i I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES L^Ciii: rd ^»r WT^ /tMI •:jSSri*^iir,'~Mtm.. I m SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS "SIR TOBY, IVI.P." By E. T. Reed. Seproduced from " Punch " by permission of the Proprietors. (U^ SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEBNESS MORE PASSAGES BY THE WAY BY SIR HENRY(JAJCY — -■ <- WITH A FRONTISPIECE A SECOND SERIES LC > N D N SMITH, ELDER & CO All r J ., 15, WATERLOO 1912 i(;hts reserved PLACE t > J J 1 ) PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES • • • • • • • • • .•• * c c • • C •*#(,»»«•€ -O >• CG fiO TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH, M.P. PRIME MINISTER THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED IN TOKEN OF THIETY YEAKS' FKIENDSHIP LONDON October, 1913 1 TO THE READER On presenting a first volume of Reminiscences it was stated that it did not exhaust materials accumulated over a long period of intimate intercourse with public affairs and public men. It was a question of expediency whether the record should appear in one volume or two. In deciding to limit the issue to one volume, I added : "If the gentle public please, they shall have the other at a later time." Exceeding generosity of response encourages fulfilment of the conditional undertaking. A portion of the contents of the present book has run for eight months through the Cornhill Magazine. This is supplemented by additional matter equal to one-third of the whole. Publication in the Magazine brought me a series of interesting letters from a wide and varied circle of readers. Some of these, throwing additional light upon personal episodes, will be found incorporated in the text. Reform Club, London October, 1912 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Fleet Street in the Seventies II. Some Early Missions . III. "Thorns in the Cushion" IV. Professor Blackie V. Memories VI. "Labby" VII. PiEsiGN, OR Hang On ? VIII. The Round-Table Conference . IX. The Friendly Broker X. Memories XI. Lord Charles Beresford . XII. Memories XIII. The Mystery of Lord Macdonnell, XIV. The Shaii in London . XV. Memories XVI. Parliamentary Whips XVII. Arabi Pasha and Boulanger . XVIII. Memories XIX. Explorers Six— Stanley and Nansen PAGE 1 20 36 53 64 70 87 93 98 110 122 138 156 170 179 191 199 209 226 X CONTENTS CllAPTEK, PAGE XX. Explorers Six (continued)— fiiR Harry John- ston, SvEN Hedin, Sir Ernest Siiackleton, Dr. Schliemann 239 XXI. Memories . . . . . . . . 252 XXII. The Story of a Ureat Schism . . . 264 XXIII. Memories 275 XXIV. Poles Asunder — William Henry Smith ; Charles Stewart Parnell .... 297 XXV. Memories .31.3 XXVI. Lord Eandolph Churchill .... 337 XXVII. Memories 369 Index 391 SIXTY YEARS IN THE ^ WILDERNESS MORE PASSAGES BY THE WAY FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES When in 1870 I came to know Fleet Street as the centre of London journalism, a different state of affairs existed as compared with the situation to-day. With the exception of the Savage Club, not exactly or exclusively a society of working- journalists, there was no organised Press Club. The bars of various public-houses along the his- toric thoroughfare were frequented by journalists going about their daily or nightly work. There was nothiuG: on the scale of the existinsf Press Club, an institution that has a locality as well as a name. In default of such accommodation, journalists of that day used to foregather at the bar of Spiers and Pond's Restaurant at Ludo;atc Hill. A table was set apart for their special use at luncheon and dinner time. It was at the end of the public B 2 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS bar-room, the left-liand side as you cutcrcd. No attempt at privacy was made. The public dropping in for their glass of beer or nip of spirits enter- tained more or less distinguished journalists un- awares — this perhaps the only analogy between us and the angels. The custom of men who wrote in the principal morning and evening papers was courted by the junior member of the famous catering firm, a man as shrewd as he was kindhearted. A peculiarity of the firm was that whilst none of us ever set eyes on Mr. Spiers, we were pleasantly intimate with Mr. Pond. It was generally understood that whilst one member of the firm sat in the inner ofiice and looked after the details of a business that grew to princely proportions, portly, beaming, open-handed Pond was, so to speak, set in the shop-window drawing mankind to the bar by the magnet of his afi'ability. Spiers and Pond started in business in Australia. They made a bold bid for fortune by engaging an English cricketing eleven to go out to Melbourne. It proved a great success, precursor of a long series of similar expeditions. With the money thus made they came to London, revo- lutionised the old style of railway refreshment- rooms, and made a second fortune. Among frequenters of the Ludgate Hill Bar were George Augustus Sala, Tom Hood, Nick Woods, Godfrey Turner, Charley Williams, John Corlett, Charles Kussell, Tom Kendal, and, occasion- ally, Henry J. Byron. In the service of the Daily FLEET STEEET IN THE SEVENTIES 3 Teleyniph Sala was afc tlic height of liis fame aud fortune, revelling in " the treatment of a prinee and the salary of an ambassador." A brilliant conversa- tionalist and a capital after-dinner speaker, his charm was lessened by a raucous voice and an aggressive cocksureness. He was at his best with pen in hand, a marvellous word spinner, weaving vivid pictures of fact and fancy. Nick Woods was a special correspondent of older standing even than Sala. He had been a contemporary of Billy Russell in Crimean days. For some years he was on the staff of the Times, changing to the Standard^ which he served at the time I knew him. Charley Williams was another Standard man, acting as their war correspondent when occasion arose. He came from Coleraine, was noisier in manner than Sala, more fluent in speech, and beheved he had an even wider range of information and experience. His boast — one of many — was that as an old campaigner he could make a bed, clean a gun, and cook a dinner. I don't know about the bed or the gun. But on short invitation I once went to dine with him in gloomy chambers in one of the most ancient inns of court. A single dish served for dinner. Charley said it would never do for soldiers to pamper themselves or expect to sit down to ' a course of made dishes. Our dinner, cooked and served by the host in his shirt-sleeves, was what he called with emphasis on the first syllable a " rahgoo." It was, I fancied, compound of scraps of meat, bacpjj, odd bits of 4 SIXTY YBAES IN THE WILDERNESS fish, crusts of bread left over through earlier days of the week, with the addition of two large Spanish unions. A plentiful supply of pepper assisted to eonceal the original flavour of the component parts. A bottle of whiskey (Irish) lent joyance to the feast. Charley ate with gusto ; I was capable of only feebly imitating his energy. Godfrey Turner was a Daily Telegraplt man, sometimes turned on to "leaders," oftener fifoincf about writing special articles, which, printed in large type, were then coming into vogue in the penny papers. Four years later, when I had won my way to a similar position on the Daily News^ we frequently hunted in couples. A widely read man, he had a dainty literary style, which it seemed a pity should be wasted on the ephemeral pages of a morning newspaper. Corlett and Charles Russell were both on the staff of the Sportsman. In course of time Russell left it to become editor of the Glasgoiv Herald^ a high position maintained for many years with dignity and unqualified success. Some time before I made his acquaintance^ Corlett had become joint founder of the Sportiny Times. I fancy the paper did not set Epsom Downs on fire. In 1874 his partner, Dr. Short- house, growing tired of the enterprise, offered his share in the property to Corlett. Charles Russell told me the purchase-money was £50, and that Corlett offered him half share on condition that he subscribed a moiety of the capital. It was not FLEET STEEET IN THE SEVENTIES 5 convcuient at the momeut, and in the course of a few years he had the satisfaction of seeing his old friend and companion dear in receipt of an income of cL'8000 a year drawn from the paper that had come to be more popularly known as the Pink ' Un. I remember a remark incidentally dropped by John Corlett which made a profound impression upon my mind. It was in course of a conversation during the time he was a weekly contributor to Mayfair. There being a rumour current that Disraeli had in hand a new novel, he told me that, looking back over an odd volume of a long-defunct periodical known as the Sporting Magazine, he came upon an example of plagiarism exceeding in audacity even the historical appropriation of a purj)le passage from an oration by Thiers patched on to a eulogy delivered in the House of Commons by Disraeli on the death of Wellington. Headers of " Sybil " will remember the descrip- tion of the Derby of 1837 introduced into one of the earlier chapters of the novel. Corlett told me that this passage, accepted in the literary world as evidence of Dizzy's versatility, was deliberately cribbed from an account of the race contributed to the Sporting Magazine in the ordinary way of business by one of its staff. I looked up the refer- ence, copied the passage, and here it is set forth in deadly parallel lines with the extract from the novel : — 6 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS SrORTiNG Magazine. "Sybil." " As soon as they were well " As soon as they were well away and laid down to work, away, Chifney makes the run- Sam took Pocket Hercules to ning with Pocket Hercules, the front. Up to the Piubbing Up to the Rubbing House he House this was the only point is leading ; this is the only the eye could select. Higher point the eye can select, up the hill Caravan, Hybiscus, Higher up the hill, Caravan, Benedict, Mahometan, Phos- Hybiscus, Benedict, Mahome- phorus, Michel Fell, and Rat- tan, Phosphorus, Michel Fell, trap were with the grey, and Rat-trap are with the forming a front rank. At grey, forming a front rank, the new ground the pace has and at the new ground the told its tale, half-a-dozen being pace has told its tale, for half- then out of the race. . . . a-dozen are already out of the Once the summit was gained, race. The summit is gained ; the tactics altered ; there Pavis the tactics alter ; here Pavis brought out his horse with brings up Caravan, with extra- extraordinary severity — the ordinary severity ; the pace pace round Tattenham Corner round Tattenham Corner ter- being as resolute as ever I rific ; Caravan leading, then saw it — Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a little above him. Phosphorus a little above Mahometan next, Hybiscus him, Mahometan