they are denied to the rest of mankind. 
 
 From this indignant protest against a spirit too 
 common among Englishmen, Milnes proceeded to review 
 the condition of the various countries in Europe which 
 had during the year witnessed revolutionary risings, 
 pointing out, not merely the excuses which could be 
 offered for the tumults that had been witnessed, but the 
 real good which had been left behind by the efforts of 
 the revolutionary party, and the benefits which England 
 was certain to derive from the spread of constitutional 
 liberty upon the Continent. Above all, he was enthu- 
 siastic on behalf of Italy, and especially of those plains 
 of Lombardy which he knew so well, and whose people 
 he had learned to love in bygone years of exile. 
 
 It is said to be the intention of the Austrian Government
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 413 
 
 to make the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom a second Poland, to 
 acquire the affections of the peasantry by confiscating the estates 
 of many of the nobility, and to destroy the power of the middle 
 class by reducing them as far as possible to the lowest level. It 
 is hoped that thus Northern Italy may in time be denationalised, 
 and that a race will grow up without passions and without 
 memory. A savage and cruel process, but perhaps the only one 
 possible if this abhorred authority is to be maintained. But the 
 analogy is not sufficiently exact to render the experiment even 
 as hopeful as that of the prototype. Poland is surrounded by 
 enemies animated with all the bitterness of conscious injustice ; 
 Lombardy by compassionate, if not devoted, friends : the Poles 
 have only found sympathy among men strange to their race, 
 their language, and their habits ; Lombardy finds sympathy with 
 cognate nations to which she is bound by the common literature 
 and common customs: Poland to the greater part of European 
 travellers remains but a name ; Lombardy is a familiar face to 
 thousands of strangers, a highway of civilised Europe, and a 
 delightful sojourn to the lovers of what is beautiful in Nature, 
 in art, and in classic tradition. And France, whatever be her 
 adventures in government, will not easily have so dulled her 
 imagination or quenched her enthusiasm as to be unmoved by 
 appeals to the deeds of Marengo and of Lodi, and to suffer an 
 expiring nation at her very door to cry in vain for help and pro- 
 tection, not against the restraints of an orderly authority, but 
 against fierce invaders intent upon her absolute destruction. 
 
 In these ardent words Milnes in part sought to 
 repay the debt he owed for past love and kindness to 
 the Northern Italians. Remembering that these words 
 were written in 1848 (more than ten years before the 
 freedom of Lombardy was finally achieved by the 
 bayonets of French soldiers), they cannot but be 
 regarded as proof of the prescience of the writer ; nor 
 ought he to be denied the credit due to one who, more
 
 414 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 than twenty years before the unity of Italy was secured, 
 could write as follows regarding it : 
 
 To England the peaceful consolidation of Italy would bring 
 nothing but advantage. It would open to our manufactures a 
 market all but closed against us by high tariffs and annoying 
 restrictions of every kind. The exportation of corn of the best 
 quality would be quadrupled by good and quiet cultivation, and 
 that of silk and oil considerably increased. Her naval and com- 
 mercial power, commanding the two coasts, would stand in the 
 way of all monopoly of force in the Mediterranean, and tend to 
 preserve the liberty of the sea. At the same time, the comple- 
 tion of the Lyons Railroad will facilitate the access of travellers, 
 and bring her within a week's easy journey. The pleasure-hunter 
 should desire the true preservation of order in Italy by pacific 
 means, as well as the advocate of liberty or humanity. 
 
 I need only further quote from this remarkable 
 pamphlet a few lines in which, referring to the gloomy 
 views entertained by M. Guizot (at that time an exile 
 resident in a London suburb), Milnes declared that the 
 form and name of the executive power in France might 
 change, but that universal suffrage must remain. There 
 is one striking passage in the pamphlet, in which Milnes 
 paid a tribute of love and reverence to the memory of 
 his friend Charles Buller, to whom he had submitted a 
 draft of the letter shortly before his death. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon the pamphlet, 
 because it not only excited much attention at the time 
 of its appearance, but involved Milnes himself in per- 
 sonal controversies of an unusually acrimonious kind. 
 
 DEAR MILNES [wrote Lord Brougham] , I am extremely 
 obliged to you for your kind present. I have read it, and I do
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 415 
 
 not find any one word of it with which I can in the least degree 
 concur. I do not at all deny the merit of your bold and hope- 
 less attempt. I only mean to say it is desperate. 
 
 
 In a much more rational though not more character- 
 istic spirit Guizot wrote to express his regret that he 
 could not agree with Milnes's optimistic view of the 
 results of the year of Revolution, but saying that he did 
 not like to quarrel with a friend, that he had received 
 so much kindness from Milnes he could only regard 
 him with affection still, in spite of all differences of 
 opinion. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone to R. M. M. 
 
 6, Carlton Gardens, Feb. Ibth, 1849. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I do not anticipate the arrival of a 
 time when I shall fail to find much to agree with, and much to 
 admire, in any work of yours. Generally, I have read yonr 
 various tracts without any interruption whatever to these 
 courses of feeling. I cannot quite say that to-day, for in the 
 pamphlet which you have been so kind as to send me I find 
 more than I can quite subscribe to of the inclination to under- 
 take the function of setting all countries right whenever we 
 think they go wrong ; but I think that even if I assume myself 
 to be right in this view, I should still refer this bias more to 
 your admiration of Lord Palmerston than to an original error 
 in your own judgment, which I usually find, in your similar 
 publications, quite dispassionate and acute. 
 
 With renewed thanks, 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 Carlyle's opinion of the pamphlet was much more 
 unrestricted than that of Mr. Gladstone, although it
 
 416 THE LIFE OF LOED HOUGHTON. 
 
 could hardly bs expected that he would sympathise with 
 many of the sentiments it contained. " If you see 
 Milnes," said he to a friend, who forthwith conveyed the 
 message to the author of the letter, " tell him it is the 
 greatest thing he has yet done : earnest and grave, 
 written in a large, tolerant, kind-hearted spirit, and, 
 as far as I can see, saying all that is to be said on 
 that matter." 
 
 In the opinion of Carlyle Jeffrey concurred with 
 even greater enthusiasm. But, as I have said, it was 
 not all honey that was offered to Milnes in return for 
 his vigorous and brilliant criticism of our relations with 
 Continental States. From many quarters adverse 
 criticism as strenuous and far more bitter than that 
 of Lord Brougham was poured upon him, and in one 
 quarter the reviewer allowed himself a licence which 
 went beyond the bounds of fair-play or of courtesy. 
 The criticism to which I refer appeared in the form of 
 a leading article in the Morning Chronicle. It was 
 manifestly written not for the purpose of discussing 
 Milnes's opinions, which had at least been put forward 
 in a grave and serious spirit not unworthy of the events 
 to which they had reference but in order that a series 
 of personal wounds might be inflicted upon the author, 
 who had frankly invited the judgment of the critics. 
 Milnes was spoken of as a " professional jester," a 
 "pantaloon," "whom we intend to expose before the 
 public." "We intend to gibbet him," the writer went on, 
 " in front of every country of which he has written, with 
 universal ignorance and omniscient pretensions." The
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 417 
 
 article was one of a class now almost extinct : brutal in 
 its invective, insolent in its sarcasm, and reckless in its 
 disregard of the decencies of debate. It might have 
 fallen fitly enough from the pen of some Grub Street 
 hack of a former age ; and if it had done so, Milnes 
 might well have treated it with the contempt due both 
 to the criticism and the critic. But hardly had this 
 vehement attack made its appearance, than it became 
 known to Milnes that it was not the work of some 
 professional " Captain Bludyer," but of a man who up 
 to that moment had professed to be a friend of his own, 
 though in truth there had never been much sympathy 
 between them Mr. George Smythe, afterwards Lord 
 Strangford. Personal spite and jealousy must have 
 risen to no common height in the breast of Mr. Smythe 
 before it could have led him to indulge in conduct for 
 which no canon of journalistic usage will afford any 
 justification. Milnes, as the reader has seen, was one 
 of the most sensitive of men. How acutely he himself 
 felt unfair and unkindly criticism was again and again 
 revealed to others by the almost tender sympathy which 
 he showed with his own friends when they were the 
 victims of attacks of this kind. So acutely did he feel the 
 manner in which he had been treated, that he resorted 
 to a mode of obtaining redress which had even then 
 become obsolete in England. He challenged Mr. 
 George Smythe, naming Mr. Eliot Warburton as his 
 friend. Mr. Smythe empowered Captain Darrell to act 
 on his behalf. Happily, the dispute terminated 
 without bloodshed, Mr. Smythe making some kind of
 
 418 THE LIFE OF LOUD BOUGBTON. 
 
 apology for his wholly unprovoked attack upon Milnes. 
 The following note, which lies before me as I write, 
 gives the official version of the conclusion of an episode 
 in Milnes's life which was altogether at variance with 
 its ordinary tenor, but which his biographer cannot 
 avoid introducing : 
 
 A misunderstanding having arisen between Mr. Smythe and 
 Mr. Milnes, Captain Darrell and Mr. Warburton were engaged 
 in its arrangement, and express themselves satisfied that the affair 
 has terminated with satisfaction and honour to both parties. 
 
 H. DARRELL, Capt. 
 
 Army and Navy Club, ELIOT WARBURTON. 
 
 April 24^, 1849. 
 
 Eliot Warburton, it should be said, was not at all 
 inclined to facilitate a settlement of the quarrel on any 
 terms but those which his own principal insisted upon. 
 He had an Irishman's love of fighting, and Milnes used 
 to tell in after years of the keen disappointment of his 
 friend when it became apparent that no duel would 
 take place. 
 
 It is perhaps superfluous to add that the estrange- 
 ment between Milnes and Smythe which was caused 
 by the article in the Morning Chronicle was never 
 removed. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartky. 
 
 (/) Jan. 1849. 
 
 Foreign affairs are in a sadly distracted state. The French 
 at Borne are odious to gods and men, having destroyed the 
 Aurora of Guido, damaged St. Peter's and the Pantheon, and 
 slaughtered some thousand Romans. The worst of this is that 
 it places France almost necessarily in opposition to the Liberal
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 419 
 
 movement in Europe ; and if the present reasonable and honest 
 Cabinet are turned out we shall have a Thiers-Montalembert 
 Government, capable of arousing civil war and throwing France 
 back to 1780. The brutal Russian invasion of Hungary is 
 looked on here with the most ignorant eyes, and the real 
 enslavement of Austria which must follow it is altogether 
 unforeseen. The Hungarians ought indeed to have stuck to the 
 constitutional fiction, "it is to defend His Majesty that we 
 against him fight/* and then there would have been no 
 pretence to confound this great national movement with the 
 democratic rise of the rest of the world. I am intending no 
 long absence from England this year. Eliot Warburton has 
 got somebody to lend him a chateau in Switzerland, and I may 
 spend a quiet month with him, and a week or two with 
 De Tocqueville if the present Government remains in. Lord 
 Brougham makes a regular attack on Palmerston's policy on 
 Friday next, the issue of which is doubtful, as all but vital 
 questions will be in the Lords with any Liberal Government, 
 till enough Peers are made to bring the two Houses into 
 harmony. ... j am vours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. MILNES. 
 
 The present chapter may fitly conclude with some 
 extracts from Milnes's Commonplace Book for the 
 years 1848 and 1849, in which some of his gleanings 
 first in Paris, and subsequently among his French 
 friends in exile in London will be found recorded. As 
 before, I prefer to give these extracts in Milnes's own 
 words, brief and fragmentary as his sentences often are, 
 rather than elaborate them myself. 
 
 Extracts from Commonplace Book. 
 THIERS'S VERSION OF THE AFFAIR OF FEBRUARY. 
 
 Mole told the King about midnight he could not form a 
 Government (he had applied to Thiers to help him) ; barricades
 
 420 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 were everywhere. Thiers was walking in his garden about 2, 
 when an aide-de-camp fetched him. They got to the palace by 
 going round about. The King was all but rude to him, asked 
 him, " Avez-vous des Ministres ? " Thiers said he must name 
 some he feared His Majesty would not like, Barrot and Duvergier. 
 The King said, " Je m'y attendais," and ordered it to be placarded 
 that these were His Ministers. Owing to the barricades, the 
 police were unable to do this. When B. and D. came, they 
 insisted on the troops being withdrawn. Thiers asked Bugeaud 
 how many there were. 27,000 effectives in all Paris, but not 
 above 17 under arms; 4,000 in the Carrousel and Place de la 
 Concorde ; none with more than 10 rounds of cartridges, and no 
 food or straw for the horses to rest on. The Due de Mont- 
 pensier said he had sent for some ammunition to Vinceunes, 
 forgetting that the road lay through the Faubourg St. Antoine, 
 where they must all be taken (they should have been sent by the 
 Seine) . The King spent two hours in discussing the question of 
 the dissolution, and the Due de Nemours got it from him at 
 last. On the doors of the Queen's apartment opening, Thiers 
 saw Guizot there with the Queen, and the King kept going in to 
 him. Thiers refused to dismiss Bugeaud, but consented that 
 an order should be sent to the troops to cease firing, and to retire 
 on the Tuileries to protect it. This the troops did not obey, but 
 gave up their muskets to the people, and walked off. As the 
 popular furore increased (for Thiers could only get a short way 
 from the barricades, but was well received wherever he went, the 
 people crying, " Prenez garde, M. Thiers, le Roi vous trompe ") 
 
 came in, and told Thiers he must retire ; he did not go 
 
 far enough. The King said, " No, I won't have M. Thiers leave 
 me." T. insisted, and an ordinance was made out creating 
 Barrot President of the Council. The King said, " Envoyez 
 chercher Guizot pour qu'il le signe/' when there was a general 
 huee. Soon after, a number of young men came in and told T. 
 the King must abdicate. The Princes came up, and they told 
 them the same thing. The Due de Nemours went into the 
 King's cabinet, and said, " Sire, le moment de notre sacrifice est
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 421 
 
 arrive. II faut que vous abdiquiez et pour vous et pour moi. 
 Je ne suis plus populaire que vous." The King took it well, 
 and went into the Queen's room, where there was a great scene 
 and resistance. The Queen came out, and spoke bitterly to 
 Thiers, with a seconde pensee to the Duchesse d'Orleans, as if they 
 had been together in the plot. Thiers had before advised that 
 the King should retire with all the troops he could get to 
 St. Cloud, and there parlementer. He said, " Non, Vincennes." 
 " Vincennes est une prison, une souriciere. A St. Cloud vous serez 
 libre." The King abdicated with great dignity, refusing to 
 hurry himself. Thiers went down into the Place, and was 
 walking there with Bugeaud when the King went away. 
 
 Thiers sajdng the great fault of all, on the part of the King, 
 was allowing the agitation to get to that height. The next 
 was, the want of military preparation and munition. The third, 
 the constant change of Government in the last moments, which 
 made all united and consequent action impossible. 
 
 Louis Philippe saying, " La meilleure camisole de force pour 
 un Franc,ais, c'est 1'uniforme." 
 
 Louis Philippe, speaking of society in England, " here every- 
 thing is so well riveted/' 
 
 The Queen of the French praying so much in her flight that 
 Louis Philippe said he was obliged to be crying out, "Mrs. 
 Smith, on ne prie pas tant en voyage." 
 
 Louis Philippe saying, "A National Guard is like a tree in a 
 flower-pot ; it looks very pretty till it grows, and then it breaks 
 the pot that is, the country to pieces." 
 
 Gamier Pages, the Priest of the Republic. 
 
 Louis Philippe of Ireland, "C'est une maladie incurable, 
 mais jamais mortelle." 
 
 Pierre Leroux recommending that no man should have a vote 
 in France who paid above 200 fr. of impdt. 
 
 Man at Barbes's Club declaiming against the desecration 
 of the Trees of Liberty by the touch of and presence of the 
 Clergy. 
 
 The only nervousness Lamartine showed in the affair was
 
 422 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 when, after seventy-two hours of struggle without sleep, he 
 threw himself on his bed, and asked his wife to watch by him 
 for two hours, as he then could sleep calmly ; which he did, and 
 rose quite fresh again. 
 
 I to Prince Charles, "Vous autres Frangais vivez par 
 instinct/' " Comme les chiens qui quelquefois s'enragent." 
 
 Louis Philippe to me at Clermont, May 27th, " I have 
 nothing now to look to but the long run." 
 
 Prince Metternich told me he had prepared for every 
 possible combination except one, that of a Liberal Pope. 
 Driven out of his house in Eaton Square by an Irish family 
 next door playing, " Pio Nono " and ' ' Mourir pour la patrie " 
 all day. 
 
 Carlyle on Louis Philippe "Louis Philippe, that Royal 
 Ikey Solomon that Ikey Basilica/' 
 
 Guizot, at Stafford House, speaking of the political security 
 of England, Madame de Lieven from the other end of the table, 
 "That is precisely what you said to me the day before the 
 Revolution." M. Guizot going on to say that it was singular 
 that the country with the most liberty should be the only one 
 to escape a revolution. " You forget Russia," said Madame 
 Lieven. M. Guizot replying that it was still more singular 
 that the two countries the most and the least free should 
 have escaped. " Ce qui montre combien etait pitoyable votre 
 politique du juste milieu." 
 
 Prince Metternich vindicating to me the Galician massacres, 
 on the plea that the Polish nobles were about to massacre the 
 Austrian Beamte, who only saved themselves and the country 
 by rousing the peasants and using them as a defence. He 
 allowed that money had been given for persons brought in, 
 but said this was done to save their lives, the offer being so 
 much for each man alive, but that in some cases the peasants 
 misunderstood this. He excused the small number of troops 
 by the secrecy of the conspiracy, which quite imposed upon the 
 Archduke. 
 
 In Lord Malmesbury's " Recollections of an Ex- 
 Minister " there is a passage recounting his first meeting
 
 CHANGE OF VIEWS. 423 
 
 with the Orleans family at Claremont, after their arrival 
 in this country, which reflects somewhat seriously upon 
 Milnes's tact. Lord Malmesbury represents Milnes as 
 talking to the King, and informing him that serious 
 doubts were cast upon the courage of the Due de 
 Nemours ; whereupon the dethroned monarch sprang to 
 his feet in a state of great excitement, wringing his 
 hands and exclaiming, " This is the last stroke, the last 
 stroke ! " It would have been strange indeed for a man 
 in whom the sympathetic temperament predominated 
 as it did in Milnes to have so far forgotten what was 
 due to the King's misfortunes as thus to wound him 
 by a thoughtless word in his hour of greatest depression. 
 I cannot, however, enter into a controversy with a dead 
 man ; but against Lord Malmesbury's narrative of what 
 he supposed occurred I can place the following ex- 
 tract from Milnes's " Commonplace Book," written at 
 the time, describing that which actually did happen. 
 
 MY INTERVIEW WITH THE ORLEANS FAMILY AT CLAREMONT, 
 MARCH 22ND. 
 
 The King saying he was glad to see me there or in a cottage. 
 The Queen crying, and pointing to him, " II meritait un meilleur 
 sort ; " of her children, " Si bons, si devoues a la France." The 
 King returning from his trisle promenade, where the National 
 Guard had insulted him, and the bayonets grazed his horse's 
 neck, finding Thiers (who had said, " Je reponds de tout ") 
 overwhelmed, and saying, " Sire, I am done/' the King answer- 
 ing, " Mon cher ami, je vous Tai toujours dit." The King 
 refusing, with violence, to abdicate in favour of the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans. " Je ne veux rien faire contre la loi. J'abdique ; 
 c'est a la Chambre de decider qui sera regent pas a moi."
 
 424 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Nemours leaving his wife to go with the rest, and remaining 
 alone to attend the Duchesse d'Orleans to the Chamber, and, if 
 necessary, resign in her favour. His cold and perfect courage 
 unlike his brothers, who, though brave, are full of passion and 
 sympathy. 
 
 This statement, which so completely disposes of 
 Lord Malmesbury's story, is confirmed by the Dowager 
 Lady Gralway, who was herself present at the interview 
 with the royal family. 
 
 These extracts from Milnes's note- book for that 
 stormy epoch in Continental history may fitly close 
 with one or two reflections of his own, jotted down at 
 the same time, and evidently inspired by the events 
 which had just passed before his eyes. 
 
 It is since I have seen the governors of mankind, and what 
 they are in comparison with the governed, that I have become 
 Republican : now that the superiorities of the distance have 
 vanished, how can I do otherwise than acknowledge that 
 humanity is nearly a plane ? 
 
 It is of necessity that the political far-seer should be looked 
 on as a visionary, and his sight declared to be a delusion, for if 
 it were not so, he would see no further than other people.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 Thackeray " Going to see a Man hanged " Charlotte Bronte in London 
 Milnes in Paris Dines with Louis Napoleon Sayings of Carlyle Accident 
 to Rogers Death of Sir Robert Peel The Papal Aggression Engagement 
 to Miss Crewe Friendship with the Palmerstons Marriage Wedding- 
 Trip Fryston Described Its Many Visitors Death of Eliot Warburton 
 16, Upper Brook Street Hospitalities Friendship with Miss Nightingale 
 Correspondence with Mrs. Gaskell. 
 
 AMONG the many cherished friendships which Milnes 
 had formed in the literary world, that which united him 
 to Mr. Thackeray deserves a word of special mention. 
 There was something in the genius of the author of 
 " Vanity Fair " which was peculiarly acceptable to 
 Milnes, and the latter entertained for the great novelist 
 an admiration of no ordinary kind. Their personal 
 acquaintance, as the reader has seen, began when they 
 were both very young men ; and it was maintained, with 
 only those occasional breaks which seem to be inevitable 
 in the lives of men actively engaged in the various 
 occupations of London society, until Thackeray's death 
 in 1863. 
 
 The correspondence between them speaks of long 
 years of close and affectionate intimacy, not altogether 
 without occasional breaks, due to the temperaments of 
 both men, but never seriously affected by these rare 
 differences. " Dear Milnes," writes Thackeray at a 
 very early stage in their acquaintance, when the great
 
 426 TEE LIFE OF LORD EOUGHTON. 
 
 novelist was living in Paris, "the young Chevalier is 
 arrived, and to be heard of at the Bedford Hotel in 
 Covent Garden, or at the Garrick Club, King Street. He 
 accepts breakfasts and dinners still more willingly." 
 There is no signature to this note, but, instead of signa- 
 ture, there is, on the opposite page, a sketch from the 
 masterly pen of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, in which 
 Thackeray depicts himself in the costume of the period 
 bell-shaped hat, high collar, velvet stock, and closely- 
 buttoned frock-coat, on the breast of which glitters an 
 immense star. Many of his letters to Milnes are deco- 
 rated by similar sketches. As for the dinners and 
 breakfasts which Thackeray was " willing to accept," 
 they were not to be counted. When, after his marriage, 
 Milnes was enabled to keep a record of the guests at 
 his table, there was hardly any name which figured 
 more frequently in it than that of the author of 
 "Vanity Fair." 
 
 They did not always, however, meet merely for 
 pleasant social intercourse in club or dining-room. 
 Most persons have probably read Thackeray's inimitable 
 
 account of his " Going to see a Man Hanged." X , 
 
 the member of Parliament who accompanied him to 
 the execution he describes that of Courvoisier was 
 Milnes ; and here are two little notes which bear upon 
 this rather unpleasant engagement : 
 
 Coram Street, June 2nd. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I shall be. very glad to make one at the 
 hanging, and shall expect you here. Yours ever, 
 
 W. M. T.
 
 MARRIAGE. 427 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, You must not think me inhospitable 
 in refusing to sit up. I must go to bed, that's the fact, or I 
 never shall be able to attend to the work of to-morrow properly. 
 If you like to come here and have a sofa, it is at your service ; 
 but I most strongly recommend sleep as a preparative to the 
 day's pleasures. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 The novelist was a frequent and an honoured guest 
 at Fryston. After his death his host was wont to 
 tell how, on his last visit to the place, a mighty tree 
 the pride of the woods was overthrown during a furious 
 gale of wind, and how, when Thackeray saw the fallen 
 monarch on the following morning, he shook his head 
 gloomily, and murmured, half to himself, " An omen ! 
 an omen ! " Again and again, on many different occa- 
 sions, Milnes tried to hefriend Thackeray in different 
 ways, and in the year with which I am now dealing 
 (1849) he strove to secure for him one of the London 
 magistrateships which then fell vacant. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray to R. M. M. 
 