next, Hybis- fourth, Rat-trap looking badly, cus fourth, Rat-trap looking Wisdom, Benedict, and another badly, "Wisdom, Benedict, and handy. By this time Pocket another handy. By this time Hercules has enough, and at Pocket Hercules had had the road the tailing grows at enough, and at the road the every stride. Here the favour- tailing grew at every stride, ite himself is liors tie comhal. There Rat-trap was hors-de- as well as Dardanelles, and a comlcd, as were Dardanelles, crowd of lesser celebrities. AVisdom, and Troilus. There There are now but four left were now but four left in the in the race, and of these, two, race, and of these the two Hybiscus and Mahometan, are placed were some lengths clear some lengths behind. Now of Mahometan and Hybiscus. it is neck and neck between FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES At tlic Stand, Caravan was decidedly the best ; but just at the post Edwards lifted his gallant little horse, and with an extraordinary effort con- trived to shove hiin in first by half-a-length." Caravan and Phosphorus. At the Stand, Caravan has deci- dedly the best ; but just at the post, Edwards, on Phos- phorus, lifts the gallant little horse, and, with an extraordi- nary effort, contrives to shove him in by half-a-length." In the preface to " Sybil," which bears the elate "Grosvcnor Gate, May Day, 1845," "the author thinks it due to himself to state that the descrip- tions generally are written from his own observa- tion ; but while he hopes he has alleged nothing which is not true, he has found the absolute necessity of suppressing much that is 'genuine.'" Amongst the suppressions was all reference to the periodical whence this animated description of a famous race was " conveyed." Tom Hood, though not habitually lunclier or diner at the Ludgate Hill Bar, frequently looked in for a chat. He was at the time editor of Fun, succeeding Henry Byron. Under the editorship of -that supreme humourist there was gathered a brilliant band of contributors who in unaccount- able fashion failed to make the paper a pecuniary success. Burnand, W. S. Gilbert, Clement Scott, and Tom Kobertson, later famous as the writer of Caste and other comedies that made the Kendals affluent, tried their 'prentice hands on the early numbers of a weekly paper it was fondly thought would eclipse Punch, The " Bab Ballads," which 8 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEKNESS for brightness, originality, and humour Gilbert's more mature triumphs have not excelled, were in the first instance offered to Punch. Per contra, Burnand, finding " Mokeanna " rejected by the then proprietor of Fun, carried it over to Punch, its acceptance leading to regular contributions, and in due time to the editor's chair. Nearly forty years ago Pit?i was thought so highly of that the Brothers Dalziel paid £6000 for goodwill and copyright, confirming Tom Hood in the editorship. Hood strengthened the stafif by many recruits, in- cluding Henry S. Leigh, the CaroUer of Cockayne ; Charles Leland, the progenitor of "Hans Breit- man " ; Sala, Arthur Sketchley, George Sims, Edmund Yates, and, though to-day this seems a little incongruous, Austin Dobson. Fun, through its various changes of proprietor- ship, was always located in a place with a shop- front in Fleet Street. Honoraria were dealt out in primitive fashion to the hungry (and thirsty) Bohemians. The paper came out on Thursday morning. Punctually on Thursday afternoon the staff dropped in and interviewed the cashier, who sat in a little box at the far end of the shop. Taking in hand a piece of twine and turning up the marked copy whereon the editor had attached the initials of contributors to paragraphs and articles, the cashier measured up the total amounts. The fee was a guinea a column. My mouth watered on hearing George Sims one day casually remark that, his contributions averaging FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES 9 three columus a week, he customarily drew three guineas or thereabout. I, too, was a contributor, but not on that Brobdingnagian scale, realisation of which would have seemed to me beyond the dreams of avarice. My accepted offerings were so insignificant in bulk that I never saw the piece of twine in operation. My weekly money consisted of pieces of silver fastened up in a small envelope, the amount being oftener 3^. 6d. than 76-. 6d. Up to the day of his premature death, Tom Hood toiled terribly at the heart-breaking task of attempting to make I^un a success. He was scarcely a genius, perhaps more remarkable in the circumstances, was not even a man of business. He was a true and gentle-hearted man, who, whilst reverencing the name his father bequeathed to him, strove valiantly and not without success to make a reputation of his own. Like his father, he never enjoyed robust health, and died whilst yet in the prime of life. Happily he lived long- enough to become possessed of " that which should accompany old age, as honour, love, and troops of friends." It is peculiarly characteristic of him that, though christened " Thomas," he always signed himself and desired to be known as ** Tom Hood." " There is only one Thomas Hood," he wrote, replying to a letter in which, shrinking from appearance of familiarity unbecoming in a callow contributor approaching his editor, I addressed him in his full name, "and I am yours very truly, Tom Hood." 10 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS It was in keeping witli this proud modesty and filial reverence that Tom Hood was buried at Nunhead. The author of " The Song of the Shirt " sleeps in Kensal Green Cemetery, and there was room in the grave for his son to be laid beside him. When he was dying Tom Hood directed that his father's tomb should not be opened. He desired that even in the grave it should be well understood that there was " only one Thomas Hood." I was present on the November day in 1874 when Tom Hood was laid to much-needed rest. He was, as the simple inscription on the coffin bore witness, only thirty-nine years of age. He seemed to have outlived all the friendships his father bequeathed to him. I did not see by the grave a single representative of that coterie with whom the author of " The Song of the Shirt" was a cherished memory. It is true that since Thomas Hood died large gaps bad been made in the circle in which he moved, and many of his companions had followed him down the Valley. Still there were some dis- tinguished men in London who were proud to have known Thomas Hood. It struck one as strange that the gathering round his son's early grave was exclusively composed of the younger generation of litterateurs who came out to Nunhead on that wintry morning to show their affection, not for the son of Thomas Hood, but for Tom Hood himself. There was not, as far as I know, a single relative of the dead man standing by the grave as they FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES 11 lowered his coffin by the side of that of his first wife, for whom the grave was newly opened less than two years earlier. But he was rich in personal friends, and there were few dry eyes amons: the throne: that stood bareheaded whilst all that remained of Tom Hood was committed to the grave. The last verses he wrote appeared in Fun of the previous week. They described in humorous manner that had a ring of funeral sadness for after- tone, an actual incident of his domestic life. The poem opens with the lines — " I lay upon the narrow strand, The region of the known from the unknown." Two days after it saw the light Tom Hood had shifted from *' the narrow strand " and, as the German poet says, " knew everything." I was elected a member of the Savage Club in 1874, having the honour to be proposed by George Grossmith, " onlie begetter " of a famous family of comedians. A man of infinite humour, George I. never appeared on the stage. He was content with the minor vocation of going about town and country delivering lectures under the patronage of Mechanics' Institutions, Literary Associations, and the like. I am afraid the scale of payment was not stupendous, probably not exceeding £5 a night. For a family man it was a welcome addition to income mainly derived as a reporter at the Bow Street Police Court, a position honourably filled 12 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS through mauy years. Like dukedoms and other high seignorities, it became in time hereditary. George II., commonly known as " Gee-Gee," who liad long served as his father's locum teiiens, suc- ceeded to the business on his father's death. This event, mourned by a wide circle of friends, took place in circumstances in a sense singularly apjiosite. A mainstay of the Savage Club, George Grossmith was stricken down when attendino^ one of the usual Saturday night dinners, and was carried home to die. In its time the Savage Club has dwelt in many mansions. When I became a member it was homed in Covent Garden, in rooms beneath the roof where Paddy Green held sway. Thence it moved to a suite of rooms on the ground floor of Haxell's Hotel in the Strand. It was in those days a quiet, unpretentious institution, culinary ambition being bounded by the humble steak or chop, with a single joint at dinner, grilled bones and Welsh rarebit to follow for the supper of the exceptionally well-to-do. Entrance-fee and sub- scription were on the same modest scale. But there was chronic ditticulty on the part of the treasurer in obtaining payment. One of the most regular frequenters of the Club at the Haxell Hotel epoch was H. S. Leigh, whose Carols of Cocaigne established a reputation which only constitutional indolence divorced from permanent income. Leigh was rather ^^roud than otherwise of the Bohemian distinction of dwelling FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES 13 above the vulgar sphere of men who paid Club .subscriptions. Out of the geniality of his nature Dryden wrote of a contemporary scribbler : — " The rest to some faint meaning made pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense." The couplet might be paraphrased to meet the case of a later and more gifted versifier : " The rest to fitful payment made pretence, But Leigh ! He never deviates into pence." In latter years I was honoured by the personal friendship of George Smith, founder of the Pall Mall Gazette, and of Frederick Greenwood, the editor. Through a long series of Parliamentary sessions, Greenwood was a guest at one or other of the weekly luncheons in Ashley Gardens. He was sometimes good enough to express the pride and pleasure it gave him to remember that it was under his editorship I made my first start in London journalism. Truth compels the confession that during the few months I was on the stafi' of the short-lived morning edition of the Pall Mall my position was too obscure to bring me into personal relations with the supreme editor. I