 You are a good and lovable adviser and M.P., but I cannot 
 get the Magistrate's place, not being eligible. I was only called 
 to the Bar last year, and they require barristers of seven years' 
 standing. Time will qualify me, however, and I hope to be able 
 to last six years in the literary world ; for though I shall write, 
 I dare say, very badly, yet the public won't find it out for some 
 time, and I shall live upon my past reputation. It is a pity, to 
 be sure. If I could get a place and rest, I think I could do 
 something better than I have done, and leave a good and lasting 
 book behind me ; but Fate is overruling. I have written to 
 thank Ij. for his kind letter, and to beg him to remember me if
 
 428 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 any opportunity occurs of serving me. I wonder whether Lord 
 Palmerston could ? But I would rather be in London. Thank 
 you for thinking of me, and believe that I am grateful. 
 
 Always yours, dear Milnes, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 It was towards the close of this year (1849) that 
 Thackeray made the acquaintance of one who was at 
 once the most ardent admirer of his genius, and his 
 most formidable rival in the art of fiction, Charlotte 
 Bronte. The world has heard the story of how the 
 " austere little Joan of Arc " went up to London to 
 reveal her identity to her publishers, and how the secret 
 of her authorship having been hitherto successfully 
 concealed, she made the personal acquaintance of 
 Thackeray towards the close of 1849. Milnes, as 
 befitted a loyal Yorkshireman, was immensely interested 
 by the fact that the authoress of " Jane Eyre " had 
 been discovered under the humble roof of a West 
 Riding parsonage ; he was eager to make Miss Bronte's 
 acquaintance, and during the too brief remainder of her 
 life he showed himself to be her constant friend. Nor, 
 as the reader will presently learn, did his active friend- 
 ship cease at her death. The many who have taunted 
 Milnes because of his passion for making the acquaint- 
 ance of people of genius have overlooked the fact, proved 
 in innumerable instances, that the interest and friendship 
 which the genius had aroused was extended to his or 
 her friends and connections. Many a widow and many 
 an orphan had occasion to be thankful that the husband
 
 MARRIAGE. 429 
 
 or father had during his lifetime excited the admiration 
 of Milnes. Years after the death of Charlotte Bronte 
 we find him trying to smooth the path of her father, 
 and to secure preferment in the Church for her 
 husband. 
 
 I am speaking now, however, of the year 1849, 
 which first saw Charlotte Bronte's entrance into the 
 literary society of London. Before me as I write is a 
 little note penned in the beautiful hand of Thackeray 
 upon a card, which in its interest is not surpassed by 
 any other letter among the many thousands left behind 
 him by Milnes. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES [it runs], Miss Bronte dines here to- 
 morrow at 7. If you are by any wonder disengaged, do 
 
 come to 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 The invitation is dated, " 13, Young St. Tuesday." 
 It is, alas ! the only record that remains of a meeting, 
 the interest of which it would be hard to exaggerate. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 MarcJi&th, 1849. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, The general tone of your letters is very 
 comfortable. I really see no pecuniary difficulties that you may 
 not get over in a couple of years ; and if you keep your health 
 all will go well. I have no doubt that your appointment will 
 come before the Committee; and as the Peelites, who have got 
 the Committee, are not particular friends of mine, it is as well 
 that I should appear in the matter as little as possible. The 
 news from India is frightful/ and I trust may have no echo 
 
 * The Sikh war was then going on.
 
 430 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 in your valleys. Lord Gal way's youngest brother is severely 
 wounded, and we are in deep anxiety about him. Foreign 
 affairs are thickening. Russia, hitherto so quiet, has begun to 
 move, and has demanded the passage of the Dardanelles, which 
 is the next thing to the possession of Stamboul. The position 
 is critical. My brochure has had some success at least, as 
 shown by objections and abuse. I am writing a sort of 
 supplement to it in the Edinburgh. Peel has made a great 
 speech, proposing the re-settlement of Ireland by the Govern- 
 ment. It was very ill taken by the House, but will command 
 great attention in the country. There is but one impression 
 against Gough (Commander-in-Chief in India). Every letter 
 from the Army confirms it. There is also a strong feeling 
 respecting Lord Hardinge's settlement of the Punjaub. People 
 ask, Why were they allowed to rise again to this height of 
 power? 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 R. M. M. to Mrs. MacCarthy. 
 
 26, Pall Mall, May 19/tf, 1849. 
 
 DEAB MRS. MACCARTHY, Your kind letters have deserved 
 a speedy answer, but I can assure you I had every intention of 
 writing by the last mail, and was only prevented by a dis- 
 agreeable accident. I hope by this time Charles is returned 
 from his tour, which will be most useful to him before he enters 
 on his Tennent-right.* Indeed, it seems to me to be a great 
 scandal that the officials of the Island have so rarely visited its 
 remoter parts ; and I hope to hear that Charles will repeat his 
 tour, and make himself thoroughly master of the habits, manners, 
 and motives of the out-of-the-way natives. Your father will tell 
 you what has passed in the Committee, and I really think there is 
 every probability that the Colonial Office will come out of it 
 
 * MacCarthy had been appointed Secretary in the Government of 
 Ceylon in succession to Sir James Emerson Tenneut.
 
 MARRIAGE. 431 
 
 without reproach of any kind. The public attention is so fixed 
 for the moment on Canada that nothing else is likely to excite 
 much interest, although the excitement seems to me to be of a 
 low and temporary character ; more like the Porteous row, or 
 Lord George Gordon's riots, than the harbinger of civil war. 
 Lord Stanley will make all he can of the case, even at the risk 
 of increasing the colonial fury ; but, 1 hope, without success. 
 Lady Grey told Lord Elgin's sisters that eggs were not dignified 
 missiles, but much safer than bullets ; and as the Colonial Office 
 will stand by Lord Elgin, he can stand his insulted waistcoat. 
 
 I am delighted that my Roman friends are showing a little 
 energy in deeds as well as words. Nothing can be stupider than 
 General Oudinot's advance on Rome. It was done with the 
 blindest French vanity and disregard of the feelings of other 
 men ; it was the worst gate he could attack at both from the 
 narrow street on the other side, and because every cannon-ball 
 must run the risk of injuring St. Peter's or the Vatican. The 
 feeling against the temporal Government of the Pope seems, 
 to my great surprise, to be quite unanimous, including the old 
 fanatics on the other side of the Tiber. The return of prelatic 
 Government seems really impossible under any circumstances, 
 and a military occupation by any foreign Power will only hoard 
 up vengeance and disgust. The Italians spoil their case sadly 
 in Northern esteem by their comical bombast, their bulletins 
 about Brennus and the Gauls, and their vaunts of eating every- 
 body up, horses and all. Venice still holds out, and the em- 
 barrassment of the Austrian Government, with all their Russian 
 assistance, makes me really hope that it may realise after all a 
 certain independence. The foolish-wise King of Prussia fancies 
 that all will be right in Germany if he can get the kings to 
 offer a Liberal Constitution, whereas it is exactly the contrary. 
 Whatever they propose (except their own abdications) is received 
 with anger and hatred, and takes no root in the country. 
 Things are more improbable than the renewal of the Federation 
 of the Rhine, and the disruption of the Prussian kingdom by 
 the proceedings of its dilettante king. I met Mrs. Eastlake at
 
 432 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 dinner lately, and she spoke of the great pleasure her sister had 
 had in finding such a colonial Companion as you. I own I 
 cannot realise to myself that English people in a colony should 
 not feel so strongly their mutual dependence for agreeable 
 life as to prevent them from falling into such unreasonable 
 squabbling and jealousy as you describe. I suppose our unsocial 
 national character comes out to great disadvantage, for I have 
 seen and heard how pleasantly French people get on in similar 
 circumstances. I am sure the real remedy must be to get as 
 many local interests as possible, and to depend as little as one 
 can on the excitement of the bi-monthly mail. I dare say this 
 is fine talking, which I should be the last to practise myself ; but 
 surely the condition of the people, and the relation of the 
 English Government towards them, must open a great field for 
 something more than the gratification of curiosity, and there 
 must be some use for your many talents in the really important 
 position you now hold. 
 
 I went to Paris at Easter with Count D'Orsay, who is now 
 a sort of Chamberlain to the President. I dined with my old 
 London friend Louis Napoleon, who did not seem at all to 
 enjoy his high state, but to be quite affaisse with work and 
 anxiety. With the exception of one or two spurts of hasty will, 
 he has been acting as a very good constitutional King, support- 
 ing his Ministers courageously, and giving them every chance. 
 Nothing but some strange blunder can overturn him. The 
 Legitimists will not be so numerous in the new Assembly as was 
 expected, and the leading Democrats and Socialists will all be 
 returned. I think this is all right, as I am sure dangerous 
 politicians are safest in the Avails of a political assembly. We 
 do not know how much of our peace of last year we owe to 
 having Fergus O'Connor in the House of Commons. 
 
 Macaulay's success has been enormous; indeed, such as to 
 convince one his book cannot be worth much that is, in a high 
 sense, for in a low one his two volumes have got him 10,000. 
 A young officer said to me, " That is what I call a history. We 
 took five copies at our depot." Thackeray is winning great
 
 MARRIAGE, 433 
 
 social success, dining at. the Academy, Sir R. Peel's, &o. I 
 doubt whether he will be much the happier for it, though I 
 think people generally are the better for satisfied vanity. A 
 bomb has fallen into the midst of the religious world in the 
 shape of a book called " The Nemesis of Faith/' by a brother 
 of Froude, the dead Puseyite. It is a sort of religious, anti- 
 religious Wilhelm Meister, and balances itself between fact and 
 fiction in an uncomfortable manner, though with great ability, 
 and has caused the poor man to lose his Fellowship and a college 
 in Van Diemau's Land, and to fall into utter poverty. We call 
 ourselves a free people, and what slaves of opinion we are after 
 all ! Brougham said the other day, " The Apostles would have 
 had no chance against the Times." There was a great rumour 
 of a change or modification of Government about the Navigation 
 Laws. I think the latter would have been the more probable. 
 I was sorry that the House of Lords again degraded itself by 
 not voting as the Peers thought. Stanley did all he could to 
 inspire them, but the Fabian Duke succeeded in checking his 
 zeal ; and a proxy majority, which cannot be repeated in the 
 Committee, saved the Government. The Bishop of Oxford 
 brings forward an Anti-Slavery movement, which will, in all 
 probability, be carried, but will not affect the ultimate success 
 of the Bill. 
 
 My family are pretty well ; my sister in town, bringing out 
 a young sister-in-law ; my aunts at Torquay, and my father at 
 Fryston. He has had a considerable sympathy with Hudson, on 
 whose head has fallen, most unjustly, all the crash of the bad 
 railway system. Hudson has done exactly what the shareholders 
 all the time intended him to do, and which plan, if it had suc- 
 ceeded in making the branch lines remunerative, would have been 
 regarded as a measure of courageous prudence, but which, having 
 failed, is now called swindling. The truth is, it was neither one 
 nor the other, but merely gambling ; and the shareholders, having 
 lost, are now kicking over the table and knocking down the 
 croupier. 
 
 The Exhibition is an interesting one. A dead lion, by
 
 434 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Landseer, is appropriately hung between Guizot and Metternich. 
 There is a Webster as good as Wilkie, and the portrait of a 
 
 boy, by B , which is Gainsborough without his powdered 
 
 mannerism. Jenny Lindas marriage is again deferred. She 
 cannot make up her mind to marry a very good, good-looking, 
 infinitely stupid man she has engaged herself to, and at the same 
 time has not the cruelty to throw him over ; so she goes to 
 Paris, to Mrs. Grote, for a month or two, when she is to give 
 her final decision. She really dislikes the stage, and does not 
 seem to like anything else. We are to have Meyerbeer's 
 Prophete, which is laboriously grand, with my genius, 
 Viardot, later in the season. I will write to Archdeacon 
 Bailey by this mail. Pray tell him I am exceedingly obliged 
 by his letters and presents a most kind return for my literary 
 homicide. The most singular event of the moment is the large 
 number of the French army which have voted for the Socialists. 
 Cobden says, " The extinguisher is catching fire, and they will 
 be obliged to look for some other material for that article." 
 
 I must tell you what happened about your letter and a 
 somnambulist at Paris. I took it just as received, unopened, to 
 her, and directly she took it she said, " Je vois deux personnes, 
 un monsieur et une dame/' She described you both very well, 
 and, after thinking some time, said you had been lately married. 
 Then said MacCarthy would have a brilliant career, &c., and a 
 good deal of commonplace. But the detection of the two letter- 
 writers, which I did not know myself, was curious. . 
 Lord Palmerston comes well out on the Sicilian papers, which 
 show clearly that we were asked to interfere, and did not do it 
 out of any meddling spirit. The Roman Government have just 
 sent an envoy here, and I don't know what Exeter Hall will say 
 about our meddling to restore the Pope. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 Milnes about this time seems to have seen a great 
 deal of Carlyle, and his notebooks contain many quota-
 
 MARRIAGE. 435 
 
 tions from the vigorous speeches of which the author of 
 " Sartor Hesartus " was in the habit of delivering him- 
 self. A few of them will well bear repetition. 
 
 Extracts from Commonplace Book. 
 SAYINGS OF CARLYLE. 
 
 " Voltaire's ' Eerasez Tlnfame ' had more religious earnestness 
 in it than all the religions of nowadays put together/* 
 
 " If Christ were to come to London now, He would not be 
 crucified. Oh no ! He would be lionised, asked out to dinner to 
 hear the strange things He had got to say, and the bettermost 
 people would wonder that a man who could be so sensible on 
 some points should be so foolish on others, would wish He were a 
 little more practical, and so on." 
 
 " Conversation with Ranke is like talking to a rookery/' 
 
 Cameron showing us an idealised portrait of Schiller, Carlyle 
 merely said, <: He was a man with long red hair, aquiline nose, 
 hollow cheeks, and covered with snuff." 
 
 " Charles Knight makes of himself a terrible ladle of twaddle 
 to mankind/' 
 
 "I know no guilt like that of incontinent speech. How 
 long Christ was silent before He spoke ! and how little He 
 then said ! " 
 
 " Harriet Martineau in her sick-room writes as if she were a 
 female Christ, saying, ' Look at me ; see how I am suffer- 
 ing!-' 
 
 " If Beelzebub were to appear in England, he would receive 
 a letter from the Secretary of the Manchester Athenseum, as 
 Eugene Sue did, requesting the honour of his interesting 
 company, and venturing to hope for an address." 
 
 " Keats is a miserable creature, hungering after sweets which 
 he can't get ; going about saying, ' I am so hungry ; I should so 
 like something pleasant/ '' 
 
 " Shelley is always mistaking spasmodic violence for strength. 
 I know no more urned books than his. It is like the writing of
 
 436 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 a ghost, uttering infinite wail into the night, unable to help 
 itself or any one else." 
 
 " Never write what you can say, and never say what you can 
 write." 
 
 "Cobden is an inspired bagman, who believes in a calico 
 millennium. He is always praising America to me. I said 
 to him, ( What have the Americans done but beget, with un- 
 exampled rapidity, twenty millions of the greatest bores on the 
 face of the earth ? ' " 
 
 " Poor Guizot ! There he sat in his garret, full of high 
 thought and fine theories, and visited sometimes by divine 
 lights, and then comes the devil and tempts him with Secre- 
 taryships of State and Presidency of the Council, and such 
 like, and leads him on and on into lies, and filth, and darkness, 
 and then all at once lets him go, and down he falls into infinite 
 night. I quite approve of Carnot not wanting education for 
 Parliamentary men. He will thus get fewer of the inane, 
 conceited, sniggering apes of the Dead Sea we have in ours." 
 
 " I cannot stand Disraeli trying to force his Jewish jackass- 
 eries on the world." 
 
 It need hardly be said that the Commonplace Books 
 are by no means confined to the sayings of Carlyle. 
 I find in the volume from which I have quoted 
 numerous records of the conversations of Guizot, 
 Bulwer, King Louis Philippe, De Tocqueville, Grote, 
 Pusey, Spedding, Thackeray, Lord Morpeth, Bunsen, 
 Macaulay, Charles Buller (alas ! his last appearance in 
 any of the volumes), Tennyson, Sir David Brewster, 
 Professor Airy, Whewell, and others too numerous to 
 be named. The list shows the variety, as well as the 
 extent, of Milnes's friendships. Nor are these Common- 
 place Books without a distinct value as casting light 
 upon his character and the influences which surrounded
 
 MARRIAGE. 437 
 
 him at various periods in his career. Thus at the time 
 when Milnes was feeling most keenly the mortification 
 of being passed over in favour of Mr. Smyth by Sir 
 Robert Peel, he is found noting the advice given to 
 him by Carlyle. " It seems to me," said the great 
 author, " that the chief thing for you to do as regards 
 Peel, is to look clearly into yourself, and try and find 
 out what it was that prevented him promoting you as 
 you seem to have deserved." Probably the best advice 
 that was ever given to any man under such circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Again, in these volumes Milnes allows the reader to 
 perceive the readiness with which he himself acknow- 
 ledged his faults. If a story or a smart saying tells 
 against himself, he records it just as readily as though 
 it told against an enemy or a friend. There were many 
 who criticised his foibles ; there was no one who 
 perceived them more clearly than himself. As, for 
 example : 
 
 Lady Harriet Baring* to me, on some one saying I had 
 accepted a Colonial appointment : " I hope not ; we shall have 
 no one to show us what we ought not to do and say/' 
 
 Again, among his own sayings, which he constantly 
 records in these books, just as he records the sayings of 
 others, we come across such revelations of the real man 
 as may be found in sentences like this : 
 
 You complain that you are misunderstood and mis- 
 represented. Why, the chief difficulty in life for any man 
 worth anything is to get himself in any way understood, and 
 his daily business is to live down misrepresentation. 
 * Lady Ashburton.
 
 438 THE LIFE OF LORD SOUGRTON. 
 
 During the summer and autumn of 1849 Milnes 
 was engaged in writing in the reviews upon the state 
 of Europe, replying to the critics who had attacked the 
 opinions expressed in his pamphlet, and at the same 
 time dealing with one of those questions of social life 
 which had so great an interest for him the reformation 
 of juvenile offenders. He was not satisfied with the 
 political condition of the country. When he severed 
 the last links that bound him to the Conservative party, 
 he gave free sway to the Liberal instincts that were 
 strong within him, and pressing forward with ardour in 
 the new path he had entered he soon found that 
 he was threatening to distance the associates whom 
 he had now joined. The condition of Ireland, for 
 example, was a question upon which his opinions were 
 as much in advance of those of the Whigs as they had 
 been in advance of those of the Conservatives. He felt 
 the miseries of that portion of the United Kingdom as 
 profoundly as he had felt the sufferings of Italy. 
 
 Writing to MacCarthy, August 17th, 1849, he 
 says : 
 
 The Queen's reception in Ireland has been idolatrous, 
 utterly unworthy of a free, not to say ill-used, nation. She will 
 go away with the impression it is the happiest country in the 
 world, and doubt in her own mind whether CXConnell or Smith 
 O'Brien ever existed. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Woburn, llth (? Dec., 1849). 
 
 DEAR FBIEND, A merry Christmas to you in the cinnamon 
 woods, merrier than it is to much of England, which is in a 
 state of panic and anger that I have hardly yet seen. There
 
 MARRIAGE. 439 
 
 must be the sort of convulsion in the agriculture of the greater 
 part of England that there was in the monied interests in the 
 autumn of '47. Farms are thrown on the landlords' hands; 
 labourers discharged ; fat beasts sold for the price they were 
 bought lean ; and so on. You may conceive what this position 
 is as a beginning to persons mortgaged for at least half their 
 rent-roll ; and if it is to go on, and Califomian gold were to flow 
 in faster, I really anticipate frightful ruin wherever there is not 
 both capital and ability. ' The Session promises to be of the 
 stormiest, and the first onslaught will be on Lord Grey. 
 Perhaps a real tip-top man would sacrifice himself to his party, 
 but he is much more likely to drag down Russell with him, 
 out of the chivalrous spirit which Johnny inherits from his 
 acephalous ancestor.* I cannot think much can be made out of 
 your case. Indeed, if properly managed, Tennent's evidence 
 might blow up the whole Committee. Everything would depend 
 upon his being the first witness, and having his facts up 
 incontestably. Lord John is not here, but the house is a sort of 
 focus of political gossip, a grand repertorium of mares' nests. 
 Sir Robert Peel's visit here grew into a coalition at once, and 
 every day has its dissolution. The great Stafford [Mr. Augustus 
 Stafford] has not descended from Ireland, but, like Lord 
 Clarendon, writes most gloomily ; he thinks the coming winter 
 more distressful than the two preceding. The Poor Law is 
 devouring the land. With my Communistic velleite I never liked 
 the application of the droit de travail or, rather, I would have 
 made it a real right of work. Carlyle, in Fraser, proposes to re- 
 enslave the negroes in the West Indies, and would do the same 
 for Ireland if he could. The Continent is also looking gloomy. 
 Austria and Prussia are apparently ready for collision, but it 
 won't come yet. Bunsen says that Prussia will at the very 
 least acquire the rest of Silesia and Bohemia as the issue of 
 hostilities, but yet will defer them as long as possible. Austria 
 again talks with a confidence quite inexplicable, considering her 
 distracted populations and her paper money. As to the latter, 
 
 * "William Lord Russell.
 
 440 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 specie has totally disappeared ; and thus there is nothing 
 substantial to compare the paper with. This paper is taken for 
 taxes, and is issued in great profusion ; so that if the bullionists 
 are at all right, there must be a crash some day soon, like that of 
 the assignats. The President [Louis Napoleon] is trying a 
 mild personal government. The Constitution, by making him 
 responsible, gives him duties to perform, and these he has 
 hitherto respectably performed. He is less terrified by Socialism 
 than other French public men, and 'thus may succeed better 
 against it. Rogers has been here very cross and very much 
 petted. He stumps about most wonderfully, and has lately had 
 the gratification of the deaths of several old people younger than 
 himself. I shall take an interest in your child when it gets into 
 flower, about four years old, hardly before. 
 With kind regards to your wife, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 Rogers' placid enjoyment of life, and of his supe- 
 riority to the ordinary infirmities of mankind, was not 
 destined to last very long. A few months after writ- 
 ing the foregoing letter Milnes, addressing the same 
 correspondent, says : 
 
 Poor Rogers has broken the socket of his thig-h. Old bones 
 
 C7 O 
 
 hardly knit together, it is doubtful whether a short crippled life 
 is worth his having. He is quite easy in his mind, and not 
 the less so because Luttrell is dying too. We have got some 
 pleasant Americans in town ; but, generally, society is dullish. 
 Prescott is most pleasing, so much fresher and more genial than 
 our " Gelehrte." He dined with Peel the other day, who ook 
 him for Scribe, who was to dine there too, and, addressing him in 
 frightful French, complimented him on the success of his opera. 
 
 The spring of 1850 saw Milnes once more in Paris, 
 anxious to see for himself as much as possible of the 
 results of the Eevolution. The President, still guiltless
 
 MARRIAGE. 441 
 
 of the coup d'etat, showed him much attention ; and 
 even went so far as to write to him confidentially on 
 the subject of the relations of the two countries. But 
 older friends of Milnes than Prince Napoleon exercised 
 their influence upon him ; and the result of his visit 
 was to impress him strongly with the unsatisfactory 
 prospects of the country under a ruler whose ambition, 
 though carefully concealed, was apparently insatiable. 
 
 His friendship with M. Guizot had been increased 
 rather than diminished during Guizot's stay in England, 
 in spite of their difference of opinion with regard to the 
 general drift of affairs on the Continent, and at the 
 beginning of the year he received the following letter 
 from him : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. MILNES, I have had the pleasure of twice 
 seeing Mr. Christie. I would have willingly done my best to 
 make his stay in Paris agreeable, but when I sent to his lodgings 
 to tell him that he would always find some people at my house 
 on Tuesday evenings, I found he was no longer staying at that 
 place. I do not know whether he had left Paris, or simply 
 changed his lodgings. You have been so kind to me in London 
 
 o o o 
 
 that I should much like to do something for friends of yours 
 when they come to Paris. Won't you come yourself to see 
 a little during the Easter holidays ? Although we may do 
 nothing, we are sufficiently curious to look at. The Assembly 
 and the President mutually paralyse each other. The President 
 has not in the least lost his wish to become Emperor; but his 
 ambition is all at once arrested before a couple of possibly in- 
 surmountable obstacles. He has no majority which will accept 
 him, and no army to proclaim him in spite of or in the absence 
 of such a majority. On the other side, the Assembly has no 
 other President to exchange for the present, and is not in a 
 condition to look for any other combination. Everybody is
 
 442 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 condemned to the status quo, and no one will try to move until 
 the last extremity, when it will be necessary to move or to 
 perish. Either revolution or forced inaction is the actual lot of 
 my poor country. I was very sad when I watched it from 
 abroad ; I am still sadder now that I am here. I find my 
 friends not sufficiently agitated, and too much discouraged. 
 I should like to see more of alarm and less despondency. 
 Austria and Prussia are calling upon France to unite with them 
 in order to suppress in Switzerland, amicably or by force, the 
 revolutionary fire which German, Italian, and French refugees 
 incessantly feed. To concur, to leave alone, to obstruct, or to 
 concur professedly whilst taking steps to check the other 
 Powers ; between these four courses the Government here 
 hesitates, and the business may easily become very grave. I am 
 not troubling myself at all about your forthcoming Session ; you 
 will attend to your own affairs very wisely, and you will leave 
 the Continent to arrange hers as it will. You will not even 
 trouble yourself to ascertain if your words or actions aggravate 
 or not in other States the existing disturbance and anarchy. 
 Adieu, my dear sir. I have given orders that you shall receive 
 my work on the " History of the Revolution in England," which 
 is about to appear here and in London. You will find me very 
 anti-revolutionary. That is because I am resolved to remain a 
 Liberal. With all good wishes from myself and my family, 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 GUIZOT. 
 Kindly remember me, I beg you, to your father and your sister. 
 
 A. de Tocqueville to R. M. M. 
 
 Paris, April 13^, 1850. 
 
 I must write and thank you, my dear Milnes, for the kind 
 letter you wrote to Madame de Tocqueville. She would have 
 liked to do so herself, as you may suppose, but is prevented by 
 having been ill in be4 some days. Our house, my dear friend,
 
 MARRIAGE. 443 
 
 has been an abode of sadness for the last six months. When 
 the wife recovers, the husband is taken ill and so on. When 
 shall we have seen the last of these worries ? I really cannot 
 tell. I had a very sharp attack, as you know. I am quite out of 
 danger, but still very weak ; and I have as much to do now to 
 shake off the effects of the cure as I had to shake off the 
 disease. I have applied for a six months' leave to build up my 
 health again, which these two years of agitation and unremitting 
 application to work have quite shattered. I badly want this 
 rest, and shall take care it is a perfect one. We are living in a 
 country, and in times, where a firm spirit is about as indispens- 
 able as a stout heart. I would like to give back to mine the 
 strength it may stand in need of at any moment. No one, 
 however, ever retired from the political stage with more satis- 
 faction and less regret than I. I am so thoroughly convinced 
 than any and every attempt at action would be useless, or worse 
 than useless, that I look on my present absence from the scene 
 as a positive blessing. These are strange times, when there 
 seems to be everything present but greatness. Now is not 
 this a long letter for a convalescent ? Good-bye ! 
 
 Believe in our sincere friendship, 
 
 A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 The summer of 1850 witnessed the tragical death of 
 Sir Eobert Peel. Milnes notes in his Commonplace 
 Book how, on the night before the day on which Peel 
 met with his accident, the ex-Minister was in very low 
 spirits, and how his depression was shared by his wife, 
 though neither could account for the feeling. It was 
 at her urgent request, and as a means of distracting his 
 mind, that on the following morning he started on the 
 fatal ride which was to deprive England of one of her 
 greatest statesmen, and the House of Commons of its 
 foremost member.
 
 4M THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to Mrs, MacCarthy. 
 
 Pall Mall, July 20^, 1850. 
 
 DEAR MRS. MACCARTHY, I ought to have before answered 
 your amiable letter, but the little nothings of occupied life 
 leave a man no time for his duty. Now that the season has 
 closed over the death of Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge, and I am staying in the country, I have plenty of leisure 
 even for duller work than this. You will have been struck with 
 the effect produced by PeeFs death. He seems to have been as 
 much of a popular hero as our cold natures are capable of compre- 
 hending. The thick sad crowd night and day about his house ; 
 the weeping women rushing out of dark alleys as his body was 
 taken to the railroad ; the vote of sympathy in the French 
 Assembly all these things are unlike our indifferent time. But 
 the real triumph was the complete suppression of the Protectionist 
 murmurs, and the substitution of " the man who had loved his 
 country, not wisely, but too well " for the " traitor and destroyer." 
 Brougham was especially angry, and attributed all the gene to 
 the nature of the accident (which had something to do with it), 
 and went about saying, " Let every statesman take care and ride 
 like a sack, and he may die like a demigod/' It is the general 
 notion that Peel's death will lead to the dissolution of the 
 Government. I don't think so. The increased activity and 
 energy given to the Opposition by the withdrawal of his. 
 influence may, indeed, tend to some Liberal modification ; and if 
 parties could be created by a few leading men, the Government 
 might easily be outnumbered; but even if Gladstone and 
 D'Israeli came together, it does not follow that their followers 
 would. The present provisional condition of things will last 
 for some time yet, and is much better for the country, in my 
 opinion, than a majority powerful enough to defy public opinion, 
 as in France. My sister has been most of the summer on the 
 Rhine, and I propose to myself to spend August and September 
 at some German baths probably Marienbad. The rush of 
 English to those parts is so great that there is hardly a bed to 
 be had, and it is expected that the Continent generally this year
 
 MARRIAGE. 445 
 
 will have its full quota of our countrymen. One of the prettiest 
 London diversions has been a moving panorama of the overland 
 route to India. One of the pictures was in Ceylon, and the 
 beauty of the vegetation and the colouring quite realise the 
 description of one of your early letters. The literary season has 
 been remarkaby stagnant. An Anglo-German novel, " The 
 Initials/' two new volumes of Grote's History, and Tennyson's 
 " In Memoriam " are the only books that suggest themselves 
 to me. Wordsworth's new poem will be out next week a 
 goodly octavo of blank verse which we shall all reverentially 
 read, whether we like it or no. Henry Taylor's comedy The 
 Virgin Martyr is elegant and dull, and has hardly survived its 
 birth, like the child of the Queen of Spain. There are scores of 
 marriages. I shall be left the only bachelor in town. Lord 
 Euston to the beautiful Miss Pattle (Thackeray's idol), and 
 Robert Curzon to Miss Hunter, born in Ceylon. Wiseman pro- 
 ceeds to Rome to get his hat. These are " shocking bad " times 
 for me, but a liberal-minded English Catholic would be a great 
 game to play in Rome, if he had will and wit enough. 
 
 Yours and Charles's, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The closing references in the foregoing letter are, of 
 course, to the great storm of popular feeling which was 
 about to sweep over the country in consequence of the 
 so-called Papal aggression. Milnes, with that warm 
 sympathy which, from the time of his first residence in 
 Rome, he had always felt with Cardinal Wiseman and 
 MacCarthy (Wiseman's cousin), naturally found his 
 position during the short but terrible outburst of ultra- 
 Protestant feeling which stirred the country to its 
 depths during the autumn of 1850 anything but a 
 pleasant one. A tolerant liberal-minded man, who was
 
 446 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 apt to look at religion from many different points of view, 
 he could, under no circumstances, have entered into the 
 vehement passions of the time ; and it is certain that, so 
 far as the sectarian prejudices which were at the root of 
 the agitation were concerned, he regarded them with 
 something like contempt. But he had the strong his- 
 torical imagination of the poet, and from the national 
 point of view he could easily comprehend the intense 
 hostility of English feeling to the notion of an England 
 parcelled out into districts, against the will of her people, 
 by the head of a Church which England had cast off 
 and defied. So, mingled with his strong dislike for the 
 furious Protestantism of the populace, and his warm 
 personal friendship for the eminent Catholic dignitary 
 w T ho was for the moment the object of the nation's exe- 
 cration, there was a certain measure of sympathy with 
 the anti-Papal movement as a national demonstration 
 of opinion. It was quite characteristic of the man thus 
 to be divided by conflicting tendencies and sympathies. 
 If he had been able to see only one side of this or any 
 other question, and to act only with one party (whether 
 that party were right or wrong), his public career 
 must have been something very different from what it 
 was, and, to the eyes of the superficial, infinitely more 
 successful. He gave his vote in favour of the Ecclesi- 
 astical Titles Bill, but hardly concealed his dislike for 
 the measure. 
 
 The summer and autumn of 1850 found Milnes 
 engaged not only in writing for the Edinburgh and 
 other reviews, but in taking an active part in the
 
 MARRIAGE. 447 
 
 management of the Royal Literary Fund, and in the pro- 
 motion of education in Yorkshire, through the instrumen- 
 tality of the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes. 
 
 A great change was now approaching in his 
 life. For some years he had been contemplating 
 marriage, feeling keenly the need of a companionship 
 more constant, and a sympathy more tender, than that 
 which was to be found even in the wide circle of his 
 friendships. The lady upon whom his mind had for 
 some time been fixed was the Honourable Annabel 
 Crewe, younger daughter of the second Lord Crewe. 
 To Miss Crewe's character, and to the qualities which 
 distinguished her so pre-eminently, it is impossible to 
 do justice by any description, but in the course of this 
 narrative the reader will see how happily the marriage 
 resulted, and how fortunate Milnes was in winning for 
 himself a wife so fully fitted to assist him in his battle 
 with the world, and to cheer him in those moments 
 of despondency which, even in his bright career, were 
 so frequent. 
 
 One of the friends to whom he communicated the 
 news of his enslavement to Miss Crewe was his old 
 
 o o 
 
 tutor Connop Thirlvvall, Bishop of St. David's, the man 
 who, perhaps more than any other, had influenced his 
 mind in his early life. The Bishop acknowledged the 
 news in the following letter : 
 
 The Bishop of St. David's to R. M. M. 
 
 Abergwili, Carmarthen, June Zftth, 1851. 
 MY DEAR MILNES, I take it very kind indeed of you to 
 send me the good news before a whisper of it had reached me
 
 448 THE LIFE OF LORD EOUGHTON. 
 
 from any other quarter. Among- all the communications of such 
 a kind that I have received from my friends, I can safely say 
 that none ever afforded me greater pleasure. I have really been 
 uneasy of late years, lest in the boundless variety and manifold 
 interest of your social, literary, and political occupations and 
 enjoyments, you should lose sight of the main chance, and stiffen 
 unawares into an old bachelor. I rejoice from the deep of my 
 heart that you have escaped this danger. Yet my congratula- 
 tions would hardly seem sincere or, at least, would be worth 
 little if they were not accompanied with the acknowledgment 
 of a little selfish regret. I cannot think without some sadness 
 of the state of existence out of which you are about to pass, and 
 which will soon belong altogether to the pleasures of memory. 
 It has been so rich, so peculiar, so delightful at least to your 
 friends. Henceforth, to me, your number 26 will have some- 
 thing funereal about it. I am sure that I shall never enjoy a 
 breakfast again in that room, not if I were invited to meet half 
 a dozen trans- Atlantic Bishops. It is very likely nay, certain- 
 that you will still collect agreeable people about your wife's 
 breakfast-table ; but can I ever sit down there without the 
 certainty that I shall meet with none but respectable persons ? 
 It may be an odd thing for a bishop to lament, but I cannot 
 help it ; and it is more than friendship, it is fortitude in me to 
 rejoice, as I nevertheless do, at the prospect of your approaching 
 happiness. My best consolation is the hope, too bold to be 
 strong, that you will in some hitherto untried way be no less 
 eminent in your character of a married man than you have been 
 as a single one. 
 
 My best wishes will attend you. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. ST. DAVID'S. 
 
 Milnes's intimacy with Lord and Lady Palmerston 
 had been growing for some time, and he had become a 
 frequent visitor at Broadlands. Lady Palmerston, on 
 hearing of his engagement, wrote as follows :
 
 MARRIAGE. 449 
 
 Lady Palmerston to R. M. M. 
 
 Sunday night. 
 
 DEAR MR. MILNES, I am quite delighted to hear of 
 your marriage, and Lord P. desires to unite his congratulations 
 with mine on the occasion. We are both very fond of you, and 
 therefore very glad to hear of an event that promises so much 
 happiness. I always thought Miss Crewe a particularly nice 
 girl, with such pleasant and agreeable gentle manners, and I 
 have often inquired about her since Mrs. Cunliffe's death [Miss 
 Crewe's aunt], thinking how desolate she must feel; so that I am 
 very glad of the marriage, for her sake as well as yours. Thank 
 you very much for the notification, and I can assure you that 
 you have our best wishes. The report had been mentioned to me 
 before, but I treated it as a romance, never having seen you 
 speak to her, or even having heard you mention her name ; but I 
 suppose this was prudence, and a determination to keep your own 
 counsel, and I think you are right. . . . So I wish you joy 
 most sincerely of your prospects. 
 
 Believe me, dear Mr. Milnes, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 E. PALMERSTON. 
 
 Another old friend Eliot Warburton writing to 
 him a little later, says : 
 
 How do you feel after your London career? Do your 
 Yesterdays look backward with a smile, 
 Nor wound you like the Parthians as they fly ? 
 They ought if triumphs bright that give no others pain, if 
 thoughtful kindness, unostentatious and unconscious self-sacrifice, 
 memory enriched and mind exercised, avail. 
 
 Milnes himself was looking to the future rather 
 than to the past, and was busily engaged at this time in 
 dismantling the rooms at No. 26, Pall Mall, which had 
 been for so many years his home in London, and the 
 scene of his hospitalities. The house, I may mention,
 
 450 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTOtf. 
 
 still stands, little changed from the days when Milnes 
 dwelt there as a bachelor ; the very name of the tailor 
 who occupies the lower part of the building being the 
 same as it was in his time. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCartJiy. 
 
 July 18a, 1851. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, Though in all the bustle of a demenagement 
 after ten years' accumulation of domestic stuffs, I must give you 
 a line. We are to be married at Madeley,* on the 30th. Lord 
 Crewe gives the breakfast at Crewe, and thence we proceed first 
 to Devonshire, and then to Vienna ; where, by some odd com- 
 bination, neither I nor Annabel have ever been. We shall not 
 be rich. But she is a person of simple tastes, and will, I trust, 
 accommodate herself to a less luxurious life than she has been 
 accustomed to. 
 
 A Florentine you know well, of the name of V , came 
 
 over for the Exhibition,f and was very curious and ejaculatory 
 about you. The number of foreigners is nothing like what we 
 expected, and only tells in the town by making the streets 
 uncrossable, and the cabs rare. 
 
 The marriage took place on July 30th at Madeley 
 
 Church. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Athenaeum Club, Aug. \ftth, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I must just give you a line in the full 
 hurry of leaving London for a three months' tour in Germany. 
 After the marriage, which was conducted with some rustic 
 solemnity, we went to Torquay, where we passed a charming 
 fortnight. Annabel is even more of a companion than I had ever 
 anticipated, and so wise and reasonable that, even in the most 
 calm and prudential point of view, I must look on myself as a 
 very fortunate man. 
 
 * Lord Crewe's house in Staffordshire, where Miss Crewe's girlhood 
 was passed. 
 
 f This was the year of the first great Exhibition.
 
 MARRIAGE. 451 
 
 Gladstone's letters to Lord Aberdeen on the condition of 
 Naples have quite made an event here. They are so confirma- 
 tory of Palmerston's policy that he has sent copies to all the 
 Legations with orders that they should be formally presented to 
 the different Governments. I anticipate that we shall be on the 
 Continent for about three months, and then return to my father 
 in England, whose health is much better than it used to be. 
 Hawes gave me the prettiest cadeau de noces in his name and 
 yours. I have left Pall Mall for good ; and hope, in the spring, 
 to be settled in 16, Upper Brook Street. Keep well better if 
 possible, and believe me, with my wife's true regards, 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 According to arrangement Milnes went to Vienna 
 with his wife, and was there introduced into the bright 
 and gay society of a city for which he ever afterwards 
 entertained a warm affection. One curious incident 
 marked his tour ; he proposed to extend his trip into 
 Hungary, but, to his surprise, was stopped upon the 
 frontier. The Austrian Government refused to allow 
 the author of the dangerous pamphlet on the events of 
 1848 to enter the Hungarian kingdom. 
 
 Whilst sailing on a steamboat on the Danube Mr. 
 and Mrs. Milnes made the acquaintance of Mr. Thomp- 
 son, a young Oxonian in orders, who happened to be 
 travelling in the same direction. They were mutually 
 attracted, and he was their companion for several days. 
 When they returned to England, the acquaintance thus 
 begun was kept up. By-and-by it ripened into a 
 genuine friendship, which remained unchanged through- 
 out their lives. The friend whom they thus gained
 
 452 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 when on their wedding journey was at that time a 
 Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford ; he is now the 
 Archbishop of York. 
 
 Towards the close of the year he and his wife 
 returned to England, where the sensation produced by 
 Mr. Gladstone's Naples Letters had not yet subsided. 
 A request from Mr. Gladstone that Milnes should revise 
 his translation of Farini's " History of the Eoman 
 State " gave him real pleasure. 
 
 It should be said that Milnes's knowledge of the 
 Italian language and literature was of no common order. 
 French and German he knew "well," as the saying is; 
 but Italian he knew, not as a foreign language, but 
 almost as his mother tongue. It was a second-native 
 speech, and he delighted to make use of it both in 
 speaking and in writing. 
 
 R. M. M. to W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Bawtry, Dec. Uh, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, I am flattered and obliged by your 
 offer. The alternative you propose seems to me to depend on 
 the question whether you are to publish the third volume 
 separately and immediately, or wait for a new edition of the 
 other two. In the former case you had better send me the sheets 
 of the third volume at once, and I will look over them carefully. 
 . You may have heard that I was refused entrance into 
 Hungary ; a foolish proceeding if meant as an annoyance, and 
 more so if intended as a precaution. I believe, notwithstanding 
 all the fury, that your revelations have been of great use at Naples 
 and elsewhere ; not, perhaps, so much to the unhappy victims 
 themselves, as on the ferocities which in some degree belong to 
 the manners of such countries. I was, indeed, much shocked in 
 Germany at the general prevalence of the spirit of revenge on
 
 MARRIAGE. 453 
 
 the part of the " party of order," which wants to neutralise all 
 that might else have seemed to benefit society and restore 
 confidence. Fancy the Austrians re-naming the chief square in 
 Presbourg after Haynau ! A folly of this kind would neutralise 
 the wisest re-organisation ; the people and their advocates are 
 indeed so beaten down that an intelligent and benevolent 
 despotism would have it all its own way ; but (I would say 
 parenthetically) despots are not reasonable and just, and thus 
 even they will not succeed. As there is a new revolution in 
 France, I have only seen the under sea views, so cannot talk about 
 it. The President has both courage and generous feelings, and, as 
 men go there, has my vote. My wife begs her remembrances to 
 yours. We shall not be fixed in town till the middle of March. 
 You see this sage attempt of Ashley's to make Maynooth the 
 heart of the new Roman University. 
 
 The same to the same. 
 Fryston Lodge, Torquay, Dee. 22nd, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, I sent you from Woburn the sheets 
 of Farini, and rather expected to find some more here. The 
 book promises to be extremely interesting. My address for 
 the next week or so is Broadlands, Romsey, Hants, and then 
 Fryston. Would there be any chance of catching you at the 
 latter place on your way south ? I fear the political prospects 
 of the world are darkening. From what I know of Louis 
 Napoleon I am inclined to think his intentions good, and his 
 ambition of a much higher order than his uncle's. But on the 
 one, as on the other, rests the stain of unscrupulousness as to 
 means, which vitiates all his ends; and indeed, poor fellow! I 
 fear he has nothing but the worst class of men about him, who 
 will be of little service in good enterprises and active instruments 
 in bad. They were very full at Woburn of the supposed tergi- 
 versations of D'Israeli, who, it seems, had talked very freely 
 against Protection and Protectionists at Colonel Cavendish's.
 
 454 THE LIFE Of LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 I think the party always make a kick at their leader about this 
 time of year, but go quietly enough in the team after February. 
 The climate here is as bland as the Bishop,* and, occasionally, as 
 stormy. Yours very truly, 
 
 R. M. MlLNES. 
 
 Frequently as Fryston has been mentioned in the 
 course of this biography, no description of the house as 
 it was during Lord Houghton's life has yet been given. 
 I have thought it better, indeed, to reserve for the 
 period when it became to a larger extent than it had 
 been before his stated abode, any detailed account of a 
 home which became famous alike in the social and the 
 literary annals of England during the thirty years 
 that followed his marriage. I have already quoted 
 Thackeray's remark to Milnes, that " Fryston combined 
 the graces of the chateau and the tavern." Like most 
 sayings of the kind, this was an exaggeration, but, as 
 many still living can testify, an exaggeration founded 
 upon fact. The house as it now stands has been some- 
 what modified since the days when Milnes first brought 
 his bride to his Yorkshire home. The lamentable fire 
 of 1876, which gutted the front portion of the building, 
 and caused irreparable damage to Lord Houghton's 
 library, led to a reconstruction of some of the more 
 important rooms in the building, and consequently the 
 Fryston of to-day is not quite the Fryston which was 
 known so well to the men and women of distinction in 
 the past generation. The changes which were made 
 when the house was rebuilt were all in the nature of 
 * Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter.
 
 MARRIAGE. 455 
 
 improvements, but, happily, they did not in any way 
 affect the recollection of those who were familiar with 
 Fryston in its former state. One can still identify the 
 corner in the drawing-room where in the old days 
 Carlyle sat by the fire, and poured forth his passionate 
 monologues upon the men and affairs of his time ; and 
 the bedroom which Thackeray used, and in which hung 
 a quaint old print of Tunbridge Wells that may well 
 have furnished the novelist with more than one scene 
 for his tale of " The Virginians," is still what it used 
 to be, with, the single exception that the paint which 
 ignorant hands had laid upon the oak panelling of the 
 walls has been happily removed. 
 
 A house more delightful than this [says a writer in the 
 World] it is difficult to imagine. Situated on the frontiers of 
 the great West Riding industries, it stands in the centre of 
 gardens and shrubberies, with prairies of park and miles of larch 
 and beechen woods. Fryston Hall was originally a handsome 
 square mansion, belonging to Mr. Charles Crowle, whose portrait 
 is to be seen in one of the two grand pictures by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds in the possession of the Dilettante Society, and whom 
 Horace Walpole frequently visited there on his way to his 
 neighbour Sir John Bland, of Kippax Park, the fashionable 
 gambler who shot himself towards the close of the last century. 
 This house was purchased by Mr. Milnes, of Wakefield, M.P. 
 for York, who added the handsome Italian front, with Ionic 
 pilasters and pediment, and a large corps de logis behind, and 
 took up his residence here about 1790. 
 