saw him occasionally when, cigar in mouth, he looked into the sub-editor's room on returning to work after dining out. I doubt whether he even knew my name or the nature of my contributions towards the building up of the fame and fortune of the paper. Knowledge of the proprietor was equally 11 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS remote. Mr. Smith's interest iu his new venture was so intense that he made a habit of coming down every night and waiting to see the paper sent to press, an interval soothed by the smoking of many cigars. He held no communication with an obscure assistant sub-editor. Frederick Greenwood was the ablest journalist of his day, in editorial gifts second only to, if not fully compeer with, Delane. This fact makes stranoer the reflection that throusfh a lono; and distinguished career he was never personally con- nected with, or chiefly responsible for, any com- mercially successful periodical. Possibly what he was accustomed to provide in pages edited by him, was " much too good for human nature's daily food." Personally and professionally his career passed along the highest levels of honour and capacity. Rising by sheer ability from the lowest ranks — like Benjamin Franklin, he began as a practical printer — he approached the headship of journalism, and became the trusted companion and counsellor of statesmen. No change of fortune altered his personal manner or bearing. He remained to the last the simple-mannered, unaffected, kindly-hearted gentleman he was when from a humble position on the Pall Mali Gazette I years ago reverentially regarded him. There was a general feeling in journalistic circles that at the time when honours and pensions were lavishly bestowed Greenwood's claims were FLEET STKEET IN THE SEVENTIES 15 Ijy successive Govemnients overlooked. Apart from his public services as editor and writer, his inspiration which brought about the purchase of the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal mean an increment of national capital equal to sixteen millions, yielding a steady annual income exceed- ing one million. Only Greenwood was never a penny the better. Eemaining one afternoon after a luncheon party had dispersed, Greenwood, over a big cigar such as his soul loved, gave me some intimate particulars of that memorable transaction. On a certain Sunday night in the autumn of 1875, he chanced to be dining in Bruton Street with Henry Oppen- heim, one of the original proprietors of the Daily News. During a residence in Paris and Egypt that gentleman, just settling down in London, was brought into close connection with Egyptian financial affairs. On the previous day he heard of the intention of the impecunious Khedive to sell en bloc his holding in the capital of the Suez Canal. Greenwood instantly saw the opportunity for a great stroke of State. On leavino; Bruton Street he went direct to the private residence of the Foreign Secretary (Lord Derby) and told him of the rare chance. Lord Derby informed the Prime Minister, whose oriental mind glowed at the prospect of so stupendous a deal. Inquiry secretly made at Cairo disclosed the fact that the Khedive would " part " for a sum of four millions sterling. But it must be money down. 16 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS It was, Greenwood told me, on Lord Beacous- iield's personal suggestion that the difficulty, at the moment apparently insuperable, was overcome. The consent of Parliament was necessary to the confirmation of the deal. That involved both delay and publicity, either fatal to success. Late on the Thursday night following the Bruton Street dinner, the Premier sent liis private secretary, Monty Corry,* to call upon Baron Rothschild, at the time head of the great financial house. Even a Rothschild did not happen to have about him a trifle of four millions sterling. Nor was it pos- sible, in accordance with the traditions of the house, that such a transaction should be entered upon without having been considered in family council. Corry accordingly returned to the Premier without definite reply. It came promptly on the following morning. Rothschild w^ould advance the money on a commission of 2h per cent. These terms were pretty stiff, involving a payment of £100,000. The City heard of them with envy, and they were discussed with much severity when the matter came before the House of Commons. The Rothschilds and their friends defended them on the ground that the colossal transaction involved a certain measure of risk. There was absolutely no security beyond the in- fluence of the Premier, still master of a majority in the House of Commons, and pledged to invoke it in order to obtain Parliamentary sanction. The * Afterwards Lord Rowtnn. FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES 17 whole thing happened between two Sundays. On the first Greenwood dined at Bruton Street ; on the second, calling on Lord Derby, he learned that the transaction had been successfully carried through, and was invited to say what form his personal recompense should take. He declined to specify a request, protesting he had done nothing but his duty, and was content that its accomplish- ment should be his reward. In later years his friends heard him speak with natural bitterness of his generous avowal being taken too literally. Henry Oppenheim, writing from Cannes after reading this story in the Conihill, gave me further interesting details concerning the historic coup. At the time of this momentous dinner in Bruton Street, Oppenheim had just heard from his banking house in Paris that the Khedive's shares in the Canal were in the market, and in the course of conversa- tion mentioned the fact. Greenwood displaying keen interest, his host suggested that he should call upon Lord Derby, place the facts before him, and urge the Foreign Secretary to consult the Prime Minister with the object of stepping in and taking advantage of the opportunity. France, he added, was aware of the Khedive's intention, and was nibbling at the bait. Two days later Oppenheim telegraphed to his intimate personal friend, Nubar Pacha, confi- dentially informing him that the matter was under tlie consideration of Disraeli, and that there was c 18 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS every probability of the price demanded by the KJiedive being forthcoming within the course of a few days. Through his Paris house, among whose customers were the Khedive and his Minister, Oppenheim learned more of the advances made by the French Government. He begged Nubar Pacha to interrupt communications with Paris for forty-eight hours. At the end of that time the bargain between Disraeli and the Khedive was completed, and France had occasion to lament afresh the froward- ness of la 'pey-Jide Albion, My most intimate colleague on the Pall Mall was the author of a series of articles signed "Azamat Batuk," in which a visitor from the remote East discoursed in cynic vein on the social usages of London. I knew " Azamat Batuk " as M. Thieblin, a polished cosmopolitan of French parentage. He was born in St. Petersburg, and returning to France whilst a boy, entered the Academy of Artillery. He did gallant service before Sebastopol, for which he was decorated. Just before the fall of the Empire he withdrew from the army and settled in London, where an article by him casually dropped into the Pall Mall Gazette letter-T)0x attracted the keen eye of Frederick Greenwood. Thieblin regularly joined the staff, and articles signed " Azamat Batuk " had a wonderful vogue. Through the Franco-German War he accompanied FLEET STREET IN THE SEVENTIES 19 tlic FrGiicli Army as special correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, was afterwards attached to the London Neiv York Herald, and finally settled in New York, where he died. His last journalistic engagement was on the Sun of that city, where he assumed a new pen-name, "Eigolo." His racy writing and keen individuality attracted attention. But his highest mark as a journalist was reached under Greenwood's sympathetic editorship. II SOME EARLY MISSIONS Before I was shut up in the Press Gallery in the service of the Daily News, a term of imprisonment with hard labour that extended beyond the term of a quarter of a century, there fell to my lot some interesting work in the capacity of Special Corre- spondent. In the autumn of 1872 I went down to TivertoD to describe incidents in a bye-election upon which public attention was centred. At the time there still lingered in the mind and memory of the public a local butcher named Rowcliffe. For many years Tiverton was known as Palmerston's Borough. Once a year at least he visited his con- stituents, and, whether as Prime Minister or in Opposition, centred upon the quiet little town the regard of the nation. This was Kowcliffe s oppor- tunity, and to the amusement of mankind, he made the most of it. If not absolutely the first heckler known to English Parliamentary conflicts, he was, by reason of the quarry he attacked, the most famous. I took the opportunity of making his acquaint- ance. Thackeray reminds us that when Werther 20 SOME EAELY MISSIONS 21 first beheld the object of his unhappy attachment " she was cutting bread and butter." AVheii I looked in on Mr. RowclifFe he was dexterously cutting a pound of suet out of a carcass hangiug up in his little shop. 1 was cordially invited to accompany him to his sanctum upstairs, the walls of which were adorned with portraits of celebrities, evidently cut out of the illustrated papers. "There's Ernest Jones, the great Chartist, and these two are Chartists," Mr. Rowclifle explained ; "but I don't just recollect their mimes and I can't see as well as I used to. That's Julian Harney, who I brought here in '47 to oppose Lord Palmer- ston. He hadn't the ghost of a chance. He knew he hadn't and I knew he hadn't. But I brought him down and he stood, and I stood by his side and proposed him, and we got hooted, though what he said was not a bit unfair. That one there with his arm in a sling is myself, taken when I got out of bed after being ill for three months with the gout. But the election time was on, and Lord Palmerston was coming down as usual, and I'd ha' been carried to the hustings if I couldn't have walked. When his lordship seed me, he said, ' I'm very sorry to see my friend Rowcliffe ' — he always called me his friend Rowclitt'e, thousfh I don't know that I was a particular friend of his — ' I'm sorry to see my friend Eowcliffe in this plight, and I hope that the well-known equableness of his disposition will enable him to bear a pain with which I am myself unhappily only too familiar.' 