 The first feature which strikes the visitor to Fryston 
 is the manner in which books appear to pervade the 
 whole house. Alike in the old days and now, the very 
 hall at Fryston has been converted into a library, and
 
 456 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 he who enters it passes between long rows of books 
 gathered together during the many } r ears of his active 
 life by Monckton Milnes. It was the present Lord 
 Sherbrooke who, after one of his visits to Fryston, was 
 wicked enough to liken it to one of those amorphous 
 animals which have their brains all over their bodies, 
 for wherever you go in this pleasant home of a man of 
 letters books pursue you. They are found, not merely 
 in the library proper, but in almost every room in the 
 house. They greet you on the staircases, they smile 
 upon you in corridors, and odd nooks and corners in 
 every portion of the large and somewhat rambling 
 building. No one, indeed, can find himself in Fryston 
 without feeling that he is in the home of a man of 
 letters. Of the library itself there is one characteristic 
 which immediately strikes the observer ; that is, its uni- 
 versality. Here is a bookcase devoted to the writings of 
 the Fathers, there one in which the latest phases of 
 spiritual research and religious eccentricity spiritualism, 
 Morrnonism, and theosophy are fully represented by 
 their literature. A goodly array of French novels in 
 one corner ; a stately regiment of genealogical histories 
 in another ; rare German treatises elbowing still rarer 
 Italian classics ; a wonderful collection of criminal trials 
 (ancient and modern), flanked by a series of volumes in 
 which the study of gastronomy in all its branches is 
 fully represented. These are but a few of the subjects 
 which are illustrated in this unique library. Perhaps 
 the most interesting of the many departments into which 
 it is divided are those devoted to books presented to
 
 MARRIAGE. 457 
 
 Milnes by their authors, or to volumes which may be 
 said to have been made by him. Of presentation 
 volumes there is literally no end at Fryston; indeed, 
 pages could be filled with a simple list of the books of 
 various kinds which have been dedicated to him by 
 their writers. It was his habit to insert in all these 
 presentation volumes the letters which had accom- 
 panied the gifts, so that a rambling survey of this 
 portion of the bookshelves at Fryston is attended by 
 many a delightful discovery, many an unexpected peep 
 into the secret mind of the author who has brought 
 his little tribute of friendship or admiration to the 
 poet-peer. 
 
 As for the books which Milnes may be said to have 
 made, though he had no share in writing them, they 
 consist of volumes of pamphlets, newspaper extracts, 
 letters, speeches, short poems all classified with the 
 greatest care, some of them containing publications of 
 extreme rarity, and in nearly every case accompanied by 
 manuscript letters which immensely enhance their value. 
 Quaint curiosities, too, may be met with of no ordinary 
 interest in turning over the leaves of the Fryston 
 library. A bit of the skin of a famous murderer lingers 
 between the pages of a volume devoted to criminal 
 trials, whilst in another and more honoured position a 
 lock of Keats's hair is carefully preserved. 
 
 In the cabinets in the library proper are many 
 volumes the contents of which would make the eye of 
 the autograph hunter glisten with admiration and envy. 
 Here are not a few autograph letters of Cromwell,
 
 458 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 including one to his son in Ireland, so full of good sense 
 and true religion that again and again on a wet Sunday 
 the master of the house would propose to some favoured 
 guest that he should remain with him at home and hear 
 a sermon from the great Protector instead of one from 
 the Vicar of Fryston. Many of Strafford's letters to his 
 third wife are also here, having been inherited along 
 with other interesting relics with the Great Houghton 
 estate. It would be out of place in these pages to 
 attempt to give a catalogue of the many interesting 
 objects connected with English literature and English 
 history which are gathered together at Fryston, yet the 
 reader ought to know something of the household gods 
 of the man of whose life I am writing ; and I have 
 therefore ventured faintly to indicate the existence of 
 treasures which not only added greatly to the interest 
 and pleasure of a visit to Fryston, but bore eloquent 
 testimony to the tastes and sympathies of the owner 
 of the house. 
 
 Something must be said of the pictures which cover 
 the walls of the principal apartments and the long 
 corridor. These are for the most part family portraits, 
 which offer their own testimony, not only to the 
 antiquity of the race from which Milnes sprang, but 
 to the good looks which characterised men and women 
 alike. Among the earliest of these portraits is one 
 of Sir Godfrey Rodes, of Great Houghton, the 
 direct ancestor of Lord Houghton, whose daughter 
 Elizabeth was the third wife of Lord Strafford. A 
 portrait of the Countess of Strafford, and another of
 
 MARRIAGE. 459 
 
 Lady Margaret Wentworth, are among the treasures of 
 the collection ; whilst two admirable Romneys occupy 
 a place of honour in the drawing-room, and furnish 
 full-length presentments of Sir Robert Shore Mimes 
 and Lady Milnes. Portraits of the immediate ancestors 
 of Milnes abound, including works by Reynolds, Grains- 
 borough, Romney, and Lawrence, though it is to be 
 regretted that the collection contains no satisfactory 
 likeness of his distinguished father ; whilst his uncle, 
 the eccentric Rodes Milnes, is only represented by a 
 couple of caricatures, which testify alike to his obesity 
 and to his popularity in London society during the 
 Regency. Many portraits of the Crewe family, including 
 one of the famous Lady Crewe, are also gathered to- 
 gether at Fryston; but next in interest to the portraits 
 of Milnes's immediate ancestors must be placed the fine 
 set of drawings, by Richmond, in which the liknesses 
 of the intimate friends of his youth and early manhood 
 are preserved. Milnes loved to be surrounded by his 
 friends ; when he was unable to enjoy their bodily 
 presence, he liked to have their faces regarding him with 
 friendly eyes from the walls of his favourite sitting- 
 room. So that, as one wanders through the rooms 
 at Fryston, a portrait gallery, not only of the Milnes's 
 and Rodes's of a bygone age, but of the men who 
 filled the greatest part in Lord Houghton's life, is 
 unfolded before the eye. 
 
 What the social life of Fryston was has been told so 
 often by those who have enjoyed the owner's hospitality 
 that it might seem superfluous to dwell upon the subject
 
 460 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 here. Nothing, however, can lie apart from my nar- 
 rative which helps to present more vividly to the 
 reader's mind the subject of this memoir, and the 
 manner of his life. He himself had no great love for 
 Fryston ; it was a house which in his early youth had 
 been associated with family vicissitudes of a painful 
 kind. When still a young man, he and his father had 
 jointly come to the resolve to part with the estate, and 
 it was almost by an accident that it remained in their 
 possession. There were, therefore, no tender ties of 
 childhood which bound him to Fryston, but, even if there 
 had been, it is doubtful whether he would ever have 
 cared greatly for the place. In England there was only 
 one spot in which he really cared to dwell. The streets 
 of London, with their ever-changing, never-ending 
 current of life, with their full representation of 
 humanity in all its aspects, were dearer to him far 
 than the fairest rural scene could ever have been. 
 For Italy and the East he had an abiding passion, 
 and he might have been content to live the life of 
 a hermit under the shadow of Philse, or by the 
 shores of the Bosphorus ; but for the prosaic English 
 home in a northern county he had no natural taste, and 
 fond as he was of visiting at country houses, and 
 meeting his friends in the intimacy of their home- 
 life, he had few, if any, of the tastes which are 
 associated with the country gentleman. Yet, though 
 it is right to record this fact, it is to Milnes's credit 
 that from the time of his marriage he not only devoted 
 himself to domestic life, but ruled his home in such
 
 MAERIAGE. 461 
 
 a fashion that those who visited it and visitors poured 
 into Fryston from every quarter of the globe learned 
 to regard it as the model of what such a home should 
 be. Never, indeed, was there a more delightful host 
 than Milnes. Whether his guests were famous or 
 obscure, whether they belonged to the great world or 
 had merely for the moment emerged from the masses, 
 they could not be long in his company without feeling 
 the charm of his manner, and being warmed and 
 attracted by the tenderness of his heart. His fame as a 
 talker was world- wide, and there is no need to say that 
 the dinner-table at Fryston was the scene of a hundred 
 happy encounters of wit, intelligence, and knowledge. 
 But to hear Milnes at his best, it was necessary to 
 meet him at the breakfast-table. Although he spoke so 
 often of his own indolence, and in spite of the fact that 
 he was undeniably averse to physical exertion, he was 
 always a very early riser ; and when Fryston was filled 
 with guests, he was generally astir hours before any of 
 them had appeared on the scene. Perhaps it was due 
 in some measure to this fact that when the house-party 
 met at breakfast, no matter how distinguished for 
 intellectual superiority might be some of those com- 
 posing it, Milnes invariably showed a brightness and 
 activity of mind which no one else could match. It is 
 with a great sadness indeed that those who often had 
 the privilege of meeting him in this fashion in his own 
 house must recall those breakfasts, absolutely informal 
 and unpretending, but made memorable by the choice 
 treasures of wit, of paradox, of playful sarcasm, and of
 
 462 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTOtf. 
 
 an apparently inexhaustible store of reminiscences, 
 which Milnes offered to his guests. Not in vain had 
 he entered public life at the time when the breakfast- 
 table was still the great occasion and opportunity for 
 bright conversation ; he himself was almost the last of 
 the race of breakfast-givers. During his closing years 
 indeed, like his contemporary Mr. Gladstone, he had 
 been compelled to abandon a custom which was no 
 longer in harmony with the habits of London life, 
 but, happily, when he ceased to be the giver of formal 
 breakfast-parties, he did not cease to be the best break- 
 fast-table talker of his time ; and those who met him 
 under his own roof, or in the country houses where he 
 was a welcome guest, will bear witness that in this 
 description I have not been guilty of exaggeration. At 
 Fryston his efforts to entertain and amuse his guests 
 were seconded by his wife with a grace and a gentleness 
 to which I cannot pretend to do justice. It is enough 
 to say that he found in her as efficient a help-meet in 
 this dispensation of an almost superabundant hospitality 
 as any man could have hoped to have. 
 
 Before me as I write lies the Visitors' Book of 
 Fryston between the years 1859 and 1872, and, though 
 I am anticipating the course of my narrative by refer- 
 ring to it here, I can hardly do better, if I wish to give 
 my readers some idea of the life at Fryston, than glance 
 rapidly through its pages. The first page of all (August, 
 1859) records a gathering which must have been 
 memorable, seeing that it included Sir Richard Burton, 
 Mr. Mansfield Parkyns of Abyssinia, Mr. John
 
 MARRIAGE. 463 
 
 Petherick of Khartoum, Sir Charles MacCarthy, James 
 Spedding, Gr. S. Venables, and W. E. Forster. A little 
 later and we find another party, including Mr. Hay- 
 ward, Mr. Jeaffresou Hogg, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, and 
 Lord John Manners. In 1860 the house is found 
 sheltering at the same moment people so various in 
 degree as Mrs. Procter, Lord and Lady Lyveden, 
 Wilkie Collins, Eicciotti Garibaldi, Mr. Stansfeld, and 
 Mr. Hayward. A few days later Mr. Thomas Hughes 
 joins James Spedding and Arthur Hugh Clough the 
 poet ; whilst the next names of note that meet the 
 eye (October 27th, 1860) are those of the Archbishop 
 of York, and Lord and Lady Palmerston. 
 
 A year later and we find the Due d'Aumale and his 
 nephew the Due de Chartres meeting George Bunsen, 
 the Duke of Eutland, and " Jacob Omnium " (M. J. 
 Higgins), at the same hospitable board. The reader 
 would, indeed, be wearied with anything like a full 
 list of the notable gatherings of which Fryston Hall 
 was the scene after the marriage of Milnes. One or 
 two names only must be mentioned in passing, in 
 addition to those which have already been given. For 
 example, in 1861 the great poet whom Milnes was 
 almost the first to estimate at his true value, and 
 whom he befriended throughout the remainder of his 
 life, Algernon Swinburne, is first found visiting at 
 Fryston, one of his fellow - guests being W. H. 
 Thompson, the late Master of Trinity. It was a few 
 months later that the house was the scene of an 
 incident of historic interest. Milnes had gathered
 
 464 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGHTON. 
 
 around him some of his English and American friends, 
 including Sir Andrew and Lady Buchanan, and Mr. 
 Adams, the American Minister in England. Among 
 those invited to meet the distinguished guests were 
 Mr. Froude, Mr. Forster, Mrs. Gaskell (the well-known 
 writer), and Lord and Lady Wensleydale. Whilst the 
 party were in the full enjoyment of the pleasures of 
 life at Fryston, a telegram was placed in the hands of 
 Mr. Adams, which he quietly perused and put in his 
 pocket. A visit to the ruins of Pontefract Castle had 
 been planned, and a party set off thither; nor was 
 it until some time had been spent in examining 
 the remains of that famous building that Mr. 
 Adams told his fellow - guests of the capture of 
 Messrs. Mason and Slidell by a United States 
 man-of-war whilst they were passengers on an 
 Engrlish mail steamer. With characteristic coolness 
 
 o 
 
 the American Minister remained quietly at Fryston 
 for some days after that event, preferring to keep 
 himself as far apart as possible from the passionate 
 excitement of London until he was in full possession 
 of all the facts relating to the momentous incident. 
 It was certainly not a misfortune, in the interests of 
 the peace of the world, that at such a time he should 
 have been residing under the roof of so warm a friend 
 of the United States as Monckton Milnes proved 
 himself to be. 
 
 As page after page of the record of these bygone 
 hospitalities is turned, the eye meets such names as 
 these : Hamilton Aide, Lawrence Oliphant, E. Temple,
 
 MARRIAGE. 465 
 
 W. M. Eossetti, Sir Wm. Stirling, C J. Vaughan, 
 W. M. Thackeray (whose last visit to Fryston was paid 
 in the April preceding his death), Herbert Spencer, 
 Hermann Merivale, Cooraara Swamy (the first non- 
 Christian Hindoo barrister), Anninius Vambery, Mary 
 Mohl, Julian Fane, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Henry Fawcett, Anthony Trollope, Edmund Waterton 
 (the Naturalist), George Meredith, Frederic Harrison, 
 John Morley, Fitzjames Stephen, Father Hyacinthe, 
 Reverdy Johnson (some time American Minister in this 
 country), Richard Doyle, Robert Browning, Dean 
 Stanley, and a host of others not less familiar to the 
 students of politics and literature, in addition to those 
 of many political and social notabilities. It was, in- 
 deed, one of Milnes's chief pleasures to bring together 
 under his own roof those persons living in circles so 
 completely apart that under ordinary circumstances they 
 would have little chance of meeting. Many men, of 
 course, have done this under cover of the comparatively 
 limited hospitalities of a London season, when guests 
 are dismissed a few hours after they have been first re- 
 ceived ; but comparatively few have thus made their own 
 homes into " an inn of strange meetings." This, how- 
 ever, was what Milnes did all through his life, and many 
 a man now holding a good position in the literary or 
 political world owes his success in no small degree to 
 the friendships which he was enabled to form under the 
 hospitable roof of Fryston Hall. 
 
 One meeting still remains to be noticed ; it is that 
 which occurred in March, 1866, when Carlyle, on his
 
 466 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 way to Scotland to enjoy the great triumph of his life 
 in his installation as Lord Eector, and to meet at 
 the same time the bitterest of his griefs, stayed at 
 Fryston with his companions, Professors Tyndall and 
 Huxley an incident to which I shall revert later in 
 my story. 
 
 Naturally among the letters from grateful guests 
 bound up with this Visitors' Book are many of in- 
 terest. One only need be given as a characteristic 
 example : 
 
 Herbert Spencer to Lady Houghton. 
 Athenteum Club, Pall Mall, April Qth, 1872. 
 
 DEAR LADY HOUGHTON, When I left town I was still 
 suffering from a long fit of dyspepsia, joined with uneasy bad 
 nights. While at Fryston, both the original evil and its effect 
 disappeared; my sleep, indeed, having been better than I 
 remember for a long time past. And now that I have got back 
 to my task, I find myself in very good working order. As I 
 hold it to be a clearly- proved fact that an agreeable emotional 
 state is of all curative agents the most potent, it is clear to me 
 that I must have derived much pleasure from my stay under 
 your hospitable roof, and that I am indebted to you for an 
 important benefit in the way of health and efficiency. 
 
 I am very sincerely yours, 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
 No record, alas! remains of the talk with which 
 the pleasant rooms of Fryston rang in the days when 
 their master was entertaining men and women as dis- 
 tinguished as those whose names I have given. The 
 many good sayings, the shrewd views of individuals
 
 MARRIAGE. 467 
 
 and affairs, the stores of out-of-the-way incidents in 
 history, have all sunk into silence ; but so long as any 
 live who were privileged to partake of those hospitalities, 
 and to witness those meetings of men and women of 
 genius, their memory cannot fade, and the name of 
 Fryston will be cherished in the innermost recesses of 
 the heart. 
 
 The first Christmas of their married life was spent 
 by Mr. and Mrs. Milnes at Fryston, which henceforth 
 became their country home, the house at 16, Upper 
 Brook Street being their town residence during many 
 succeeding years. Mr. Pemberton Milnes was now in 
 declining health, and spent his time almost exclusively 
 in his Yorkshire home. Between him and his son's 
 wife the warmest affection existed, and during his last 
 years he not only delighted in having her near him, 
 but corresponded constantly with her both upon family 
 and upon public affairs. At Fryston she took her place 
 from the first at the head of the house, Mr. Milnes's 
 unmarried sisters, the aunts to whom Milnes himself 
 was so deeply attached, having some years before this 
 taken up their residence at Torquay in a house called 
 after the family seat, Fryston Lodge. 
 
 A calamity of no ordinary description marked the 
 opening of 1852 in the life of Milnes. This was the 
 loss of his much-loved friend Eliot Warburton in the 
 steamer Amazon, which on the 4th of January was 
 destroyed by fire at sea. Warburton was on his way 
 to the West Indies. He had made his mark in litera- 
 ture by his well-known book " The Crescent and the
 
 468 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Cross," a work which he had dedicated to Milnes. Of 
 a singularly lovable disposition, he had been one of 
 Milnes's truest and most sympathetic friends, and the 
 latter felt his death acutely. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Fryston, Jan. 21*J, 1852. 
 
 MY DEAE FEIEND, Since Hawes* has left the Colonial 
 Office, I send this by the ordinary channel. With his retirement 
 and the dismissal of Lord Palmerston all my dilettante officially 
 is at an end, and I retire into the modesty of private ignorance. 
 As far as you are concerned, you are so well established on your 
 own foundation that it is, perhaps, better that there can be no 
 charge of nepotism, whatever happens to you. We are here for the 
 last fortnight to entertain the neighbours and introduce my wife. 
 She, however, has been confined to her dressing-room ever since 
 she has been here. . . . We are expecting your brother to 
 spend next week here with us. The last days for me have been 
 dimmed I might say, darkened by the awful calamity that 
 has enveloped my dear Eliot Warburton. There was no man to 
 whom I owed a similar debt of affection, so constant and so 
 enduring. Ever since we have been together at Cambridge he 
 had looked to my friendship as a portion of his own inner life ; 
 and if others have more moved my sensibilities, there was, 
 perhaps, no one intimate whom I so thoroughly esteemed. He 
 had all the good of the Irish nature its gracefulness and its 
 vivacity combined with the very chivalry of truth. He has 
 left a young wife and three little children ; they are what one 
 has really to pity and lament for. Mrs. Procter wrote to me 
 from the first with little hope, for she said, " He was not a man to 
 have left a ship as long as there was a woman or a child on board of 
 it." Indeed, if there is a final justice in the world, it must be well 
 with him wherever he is. Lord Palmerston's dismissal could not 
 have surprised any one more than it did himself. It was purely 
 
 * Sir Benjamin Hawes, MacCaitliy's father-in-law.
 
 MARRIAGE. 469 
 
 what Kingsley calls a something which comes over Lord John 
 about Christmas, which one would call " calenture " if it happened 
 in summer, which made him write the Durham letter in 1850 
 and eject his best colleague in 1851. The cause was totally 
 inadequate. Lord P. has a great dislike to the Orleans 
 family, and a strong distrust of their feeling to England ; and 
 thus he saw without dissatisfaction their project of appealing to 
 France by arms or otherwise put an end to. But he said nothing 
 officially nothing which in any way compromised the Govern- 
 ment. We were to have met the Greys at Broadlands for 
 Christmas the very week the fracas occurred. Lord P. is very 
 anxious that it should be understood that Lord G. has not only 
 nothing to do with this dismissal, but that they had got on perfectly 
 well together there. In truth, poor Lord Grey has quite enough 
 on his shoulders without this responsibility. The effect in 
 Europe has been humiliating for England. Here the French 
 coup d'etat has absorbed all other subjects. M. Thiers, in a 
 letter to me yesterday, writes: "Si vous savez combien les 
 citoyens eclaires se defendent contre les violences et les corrup- 
 tions d'une indigne et ridicule tyrannie, vous verrez que la 
 France soit digne de 1'estime des nations civilisees : elle est plus 
 a plaindre qu'a blamer, et pour moi elle est toujours a aimer/' 
 He intends to settle in England during his exile. We were 
 going to France this next month, but it would so worry me to 
 see my old breakfaster L. N. in his sham Ca3sarian attitude that 
 I have not the heart for it. With my wife's best regards and 
 mine to yourself and the giovine Cingalese. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 The letter of Thiers referred to above was as 
 
 follows : 
 
 A. Thiers to R. M. M. 
 
 London (Clarendon Hotel), January \%th, 1852. 
 MY DEAR MR. MILNES, I cannot thank you sufficiently 
 for your very kind letter and invitation. I should be most
 
 470 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGIITOtf. 
 
 happy to spend a few hours at Fryston Hall with you and 
 your family if I could make time between this and February 
 3rd. I have to set up house with my family, which takes up 
 a great deal of time, and, besides that, a promise to fulfil to 
 Lady Ashburton. I know I shall not find a moment between 
 this and the meeting of your Parliament, which, I suppose, will 
 bring you all to London. But perhaps you will grant me a 
 future opportunity of availing myself of your kind invitation, 
 since I am likely to remain in exile for some long time yet. 
 
 Thank you also for your sympathy for my unhappy country. 
 If you knew the sad condition, if you knew how the enlightened 
 classes are struggling against the violence and the corruption 
 of an unworthy and ridiculous tyranny, you would see that 
 France is deserving of the esteem of civilised nations. She is 
 more to be pitied than to be blamed, and I think always to be 
 loved. 
 
 Good-bye, dear friend. I hope, when we are settled, you 
 will not neglect the poor exile, &c. &c. &c., A. TRIERS. 
 
 Duvergier and D. Remusat are in Brussels. I shall suggest 
 to them to come to London by-and-by. 
 
 A. de Tocqueville to R. M. M. 
 
 Paris, Feb. $th, 1852. 
 
 Thank you, my dear Milnes, for having introduced Miss 
 Wynn to us ; I thought her, as you said she was, a very 
 distinguished person, and hope to have many more opportunities 
 of meeting her before she leaves Paris. Mademoiselle de Tocque- 
 ville finds equal pleasure in her acquaintance. 
 
 I can quite understand your feelings which would have made 
 your journey to Paris undesirable, and I congratulate you on 
 the reason that made it impossible, and although I am very 
 sorry indeed not to see you, I can only be glad for your sake. 
 