22 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS " 'It isn't equableness, my lord,' I says; 'it's gout. What's good for the gout, my lord '^ ' " ' Patience,' says his lordship ; and everybody laughed. " But I had it in for him another time, when I seed him a-comins^ down towards the hustino-s lean- ing on the arm of his proposer and seconder. ' I'm very glad to find,' I says when I got a chance of speaking, * that his lordship is so anxious to see his constituents that he will limp along Fore Street to meet them. I only wish he was as wishful to meet the working-man agoing to the poll with his vote in his pocket.' The working-man, you know, hadn't got a vote." In the coarse of conversation I observed that it was seven years to a week since Palmerston died. " Well, it was no great loss to the country," Mr. Eowcliffe insisted. " Lord Palmerston never was a Liberal, and being inside the gates he did more harm than a hundred enemies outside. As soon as he was gone we got the Reform Bill, and I can't say any more about him than that. Many and many a tussel I had with him about that Reform Bill. Once when he was going on boastfully about what he and his colleagues had done in the past session, I just up and said — " ' My lord, why didn't you bring in a Reform Bill ? Give a plain answer to that.' " ' My friend Rowcliffe,' he says, in his slow, sjieering wny, ' asks me why we did not bring in a Reform Bill, and demands a plain answer. Well, SOME EAKLY MISSIONS 23 geutlemen, I will give liim a plain answer. We did not bring in a Reform Bill, because we were not geese. The country did not want a Reform Bill, did not ask for a Reform Bill, and we have not moved towards the introduction of a Reform Bill.' " The way in which he said that got the best of my temper, and jumping up, I shouted at him, ' I tell 'ec iwhat it is, my lord. I stand here as the representative of the non-electors, and we won't have you coming here with any of your double shuffle. The working-man demands the franchise and he'll have it, my lord ! ' Everybody roared with laughing, his lordshij) as merrily as any of them. Let them laugh as wdns. The working- man's got the franchise now, and if I live a few years longer, I'll see every man in the country with it, house or no house, lodger or none. " His lordship was very clever in turning the laugh against me, and used to try and get quietly round the corner by kicking up a dust. Once when the House of Commons had been doing some trick at his lordship's bidding, I told him to his face that I did not think there were more than a hundred honest men in Parliament. " ' Well,' he says, ' that being the case, I look forward with some anxiety to the time when my friend Rowcliffe shall be returned for Tiverton, for then there will be a hundred and one ! ' " Another time he said, ' I am always happy to meet my friend Rowcliffe at these hustings ; for I can tell you frankly that an election at Tiverton 24 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS without my friend RowclifFe putting in an appear- ance would not seem to be an election at all. But tliere is one thing that I have to complain of, and that is, that in the varying clianges of the admini- .stration of Her Majesty's Government, my friend Rowcliffe is always prepared to take personal excep- tion to its composition. Indeed I have long ago been forced to the conclusion that the only form of Government that would ^^lease my friend RowclifFe would be a R-owcliffe Ministry.' " ' Your lordship would join any Ministry that suited your own purpose,' says I. " ' Any but a Rowcliffe Ministry,' says his lordship. "He generally had something like that ready for me ; but one time I regularly shut him up. It was just upon the passing of the Poor Law Act which made legal the separation of man and wife after the age of sixty. I remember that day very well. There was Lady Palmerston with a lot of ladies looking out of one w^indow of the ' Three Tuns ' all dressed out in ribbons and colours, cheer- ing and laughing in high glee. His lordship was at the other window speaking to the crowd, and when he was going to get rid of this subject of the Poor Law, I ups and says, ' You ought to have con- sulted Lady Palmerston before passing that there Act. How would you and her like to be separated after you was sixty years of age ? And are your feelings any finer than those of the poor people you've been legislating for ? ' SOME EAELY MISSIONS 25 " His lordship pretended not to hear that, but I think he did, and so did Lady Palmerston, too. That's what I call bringing it home to them." In December of this same year, 1872, the lady whom Disraeli made Viscountess Beaconsfield died. Being in the neighbourhood I attended the funeral. I quote from my diary a passage interesting perhaps as throwing fresh light on an inscrutable character. There is also a peep at the personality of Lady Beaconsfield as it impressed her neighbours in the little village by which Hughenden is set. " High Wycojibe, "■llth Decemher, 1872. " In this morning's papers it is written that High Wycombe, of which town Hughenden is a sort of distant suburb, scrupulously refrained from all expression of sorrow at the death of Lady Beacons- field. It did not even pay to her memory the compliment of closed shutters or down-drawn blinds. This abstention from customary expres- sion of regret at the death of a notable neighbour is a faithful reflex of local opinion. Lady Beacons- field was disposed to be exceedingly careful in her expenditure, and had, by numerous indications of this turn of mind, given mortal off"ence to Wycombe. Disraeli had the disadvantage of succeeding in the squiredom of Hughenden a gentleman who kept something like open house at the Manor, and who is still gratefully remembered as having 'spent 26 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS £10,000' a year in Wycombe.' The smoke room of the * Falcon ' was, on my arrival last night, full of substantial tradespeople and farmers belonging to High Wycombe and its neighbourhood. The dead lady up at the Manor House was the sole subject of conversation. It was sorrowful to note that there was none to cry ' God bless her ! ' " *' ' How many rolls do you think she ordered for breakfast that time Prince Teck and his wife paid them a visit ? ' one — who, as I afterwards learned, was not the baker — fiercely asked me. ' Six, sir ; six — exactly SIX ! ' he exclaimed when I confessed my total inability to guess. "I timidly suggested that if rolls were not the staple dish on the breakfast table, six might have met the necessities of the case. Whereupon I was floored by a fearful story about a quarter of a cheese, ordered in ignorance of a sudden movement that called the family away from Hughenden, which ensuing, the cheese was returned to the hapless cheesemonger with Lady Beaconsfield's compli- ments, and an intimation that as the family were going up to town she would be glad if he would take it back. This was capped by an anecdote about a band. Lord Napier of Magdala was one day a guest at the Manor House, and Disraeli — against whom High Wycombe has not a word to whisper — sent orders for the local band to serenade the conquering hero whilst he dined. The band accomplished its mission very satisftictorily, and when dinner was over Lady Beaconsfield appeared SOME EABLY MISSIONS 27 at the door smiling her thanks, and offering the leader half a crown in full payment for the services of his men. " * Simmons wouldn't take the money, however, and there was a pretty row about it. He got out a summons, and Mrs. Disraeli wanted to fight it out in court, but Dizzy wouldn't let her, and quietly arranged the affair.' "Here followed a loui]^ list of similar remiuis- cences, the most touching relating to a Scotchman. An old lady ' up in the cottage,' expectant at Christmas of Manor House bounty in the sha[)e of a quarter of a pound of tea, had been deprived of it upon Lady Beacousfield's discovery that she lacked the term of three weeks' residence. The anonymous Scotchman — so it was said — moved by the woman's anguished disappointment, straightway put his hand in his pocket and gave her a shilling ! " Thus High Wycombe sat and smoked and gossiped, whilst the dead Viscountess was lying in her coffin, and Disraeli sat nursing his sorrow by the unaccustomed loneliness of his fireside. It was pleasanter by far to listen to another class of legend, told within the shadow of the Manor House, and to hear of the determined force of character of the aged lady, who defied Death himself " * She used to say that people need not die unless they gave way to Death, and, for her part, she never would. She refused to go to bed when her last illness came on, and died in her chair.' 28 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS " The post-bag was, during the week precediug the end, daily weighted with letters of inquiry as to the state of her health. The Queen telegraphed three times to know how the Viscountess fared. (Jnly the first message was shown to her ladyship. She was sitting by the fire, whcu the gracious inquiry was triumphantly brought in. " ' What is it ? "What is it ? ' she testily asked. " ' A message from Her Majesty to know how your ladyship is this morning.' " ' Bah ! ' said her ladyship, picking up a spoon from the table by her side, and throwing it at the innocent telegram form." " High Wycombe, " Idth Dfice?nber, 1872. " I did not think Disraeli's proverbially sphinx - like face was capable of displaying such emotion as was pictured upon it when he to-day followed the slow steps of the men who bore Lady Beaconsfield to the grave. His self-possession and the immo- bility of his countenance have done him good service in many crises of political history. Self- possession and immobility both fled as he stood by the grave of his wife. If an artist desirous of pro- ducing a representative face of Woe had been at hand, he might have sketched Disraeli's face and presented it without fancy touch. Utterly regard- less of the heavy rain, he walked bareheaded the whole distance from the Manor House to the church, and stood for full ten minutes in the sodden grass SOME EAKLY MISSIONS 2'J by the vault, the <;old wind playing with his suspiciously dark hair turning up streaks of white in unexpected places. " ' He'll have no one to dye his hair for him now she's gone,' somebody said, observing this phenomenon. " The remark was made in a tone of unaffected feeling. Kightly considered it had deep pathos in it, hinting at the domestic confidence that existed between the two, and the manifold little services the wife fondly rendered to the illustrious husband. Through the journey from Manor House to the last home, and whilst the coliin was beine: lowered into the vault, Disraeli never once took his eyes off it, regarding it with a steadfast, sad, almost hungry look, as if he grudged the grave its custody. When it reached the bottom of the vault, he seemed to fall into a sort of trance. It was only after Mr. Corry nudg-ed him twice that he awoke with a start, and took the wreath he was to drop upon the coffin-lid. "The vault already contained two coffins. One bore the following inscription : * Sarah Brydges AVillyams, widow of J. B. Willyams, of Carnanton, in the county of Cornwall, Esq. She died at Torquay, aged 94, November 11, 1863.' This is the lady who left a large fortune to Disraeli, as 'an expression of her admiration of his political principles.* The inscription on the other coffin embodies a curious arithmethical miscalculation : 'James Disraeli, born 24th June, 1815, died 25 th December, 1868, aged 57.' 30 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS *' ' Tliat coftin/ said the mason, * lay on the floor at this side of the vault. But the vault was built for four. So we moved it on to the top of Mrs. Willy ams, to make a place for the Viscountess ; and there's just room for one more to lie by her side.' "This concluding remark was made with a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Manor House whither Disraeli with leaden footsteps returned." In the autumn of 1873 I was privileged to take part in the pilgrimage of British Catholics who went to Paray-le-Monial to pay homage at the shrine of Marguerite Marie Alacoque, La Bienheu- reuse, the fame of miracles performed at whose tomb filled the Catholic world with wonder and adoration. Over 600 English folk — men, women, and priests — composed the expedition. They were a singularly mixed lot, finding within their ranks representatives of all classes of society, from the Premier English duke down to the shopman and the domestic servant who had drawn upon their slender savings for expenses of the journey. This was of itself an ordeal. Starting at six o'clock on Monday morning from Victoria Station, €71 route for Newhaven, we did not reach Paray-le- Monial till nearly midnight on Tuesday. On the following morning there took place the procession to the shrine with the avowed object of consecrating England to the Sacred Heart. The way was SOME EARLY MISSIONS 31 marslialled by the Swiss, whose countrymen make a fair living at the church doors, followed by three little acolytes bearing a banneret. Next came the monkish figure of Dr. Talbot, brother of Lady Lothian, stalking along under the weight of the banner of the Sacred Heart, which had floated from the mainmast of the Dieppe steamer as the pilgrims set sail from Newhaven. Admiral Jerninghani cruised astern with the Union Jack, which, if it had not grown case-hardened in the course of the thousand years during which it has braved the battle and the breeze, might have been expected to wrinkle up in astonishment at finding itself in such strange company. The Duke of Norfolk struggled gallantly under the weight of the silken folds of the banner England was supposed to be dedicating to the Sacred Heart. Behind His Grace, with watchful hands kept over the straying cords of the banner, strode Lord Dover and Lord Wardour of Arundel, the former in the nineteenth century pilgrim suit, of light grey cloth, billycock hat, and Blucher boots. The ladies followed, walking four abreast, singing the hymn of the Sacred Heart, written for the occasion by Lady Georgina Fullerton. Among these pilgrims with parasols were the Ladies Anne and Mary Howard, bearing the exquisite little banner which Monseigneur Capel brought from London, the offering of his converts. Lord Walter Kerr, carrying the banner of Scotland, divided the men from the women. Then came, as 32 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS the plciy-bills have it, " more banners," and a long array of male pilgrims. The first destination of the pilgrims was the garden adjoining the monastery, in which, accord- ing to the story of the Very Happy Marguerite, Jesus Christ appeared to her. " One day," she writes in her life, " Our Lord presented himself to me all covered with wounds and his heart torn with sorrow. I threw myself at His feet in great fear. He said to me, ' My people persecute me, and if they do not mend their ways I will punish them severely.' " Marguerite Marie was at the time of this visita- tion sitting under a nut tree in the middle of the garden. The tree, now become a small grove, exists to this day in proof of the truth of the whole story. Under its shadow have been erected a couple of coloured plaster-of-paris models, one intended to represent Christ in the act of showing His wounds, the other depicting Marguerite Marie prostrate on the ground "in great fear." For two hours the pilgrims, marshalled in continuous line, marched round the garden, passing by the nut tree and paying adoration to the images. Marguerite Marie, La Bienheureuse, or what is intended to be a counterfeit resemblance of the Very Happy One, lay stretched upon an altar in the splendid chapel her devotees have endowed. When her bones were gathered from the grave in which they had lain for 200 years they were com- mitted to the charge of a cunning artificer, who SOME EAELY MISSIONS 33 reverently conuectccl them (as far as tliey would go) witli gold wire. Head, feet, and hands, formed out of wax, were attached to the bones. The body was wrapped in wadding with an outward covering of cloth of gold, and laid upon a magnificent marble altar inclosed in a rich case of bronze-dore, studded with precious stones. The eyes of the wax figure, made of enamel, are half open. AVith its right hand it presses upon its breast a burning heart of pure gold. In its left is held a branch of silver lilies. The chapel in which the relics are enshrined is almost oj^pressive by reason of the richness of its decoration. The walls are hidden behind pictures and banners deposited by the faithful. The vault is of azure, studded with stars of gold. The pavement is marble, while that of the sanctuary is set with stones in imitation of carpet patterns. Before the wax figure burn constantly, day and night, sixteen golden lamps set with precious stones. One of the lamps burns for the preserva- tion of the faith in Belgium. Another for the conversion of England, A third represents the Order of the Sacred Heart, and the rest are sever- ally devoted to similar " intentions." After our pilgrimage the number of lamps was increased by one sent from England, for the en- dowment of which a sum of money has been invested. It takes a capital of £40 to endow a lamp with oil in perpetuity. The lamps are so arranged as to cast a soft colour upon the sanctuary, D 34 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS which is constructed something after the shape of a heart, with intent that those who have eyes to see may, looking toward it, behokl the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A sermon preached Ly Monseigneur Capel closed the programme of public devotions. Not yet did the insatiably-pious pilgrims go to their much- needed rest. The everlasting lights were still burning before the shrine of La Bienheureuse. Once more must they kneel there and breathe the sanctified air that filled the sanctuary and floated around the thrice-blessed relics. Scarcely had the last words of the service in the church died away before the chapel of the shrine was filled with a closely packed line w^ending its way up one side of the aisle, a crowd slowly descending by the other. Arrived at the shrine, the pilgrims, men and women, old and young, falling on their knees, passionately kissed it at any point nearest to them. Happy were they who got near the head, and, while kissing the glass, could see on the other side the golden crown of La Bienheureuse. Chaplets, crosses, money, letters, photographs, rings and chains were pressed against the glass case, the while the owner muttered a prayer or pattered an Ave. Around the shrine and upon the steps of the sanctuary were kneeling figures, only the moving of the lips in prayer telling that they lived. All night the chapel was open and the candles SOME EARLY MISSIONS 35 bumed. All night Marguerite Marie liad Iicr devotees, who kissed her shrine, and with pas- sionate longing that seemed to find no adequate relief clasped the corners of the casket in which the bones and the waxwork figure lay. The Pilgrim train was ready for the return journey at four o'clock in the morning. It was from the chapel that the bulk of the passengers hastily came, elate with the consciousness that they had done some- thing to appease the anguish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and had gained fresh spiritual vigour by bathing in the fulness of its love. Ill " THORNS IN THE CUSHION " Being in Edinburgh for tbe Midlothian campaign in the winter of 1885, I took the opportunity of consulting Lord Rosebery on the question of accepting the editorship of the Daily News, pressed upon me by Mr. Labouchere and, as related in an earlier volume, more than once declined. " I congratulate you with all my heart," he wrote, " and I commend Labouchere on his discernment and judgment." Later he wrote again : " Dec. ?,rd, 1885. " Dalmexy Paek, Edinburgh, " My dear Lucy (I think your kind letter of this morning justifies my familiarity !), — I quite agree that nothing is to be gained or much lost by delay. The new editor should be firmly in the saddle long before Parliament meets. The more I think of it the more I feel convinced that, once your friendly scruple removed, you would never have forgiven yourself if you had refused this chance. " I ventured to tell Mr. Gladstone, under an 36 "THOENS IN THE CUSHION" 37 oath of secrecy, that a change was probable in the guidance of the D.N., but gave him no names. He looked anxious and melancholy on Saturday, and his speeches were less vigorous than usual, I suppose you break oif your Observer connexion ? Do you assume the reins on New Year's Day ? " ROSEBERY." The " friendly scruple " alluded to was my disinclination to dispossess of the editorial chair my old chief and friend Frank Hill. Public announcement of the appointment brought me a sheaf of friendly letters and tele- grams. Edmund Yates wrote from Brighton under date January 9, 1886 : " I congratulate you heartily, and am, of course, delighted to see the success of one of my old disciples. If I dare oifer advice, I would say, concentrate your energies on the D.N. It is in a parlous state, qud public opinion, and wants a strong shoulder to the wheel. Keep your leader columns for politics and social subjects, and put Mr. Lang and his clever literary essays into their proper place in the review columns. Abjure leaderettes, which are only diluted pars. The French correspondence has become absolute drivel. There was a notice of Maison Delorme a week or two ago which read like a bold and disjointed translation. " But you know about this better than I do. Again, heartiest congratulations." 