 My health, which you kindly ask after, is very good, and so 
 far I have every reason to be thankful for having spent last 
 year in Italy. As for my spirits, they are, of course, sad for
 
 MARRIAGE. 471 
 
 the present, anxious for the future, but not depressed. For a 
 long time I have wished to retire from public life at least, for 
 a few years in order that I might devote myself to a great 
 work I had already planned. 
 
 I am, therefore, one of those least to be pitied among all 
 the number of men who are " thrown out/' I might even say 
 that I am happier than I have been for years if the pleasures 
 of private life could ever make up for so great a public mis- 
 fortune as that which has befallen us. 
 
 According to your English papers, and a conversation with 
 Miss W. Wynn, you must have been in England seriously 
 anticipating an immediate war. I confess I have always con- 
 sidered this chimerical, and though I have no doubt all this 
 will eventually end in war, it will not be immediately. This 
 apprehension has hastened everything, it seems to me ; and as 
 for the British Parliament, it has displayed its fears in an 
 extraordinary manner. All your politicians, in alluding to 
 the late events in France, have spoken in prudent, moderate, 
 quasi-approving terms of the power which has just succeeded 
 in reinstituting liberty on the Continent terms which they had 
 not accustomed Europe to hear of late. It is plain we are no 
 longer dealing with a King of Naples, but with the head of our 
 nation, and the chief of an army of 400,000 men. If I have 
 suffered a little as a moralist, I have been all the more gratified 
 as a Frenchman. 
 
 Good-bye, my dear Milnes ; remember us kindly to our dear 
 Madame Grote, whom we wish for every day, and to Senior, 
 and believe me, &c. &c. &c., 
 
 A. DE TOCQUEVILLB. 
 
 P.S, I have rejected all idea of candidature for the coming 
 elections, as one cannot treat seriously such a parody of a Liberal 
 Government as the one now forming. You know that this new 
 Assembly amounts to nothing. It has no publicity ; it can only 
 carry the Budget, without power to amend it ; and you have, no 
 doubt, heard that disapproving candidates may neither address 
 their electors, nor write to them, nor form any committee, nor
 
 472 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 go about freely without incurring the penalty of exile. In a 
 word, the new Government is carrying out its plan of governing 
 with the help of peasants and soldiers, and adopting only the 
 worst feature of democracy the brutal force of numbers, a 
 universal vote amidst the gloom and silence that comes from 
 despotism. You will agree with me it is better to be writing 
 books than meddling with such matters. 
 
 Very early in the year 1852 Milnes and his wife 
 took up their residence at No. 16, Upper Brook Street, 
 and here he at once began to entertain on a very consider- 
 able scale, so that in course of time the house became 
 famous in tlie annals of London hospitality. His marriage 
 made little, if any, difference in the catholicity which he 
 had hitherto shown in the dispensation of his hospitality. 
 The books of guests, which his wife kept from that time 
 forward, contain the names of almost all the celebrities 
 of the time ; and each particular party that was given 
 was made agreeable by the contrasts which the various 
 diners or breakfasters offered to each other in tastes, in 
 position, and in character. The first of these little 
 books bears on the fly-leaf, in Milnes's handwriting, a 
 somewhat cynical quotation. It purports to be an extract 
 from the travels of a Phoenician in England about the 
 year 1 500, and is as follows : " The English would sooner 
 give five or six ducats to furnish an entertainment for a 
 person, than a groat to assist him in any distress." No 
 man could better afford than Milnes to preface the 
 record of his hospitalities by such an apothegm as this, 
 for, whatever might be the amount which he spent in 
 the entertainment of his friends, and it was undoubt- 
 edly very large so large as occasionally almost to
 
 MARRIAGE. 473 
 
 embarrass him it fell short of that which he dispensed 
 (generally unknown to the world at large) in aid to the 
 distressed. It was on Saturday, the 3rd of April, 1852, 
 that Milnes gave his first dinner party as a married man, 
 and, naturally enough, on this occasion he entertained 
 chiefly old family friends of his own and his wife's. But 
 on the following Tuesday the list of guests at dinner 
 comprised M. and Mme. Vandeweyer ; Lord and Lady 
 Palmerston ; Lords Clanricarde, Granville, and Ash- 
 burton ; M. Thiers ; and Sir James Graham. A little 
 later in the same month Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Maurice, Mr. Kinglake, Mr. Spedding, and 
 Mr. Venables, are among the guests at one dinner; 
 whilst at another Lord and Lady Goderich and Mr. 
 George Bunsen are invited to meet Dr. and Mrs. 
 Holland, Louis Blanc, and Mr. Clough the poet. 
 Among the other dinner guests of this season of 1852 
 are to be found the names of Mr. Macaulay, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Dickens, Mrs. Procter, Sir Edwin Landseer, the 
 Bishop of Oxford, Mr. Hayward, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Browning, Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Thackeray, and Mr. 
 Delane, in addition to many peers and politicians of 
 eminence. Milnes kept up his habit of giving break- 
 fasts, and during the year had many parties of this 
 nature. In the summer the first child of the marriage 
 was born (a daughter), who was called by the old family 
 name of Amicia. 
 
 During the Parliamentary Session of 1852 Milnes 
 had made an important motion in the House of Com- 
 mons on the subject of the foreign refugees whom the
 
 474 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 events of the recent period of revolution had driven 
 to take asylum in this country. His speech on the 
 occasion again bore emphatic testimony to his sympathy 
 with the Liberal cause throughout Europe, and to his 
 detestation of all forms of tyranny, but, above all, of that 
 form which was associated with the despotic government 
 of Austria in Italy and Hungary. Perhaps in recalling 
 this speech it will no longer seem surprising that the 
 Austrian Government should have refused to allow 
 Milnes, when on his wedding tour, to enter Hungary. 
 I refer to the speech itself now chiefly for two reasons 
 first, in order that I may trace the continuance of 
 Milnes's interest in foreign politics, and the special 
 direction in which his mind moved ; and, secondly, 
 because of the evidence which it affords of his growing 
 inclination to take Lord Palmerston as his leader alike 
 in home and foreign affairs. Indeed, no one can follow 
 his public utterances from this period onwards without 
 seeing that he had now found in Palmerston that which 
 he had never had in Peel a leader whom he could 
 trust implicitly, and follow closely. The time came, it 
 is true, when on great questions of English policy 
 his mind advanced far beyond the point reached by 
 Palmerston, and in domestic affairs he identified himself 
 with a Liberalism more robust than that professed by 
 that eminent statesman ; but this was not until after 
 Palmerston himself had passed away. During his life- 
 time he in the main continued to be his warm personal 
 adherent and his faithful political follower. 
 
 Among the many varied interests which engaged his
 
 MARRIAGE. 475 
 
 atteotion at this time, one or two, indicated in his cor- 
 respondence, are worth noticing. Several years before 
 this he had become acquainted with a young lady 
 whose name was shortly to be honoured throughout the 
 world, but who at this period was living in the tranquil 
 obscurity of home life. This was Miss Florence 
 Nightingale. That distinguished woman had not yet 
 found her vocation, and knew nothing of the lesson 
 which she was so soon to teach the world from the 
 cypress-clad heights of Scutari. But she was full, 
 even then, of schemes for the benefit of her fellow- 
 creatures', and she had learned to look to Milnes for 
 sympathy, advice, and help. 
 
 Miss Florence Nightingale to R. M. M. 
 
 1852. 
 
 I am going abroad soon. Before I go I am thinking of 
 asking you whether you would look over certain things which I 
 have written for the working men on the subject of a belief in 
 a God. All the moral and intellectual among them seem 
 going over to atheism, or at least to a vague kind of theism. I 
 have read them to one or two, and they have liked them. I 
 should have liked to have asked you if you think them likely to 
 be read by more, but you are perhaps not interested in the 
 subject, or you have no time, which is fully taken up with other 
 things. If you tell me this, it will be no surprise or disappoint- 
 ment to me. 
 
 Pray believe me yours very truly, 
 
 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 Of course Milnes had time, as he had sympathy, 
 for every well-meant effort on the part of one anxious 
 to help the world in its struggle with the forces of 
 darkness, and the friendship between him and Miss
 
 476 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 Nightingale was strengthened by this appeal, bearing 
 fruit later on, at the time when the heroic English- 
 woman was waging war against red tape and official 
 superstition on the shores of the Bosphorus. 
 
 It was at this time, too, that he and Mrs. Gaskell 
 were endeavouring to discover some means of brighten- 
 ing the path of Charlotte Bronte, whose loneliness amid 
 her fame had touched him keenly. His own idea had 
 been to procure for her a pension from the State, but 
 Mrs. Graskell's womanly intuition suggested another 
 mode of giving the desired aid. 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell to R. M. M. 
 
 Manchester, October 29^, 1852. 
 
 MY DEAR Sm, With skilful diplomacy, for which I admire 
 myself extremely, I have obtained the address we want : " The 
 Rev. A. B. Nicholls, Kirk Smeaton, Nr. Pontefract, Yorkshire." 
 . . . I felt sure you would keep the story secret ; if my well- 
 meant treachery becomes known to her, I shall lose her friend- 
 ship, which I prize most highly. I have been thinking over 
 little bits of the conversation we had relating to a pension. I don't 
 think she would take it, and I am quite sure that j100 a 
 year, given as acknowledgment of his merits as a good faithful 
 clergyman, would give her ten times the pleasure that 200 a 
 year would do if bestowed upon her in her capacity as a writer. 
 I am sure he is a thoroughly good, hard-working, self-denying 
 curate. Dr. Hook has unluckily just filled up his staff of 
 rmrates (excuse me if, being- a Dissenter, I use wrong words ; 
 " staff " does look military) . Her father's only reason for his 
 violent and virulent opposition is Mr. Nicholls's utter want of 
 money or friends to help him to any professional advancement. 
 And now I won't worry you any more. May I send my kind 
 regards to Mrs. Milnes ? y ours very truly ^ 
 
 E. C. GASKELL.
 
 MAERIAGE. 477 
 
 It is perhaps superfluous to remind the reader that 
 not long after this letter was written Mr. Nicholls 
 became the husband of Charlotte Bronte, but in the 
 interval Milnes did what he could, for the sake of the 
 author of " Jane Eyre," to advance his interests. 
 
 Yet another letter belonging to this autumn of 1852 
 throws light upon another aspect of his life, and is of 
 interest for the writer's sake also. 
 
 T. B. Macaulay to R. M. M. 
 
 Albany, November 20^, 1852. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, I am sorry that I have made an appoint- 
 ment, on business, which will make it impossible for me to 
 breakfast with you on Monday. You might almost as well 
 have asked Sir Benjamin Hall as me to meet my Lord of 
 Oxford, for if the Convocation had gone on wrangling a day 
 longer, I should have broken forth like Elihu. "I will answer 
 also my part : I also will show my opinion. For I am full of 
 matter : the spirit within me constraineth me. I will speak, 
 that I may be refreshed : I will open my lips and answer. Let 
 me not, I pray you, accept any man's person : neither let me 
 give flattering titles unto man." There are certainly some 
 great ecclesiastical personages to whom I should not have given 
 nattering titles. Ever yours truly, 
 
 T. B. MACAULAY. 
 
 Though Macaulay was unable to be present at the 
 breakfast in question, it duly took place, and among 
 those who met the Bishop of Oxford were his fellow- 
 prelate of St. David's, Dr. Whewell, and Lords 
 Ashburton and Groderich. 
 
 As I have had occasion more than once to mention 
 the name of Lord Ashburton, it is fitting that I should
 
 478 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 say something of one of the great friendships of Milnes's 
 life that which bound him closely to that nobleman 
 and to his wife. The world has learned something, from 
 the Life of Carlyle, of Bath House and the Grange. 
 For many years they were among the most important 
 centres of social life in England. The first Lady Ash- 
 burton reigned as a queen over a coterie of admirers who 
 included many of the most distinguished men in 
 England ; whilst the fine qualities of her husband added 
 greatly to the attractions of the home over which she 
 presided. She had no more devoted admirer than 
 Milnes, and both in his published " Monographs " and 
 his private Commonplace Books he has noted not a few 
 of those brilliant and witty sayings which secured for 
 her a leading place among the hommes et dames d* esprit 
 of her time. For her husband, Milnes entertained a 
 feeling almost of reverence, so highly did he esteem his 
 character. Alike at Bath House and the Grange he 
 was a regular and welcome guest ; hardly anywhere, in- 
 deed, did his own brilliant social qualities show to more 
 advantage than in that atmosphere of wit, refinement, 
 literary taste, and cosmopolitan knowledge. 
 
 At the close of the year 1852 Lord Derby's first Ad- 
 ministration came to an end after a brief existence of 
 ten months, and Lord Aberdeen came into power, with a 
 curious reversal of popular expectation in his distribu- 
 tion of patronage, Lord John Eussell being his Foreign 
 Secretary, whilst Lord Palmerston was relegated to the 
 Home Office. Milnes was among those who regarded 
 these two appointments with disfavour. He kept up
 
 MARRIAGE. 479 
 
 his personal friendship with Disraeli, whose position 
 as leader of the Conservative party in the House of 
 Commons was now fully recognised, though hardly 
 approved of by many of those who professed to be 
 his followers. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli to R. P. Milnes. 
 
 East Indian Committee, March kth, 1853. 
 MY DEAR SQUIRE, I have little to say, and write from the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta, where I have spent the whole morning. 
 Everything is very flat, though our friends keep together beyond 
 my hopes. The other day I sounded the bugle and exercised 
 them a little, and to-night we are to have a regular encounter. 
 India and the Income Tax are the features of the future, and may 
 disturb, though I should hardly think dislodge, the Government. 
 We think, and talk very often, of Fryston and Bawtry as of a 
 dream, or the memory of a pleasant book. How many characters, 
 and how many incidents ! Among them a church in flames ; 
 poor Dr. Sharpe ! Vernon Smith came to me yesterday to beg 
 me to choose a day to drive with him, as Lord Fitzwilliam was 
 so disappointed that he had not met me at Fryston or Burleigh 
 (which latter place we quitted the day he arrived) that he had 
 devised this means for our meeting. Is he to convert me, or the 
 reverse; or is he an old Whig as disgusted as V. S. himself? 
 However, on Tuesday next we are to dine together. Adieu, my 
 dearest Squire. D. 
 
 ^ 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Feb., 1853. 
 
 The grand theatricals in France go on. I have always a 
 feeling that 12 o'clock must strike soon, and all Cinderella's 
 splendour vanish into air. At the Emperor's marriage the 
 contrast between the gorgeous pomp and the disregard and 
 contempt of the fete-loving people was astonishing. One of 
 the nouvelles el, la main is that, on returning to the Tuileries,
 
 480 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 the Empress threw herself into her husband's arms, exclaiming, 
 " Louis, je t'ai perdu/' It does not appear exactly who heard 
 this. Our "defences" are going- on at a great rate, and the 
 militia is to be very actively organised. I was quite amused to 
 find myself so much amused as I was with my mild soldiering.* 
 Our dear Italy is one dungeon. It looks a hard and long 
 struggle for our poor Italians to go through, to raise them 
 from their corso-cafe-cicisbeo character to the dignity of free 
 
 men. Piedmont gets on capitally. is here, moving 
 
 heaven and earth to get promotion. If all my thirty cousins 
 had given me the trouble he has, I should have left Parliament 
 long ago. I take that institution very easily, and am content to 
 occupy an unambitious position as supporter of this Government 
 we have at last got, and which we ought to have had two years 
 ago. With my wife's best regards to you and yours, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 E. M. MlLNES. 
 
 During the Session Milnes had been engaged in 
 trying to bring about one small reform at the request of 
 Mr. Carlyle, the abolition of the duty on foreign books. 
 
 If you could persuade Gladstone [wrote Carlyle] to take off 
 that extremely scrubby little tax on foreign books or, rather, on 
 old foreign books, for the modern are oftenest worth less than 
 nothing, and may be burnt at St. Catherine's for aught I care 
 he may do a perceptible benefit to the one or two serious students 
 still extant in this country, A perceptible benefit, not a great 
 one ah no ; and on the whole if he won't, and can't, the 
 Muses (with Panizzi's breech seated on the throat of them, and 
 little conscious of crime in the posture, he poor devil 1 ) must 
 still try to live if they can. 
 
 Milnes acted upon Carlyle's request, and wrote to 
 Mr. Gladstone, who, though unable to act at the 
 
 * Millies held a commission in the 2nd West Riding Regiment of 
 Militia from 1840 to 1854.
 
 MARRIAGE. 481 
 
 
 
 moment, did not lose sight of the needed reform, and 
 in due time brought it about. 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell had just published her remarkable 
 story called " Ruth," and it had brought upon her a 
 certain amount of censure from those who would limit 
 fiction to the topics which may be discussed openly in 
 drawing-rooms. It was in reply to a letter of sym- 
 pathy and appreciation from Milnes that she wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 Mrs. Gag Ml to R. M. M. ' *- 
 
 Plymouth Grove, Feb. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have been told that I ought to have 
 too much " self-respect " to care for people's opinions on what 
 I wrote ; but though in some instances this said stoical self- 
 respect would have saved me pain, I am sure I would not pur- 
 chase it by the loss of the zest with which I have enjoyed your 
 approval. I am so glad you liked " Ruth/' I was so anxious 
 about her, and took so much pains over writing it, that I lost 
 my own power of judging, and could not tell whether I had 
 done it well or ill. I only knew how very close to my heart it 
 had come from. I tried to make both the story and the writing 
 as quiet as I could, in order that " people " (my great bugbear) 
 might not say that they could not see what the writer felt to 
 be a very plain and earnest truth, for romantic incidents or 
 exaggerated writing. But I have no right to presume upon 
 your leisure, so I will only say, once more, thank you for taking 
 the trouble of writing to express what you felt. 
 
 I do not know that I am likely to be in town soon ; but if 
 I am, I shall certainly have great pleasure in letting you know. 
 
 Yours truly, and also " obliged/' 
 
 E. C. GASKELL.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 
 
 Married Life Visit to Ireland The Eastern Question Correspondence with 
 Lady Palmerston A Round of Visits The Crimean War The Times' 
 Account of the Battle of the Alma The Peelites A Ministerial Crisis 
 Milnes declines Office Miss Nightingale in the East Harriet Martineau 
 Death of Charlotte Bronte Paris and Vichy Lines on Scutari The 
 British Association at Glasgow Visit to Hawarden Peerage offered to 
 Mr. Pemberton Milnes. 
 
 A NEW source of information opens to the biographer 
 from this point in Milnes's life. Henceforward, so long 
 as she survived, whenever he was absent from his wife, 
 he wrote to her constantly. His letters were all care- 
 fully preserved by Mrs. Milnes ; but, though numerous 
 and full of interest, they are in themselves more frag- 
 mentary than his correspondence with MacCarthy, to 
 whom, owing to his distance from England, he felt it 
 necessary, when he wrote at all, to give a consecutive 
 and detailed account of public affairs, as well as of his 
 own personal fortunes. Milnes's letters to his wife are 
 as a rule brief and chatty hints of what he was 
 thinking or doing rather than a formal statement; 
 whilst I need hardly say that in free intercourse with 
 a woman whom he not only loved as a wife, but to 
 whom he always looked as the most sympathetic and 
 intelligent of friends, much was written with which the 
 world at large can have no concern. The reader must
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 483 
 
 therefore understand that the extracts which I make 
 from his letters to Mrs. Mimes will, of necessity, in 
 most cases be fragmentary, and that they by no means 
 represent in its entirety a correspondence which was full 
 and varied in its interest. 
 
 In August, 1853, Milnes was in Ireland. It was 
 the year of the Irish Exhibition, a pendant to the Great 
 Exhibition of 1851, and it was on this occasion that the 
 Queen paid one of her rare visits to Dublin. Milnes 
 stayed with some of his old friends in the country, and 
 was also during a portion of his visit the guest of Lord 
 St. Germans, then the Viceroy. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Carton, Wednesday. 
 
 I found on arriving here to-day a batch of letters two 
 pleasant ones from you, and (of course) some unpleasant 
 from others, which I (of course) enclose. I really wished 
 for you in the gloomy hill-sides and verdurous lanes of 
 Wicklow more than in . the regal puppet-shows of Dublin. 
 Nothing could be kinder than the Moncks, who thoroughly enjoy 
 their pleasant place. ... I found here the Dowager Lady 
 D., whom I wanted to marry when I was eight years old. I 
 distinctly remember proposing to her that we should go to 
 Tobolsk, in Siberia, the furthest place I had then heard of. The 
 Kildares are just gone to take possession of a place the Duke 
 has given them ; so I miss him, which I am sorry for. . . . 
 
 Carton, Saturday. 
 
 I am annoyed that the cough should still annoy you. It 
 ought really to be well by this time, or when I come back I 
 shall be taking you to Nice or some such place, instead of bleak 
 Yorkshire. I am sorry you have not been with me at this kind
 
 484 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGETON. 
 
 hospitable house, the repose and ease of which you would much 
 enjoy. I am only sure that you are as comfortable where you 
 are. I passed this morning at the college at Maynooth, which 
 is much altered for the better since I was last here, the students 
 looking so much cleaner and more academic than they did, and 
 the new buildings in Pugin's best and simplest style. I was at 
 the races yesterday, and it was as hot for two hours as I ever 
 felt it in Italy, but to-day there has been a sharp east wind. 
 . . Did you read out "The Stones of Venice/' as I 
 advised ? 
 
 Parson's Town* Saturday. 
 
 What pleasant letters of my father's ! His interest in you 
 is quite a wholesome stimulus to him. ... I am very glad 
 I came here. 'The hosts are very amiable, and the telescope 
 marvellous ; but though I was glad to see some of the volcanoes 
 in the moon, yet a dark moonless night is the only one fit for 
 astronomical observations, and that we are not likely to have 
 while I am here. The prospects of an autumn Session, I am 
 sorry to say, are threatening. That incompetent Clarendon 
 seems to be sliding us into a war without honour. 
 
 x Park, Monday. 
 
 I only got the little envelope about you this morning. Wet 
 and cold indeed ! I have had a fire every day in my bedroom, 
 but then comes the magical little Queen with her luck, and to- 
 day is a real warm autumn day. We went to Kingstown at 
 seven this morning, and gossiped on a platform till about ten, 
 when she landed, and we returned in the same train with her, 
 and went after her in the line. There could not have been less 
 than a million souls out altogether ; there was no great shouting, 
 but much eager satisfaction and earnest interest. After all 
 came a letter from Lady Molesworth, saying, " the hideous teeth 
 of the waves, and the frightful reports of the passengers, made 
 it impossible for them to cross." And so they are gone to 
 
 Cornwall. 
 
 * Lord Rosse's house.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 485 
 
 Phoenix Park, Tuesday. 
 
 You will read in the papers the account of the Queen's visit 
 to the Exhibition to-day. The effect can hardly be exaggerated ; 
 it was in one sense finer than the London one, in that it was 
 all apprehensible at one glance, and the size was not sufficient 
 to produce confusion and indistinctness. Her Majesty looked 
 rather tired than otherwise, except when she was speaking to 
 Mr. Durgan, the author of the Exhibition, when she broke into 
 one of those benignant smiles that gain so much from the pre- 
 ceding sombreness. The two little princes followed her, hand- 
 in-hand, through the building. I am not asked to the Royal 
 dance to-night, being thought, I suppose, owing to you, out of 
 the pale of dancing men, but to the concert to-morrow with the 
 judges, bishops, and bores. This is too much of a good thing, 
 for there is a review in the park in the afternoon and a ball in 
 the house here at night. I have met some quite old friends 
 
 one the future Lady , more handsome and charming than 
 
 when I was half in love with her fifteen years ago. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarlhy. 
 