3830M 38 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS Joseph Cowen, of Newcastle, another journal- istic expert, was not less frank in his criticism of the paper whose falling fortunes it was vainly hoped I should be able to restore. " I am delighted to learn you are to be editor of the Daily News (he wrote). It is a great position and you are worthy of it. I was always sorry to see you wasting your powers over the gossip of the Lobby. You are capable of bigger and better things. There is now before you a great field of public usefulness and a magnificent opportunity for making great advance in your profession. I know you will apply yourself un- sparingly and I am certain you will succeed. " I hope no ill as befallen the late editor. I liked him much. He was a sincere man and an able one. "The Daily News'i^ a good paper and I always read it with interest. But there is a want in it somewhere which is better felt than described. Latterly I have thought it rather too much of a party paper. I am satisfied that a regular party journal can never be an all-round success. I have some very curious information on this point. I don't mean to go to London till the 21st, when I hope to see you well and hearty. " If you can give effect to your old Mayfair programme (minus some of the Society paragraphs, of course), I think you will give the Daily News a new life. It will be a tough job. It is very diffi- cult to get a paper into a new line." "THORNS IN THE CUSHION" 39 A more personal note was sounded by a veteran journalist at the time editor of the Dundee Advertiser : " Let me wish you (he wrote) all successj fame and satisfaction in your new post. I hope that you have chosen wisely. Your old position was unique. You, who are seldom out of London, cannot know how much you influenced political opinion in the provinces. Toby, M.P., taught multitudes of people to know Parliament and its members as they really were, and I think I would rather be Toby than chief director even of the Daili/ News. I shall miss Toby, but the D.N. will have a new interest. The fear of Mrs. Grundy will no longer be before its eyes." Kindly apprehension here expressed of missing a particular contribution from the pages of Fundi was not justified. In the course of arrangements for my services in a new capacity the proprietors of the Daily News raised objection to my con- tinuing my connection with that paper. Here I discerned opportunity of evading a position I did not desire, conditional acceptance of which was agreed to only from a sense of loyalty. I dis- continued the " Cross Bench " article in the Observer, and gave up my London Letter daily telegraphed to a syndicate of morning papers in the provinces. But I was immovable in my determination not to sever my connection with Punch, and in the end the proprietors yielded. 40 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS " I cannot imagine a position in which greater service may be rendered to the party in the country tlian that you are now to occupy," wrote Sir George Trevelyan. That is true enough ; but there is something to be said for the hapless in- cumbent of office. Before many weeks sped I was brought into close sympathy with the first editor of Cornldll in the circumstances set forth in a pathetic Roundabout Paper, entitled ^" Thorns in the Cushion." On the very threshold of my new career I was confronted by the rupture of the Liberal party following upon the introduction of the first Home Rule Bill. Without counsel or assistance — for the proprietors, themselves divided on the question, oflfered neither — I had to decide within the space of a few hours whether, what was at the time the leading Liberal daily morning paper, should stand by the old chief or desert him as others did. The adhesion of the Daily News to the main body of the Liberal party flying a new flag brought on the head of the editor a stream of raucous con- tumely. Here is a copy, the only one j)reserved, of the sort of postcard or letter (the former more popular) found daily on my desk : " London, ''Jmi. 17/86. " So, sir, you still continue to head your lead- ing articles d la the Rebel paper United Ireland, and yet I suppose you wish to be thought an "THORNS IN THE CUSHION" 41 Englisliman by your subscribers. Shame upon you if you arc really English born, but if not, as your championing of Irish Rebels seems to infer, then I say you have no right to conduct what was until your advent a respectable and patriotic paper, but transfer your views to the columns of your co-Rebels' paper above-named, as it has been the machinations of you and such as you that have made Ireland what she is to-day. " A Disgusted Subscriber." These communications were invariably anony- mous, a condition which made safe threats of personal violence. Another episode that opened upon my head the flood-gates of wrath was the case of Sir Charles Dilkc, which reached final solution in the courts of law in February, a few weeks after I assumed the editor- ship. I had known Dilke with increasing friendli- ness for a dozen years. I heard his historic speech in the House of Commons on the Civil List of 1873, which led to a scene of tumult at that time unparalleled. I watched him win his way from a seat below the gangway to the Treasury Bench and on to the Cabinet. He was in enjoyment of highest esteem, private and public, when suddenly out of the blue there fell the bolt which for years exiled him from public life. " Sir " (wrote a member of the House of Commons making holiday abroad in February, 42 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS 1886), "I cannot refrain from writing to express the shame and indignation with which I have read your article in last Saturday's issue on Sir Charles Dilke. There is probably not a man in all England, not excluding yourself, who having read the report of the trial does not believe Dilke guilty ; and that you should endeavour for mere party purposes to w^iitewash such a scoundrel and to pretend that he has been cleared of the charge is a disgrace both to journalism and the Liberal party. As a Radical myself, of course I regret that the services of so able a man should be lost to the party : but, thank God, the Liberal party does not need the support of such immoral men. To say that he will be welcomed back with fervour is a piece of lying toadyism of which the Daily Neivs ought to have been incapable. If you subordinate every moral consideration and all regard for truth to the supposed interests of party in this matter, you will do so in others less serious, and the whole value of your paper is gone, and you will rightly deserve what it is clear from the remarks of other papers you have gained — namely, the contempt of right-thinking men. Even the Scotsman, strange to say, has taken a right view of this case ; and it has been left for the Daily Neivs, the leading Liberal paper, as it loves to be called, to show to what depths of utter degradation a paper can sink. " I need hardly add that I shall subscribe no more to the Neivs and shall cease to take it in." "THOENS IN THE CUSHION" 43 The writer was an old personal friend, and I replied with the freedom ancient friendship permits : " Frhruary 24, 188G. " Dear , — I have your letter of the 20th, and note that, having read the article in the D. N. on the Dilke trial, you have resolved to give up the paper. Well, we must try and struggle on without you. " I am not quite sure, however, from the tone of your letter that you are quite the sort of person to give an opinion on the case. For my own part, I found a man who has long been a personal friend brought into court upon a charge for which accord- ing to the ruling of the judge and the admission of the prosecuting counsel, there was not a tittle of evidence. " Apart from the disinclination some people have to desert a friend when he is in danger, it did not seem to me quite fair to assume his guilt. This seems to be no difficulty with you, who are not only certain that Sir Charles Dilke is guilty, but that I, in writing what I did, was ' disgracing journalism by pretending to think he was innocent when I believed him guilty.' " You, standing on a mount of morality, and pluming yourself about not being as other men are, take that line as proper to the occasion. You, a sinless man, are qualified not only to ' throw the first stone,' but to pelt bystanders who do not happen to agree with you. I will not follow your 44 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS example l)y characterising your attitude. But I am sure you will regret that you exhausted your vocabulary of impertinent insinuation and coarse vituperation. When you write to me to express your * shame and indignation/ denounce me for ' deliberately writing what I know to be false,' characterising me as ' a disgrace to journalism,' accuse me of publishing ' a piece of lying toadyism,' of ' subordinating every moral consideration and all regard for truth,' as ' deserving the contempt of all right-thinking men ' (you, for example), and of ' showing to what depths of utter degradation a paper can sink ' — what will you say if I tell you that, even if I were absolutely wrong, I would rather have my disposition in regarding a case of this kind than yours ? "Yours faithfully, "H. W. Lucy." Lady Dilke frequently spoke and wrote to me with pathetic conviction of her husband's innocence. After full consideration, in justice to the memory of husband and wife, I print two of her letters : "Pyrford, by Maybury, " November 13, 1887. "Dear Mr. Lucy, — I should have entirely agreed with you as to the proper course to have pursued had I not at the same time become aware that such a course could not have been pursued with resolution by one of my husband's nature. "TIIOBNS IN THE CUSHION" 45 " I cau quite understand others not realising what I did not myself realise until the constant companionship of day and night revealed it. He is more nervous and sensitive than any woman I ever knew, and suffers agonies of loathing at the accusations brought against him, such as only the few can understand. "This condition of nerves, of shivering disgust and pain, makes it impossible for him, he being quite as proud as he is sensitive, to take a bold line. To have exposed him to the fight imme- diately after the hideous experiences of last year, with that boiling sense of injustice at heart, unsleeping with anger and anguish, would have been to undertake a hopeless battle, ending possibly in the madhouse. As soon as I realised this I felt the only course was to let him rest and suffer it out until his nerves regained their tone and sleep should come back. Even if we don't succeed in bringing his slanderers to justice, the prosecution of the enquiries has satisfied the craving to get at the truth and put him in a better position, as it were, towards himself, and '^has cleared up many doubtful points. It is a long and costly work, but nothing, no position, no honours, will make him happy as being able to prove his innocence would make him happy, and even if we never can, we must both go on hoping that we shall. I don't think any other course was open. He could not work unless he were trusted and welcomed. " Thank you so much for your letter and for 46 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS the enclosure. I see that our friends are speaking for us now all over the country, and I was much touched by your words. " Always yours faithfully, ''Emilia R S. Dilke." In another letter written from Pyrford in the same month Lady Dilke, home from a visit with Sir Charles to the Continent, wrote : " Yes, the Sultan was most extraordinarily kind. It was more than civility, and we have undertaken to write to him and shall be going back there for a short visit again after our tour with Sir Fred. Roberts.