 Bawtry, Oct. \%th, 1853. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, Your little missive was very agreeable if it 
 merely showed you in statu quo, which, both publicly and indi- 
 vidually, as one gets older, one looks on with more gratification 
 than the untried future. On the 24th the Sultan goes to war 
 poor old Mohamed the camel-driver putting on his turban once 
 more. I heartily wish I had never seen him or anything of the 
 East, and then I might have formed the clear decisive intellig- 
 ible opinion on one side or the other which politicians and news- 
 papers are enabled to do by reason of their ignorance ; but I am 
 really thankful as it is that my opinions on the subject have not 
 the slightest weight in the balance. I cannot, however, bring 
 myself to believe that the Christian populations who have been 
 pillaged, ravished, impaled, &c. &c., for four centuries by those
 
 486 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUGSTON. 
 
 ferocious tribes, are now going to defend and support them 
 against their fellow-Christians, however little better these latter 
 may be. You see, I would prefer the weak despotism of the 
 Porte to the strong tyranny of the Czar ; but that is a piece of 
 occidental induction, and in this strife we must remember that 
 all sides are Oriental, and have that mode of thought. 
 I had a month's bachelor tour in Ireland, which I found 
 wondrously improving, the emigration to America becoming 
 the ordinary incident in rural life. Thus labour is rising in 
 value, and even the loss of the potato is not regarded as 
 the loss of life. Annabel sends her best regards, and 
 begs me to say she thinks her Amicia quite worthy of being 
 introduced to your Richard. My father has uncertain health, 
 but is just now very well. ... I am likely to see the Duke 
 of Newcastle soon, and will not forget your suggestion. I have 
 
 already spoken of you to him more than once. I got 
 
 removed to Philadelphia with much trouble, and he is, of course, 
 miserable. No new books worth sending for but Haydon's Life, 
 which is as pathetic and strange as Rousseau's. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The country was now engrossed in the Eastern Ques- 
 tion, and we were already practically committed to the 
 war which was to be fought out before Sebastopol. It 
 is no part of my purpose to tell here the history of 
 the political events of that exciting time, save as they 
 may be connected with Milnes's own life. One of the 
 most striking incidents of the autumn of 1853 was, 
 however, the unexpected resignation of Lord Palmerston 
 on December 15th a resignation which was in force 
 for just nine days, when the Minister resumed office. 
 The following letters to Milnes, and the extracts from
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 487 
 
 his letters to his wife, will be found to bear upon this 
 exciting episode in the political history of the time. 
 
 Lady Palmerston to R. M. M. 
 
 Carlton Gardens, Dec. 2nd, 1853. 
 
 DEAR MR. MILNES, I was charmed to see your hand- 
 writing again, for I had heard nothing- of you for a long time. 
 We shall certainly be at home at Christmas, and very happy to 
 see you at any time you can come to us. We are only sorry 
 that Mrs. Milnes will not be with you. London is a horrid 
 place at this time of year, and I shall be glad to get out of the 
 fogs. We have some hopes of doing so after the 12th. Here 
 the society is small, and might be pleasant, if every one had not 
 a cold, or felt afraid of catching one ; but when Palmerston has 
 ended all his Herculean labours by draining the valley of the 
 Thames, and making all the furnaces and grates consume their 
 own smoke, then, indeed, we shall come to a happy state of 
 things, and London will be worth living in. He is really 
 sanguine enough to hope to see this day, and as he generally 
 succeeds in all he undertakes, I, too, live in hopes of this result. 
 Nobody looks very comfortable here; the Turkish question 
 worries a great many, and Reform others, and, I believe, both 
 might have been avoided. You will say, how ? But that I am 
 not bound to answer. I only give you my opinion as to the 
 fact; you may value it or not, just as you please. Lady 
 Pembroke was very unhappy yesterday at hearing that her 
 brother Woronzow was ill of a bilious attack. Poor fellow ! he 
 is in a sad anxious position, and no wonder he is bilious, at the 
 least. Brunnow * looks very unhappy, too, and fears every day 
 to be recalled. Some people expect the Emperor to have a fit 
 if the Turkish successes continue ; it must be such a blow to him, 
 all that has occurred hitherto, and now to see the Grand 
 Patriarch ready to march out with the Sultan's army, and even 
 to excommunicate Nicholas if it were desirable, thus throwing 
 
 * Baron Brtmnow, Russian Ambassador in London.
 
 488 TEE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 all his religious claims and professions to the winds ! There 
 never was a man so fallen in every way as that Emperor, for we 
 were all prejudiced in his favour, and he had acted his part so 
 well that we might expect better things of him. Even the 
 Times and Beeves have given him up now. Palmerston desires 
 his kindest regards. 
 
 Believe me yours sincerely, 
 
 E. PALMERSTON. 
 
 Mr. D'Israeli to R. P. Milnes. 
 
 Grosvenor Gate, Dec. 19^, 1853. 
 
 MY DEAR SQUIRE, Your letter after several journeys has 
 caught me here, passing through town. It is a very tempting 
 invitation, for under your roof we are sure to be happy ; but, 
 alas ! in this instance we are so circumstanced that we are 
 bound to forego the gratification. I believe Lord W. [West- 
 moreland] to be quite guiltless, and that the Cabinet are the 
 distinguished authors of the Vienna Note. The article [leading] 
 in the Morning Post to-day is from Lord Palmerston's own hand. 
 You may rely on this ; he is furious that his resignation should 
 be solely or even mainly placed upon Parliamentary Reform. 
 He has resigned on the Liberal grounds of opposition to 
 " antiquated imbecility/' 
 
 My wife sends you her love. Ever yours, 
 D. 
 
 Lady Palmerston to R. M. M. 
 
 Carlton Gardens, Dec. ZZnd, 1853. 
 
 DEAR MR. MILNES, I am afraid there is no chance of our 
 being at Broadlands Saturday, so I write to say that on Monday 
 I think we shall be there, or on Tuesday certainly. Would 
 this suit you as well as the earlier day ? . We 
 
 have been kept here in uncertainty from day to day, and now 
 great efforts are making to try and get Palmerston to withdraw
 
 CHIME AN WAR DAYS. 489 
 
 his resignation. I know not whether there is a possibility of 
 accommodation. The manner in which Palmerston' s resignation 
 has been received is most flattering. The despair of the Whigs 
 and friends of the Government, even Radicals and Reformers 
 (the fact is, nobody wants Reform) ; none pleased but the Tory 
 party, and those most exulting. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 E. PALMERSTON. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Wife. 
 
 AtJienceum, Friday. 
 
 It is not improbable that these motions in the House 
 may end in my losing my visit to Broadlands altogether. 
 After the Cabinet yesterday they telegraphed to H. Fitzroy 
 at Brighton, and he has just been with Palmerston to offer 
 terms of accommodation. Palmerston does not seem very hope- 
 ful of a good result, but remains in town in aid of the Ministers. 
 
 During the month in which this political crisis 
 was in progress Milnes was making a round of visits 
 to . various country houses, including the Grange, and 
 terminating with Broadlands. 
 
 Extracts from letters to Ms Wife. 
 
 The Grange, Saturday, Dec., 1853. 
 
 I find here a houseful, contrary to my expectations. The 
 H. Taylors with all their children, the Brookfields with their 
 pretty little girl, Bear Ellice, Giant Higgins, Venables, Clough, 
 Senior, Kinglake, a young Lascelles, Geraldine Mildmay, 
 Humphrey ditto, and one or two others. I have the room on 
 the ground floor I inherited from Charles Buller, and where I 
 lay with my broken arm. My lady looks very well and in 
 capital spirits, but does not assist at dinner. The children have 
 a tree to-night ; and there is talk of a charade to exhibit the 
 Rev. Brookfield. He, Taylor, and I, read Hamlet this morning
 
 490 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 to the ladies. T/s Hamlet was very unlike Denmark's, and very 
 like H. Taylor. I go to Embly"* on Monday for one night; that 
 is as much as I know. Venables approves Parkyns's book,t 
 calling it the most successful attempt of a man to reduce himself 
 to the savage state on record. 
 
 The Grange, Sunday. 
 
 Nothing to tell you but that I shall stay at Embly till I go 
 to Broadlands; so write there. . . . Lord Radstock was the 
 chief theologian who condemned Maurice in the King's College 
 Council. The stridulent Senior has been showing us his review 
 of Thackeray in the coming Edinburgh, and wretched it is. All 
 is going on well about Palmy and the Government, and I hope it 
 may be settled by to-morrow. The children had a grand tea 
 last night, and we had some charades afterwards, in the hall, 
 where my lady would not venture to see it. Fancy my wife 
 taking care of herself in that way ! 
 
 Embly, Monday. 
 
 We left A. in bed, and unable to go to Bowood ; she had 
 (for once) certainly not taken care of herself, sitting up and 
 talking till she was quite in a fever. Nobody much here except 
 Clough J and his fancee, a clever-looking girl, and our Dresden 
 friends the Noels. ... Is not the Times of to-day delight- 
 ful? The ingenious connection between Pam's return and a 
 more decided action in foreign affairs, without even saying 
 that he is or will be the cause of a change of policy. Did you 
 ever hear of the Birmingham school of gentlemen, mad on the 
 currency question ? The papers you sent are a specimen. It is 
 very curious, but that doctrine of a fixed measure of value seems 
 capable of quite disordering the minds of men who adopt it. 
 
 Embly, Tuesday. 
 
 I go to Broadlands to-morrow; they arrive there to-day. 
 Lady P. writes : " Every event in which P. is concerned ends in 
 
 * The house of Mr. Nightingale, father of Florence Nightingale. 
 
 f Mr. Mansfield Parkyns the traveller. 
 
 J Arthur Hugh Clough, author of " A Long Vacation Pastoral," &c.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 491 
 
 his standing higher than he did before." There is a fine deluded 
 wifie for you, though I think she is right for this once. 
 
 dough's Amy has something of about her, both in person 
 
 and manner, and is evidently a woman of much worth. Clough 
 himself in great favour here. Do you remember my bringing 
 them together at our house ? We have been reading poetry and 
 talking science all this snowy day, pleasant enough. They talk 
 quite easily about Florence [Nightingale], but her position does 
 not seem very suitable. I wish we could put her at the head of 
 a juvenile reformatory ; that would suit her much better. Lord 
 Pam has just given :25,000 for an estate joining on to his own, 
 with a good house on it, for which he wants a tenant. Nightin-' 
 gale says, " and he has paid for it." 
 
 Broadlands,* Thursday. 
 
 I send you a paper with the address to Maurice, which keep. 
 Now that P. has returned to his disconsolate friends, all is 
 forgiven and forgotten, and they are both in capital spirits. He 
 got a Russian letter from St. Petersburg this morning, which 
 ends : " France and England may become Turks if they please, 
 our three-edged bayonet can destroy three Powers ; in vain they 
 attempt to shake the Russian empire, for it is with Christ and 
 for Christ." We have General B. here, who is factotum of the 
 Court, and who has lots of gossip which would interest more 
 loyal persons than myself extremely. 
 
 Broadlands, Monday. 
 
 Lady P. is very anxious for me to stay as long as I can, as 
 the Flahaulls are coming, with nobody certain to meet them, so 
 I have offered to stay till Friday, and shall come through to you 
 that day. . . . This house here is very cold, so different 
 
 from the Grange. Lord , who is here, is full of Mrs. 
 
 Dizzy's visit to them. She said at dinner that "she did 
 not care the least for looks in men, and would as soon have 
 married a black man as not/' He apologised about a dish having 
 too much onion in it ; she said, " I prefer them raw/' and so on. 
 
 * The House of Lord Palmerston.
 
 492 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Broadlands, Thursday. 
 
 I went to town with Lord P. yesterday, and returned in 
 the evening-, wishing to see some books I should not have time 
 for on Friday. It is thawing here, and, if it goes on, will be 
 an " almighty squash " to-morrow. I was just as well as you in 
 the frost, a compliment you do not pay me in the heat. . . . 
 I like Lawrence's sketch of W. Harcourt very much.* I don't 
 expect any explanation at the meeting of Parliament ; there is 
 really nothing to explain. The whole thing, however, looks very 
 ticklish, and I doubt the Government keeping together long; 
 there is evidently no cordial goodwill among them, which is the 
 only security for mutual promise. 
 
 Milnes was still at Broadlands when the New Year 
 arrived, and he sent the following greeting to his wife : 
 
 1854. 
 
 DEAREST A , A happy New Year, happier than the last, 
 
 and I would wish it the more, but for a weird feeling that what 
 I wish very much will not be. 
 
 Thou gleaner of the sunny hours 
 
 Harvested in the home of God, 
 Gild me the future summer's bowers, 
 
 Revive the present ice-bound sod. 
 Thou gleaner from the darkest hours 
 
 Of scattered good I could not see, 
 Preserve thy dear remedial powers, 
 
 And shed them as I need o'er me. 
 
 Your loving husband and friend, 
 > 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 The New Year opened gloomily enough for the 
 country at large, with the delivery of an English and 
 French ultimatum to the Emperor of Russia, and the 
 
 * A portrait of "W. V. Harcourt, commissioned by Lord Hough ton, 
 and BOW at Frystou.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 493 
 
 despatch of our armies to the East. From this time 
 forward, to the conclusion of peace in 1856, the 
 thoughts of the English people were almost exclusively 
 centred upon the struggle in the Crimea, and the 
 terrible sufferings of our troops, owing to the complete 
 breakdown of a system which, during forty years of 
 peace, had been allowed to fall into decay. Milnes had, 
 of course, the deep interest of a politician and a patriot 
 in the events connected with the Crimean war. He 
 had, too, that personal interest in them which was felt 
 by so many members of English society who had friends 
 and relatives serving before Sebastopol, whilst by-and- 
 by a new interest sprang up in his breast in connec- 
 tion with the expedition of Miss Nightingale. I have 
 already said something of Milnes's feelings of devotion 
 to that heroic woman. It was not a thing of yesterday. 
 Long before the world had heard her name, he had 
 recognised in her the presence of those great qualities 
 which revealed themselves so conspicuously in the 
 storm and stress of the Crimean days, and he enter- 
 tained for her the truest affection, mingled with an 
 admiration in which there was no trace of that cynicism 
 with which his friends generally credited him. It was 
 inevitable that when Miss Nightingale began to play so 
 prominent a part in the events of that period, Milnes 
 should throw himself heart and soul into her service, 
 and do whatever lay within his power in order to 
 lighten her task and strengthen her hands in the 
 movement, the startling novelty of which caused many 
 timid souls to regard it with disfavour.
 
 494 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Most of the letters of 1854, whether written by 
 Milnes or to him, have reference to the war, and to the 
 terrible losses of our troops ; but a few more particu- 
 larly in the earlier part of the year deal with other and 
 more general subjects. The scheme for the reform of 
 the Civil Service by the introduction of competitive 
 examinations as a means of admission of candidates had 
 been brought before the House of Commons, and had 
 excited the warm interest of Carlyle among others. 
 
 T. Carlyle to E. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, March 1st, 1854. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, I wish you would tell me something- definite 
 about that grand proposal of manning- the Civil Service by 
 persons chosen according- to their merit ; or, if you know little 
 or nothing- about it, will you (for my sake and your own) make 
 some precise inquiries in the proper quarter, and pause again in 
 your riding some day soon to tell me how it stands with that 
 matter? I really am much interested about it, and can find 
 nobody to give me information that will amount to anything. 
 Certainly, there never was in my time such a " reform " set on 
 foot as this same might be a thing- worth all other " reforms " 
 put together, and, indeed, practically inclusive of all (for there 
 is no other wanted or even conceivable, according to my notions) ; 
 and I confess I would not exchang-e the right attempt at this for 
 all the ballot-boxes or want of ballot-boxes in the world, which 
 latter entities (with their franchises, beer barrels, husting-s, 
 oratory, &c. &c.) have, after long sinking, quite reached zero 
 many years ago with me. I can foresee endless difficulties in 
 the execution of such an attempt, but the attempt is great, 
 salutary, and, I believe, indispensable. Your Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, or whoever it is that has charge of it, must in 
 no wise abandon it for difficulties; let him persist, in Heaven's
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 495 
 
 name and England's. Gradually all good citizens all wise men 
 will rally to him, and he will have begun a new epoch in 
 English history, and done a service required by God and man. 
 In short, come to me again soon, and give your wisest account 
 of all that, not to speak of other things. I am here daily till 
 
 3.30 p.m. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to some, Milnes himself was 
 not altogether in favour of the reform which excited the 
 enthusiastic approbation of Carlyle. He was not able 
 to convince himself that a man's " merit " was to be 
 best ascertained by testing his proficiency in cramming ; 
 whilst he had a wholesome dread of a possible time in 
 which the youth of this country might look forward to 
 a Government office as the highest aim of their lives, 
 believing that such a state of things would be injurious 
 to our national independence and our national spirit. 
 Speaking in the House when the question of Civil 
 Service examinations had come before Parliament in a 
 practical form, he declared that the result of such a 
 system of competition would be that the country would 
 secure only the intellectual attainments of a certain 
 class of society, and that the competition would be 
 determined by the means which the candidates respec- 
 tively possessed of getting crammed. " It will become 
 simply a question of money; the poor man will be 
 utterly excluded from the contest, whatever his talents 
 or efficiency, and success will be attained by more or less 
 mechanical means ; that is to say, the men who get 
 themselves crammed by those persons who are known as
 
 496 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 coaches will almost invariably win." The country has 
 now had a sufficiently long experience of the system 
 which Carlyle hailed with so much delight, and against 
 which Milnes inveighed, to be able to come to its own 
 conclusion as to its merits and its drawbacks. That 
 conclusion probably is that neither the hopes of the 
 friends nor the fears of the enemies of the new system 
 have been or are likely to be realised under it. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to Ms Wife, 1854. 
 
 I went to Lady John's [Russell's] for half an hour last 
 night, she and the young ladies all coughing so badly they could 
 hardly speak. The Duke of Argyll, an Italian, and an Elliot all 
 
 the party. The cast their gloomy shadow over the 
 
 Ellesmere dance. The joke of the evening- was that Sir 
 Frederick Thesiger had said to some one who complained of 
 Lord Campbell talking such bad French that he murdered 
 the language, " No/' said Thesiger, " he doesn't kill, he only 
 ' Scotches ' it." 
 
 House of Commons. 
 
 DEAREST A , I will look over the list of the orphan sub- 
 scribers with you next week, and write ; there is no use talking 
 to people of such things. The private letters from the Crimea 
 yesterday were of the most melancholy character, the men dying 
 bv scores of cold and disease. S. Herbert says the winter stores 
 
 J / 
 
 have partially arrived, and James Smith, young Glyn, and some 
 one else started last night with the Crimean Fund. Everything 
 is to be sold at a low price, and the money spent in fuel. If 
 this factious opposition goes on, I cannot be with you till 
 Saturday. The Government are anxious in all ways to keep 
 
 me. 
 
 Drayton, Friday. 
 
 I see they will be annoyed if I go away to-morrow, as the 
 main party comes that day. At present there are only the
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 497 
 
 Villiers, Admiral Rous, and the Duke of Wellington. The 
 Duke and Sir Robert keep up a running fire of banter, accusing 
 one another reciprocally of being the servant of the Times and 
 the valet of the Prince. Have you read the articles on Florence 
 Nightingale in the Chronicle of to-day, and in the French paper 
 translated in the Times of yesterday ? They have som very 
 comical lines on her in Punch, and an ideal portrait, something 
 like the reality. 
 
 Drayton, Saturday (? Dec., 1854). 
 
 It is as well that I am not coming to you to-day, as I am 
 nursing an influenza which came on the evening I got here, and 
 which, under the homoeopathic care of the Duke of Wellington, 
 is fast getting better. It was not improved by a drive in an 
 open carriage and four yesterday to Lichtield to see the cathedral. 
 The news to-day is very sad, and next week will be as sorrowful 
 as that after Alma, without the victory. I wish you would ask 
 Hungerford [Lord Crewe] to let you take Hawthorne* to see 
 Crewe next Saturday. I should like him to see it, though he 
 may not immortalise it, like Bracebridge Hall. Peel is doing a 
 great deal here, laying out Italian terraces, &c. ; a batch of vases 
 from Carrara arrived yesterday, and an araucaria from Elvaston, 
 for which he gave 20 ; but nothing can make the place worthy 
 
 of the house. 
 
 Wars ley, Friday. 
 
 Hardly anybody here but ourselves, and those selves very 
 pleasant. . . . Poor Lord F. Gower ! f A sad translation, 
 indeed, from the green velvet of Stafford House to the wretched 
 transport where he lay dying for twenty days without any one 
 who even knew his name near him. When Lord W. Paulet 
 found him out he was insensible. A telegraph from Windsor 
 came here last night to ask how and where he died. This place 
 has gained much by the terraces made since you were here. It 
 now stands quite on a pedestal, proportionate though high. 
 
 * Nathaniel Hawthorne was now actiug as American Consul at Liver- 
 pool. 
 
 f Son of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, killed in the Crimea.
 
 498 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGH TON. 
 
 Worsley, Saturday. 
 
 The Duchess's poor boy was almost insensible when he got 
 on board the man-of-war; he only wished to write to her, but he 
 could not hold the pen, so he went away in silence. I was 
 telling Lady E. yesterday how much you read to me, and she 
 said, " She has such a delightful voice the Greville voice." 
 
 has written a most empty volume. Lady E. said to the 
 
 company, " Is Lord '"s book vacant ? " " Yes," said I, " I 
 
 am sorry to say it is." 
 
 R. M. M. to the Chevalier Bunsen. 
 
 The Hall, Bawtry, Oct. 26M, 1854. 
 
 MY DEAR CHEVALIER BUNSEN, I want to know something 
 of George's existence, of General Radovvitz's, and of your own ; 
 and now that the diplomatic neutrality of Germany gives you 
 nothing to do, you cannot perform a more amiable act than 
 giving me a little information on these points. George should 
 really let us know something about him, for it is now above a 
 year since I have seen his handwriting, and Lady Ashburton is 
 no better off. The papers make General Radowiiz very ill : is 
 it so ? It must gratify him very considerably to see the moral 
 quagmire into which his friend the Czar has plunged himself. 
 Omar Pasha had a fine day yesterday for crossing the Danube. 
 For my own part, I like neither of the combatants, though I 
 prefer a feeble and superannuated despotism as less noxious to 
 mankind than one young and vigorous, and assisted by the 
 appliances of modern intelligence. I have been spending six 
 weeks in Ireland, which appears singularly prosperous. Cullen's 
 ultramontanism is doing good in denationalising the priesthood, 
 and the education of the people is making a new spring, relieved 
 from the incubus of the dogmatical and crotchety Archbishop 
 Whately. What is the truth of the rumours of Maurice's 
 expulsion from his professorship ? 
 
 With all regards to your family circle, 
 
 I remain yours very truly, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 499 
 
 Mrs. Procter to Mrs. Milnes. 
 
 MY DEA.E MRS. MILNES, It gave me real pleasure to hear 
 such good news of you all. . . . For anything else, we 
 might as well be in the Crimea ; no one speaks or thinks of 
 anything but the war. We are kept in a continual state of 
 excitement by second editions and third editions of the various 
 newspapers. I have so many friends whose sons and nephews 
 are in the East that I only exchange one sad face for another. 
 I should congratulate Lord Clanricarde upon his son being a 
 prisoner : he is safe ; and, judging by the courtesy the Emperor 
 showed a naval lieutenant, he will be received with real honours. 
 I am very anxious about Mr. Kinglake, who is at Malta in fever, 
 the fruits of excitement, fatigue, and bad living. We are all 
 well Adelaide better than I have known her for some years. 
 Thackeray is very poorly indeed I think, sadly out of spirits. 
 He has now gone to Paris, being so restless that he is no sooner 
 in one place than he wants to be in another. I have been staying 
 with Mrs. Grote, at Burnham, for three days. How we did talk! 
 From ten in the morning until twelve at night we never ceased. I 
 was so excited by her conversation that I could not sleep. We 
 spoke of you and your husband, and congratulated him and our- 
 selves upon his marriage. It is not always, permit me to say, that 
 two old women such adorers of a man can see what is charm- 
 ing in his wife. I am just going to see Mrs. Fanny Kemble, 
 who has had great fatigue and sorrow, nursing her poor father, 
 whose sufferings were very great for twelve hours before his 
 death. 
 