* But even Constantinople was a small thing beside Charles' reception in Greece. It was most startling to find a whole people so faithfully grateful. We only missed a great public banquet and torchliglit demonstra- tion because our time was short, and best of all was that the leaders said it was not only that ' they wished to show their gratitude but the intense sympathy felt for him in Athens.' I missed the Paris dinner on account of a tiresome throat attack. From the Prime Minister's questions to Charles, I fancy Waddington's days will be short. We got a long letter from Mr. Gladstone in Paris from which he seems quite happy as to the future settle- ment of the Irish question. But a great deal hangs on the life." * Lord Roberts of Kandahar. "THORNS IN THE CUSHION" 47 After six years' absence Dilke returned to Westminster, sent thither by the electors of the Forest of Dean, who remained true to him to the end. A painful ordeal awaited him. It was faced wdth a patience and courage that finally prevailed. Many of the colleagues and friends with whom he had lived and worked in the 'seventies and early 'eighties had disappeared from the scene. There remained sufficient to make the situation embarrass- insf. Dilke made no advances. A few old friends, notably Mr. Chamberlain, resumed former rela- tionships. For the most part members stood aloof, watching the ways of the wind. For some sessions he took no part in debate. A regular attendant, he patiently sat out the dreariest talk, falling into his old habit of being the first in and out of the Division Lobby. When on the fall of the brief-lived Rosebery Administra- tion he was at the ensuins; o^eneral election again triumphantly returned for the Forest of Dean, he began to assert himself. Seated in Opposition in tlie old quarters of the Fourth Party, he found a congenial companion in Mr. Labouchere. Gradually he became a regular participant in debate, upon which he brought to bear wide experience and encyclopaedic knowledge. He had not the graces of oratory, the charm of eloquence, or that sense of humour which Harcourt described as an excellent antiseptic when applied to political life. Neverthe- less his speeches commanded the attention of a full House, and not infrequently had appreciable 48 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS influence in controlling a division or in modifying proposed legislation. Wlien in 1905 Campbell-Bannerman was called upon to form a Ministry, Dilke had reason to believe he would be invited to join it. On what particular utterance or attitude of the new Premier this conviction was based I do not know. It certainly existed, for Dilke, in matters of fact precise almost to pedantry, was not the man to make a mistake in so important a matter. One circumstance that may have encouraged him was the change that had recently taken place in the personality of the Sovereign. So long as Queen Victoria lived there was no hope of his again becoming a Minister of the Crown. Lady Dilke told me with beaming pleasure how Sir Charles had been specially commanded to attend the first levee given by King Edward VII. Rumour of Campbell-Bannerman's intention in this matter having got wind, strong pressure was probably brought to bear by persons of the class of my esteemed correspondent from the Continent. It prevailed, and when the Ministry was completed Dilke's name was not included in the list. This was perhaps the unkindest cut of all. It finally closed all liope of full restitution. He bore the blow with his accustomed imjDcrturbable calmness. Nevertheless it told upon him mentally and physically. There was some talk of his joining the Labour Party in the new Parliament and devoting himself to the culture of a thorn to be applied to "THORNS IN THE CUSHION" 49 the side of the Government. I never heard from him hint of such intention. If it were ever enter- tained it was not pursued . By the courtesy of the Labour members, to whom the two front benches were, on the suggestion of the Speaker, allotted, Dilke had reserved for him the prized corner seat in the front row. He was generally found there at some period of the sitting. Gradually he abandoned his former habit of unintermitted attendance throughout a sitting, with regular interposition in debate. Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? He found much-needed rest in his riverside home, Dockett Eddy, whither throughout the summer session he regularly repaired for the week- end, oratherins; round him a circle of friends which occasionally included eminent public men from foreign capitals. Paris and Berlin, which in the height of his prosperity recognised his statesman- ship, in days of adversity continued to pay him the tribute of cordial homage. One of the first undertakings of Lord Salisbury's new Ministry on the meeting of Parliament in 1886 was to reform the rules of procedure, hopelessly broken down under the assaults of Parnell and his merry men. I tried to induce some high authorities to communicate their views on the subject to the Daily Nervs. They are guardedly expressed in E 50 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS the suljjoiucd letters, one from a former Speaker, the other from an ex-Chairmau of Committee of Ways and Means : From Lord Hampden. "Glynde, Lewes, Sussex, " Januanj, 23, 1886. " Dear Mr. Lucy, — Your career in the House of Commons is well known to me, and you may be assured that I shall always be willing to receive any communication from you. I wish you well in your new enterprise in the Daily News. "I am sorry that I cannot comply with your request to write to you a public letter on the proposed rules of procedure. On the whole I think they may be turned to good account by accepting some as they stand and amending and enlaroino; others. The rules relatinc; to the time of sittins: and to the duration of the session are important, but they affect ratlier the convenience of members personally. I doubt whether the House would obtain any relief by meeting daily at 2. But if the session could be so arranged as to leave the summer months free to members by rele- gating work to the autumn, it would be a great relief in many ways. " Yours truly, "Hampden." "TIIOKNS IN THE CUSHION" 51 From H. C. Ralkes. "Carlton Club, P\ll Mall, S.W., " Januarn 29, 188G. " Dear Mr. Lucy, — I have read the article on Procedure in the Daily News with much interest, and agree perhaps more with your criticisms than with your approbation. The establishment of an autumn session will, I think, be a good thing if it is a rule confined to particular classes of business. But the 2 P.M. meeting is intolerable, and as you may perhaps remember I have been a consistent opponent of ' devolution.' " I am flattered by your kind suggestion that I should write to the Daily News on the subject, an invitation which I would gladly accept if Parlia- ment wTre not sitting. But as I hope to take an active part in discussing the proposed rules in the House, I am unwilling to forestall by publication any little interest which might attach to my views on the subject. You will, I know, under- stand this. " Yours very truly, " Henry Cecil Kaikes." The proposal that the House of Commons should meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a favourite idea with Mr. Balfour, was revived during his leadership, and actually carried into effect. Compensation was ofi"ered to members for the inconvenience of assembling thus early by providing a two 52 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS hours' interval for dinuer. After fairly prolonged trial the scheme broke down, a justification of the view of its " intolerable" character concurred in by Lord Hampden and Mr. Raikes. The experiment had, however, permanent influence on the procedure of the House, since by way of compromise it was agreed that the Speaker should take the chair at 2.50 instead of 4 o'clock as in former days. One of the most pleasing memories in connexion with my editorship of the Daily News was that it completed a relationship between John Morley (now Viscount) and myself, perhaps unique in its way. At one time, whilst directing the fortunes of the old Pall Mall Gazette, he w^as my editor, I on his invitation contributing to the journal a series of Parliamentary sketches. During the first month of my new service in Bouverie Street I had the advantage of his invaluable assistance as leader- writer. On the 3rd February, 1886, he wrote to inform me that he had accepted office with Cabinet rank, in Gladstone's newly formed Government, and must sever his connexion with journalism. Responding to my acknowledgment of the an- nouncement, he wrote : " Many thanks for your letter. I know that I can count on your kindness to the full, and I shall need it. You may well call it a perilous under- takinjr : I did not seek it." IV PROFESSOR BLACKIE For half a century, between 1845 and the early days of 1895, a familiar figure to be met in Princes Street, Edinburgh, wore a tartan plaid. As he walked with sprightly step, nodding salutation right and left, people turned to watch him with friendly eye. It was Professor Stuart Blackie, one of the best-known and most popular Scotchmen of his day. I formed his acquaintance at Oban early in the 'seventies, while holiday-making there under the allurins; guidance of William Black. It was not my first personal contact with him. That befell earlier in the season, when unbeknown I was present at one of his lectures in an Edini)urgh University Class-room. Going northward my wife and I halted at Edinburgh to enjoy the hospitality of Dr. George Smith, not long home from India, where he had for many years edited the leading English journal. In order to preach a gospel of broader Liberalism than even in those days was to be found in the columns of the Scotsman under the editorship of the renowned Russcl, a morning paper 53 54 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS had been established in Edinburgh known as the Daily Review. Dr. Smith was editor, and on the recommendation of Taylor Innes I was appointed London Correspondent, telegraphing a column thrice a week. For this service I received an honorarium