 Mr. Kinglake, to whom reference is made above, had 
 been in the Crimea, making those observations which 
 have since been turned to such good account in his 
 history of the war. He had also contributed something 
 apparently not much to the account of the battle of 
 Alma published in the Times. The following letter 
 from the editor of that journal gives an interesting
 
 500 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 account of one of the earliest of the many feats in 
 journalism which were subsequently performed by " the 
 pen of the war," and may, it is to be hoped, be quoted 
 here without any breach of etiquette. 
 
 Mr. Delane to R. M. M. 
 
 Serjeants' Inn, Oct. ZZrd, 1854. 
 
 DEAR Mil. MILNES, I enclose all that Eothen wrote of the 
 battle of the Alma, a characteristic bit, but something widely 
 different from the complete and artistic account which you so 
 justly admire. When I add that the letter was written on the 
 actual field of battle, among dead and wounded men, the writer 
 lying on the ground in the scorching sun, and writing in pencil 
 on his hat, for want of a table, and that he had just had his horse 
 shot under him, you will, I hope, admit and maintain that his 
 was the most extraordinary literary feat on record. You will 
 have seen that we have had a most responsible arid unwelcome 
 duty forced on us by the public charity. I am sending out Mr. 
 Macdonald (whom you may, perhaps, have seen at the Great Exhi- 
 bition and elsewhere) to act as treasurer of the Fund [the Times 
 Patriotic Fund] , and should be very glad if you would give him an 
 introduction to Miss Nightingale. The absence of medical stores 
 and comforts, which was deplorable before I left, is at last 
 explained. They had all been sent to Varna, while the sick and 
 wounded were sent to Constantinople. This little bureaucratic 
 blunder has cost at least 500 lives, but the Government which 
 denied that there was any want of stores will now, of course, 
 maintain that it was in pursuance of a wise and far-seeing policy 
 that the medicines and the sick, the lint and the wounded, were 
 kept 300 miles apart. Baird writes me to-day that he and 
 Kinglake were well and prosperous at Balaklava on the 8th, and 
 that K. would start on his homeward journey on the 18th. 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 JOHN T. DELANE.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 501 
 
 The news from the Crimea became worse and worse 
 as time passed, and popular feeling at home rose to a 
 point at which it was impossible for Parliament or 
 Ministers to stand any longer against it. Lord John 
 Russell's resignation as Lord President on the 21st of 
 January preceded only by a couple of days the defeat 
 of the Ministry as a whole on Mr. Roebuck's Motion of 
 Censure. Lord Aberdeen went out of office, and in 
 February Lord Palmerston undertook to form a 
 Ministry. 
 
 R. M. M. to Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 16, Upper Brook St., Feb. \1th y 1855. 
 
 MY DEAR GLADSTONE, When we were interrupted the 
 other evening 1 , I was desirous to urge on you, not only for 
 Palmerston's sake, but for that of the country, the all-importance 
 of rendering this new coalition of political parties as real as 
 possible. We have now, at any rate, a Minister whom people 
 know, instead of one who was as invisible as Lord Raglan ; and 
 this, so far, is an advantage : but it will go but small way towards 
 a vigorous united action if there are still to be rival coteries at 
 the Carlton and at Brooks's ; if the subordinate officials of one 
 set are too free in their abuse of the Ministers of the other ; if 
 the friends of each section are to meet nowhere but in Lady 
 Palmerston's drawing-room. My own isolation in political life 
 would of itself make me estimate the worth of such a close 
 personal connection as you and your friends have enjoyed ; but 
 I cannot conceal from myself that such associations are not 
 without their disadvantages and dangers. The terrors and 
 hatreds of society have always been directed against com- 
 binations of men rather than against individuals, and the more 
 so when the bonds that attach those combinations are rather 
 personal than political. If therefore you and yours are to remain 
 a separate party 'in the Government and in society, I believe
 
 502 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 you will render any effective administration of affairs impossible. 
 You have talents enough to embarrass and damage any other 
 party, and you have not sufficient following to make a party of 
 yourselves. It was the Girondins, the best and wisest statesmen 
 of France, who destroyed the Republic and themselves. 
 
 I remain yours very truly, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES. 
 
 P.S. I have this to-day from the Crimea from an officer 
 in the 33rd : " Every word in the Tim.es is true ; our strongest 
 company has thirteen men fit for duty ; my company has three ; 
 one company has one officer, one drummer, and one soldier fit 
 for duty. The Light Company has eight, and the Grenadiers 
 three. We have at this moment sixty-seven bodies lying out- 
 side my tent." 
 
 To this very frank letter which was, in fact, an 
 appeal to Mr. Gladstone and the other Peelites definitely 
 to throw in their lot with the Liberal party as repre- 
 sented and led by Lord Palmerston Mr. Gladstone 
 replied at once. 
 
 He told Milnes that Lord Aberdeen's friends could 
 not " remain a separate party in the Government, if it 
 were only for the reason that they never were made a 
 party. In point of fact there never was a more com- 
 plete success than that of the late Cabinet in its internal 
 relations generally;" and its harmony had been as 
 great as that of Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet, which was 
 the only other of which Mr. Gladstone had personal 
 experience. " Upon no single occasion did it ever happen 
 during two far from common years that in any difference 
 of opinion it could be traced who was Whig and who 
 was not Whig." Mr. Gladstone could- not, in these
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 503 
 
 circumstances, recognise the justice of Milnes's appre- 
 hensions. 
 
 On the 22nd of February Milnes's fears, the reality 
 of which Mr. Gladstone was unable to recognise, were 
 to a large extent confirmed by the resignation of Sir 
 James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cardwell, 
 and Mr. Gladstone himself. It should be said, however, 
 six or eight Peelites remained in the Ministry, and that 
 those who resigned did so against the wishes of Lord 
 Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle. 
 
 R. M. M. to C. J. MacCarthy. 
 
 Feb. 23rd, 1855. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, Here we are turning Ministers in and out ; 
 at this moment the atmosphere is a little clearer ; the chief 
 Peelites have left the Government, and taken their seats in the 
 House of Commons behind Cobden and Bright. It is the best 
 thing they could do. Roebuck's Committee will not come to 
 much, but it will give the opportunity to the chief accused to 
 state the facts of their case, and we shall see clearer where the 
 main cause of the misfortune lies. I have always made the 
 most of Palmerston's capabilities, and now, I fear, I have over- 
 rated them, especially as he is much aged of late, though he 
 struggles against time with the energy of a hero. As yet the 
 accounts from the Crimea offer no mitigation of horror ; and if 
 the weather there has any analogy with that here, the catastrophe 
 must be complete. The passion of the country is rising, and is 
 likely to make vent in many useless distracted ways. The 
 internal distress is also great, and trade generally declining ; so 
 that the public prospects are not such as to make any man 
 desire too great public responsibility. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 RICHARD M. MILNES.
 
 504 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 The Ministerial crisis had a special interest for 
 Milnes, as it was the occasion of his receiving from 
 Lord Palmerston the offer of a post in the Government, 
 a Lordship of the Treasury. Ten years before such 
 an offer would have been gladly accepted ; but the 
 chance of work in the ranks of the Ministry had offered 
 itself too late. His tastes and his ambitions were 
 changed, and he now felt no inclination to enter the 
 service of his country by the humble door of a 
 Lordship of the Treasury. Other fields of useful- 
 ness and other forms of enjoyment were open to 
 him, and he preferred to continue the life of inde- 
 pendent action to which he had so long been 
 accustomed. 
 
 .The story of the Ministerial crisis, and of Milnes's 
 refusal of the post offered to him by Lord Palmerston, 
 is briefly indicated in his letters to his wife and his 
 father. 
 
 Aihenaum, Tuesday, January, 1855. 
 
 I have not yet seen enough to judge what the French call 
 the situation. I think the Government would be glad to go out 
 if they could do so with honour ; something like the position in 
 the Crimea. Stafford * looks well, and is quite happy at the way 
 people have received him. I breakfast with him to-morrow, and 
 Thirlwall with me on Saturday. He said Thirlwall says he can 
 find no one fault with the conduct of the war; he thinks every- 
 body has done everything that circumstances permitted. I tell 
 him that it is lucky for his character that the day of translations 
 of historians is over. 
 
 His old friend Augustus Stafford O'Brien, who had some time 
 previously dropped the name of O'Brien, and who had just returned from 
 a visit to the Crimea.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 505 
 
 Upper Brook St., Friday. 
 
 I write this in the morning, and will write to my father from 
 the House if there is anything of interest. Lord John's with- 
 drawal * was as much a surprise as a harlequin going through a 
 window. If it means that he wishes to be free at the break-up, 
 and therefore all ready to head a new Government, I do not 
 think it will succeed. I hope Stafford will speak to-night or 
 Monday; he is only too full of interesting matter. He says 
 Florence in the Hospital quite makes intelligible to him the 
 saints of the Middle Ages. If the soldiers were told that the 
 roof had opened, and she had gone up palpably to heaven, they 
 would not be the least surprised. They quite believe she is in 
 several places at once. Does not this prove her to* be a Papist in 
 disguise ? The Burns anniversary acted on me homceo- 
 
 pathically; I went to it with a bad headache, and have none this 
 morning. Tell my father we had four magnums of 1841 claret 
 on the table; and when I asked something about 1851, nobody 
 at the table would own they had ever tasted so raw a vintage. 
 There was some capital speaking and singing. " Willie brewed 
 a Peck o' Malt" was capitally given by Colonel Burns, the 
 poet's son. 
 
 Boodle's, 5 o'clock, Saturday, January, 1855. 
 
 The pure Whigs are up ; Lord John has undertaken to form 
 a Government. The Queen has never given Palmy the choice, 
 though he has been with her this afternoon. The Peelites, I 
 take it, will secede, and thus the Government will return weaker 
 and more divided than ever. Galway's story about Lord Derby 
 and the Peelites was just the contrary to the fact. Lord D. offered 
 office to Gladstone and Herbert, and they declined. Is not this 
 comical ? f Lady P. is very much out of sorts, and believed last 
 
 * Lord John Russell resigned office on January 21st, two days before 
 the defeat of the Government on Mr. Roebuck's motion. 
 
 f As a matter of fact, Lord Derby had offered to Lord Palmerston 
 to take him, Gladstone, and Herbert into the Ministry, and it was 
 Palmerstou's refusal which caused the proposal to fall through.
 
 506 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 night that it would end in Lord Lansdowne; but I suppose your 
 old friend had a twinge in the night, which may have changed 
 him. The Philobiblon breakfast was agreeable much smaller 
 than usual, and the better for it. The Due d'Aumale was in 
 good form, and walked away through the slush with a book 
 under his arm like a student. 
 
 House of Commons, Tuesday, January, 1855. 
 
 The decision of the Cabinet to-day is not positively known, 
 but it is believed that Gladstone has agreed to refer the selection 
 of Roebuck's Committee to the Committee of Selection. I 
 doubt the House accepting this compromise. Lady P. told me 
 to-day that the Duchess of Cambridge was quite pleased with 
 Mr. Layard's not being in the Government ; this is what the 
 aristocracy call "public opinion/' My Quaker friend Forster 
 was with me this morning, saying the whole West Riding was 
 indignant with the Government, and would not allow that they 
 would be appeased by our dear Carlisle's admission to the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 House of Commons, February bth, 1855. 
 
 Palmy is going on pretty well with his Government ; there 
 is a hitch with Gladstone, who is making difficulties, but I hope 
 the other Peelites will not follow him, except perhaps Graham, 
 between whom and Palmy there is a real personal dislike. The 
 premiere is as happy as Amy with a new toy, and she really may 
 rejoice in thinking how fairly and honestly he has won the 
 prize. 
 
 Athenaum, February Qth, 1855. 
 
 P.'s difficulties continue, Gladstone resting much on his 
 scruples respecting the objects of the war. I see he fears that 
 he may find himself some day in Lord John's trap, and be com- 
 pelled either to go against his earnest opinions, or break up the 
 Government by leaving it. ... I saw the Duke of
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 507 
 
 Cambridge to-day ; he spoke very hopefully about the soldiers, 
 and said, " You know, I feel about them as if they were my 
 children." 
 
 The Philobiblon Society, to one of the breakfasts of 
 which reference is made in one of the foregoing letters, 
 had been established in 1853 through the joint efforts 
 of M. Yandeweyer, then Minister of Belgium in London, 
 and Milnes. I shall have occasion to refer more par- 
 ticularly to it in a later chapter. Here, it will suffice to 
 say that the society, which was limited in numbers and 
 exclusive in character, was strictly confined to genuine 
 book-lovers. The members met each other at breakfast 
 at the house of some one of their number, when the 
 host brought forth for inspection any curiosities in the 
 shape of rare books or manuscripts which might have 
 come into his possession, and there was a real conver- 
 sazione on the treasure, and any kindred topics sug- 
 gested by it. Among the members of the Philobiblon 
 Society who are mentioned most frequently in Milnes's 
 correspondence are the Due d'Aumale, M. J. Higgins 
 (the well-known " Jacob Omnium " of the Times), and 
 Sir William Stirling Maxwell. Milnes himself was, 
 throughout the whole period of its existence, the 
 most active member of the Society, and the editor of its 
 Transactions. 
 
 R. M. M. to his Father. 
 
 February, 1855. 
 
 MY DEAREST FATHER, After a large amount of palaver about 
 his difficulties, &c. &c., Palmy asked me to join him in the 
 Treasury. This euphuism of course had no success, and, though
 
 608 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUOHTON. 
 
 he pressed it much, was civilly declined. I asked Slater to 
 mention D. to him, saying what a faithful supporter he was, and 
 so on, and he promised to do so. He has been foolish in offer- 
 ing places to men, and then withdrawing- them. Layard was 
 distinctly offered the Under-Secretaryship for War, and, having 
 accepted it, would not be put off with the Colonies Lord John, 
 who had hitherto been his great opponent, specially asking for 
 him ; but he stands out, and will, I dare say, gain his end. 
 Palmy has just made a good eulogium upon Hume. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 E. M. M. 
 
 With this episode may be said to have ended 
 Milnes's prospect of an official career. He continued, 
 however, to give Lord Palmerston an independent 
 support, whilst his personal friendship for that dis- 
 tinguished statesman was increased rather than dim- 
 inished by the events of the year. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Broadlands, March, 1855. 
 
 One line to say I came down along with the Premier, who 
 talked all the way, and said very little indeed, though he was 
 witty enough. Nobody here but Lady D., who looks as much 
 
 a widow and as little like as you, with your Suttee notions, 
 
 could desire. Palmy gives the All Souls' living to Mr. Eardley 
 Wilmot, of Kenil worth. This is a secret, so is probably well 
 known. He had hesitated between him and Thomson, when the 
 latter was named; so I had nothing to say.* The Army is 
 to be divided into two bodies to menager Sir C. Campbell and 
 Eyre, who are to command them, with Codrington over both. 
 
 * As a matter of fact the appointment was given to Mr. Thomson, 
 now Archbishop of York.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 509 
 
 Through his intimacy with Miss Nightingale and 
 her family he naturally heard much direct news with 
 regard to the work which was heing done by that lady 
 at Scutari. Even now the world can hardly fail to 
 take an interest in the noble enterprise which opened 
 up a new sphere for the energy and self-sacrifice of 
 woman. 
 
 One of Miss Nightingale's nearest relatives, writing 
 about January, 1855, to Milnes, says : 
 
 Very good news from Scutari as far as the way in which the 
 expedition is received, and the use it is of. Mr. B. says, " In 
 one week F. has gained the confidence of all ; the doctors do her 
 will, and the Fund has poured its cornucopia into her lap : tin- 
 pots, saucepans, jars, basins, sherry, combs, shirts, socks, sheets, 
 coal, wooden spoons, form its jewels. They all say that the 
 patience and endurance of the soldiers is something more 
 beautiful than one can tell, and the manner in which they 
 behave to the nurses. We had 1,715 sick and wounded in this 
 hospital, and 650 in the other, of which we have charge also, 
 when a message came to prepare for 510 wounded on our side 
 of the hospital. We had but half an hour's notice before they 
 began to land them. Between 1 and 9 o'clock we had the mat- 
 tresses stuffed, sewn up, and laid down alas ! only on matting 
 on the floor the men washed, put to bed, and all their wounds 
 dressed. The Turks carry these men who are come out to fight 
 for them so - carelessly that they arrive in a state of agony ; 
 twenty-four died in the process. We have now nearly four 
 miles of beds not 18 inches apart. We have our quarters in 
 one tower, and this fresh influx has been laid down between us 
 and the main guard in two corridors, with a line of beds down 
 each side, and just room for one to pass between. I can truly 
 say it is good for us to be here, even in the midst of this 
 appalling horror. As I went my last round among the newly
 
 510 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 wounded that first night there was not a murmur, not one 
 groan ; the strictest discipline, the most absolute silence and 
 quiet prevailed ; only the step of the sentry ; and I heard one 
 man say, ' I was dreaming of my friends at home/ and another 
 said, ' And I was thinking of them.' These poor fellows bear 
 pain and mutilation with unshrinking heroism, and die without 
 complaint." 
 
 Among Milnes's constant correspondents few had 
 been more faithful during many years than Miss 
 Martineau. They had exchanged ideas upon many 
 questions, and had found in their very differences of 
 opinion a ground upon which to base a firm and lasting 
 friendship. Miss Martineau, as the reader has already 
 heard, entertained a great admiration for Milnes's 
 abilities as a poet, whilst she was in the habit of making 
 use of his influence as a politician in order to serve her 
 own public and philanthropic purposes. During the 
 spring of this year, 1855, she was very ill, and at her 
 request Milnes went to Ambleside to see her. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Ambleside, Good Friday, 1855. 
 
 .... I got here to tea, after having met John Bright 
 in the train, and having had pleasant talk. I found my friend 
 looking better than I have ever seen her. After some animated 
 conversation a fit came on, and she was insensible some half- 
 hour, and after a quantity of ether and opium revived and set 
 to talking again. She says her life began with winter, and is 
 ending with spring. The ascendency of mind over matter is 
 really wonderful to witness. She may die any moment, or live 
 many weeks. You see " Jane Eyre " is dead.* It was the first 
 
 * Charlotte Bronte.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 511 
 
 news I heard here, and we read many of her letters in the 
 evening. . . . Two nieces are with Miss M., instructed 
 by Dr. Latham how to treat her ; so she sees no doctor. Lear 
 has sent her all his sketches from Egypt to see, and the Arnolds 
 are coming to see them this afternoon. I walked to church to 
 Rydal, and sat in the next pew to old Mrs. Wordsworth ; " she 
 was a phantom of delight." This place is pretty in all its 
 cheerless weather ; there are big lines of snowdrifts on the hills, 
 and mists on all the tops. 
 
 Ambleslde, Saturday. 
 
 I enclose an article of Miss M/s on Miss Berry, which, please, 
 copy at your leisure, and put by a copy of it on quarto paper. 
 If you wish to see an excellent article she has written on poor 
 "Jane Eyre/' get the Daily News of Friday. ... I 
 had much talk with Miss M. to-day about children. She main- 
 tains that the natural instinct, if properly fostered, enables the 
 mother to understand the child, its wants and ways, its thinkings 
 and feelings, when no one else can do it, and that this even 
 applies to very inferior women. I don't know what to say to 
 this. 
 
 E. M. M. to C. J. MacCartJiy. 
 
 London, July \th, 1855. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, The little incidents that make up 'the full 
 life of the London season somehow or other disincline one from 
 writing to those who are out of them. Now that it is pretty 
 well over, I have despatched my wife and child into the country, 
 and I am going to Paris to see the Exposition as soon as the 
 foolish embroglio of home politics permits. On all these matters 
 the Times tells you everything, and something more not so much 
 more as to render the everything uncertain, but enough to show 
 that they take their information from those high sources which 
 are inaccurate and obscure. Some years hence, perhaps, Lord
 
 512 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 John's conduct at Vienna will be intelligible ; it is now laid on 
 Lady Westmoreland, just as his escapades in domestic politics 
 are laid on his wife, by that principle of justice which finds in 
 woman the only key to the enigmatic proceedings of man. As 
 if all so-called great men had not enough folly in them to 
 account for themselves. In other matters Lord Palmerston's 
 Government goes on well and safely; his appointments are 
 judicious, singularly unwarped by personal favour, and only a 
 little influenced by personal despite. Lord Canning's * is an 
 experiment; he is an undemonstrative man who has hitherto 
 done well all he has had to do, owing of course a great deal to 
 his name, and something to the almost discourteous reserve of 
 his manners, which approves itself to our leading men and high 
 life in general. The isolation which is the consequence of this 
 has damaged his character, and this will not be improved by the 
 lonely grandeur of his Indian position, which must be a kind of 
 royal hermitage. 
 
 July 20th. Last night the Government got a majority, 
 mainly composed of their opponents, which keeps them safe 
 until the next meeting of Parliament. Their tenure of office 
 really hangs upon Sebastopol. If they can get that, or half of it, 
 they will keep in. A new volume of Tennyson (" Maud," &c.) 
 is in the press ; I have read it with much pleasure, but I do not 
 think it will make him either more popular or more famous. 
 Did you read the " Balaklava Charge " ? A real gallop in verse, 
 and only good as such. He is himself much healthier and 
 happier*than he used to be, and devoted to his children, who are 
 
 beautiful. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. M. M. 
 
 The foregoing letter suggests a fact which I have 
 the permission of Lord Tennyson to state here ; that 
 is, that on the marriage of the great poet Milnes 
 
 * Lord Canning was appointed Govemor-Greneral of India.
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 513 
 
 offered to place at his disposal as a residence for life 
 a wing of the house at Fryston. The offer, I need 
 scarcely say, was not accepted, though it was urged by 
 Milnes with a persistency which showed how much 
 his heart was set upon rendering a real service to his 
 friend. 
 
 The visit to Paris duly took place in the month of 
 July, and I give some extracts from his letters to his 
 wife whilst he was in the French capital. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Boulogne, Sunday evening. 
 
 A fine day and a smooth passage. Spencer Cowper and Mr. 
 Sumner, the American, fellow-passengers. I shall drive to the 
 Camp to-morrow morning, and go to Paris in the middle of the 
 day. What if Lord P. was to dissolve Parliament, and bring 
 me back in a jiffey ! He is in sucb a pet that if he thought he 
 could exclude them and Bright and Cobden from Parliament, he 
 is quite capable of running the risk. Layard would be returned 
 for London, and every Layardite would come in. Would Lord 
 P. like that? 
 
 To Ma Father. 
 
 Meurice's, Paris, July 
 
 I was mucb annoyed at finding my friend Henry Lushington 
 dangerously ill at the hotel next to this. Venables went to meet 
 him at Marseilles, and brought him here with difficulty. He is 
 
 too ill to see me, and I should doubt his recovery. Madame 
 
 will gladly do your commission, to the best of her power : you 
 could not have got a better person for it. She and her husband 
 are amazingly Russian, and have given up their passion for
 
 514 THE LIFE OF LORD SOUGHT ON. 
 
 Austria in consequence of the Emperor having behaved so ill to 
 his benefactor. She told me of a Russian shop on the Boule- 
 vards where she went to buy pictures of Russian saints, and gave 
 me a book to read, written by MentzchikofPs doctor, who writes, 
 " Our victory on the Alma mainly served us to gain time." 
 There are few English here, a world of Americans, and many 
 other foreigners. I dine at the Walewskis* on Monday, and 
 intend going to Vichy on Wednesday. The English pictures 
 are quite the cream of the Exhibition ; one knows them all, but 
 never saw them so well before. ... I had a long talk with 
 Lord Cowley, which left me the impression that he had to a 
 great degree checked the Emperor's willingness to make peace 
 on the Austrian proposal. Do not repeat this. Love to the 
 Aunties. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Meurice's, Tuesday. 
 
 You may think how shocked I was at finding dear Henry 
 Lushington so ill that there is little hope of his life. He came 
 from Malta some days ago with his physician, and it seems 
 doubtful whether he can move home, which he is anxious to do. 
 Poor Venables is with him, tending him like a lover, carrying 
 him about in his arms. His elder brother arrived yesterday. 
 All this blackens this bright sky, and makes my visit here very 
 gloomy. I had a long talk with Lord Cowley yesterday, in 
 which I saw how warlike his tendencies are, and how he wishes 
 to keep up the Emperor to the mark. Madame de Lieven was 
 quite delighted to find how pacific I was. I found her very 
 agreeable, and so, I suppose, made myself so. Lady Cowley 
 has been dangerously ill, and goes to Dieppe to-day. The great 
 question in agitation is whether the Emperor should meet the 
 Queen at Boulogne. Lord Cowley thinks he ought ; Walewski, 
 that it is not consistent with his dignity, and wishes him to 
 send Prince Napoleon, as the Queen sent Prince Albert. I 
 dine with the Walewskis on Monday, and by that time this
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 515 
 
 awful question will, perhaps, be arranged. I dined with 
 Spencer Cowper on Tuesday, and found Lady Harriet looking 
 very well, but very triste. 9 
 
 Paris, July 24>tk. 
 
 Dear Harry is worse and worse, and there is hardly a gleam 
 of hope. The fallen Minister [M. Drouyn de Lhuys] was, as 
 usual in such cases, much more communicative and interesting 
 than if he had been in power. He evidently thinks a continuance 
 of the war will be the ruin of the Emperor, and the cause of 
 much evil to France. The French have now taken to accuse us 
 of conducting the war with unnecessary cruelty, and say we are 
 burning helpless villages, and killing women and children on 
 the shores of the Bosphorus 1 ... I have seen a good many 
 people here of all opinions, but they agree in one thing in 
 detesting the war ; some for its cause, and all for its management. 
 The peasants, they say, are getting very discontented at the new 
 conscription, and if Lord John and Drouyn de Lhuys had made 
 peace every town in France would have been illuminated. So 
 much for our sole ally. The preparations for our Queen are 
 immense. All St. Cloud is to be covered with V.R/s, and the 
 fte at Versailles to be wonderful. 
 
 Meurice's, Saturday. 
 
 H. Lushington is no better ; they do not let me see him, and 
 probably I shall never again. I somehow or other think of those 
 who are left, rather than of those who are going ; and thus I feel 
 more for Venables than for himself. It has been the best and 
 truest friendship I have ever seen in life. The Emperor has gone 
 to the sea and his wife ; so I am not exposed to be corrupted by 
 any of the Court civilities that have overcome Charles Greville 
 and Lady A. They have been completely subdued. The whole 
 furniture at St. Cloud is being altered so as to have the English 
 arms and " Victoria Regina " stuck all over it, that the Queen 
 may think she is quite at home. ... I was at Madame 
 MohFs last night, and met Mrs. Jameson, who has not been 
 well. The conversation was free enough for anything. I dine
 
 516 TEE LIFE OF LOED HOUGTITON. 
 
 to-day with Merimee and some artists. They have made 
 
 Member of the Jury of Beaux Arts at the Exhibition. I asked 
 Merimee what they could have done it for. He said, " A cause 
 des beaux yeux de sa fern me." An excellent reason. It is, 
 seriously, a bad piece of international flunkeyism. 
 
 Vichy, August. 2nd, 1855. 
 
 Of course I did not write to you about the Paris Exhibition 
 after the way you flouted and scouted the London one. At this 
 one, indeed, you would have no fear of being knocked about, for 
 it is comparatively a desert. It gave me a strong sense of lone- 
 liness to see so few human beings in the midst of this huge 
 product of human labour. Details, arrangement, &c., are much 
 better than ours most of the stalls being in red velvet, and 
 some quite architectural ; but there is nothing to equal the sense 
 of vastness, of multiplicity, which ours gave. The great marvel 
 among the works of art is the exact reproduction of the Minerva 
 of the Parthenon, seven feet high, in ivory, with a gold tunic, 
 bronze helmet, and sapphire eyes. I admire it much, but of 
 course it is thought absurd by those academic people. The rail 
 from Paris yesterday was overpoweringly hot, the country pretty 
 and diversih'ed, the crop good, but the potatoes, I am sorry to say, 
 going everywhere. Lord Boden was in the same carriage. 
 
 Vichy, Friday. 
 
 As I have got two letters from you to-day, I must write in 
 decency before I go to sleep. There can be no egotism in your 
 writing of yourself to me; it is either dualism or thinking on 
 paper. I have not got " Maud/' and only heard it that morning 
 in his own fine undersong, but it did not make on me the 
 impression of raising Tennyson. I don't know why we should 
 expect a great writer to be always rising, but somehow it is so. 
 I did not read the Idyll which Alfred's own friends think the 
 prime of the volume. I am afraid that if I ever really become 
 a public man, we shall have to give up our present independent 
 and, I may say, contemplative London life, and not have time
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 517 
 
 for talk of books and men as we have now. Who should arrive 
 to-day but Fonblanque of the Examiner, quite an acquisition he 
 will be. ... I wish you could get Gladstone to Crewe the 
 first week in September. You would then see (which you do 
 not now) where we agree and where we differ. 
 
 Vichy, August. 8A. 
 
 I enclose you my doctor's prescription, which will enlighten 
 you much. It has made me very hungry for breakfast, but had 
 little effect otherwise ; if it brings me to good health that is, if 
 it enables me to use my limbs without fatigue, to eat and drink 
 without disagreeable effects, and to keep my head always clear, 
 so as to make the most of the little there is in it I shall be very 
 glad, as this place is handier, pleasanter, and sociabler than the 
 German Baden, and Amicia can flirt with the Zouave officers, 
 and you keep up your French, while I am keeping off the gout 
 in coming years. Your picture of Amy running about the lawn 
 at Madeley quite haunted me. 
 
 Vichy, Monday. 
 
 As I may be busy in Paris for a day or two I write to acknow- 
 ledge yours of the 17th. I am much relieved by the successful 
 repulse of the Russians on the Tchernaya, for I had seen 
 letters expressing great fear that the Sardinians would not be 
 able to hold it, and that, when forced, it would open the way 
 to Balaklava. They were by no means strong for the length 
 of the position. The Queen's entrance into Paris was a most 
 melancholy failure. She does not require usually to be tfld that 
 "Inexactitude est la politesse des rois," and yet surely there 
 ought to have been more margin given for the voyage from 
 Osborne. It would have been better if she had come later, 
 for then the Boulevards would have been lit up ; but as it 
 was, she could see nothing, and the people could not see her. 
 There must have been above a million of people thoroughly 
 disappointed. The gay dresses and the beautiful flowers all 
 invisible. The French say, " Elle est entree comme une chauve- 
 souris." It will take much to change this bad impression.
 
 518 THE LIFE OF LORD SOUGHTON. 
 
 I have left most of the lions of this neighbourhood unseen, 
 that I may go to them some other time with you. 
 
 Paris, Sunday. 
 
 You are right in supposing one lives in a row here ; it is 
 impossible not to do so. The fetes have been magnificent indeed, 
 frightfully so, when one thinks of the labour and the cost. At 
 the Hotel de Ville there was enough of temporary preparation to 
 have built a palace, and the lighting alone of Versailles cost 
 4,000. The latter was as grand as a festival could be with 
 no woman of distinguished appearance, and no man except two 
 novel-writers one had ever heard of before. En revanche there 
 was Mr. Webb from Bond Street, and Mr. Macdonald of the 
 Times both in official costume. I rode with the staff at the 
 review, which must have made the Queen think there were still 
 French soldiers enough left to continue the war as long as she 
 pleased. The said Queen looks very happy. The Prince of 
 Wales has a nice natural manner, and is much improving in looks. 
 Vernon Smith has been as cross as two sticks at not having 
 been asked to dinner at Court. When I heard of it, I spoke to 
 Walewski, and got him invited to the private dinner to-day. I 
 had to pay 1 for my bed at Versailles ; so the people are making 
 something out of British royalty. If she has a fine day to- 
 morrow her departure will be very striking. I may possibly not 
 get to England till Friday night, as M. Guizot is coming to 
 Paris for a day on Thursday, and I should like to see him. 
 
 Apropos of the Queen's visit to Paris, and Milnes's 
 presence there on the occasion, his friend MacCarthy, in a 
 letter written in the following January, reports that Ver- 
 non Smith (Lord Lyveden) was telling how he (Milnes) 
 had been seen in the front ranks during the visit among 
 emperors and kings, " and one of the Pagets dying to 
 put him to death on the spot for his militia uniform." 
 Yernon Smith, in telling the story, added, "It is to be
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DATS. 519 
 
 hoped that our Richard will have the legitimate entree 
 into the kingdom of heaven ; but if not, he will certainly 
 hustle St. Peter, and get a good place in spite of him." 
 It was shortly after returning to London that Milnes 
 wrote his well-known poem entitled " A Monument for 
 Scutari." There are lines in that poem which not only 
 deserve to live, but which may be fitly introduced here 
 because of their bearing on the events of the time. 
 
 Now other passion rules the soul, 
 
 And Scutari's familiar name 
 Arouses thoughts beyond control 
 
 A tangled web of pride and shame. 
 No more shall that fair word recall 
 
 The Moslem and his Asian rest, 
 But the dear brothers of us all 
 
 Rent from their mother's bleeding breast 
 
 Calmly our warriors moulder there, 
 
 Uncoffined in the sandy soil ; 
 Once festered in the sultry glare, 
 
 Or wasted in the wintry toil 
 No verdure on those graves is seen, 
 
 No shade obstructs the garish day ; 
 The tender dews to keep them green 
 
 Are wept, alas ! too far away. 
 
 Masters of form, if such be now, 
 
 On sense and powers of art intent, 
 To match this mount of serious brow 
 
 Devise your seemliest monument 
 One that will symbolise the cause 
 
 For which this might of manhood fell, 
 Obedience to their country's laws, 
 
 Duty to God's truth as well.
 
 520 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Let, too, the old Miltonic Muse 
 
 That trumpeted " the scattered bones 
 Of saints on Alpine mountains/' use 
 
 Reveille of forgotten tones. 
 Till some one worthy to he priest 
 
 At this high altar of renown, 
 May write in tongues of West and East, 
 
 Who bore this cross, who won this crown. 
 
 Write that 'tis Britain's peaceful sons 
 
 Luxurious rich, well tended poor, 
 Fronted the foeman's steel and guns, 
 
 As each would guard his household door ; 
 So, in those ghastly halls of pain 
 
 Where thousand hero-sufferers lay, 
 Some smiled in thought to fight again, 
 
 And most unmurmuring passed away. 
 
 Write that when pride of human skill 
 
 Fell prostrate with the weight of care, 
 And men prayed out for some strong will, 
 
 Some reason 'mid the wild despair, 
 The loving heart of woman rose 
 
 To guide the hand and clear the eye, 
 Gave help amid the sternest woes, 
 
 And saved what man had left to die. 
 
 Milnes sent the poem to the editor of the Times, 
 who published it in that journal. 
 
 Mr. Delane to R. M. M. 
 
 Serjeants' Inn, Sept. $th, 1855. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. MILNES, Nothing could be more welcome 
 than the beautiful lines with which you embellish our otherwise 
 dreary columns. They will shine with the more lustre from 
 among the gloomy record of " battle, murder, and sudden
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 521 
 
 death" which is now our staple commodity, and which 
 has been so long unrelieved by a single gleam of success. 
 Actually, as I write, news comes of our second failure at the 
 Redan, and the French successes at the Malakhoff. We shall 
 lose as much character by the victories of our allies as by the 
 resistance of our enemies. I hope to find time soon for a few 
 days 5 rest after twelve months' incessant work, but shall probably 
 be back in town again before you come up. 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 J. T. DELANE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone to R. M. M. 
 
 Hawarden, Oct. \$th, 1855. 
 
 MY DEAR MILNES, Many thanks for your beautiful verses. 
 I am delighted to see your Muse in such pliancy and vigour. It 
 did not enter into your work as a poet, but I wish some one of 
 the thousand who in prose justly celebrate Miss Nightingale 
 would say a single word for the man of " routine " who devised 
 and projected her going Sidney Herbert. . . . 
 
 In September Milnes went to Glasgow to attend a 
 meeting of the British Association. For many years 
 he had delighted in these gatherings of the scientific 
 men of the day, and in no part of the proceedings of the 
 meetings did he take greater pleasure than in those gro- 
 tesque festivities of the Bed Lion Club, upon which the 
 eyes of the vulgar are not permitted to gaze. Men of 
 learning and genius, when they play, as a rule play with 
 all their hearts ; but it is not always the case that a 
 man of the world like Milnes well versed in the ways 
 of society can cast aside conventional ideas, and enjoy
 
 523 THE LIFE OF LORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 himself as heartily in the simulated buffoonery of an 
 association like that of the Red Lions with all the 
 heartiness of a child of nature. This, however, is what 
 Milnes could do ; and no one who ever saw him taking 
 part in the proceedings of a Bed Lion dinner can have 
 forgotten the zest with which he threw himself into the 
 eccentric ceremonials of the Club, the wit and good- 
 humour with which he added life to the proceedings. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 Queen's Hotel, Glasgow, Wednesday, Sept., 1855. 
 
 I have been very busy, or would have written before this ; 
 but I am now going to dine with the Provost, and can only say 
 I am quite well, and have got well lodged. The section I 
 preside over has got many very interesting papers, and the whole 
 meeting promises to be a good one, although the townspeople, 
 who owe their very existence as a city to scientific discovery, 
 will probably take just as little interest in the matter as Liver- 
 pool did. ... I like " Paul Ferrol " extremely, and should 
 have been very proud if you had written it ; you see how well 
 Janet turns out, from not being too much made of. The main 
 story is capital ; there is a little clumsiness in the details. 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 I send you the Duke's [Duke of Argyll's] speech. It was 
 gracefully and naturally delivered, although he looked very ill. 
 The Provost gave us a splendid dinner, and I am none the worse 
 for it the turtle or the speech and this notwithstanding that 
 the pole of the carriage in which I and Lord Eglinton were going 
 to the meeting was broken, and the horses kicked like mad. 
 We scrambled out as well as we could, and an ingenious thief 
 managed to steal the cloak off Lord Eglinton's arm ; this was all 
 the harm done. I hope to go to Carstairs on Saturday; and if I
 
 CEIMEAN WAR DAYS. 523 
 
 do not go to York, I shall go to Keir on Wednesday till Satur- 
 day. I shall then go straight to Fryston. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Monteith desired me to come to Glasgow to-day in a third- 
 class carriage as a penance, which I might have done had I not 
 
 met Mrs. , whose company I much preferred to the moral 
 
 lesson. We were only nine at breakfast yesterday morning, and 
 we went to four different places of worship a beautiful illustra- 
 tion of religious liberty. Monteith, Garden, Brookfield, and 
 myself, had a quantity of four-sided talk, and many old events 
 got up and walked and talked before us, not without much 
 laughter, even until two o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Glasgow, Wednesday. 
 
 I go to Keir* this afternoon. I intend to go to Edinburgh 
 on Monday, and to Fryston on Tuesday. The Shaw Stewarts, 
 Baillie Cochranes, &c., have been very pressing in their 
 hospitality, but I must put them off a while. There was a 
 great dinner yesterday above two thousand, with the novelty of 
 ladies present, all well dressed, and the whole thing very pretty ; 
 but, as I always tell you disagreeable things, I must say I was 
 quite annoyed at being called up to speak without a moment's 
 preparation, for I was in good voice, and with an hour's notice 
 could have made a much more telling speech than was made by 
 any one else. My luck, dear, you know. I sometimes fancy 
 that the Destinies know very well that public life is not the 
 thing for me, and thus in all little, but effective, ways check any 
 progress I might make in it. I begin to think they are right. 
 I remember Sydney Smith saying, " How few men are on the 
 right rail ! " When you have continual collisions, you should, 
 perhaps, infer that you are on the wrong one. Monteith said 
 some one was much affronted that the Irish were excluded from 
 my " Scutari." I must see if I can make a verse for them, but 
 it is by no means easy. Should they not be content with the 
 common Briton? 
 
 The seat of Sir William Stirling.
 
 524 THE LIFE OF i^ORD HOUGHTON. 
 
 Keir, Thursday. 
 
 There is little alteration in this beautiful place, except balus- 
 trades along all the terraces, which dress them up very much. 
 I have the room over the library with that fine hill-view. 
 Monteith said to me that he thought, of all our Cambridge 
 contemporaries, he and I had got the most delightful wives. My 
 father, you know, always pretends that he prevented me from 
 
 marrying Mrs. , which has just enough foundation in truth 
 
 to seem very absurd to me now. 
 
 After leaving Scotland Milnes went to Crewe Hall, 
 the residence of his brother-in-law, and remained there 
 for some time. In October he went over to Hawarden 
 on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Hawarden Castle, Sat. evening. 
 
 The post goes out to-morrow at some unearthly hour, so I 
 must write to-night. The children acted Cinderella this evening 
 in French very nicely Lady Susan Clinton a very nice Cinder- 
 ella, and the Phillimore children the bad sisters. The Bishop 
 of Oxford was amused at my saying that, amidst all these pacifi- 
 cators, I felt like Daniel in the den of lambs. Gladstone has 
 been reading all the evening the pamphlet I brought him on the 
 last hours of the Emperor Nicholas, and evidently intends to 
 translate it. The day is beautiful, but the autumn fast speeding 
 on, with a clear watery distance. ... I think Florence 
 [Nightingale] always much distrusted the sisterhood matter. 
 She said one day, " It will never do unless we have a Church of 
 which the terms of membership shall be works, not doctrines." 
 
 Crewe, Sunday. 
 
 I find Miss Martineau much desires to see me again ; I shall 
 therefore go there [Amble^ide] to-morrow ; to Fryston on
 
 . CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 525 
 
 Wednesday to meet my aunts; and to London Friday or 
 Saturday. Do you know, I am so haunted about Sir J. Paul* 
 and Co/s transportation that I can think of nothing else. If 
 men of that standing in the world, of knowledge and business 
 habits, are to fall before temptation like a silly housemaid 
 attracted by a jewel, the foundations of moral life tremble 
 beneath one, and Paul Ferroll or anything else becomes possible. 
 
 tells me he has a cousin who a few years ago in the 
 
 railway days did much the same thing, and incurred the same 
 horrible fate. I still stick to my notion that Lord John will 
 be Colonial Secretary. Gladstone shakes his head most 
 judgmatically over the notion of Vernon Smith. They are 
 all much interested here about the Bishop of London, thinking 
 it possible the Bishop of Lichfield will succeed him. 
 
 Fryston, Thursday. 
 
 Got here in good time by a beautiful railroad through the 
 picturesque Yorkshire, which I mean to travel through when I 
 have done the United States. Caroline [his aunt, Miss Caroline 
 Milnes] is looking no better, but seems less of an invalid, so 
 that I may keep a little longer on earth the one relative that 
 knows anything about me. She says that if America and 
 England do come to war, I shall be responsible, having sent 
 G. M. to Philadelphia. I say it is all Lord Clarendon's fault 
 for not having given him a mission in Europe. ... I 
 left Miss Martineau nearly insensible, and hope she may soon 
 pass away without more suffering. But with all her illness 
 she writes three times a week, in the Daily News, admirable 
 articles. What vigour and spirit this shows ! At Scarborough 
 they have shipwrecks under their windows, so, I suppose, you 
 will soon rush inland. 
 
 * Sir John Dean Paul, the banker, and his partners, Messrs. Strahan 
 and Bates were sentenced to 14 years' transportation, Oct. 27th.
 
 526 THE LIFE OF LOUD HOUQHTON. 
 
 T. Carlyle to R. M. M. 
 
 Chelsea, Oct. 29^, 1855. 
 
 DEAR MILNES, .... It will much beseem you to 
 come and see whether I am dead or alive here after so many 
 adventures, and the sight of your face will be illuminative to 
 everybody in these premises. I cannot say I envy you your 
 chaotic convocations at Crewe, but I should like well to go 
 whither my letter is going, could I travel as easily and were the 
 season younger. I must invade Silesia instead, woe is me ! A 
 huge " republic of the mediocrities ; " this modern world, which, 
 though very quiet, is a dreadful and even damnable fact if you 
 will think of it well. The Johnson's god-daughter case [god- 
 daughters of Dr. Johnson] is to come into the Times after all, 
 Palmerstonian bounty proving ineffectual. There is no other 
 course for behoof of the poor old creatures. In the pettiest 
 German Duchy, in Saxe-Meiningen or Lippe-Buckeburg, had 
 any of these territories been honoured to produce a Johnson, 
 the Government would have been so much a gentleman as to 
 do this thing. In enormous pot-bellied England it is otherwise, 
 and there is no remedy to be dreamt of at present. Adieu, 
 dear Milnes, I must not waste my own small fragment of time, 
 nor any more of yours, to-day. Come and see me next week, 
 according to your charitable purpose. We send all our regards 
 to Mrs. Milnes, and beg you to take care of her. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Milnes went on a round of visits later in the year. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Leahurst, Friday. 
 
 Got here to a "heavy tea." Madame Mohl and Miss 
 Bathurst the only company, but the Coltmans coming to- 
 morrow. There was a letter from Mrs. Smith, saying nothing
 
 CRIMEAN WAR DAYS. 527 
 
 about Flo's [Miss Nightingale's] going to the Crimea ; but they 
 think she is gone to organise the new hospitals there, and that 
 she is not recovered to be up to it. 
 
 Worsley, Thursday. 
 
 Nothing could be pleasanter than the Grange. Madame 
 Mohl as amusing as the best Parisian, full of information and 
 esprit, and that pleasant spirit of contradiction and unargumen- 
 tative argument which makes lively conversation. She is 
 coming through town, and hopes to see Miss Wynn, who, I think, 
 appreciates her. I am quite annoyed that the Procters should 
 have been all the summer at Matlock without knowing the 
 Nightingales. It is one of those inconsideratenesses with which 
 I am continually reproaching myself, and which I do not cure. 
 Lady Ellesmere's letter missed me altogether, although directed 
 as I desired j this happens so seldom. I am glad I came, as 
 Lord E. is very low, having had a bad attack of gout in both 
 hands, and very glad of reasonable conversation. 
 
 Manchester, Thursday evening. 
 
 You will be amused at this date. Mrs. Gaskell asked me to 
 come and look over Miss Bronte's papers, dine, and sleep. I 
 have done the two former, and, before I do the last, wish you 
 good-night. I shall go to Crewe to-morrow afternoon. Lady 
 Ellesmere was very funny about Mrs. Gaskell, wanting very 
 much to know her, and yet quite shy about it, so I settled the 
 matter by making her ask them to lunch at Worsley's next 
 week, and bringing the note myself. 
 
 During the autumn and winter Milnes was much 
 engaged in connection with the Nightingale Fund, and 
 both in London and at Manchester he addressed meet- 
 ings on behalf of a cause which enlisted every sympathy 
 of his heart. 
 
 END OF VOL. 1.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 RECD JUL 
 
 rRINTCO IN U
 
 3 1970 00079 4088 
 
 
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