exceeding my salary on the Daily News with its night and day engagements all the year round. In the then young circle of the Smith family, the boys endowed with heritage of the fine character and mental gifts of their mother, was one who has won for himself high renown among Scotch scholars, preachers, and writers. Twenty years later, Stuart Blackie, " dandering," as he wrote to his wife, " through the leafy luxuriance of this learned metropolis (Oxford), found Fairbairn at Mansfield with his wife and family, and with him, in most unexpected fashion, my old student George Adam Smith, now Professor of Hebrew in the Free Church College, Glasgow." Dr. Smith has since risen to the loftier heights on which is throned the Principal of Aberdeen University. At the time of which I write he was still a student. On my expressing a desire to see something of the work of the University he smuo-o-led me into the class-room, to which the Professor presently entered and without preface commenced to talk, a process distinct from lecturing. It happened that beneath the business of the hour ran an imdercurrent of humour. There had PEOFESSOB BLACKIE 55 been a brief interval of holiday nature. At the close of the last gathering Blackie had written in chalk on the board, *' Professor Blackie's classes will meet again next week." One of the youths sneakino: back after the room was cleared, struck out the initial letter of the third word, leaving the sentence to read, " Professor Blackie's lasses will meet again next week." Coming upon this, Blackie erased another letter, and on the boys re- assembling they found the proclamation, " Professor Blackie's asses will meet again next week." It was the junior Greek class I found at work — about 150 youths seated on a steeply rising gallery, facing and faced by a picturesque figure in academic gown, broad white collar, and flowing white hair. My note-book fixes the date as Novem- ber 25, 1879. Gladstone had lately crossed the Border on the first of the Midlothian campaigns. Edinburgh was in an ecstasy of enthusiasm that Ijubbled night and day at sight of the old cam- paigner and within sound of a voice presently to fill the spacious area of the Market Hall. In the van of the throne that waited outside the over- crowded halls in which Gladstone thundered were the students. It was their custom of an afternoon, when, after speaking in the Music Hall or else- where, he drove back with his host to Dalraeny, to run beside the open carriage cheering all the way. Edinburgh saw another sight when thirteen years later Gladstone returned to the field of his early 56 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS triumpli, bringing his sheaves with him in the shape of a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. For one present through both occasions the contrast was acutely painful. In 1879 Edinburgh sat admir- ingly at his feet. In 1892 she, with almost savage gesture, turned her back on him. But that is another story. It was Professor Blackie's cheerful habit to pre- face the sterner and drier work of exposition by a little talk on men and things more or less remotely concerned with Greece, its language and its litera- ture, always sparkling with humour, rich with grains of shrewd criticism and sound common- sense. On this particular morning chance reference to Minerva led him ofi' over a wide field of dis- cursive talk on the goddess and the festivals Athens held in her honour. Incidentally he observed, " I don't know what Mr. Gladstone thinks of Minerva." AVhereupon the class, instantly bringing back their thought to modern Athens, broke into thunderous applause, expressed in the usual fashion by the beating of feet on the floor. Blackie plaintively and hopelessly protested against the interruption. " Why can't I make a remark without yon breaking into this silly noise ? " he asked, and then resumed — " I don't know, I say, what Mr. Gladstone thinks." Again applause broke forth. For sake of the business of the morning, the Professor, when he found an opportunity of continuing his remarks, PEOFESSOE BLACKIE 57 was fain to adopt a compromise and strategically refer to Mr. Gladstone as " he." The Greek class was not the only one whose decorum was exceptionally disturbed by the en- thusiasm engendered in the youthful mind by the historic event of Gladstone's visit. It happened that in the Law class the young scholar who stood forty- third on the class-list bore the name just then most honoured in Scotland. At the calling over on the assembling of the class each morning the approach to this particular number was watched with great interest. When the Professor in the regular course called out " Gladstone " there was a burst of cheers which lasted several minutes. Like Blackie, desirous of getting on with business, the Professor attempted to avoid a scene by calling " Forty-three." The class sharply supplied the proper name. Amid cries of " Gladstone, Glad- stone," they stamped and cheered. It is more than probable that in the eyes of these young politicians special zest was found in the fact that the learned and respected Professor was a Conservative of pronounced type, to whom the name they applauded was not likely to prove acceptable. Some months later Blackie and I foregathered at Oban, where he had a house encircled by hills and fronting the Bay. Charles Mackay, the poet, also had quarters at Oban, and was accustomed to be at home after dinner to a little circle of friends, amongst the most regular attendants being William 58 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS Black and Professor Blackic. The mistress of tlie household played the piano with fine touch and sang charmingly. Blackie was accustomed to break into song as inconsequently as he dropped into poetry. He always insisted upon a chorus to the song, regardless of the composer's intentions in the matter. On a second visit to Oban, paid either in the next year or the one following, when I landed Blackie rushed out from the crowd which through the season daily assembled " to see the boat come in," and in sight of a thronged pier and a shipload of passengers publicly kissed me. The action was momentarily disconcerting. A quarter of a century later, reading the charming volume of his letters to his wife, I found under date Aberdeen, September 20, 1859, the entry: "On Monday I made an interesting acquaintance, James Martineau, the Unitarian professor and preacher who had been up at Braemar for two months and preached last Sunday forenoon in this place. In the afternoon I came home with him and kissed him because he is good." It is pleasant even to be able to hope that I was kissed because I was good. I saw much of Blackie on this second occasion. We took walks together over the hills and far away. He v/as at home in every farmhouse or labourer's cottage we passed, suffusing barely furnished rooms with the briskness and buoyancy of his presence. A few months before he died, writing to his nephew, PROPESSOE BLACKIB 59 he added what were probably the hist of the many verses with which he was accustomed to embroider his correspondence with intimate friends : " Not death is evil but the way to death : Through dim divinings and with scanty breath A length of deedless days and sleepless nights Sown with all sorrows, shorn of all delights. Teach me, oh God, in might and mercy sure Teach me, the child of joyance, to endure. Endure in truth, no easy thing to learn, But how to learn it be thy main concern. Though now thou canst not march with rattling speed Thy soul shall shape thy thought into a deed. Look round and find some useful thing to do And God will make it pleasant work for you." One noontide, making our way back to Oban, he asked me to stay at his house for luncheon. As usual he had throughout the brisk w^alk been full of conversational fire and energy. It was perhaps fancy, but I noticed a change in voice and manner as we shut the gate behind us and walked up the short carriage drive leading to the hall-door. He presented me to his wife in an almost humble deprecatory fashion, foreign to all earlier acquaint- ance. I cannot say her reception was enthusiastic, though before we parted, at the end of two hours, we were, to Blackie's undisguised delight, great friends. I fancy she was accustomed to her hus- band's unexpected arrival at mealtime with stray 60 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS persons picked up — not always like flowers — by the wayside and dreaded fresh infliction. It was impossible to conceive a more striking contrast between two persons than was presented in a room where Black ie sat with his wife. He was, as he aptly described himself in the verse quoted, " the child of joyance," bubbling with emotion, generally humorous, sometimes sad. She prim, practical, a stickler for extreme propriety alike in word and manner. In spite of this incongruity the union was a most happy one, of its kind doubtless the best conceivable for the erratic Professor. Show- ing me over the house after luncheon, he told me that Mrs. Blackie had been sole architect, drawing the plans and drafting the specifications with her own hand. One of the most deathless and widely spread superstitions thrives upon the number " thirteen." There are grown-up people, in other respects sane, who would rather starve than sit at dinner at a table where the company marked that figure. Blackie told me a lively story on this subject. Arriving one night at Dalmeny, Lord Kosebery's seat near Edinburgh, he, coming late, found the guests at dinner. With characteristic cheeriness, and in obedience to pleasiug habit of making him- self at home in any circumstances, he brought up a chair and seated himself near his hostess. He instantly became conscious of a strange uneasiness in the (circle. As it deepened into constrained silence. Lady Ptosebery whispered to him that lie PEOFESSOR BLACKIE ' 61 had better go into tlie drawing-room, where he would find Lady Aberdeen. Blackie had not dined, and was not the kind of man to see others pleasantly engaged without desire to join. " Yes, by-and-by," he answered, to Lady Rosebery's increased embarrassment. Pre- sently one of the guests came up and pointed out to him that his arrival made the company thirteen at table, and there was a lady present who was a firm believer in the tradition that in such arith- metical circumstances death would be busy with one or more of the guests before the year was out. So the hungry Professor dolefully departed to the drawing-room. I remember an analogous case hapj^ening in the same hospitable room. Dining at Dalmeny, during the last of the Midlothian campaigns, I w\as sur- prised to find the host seated apart from the big table in company with Mrs. Griadstone and Sir Algernon West. After dinner I ventured to ask the reason for this eccentric arrano-ement. " Didn't you notice," Lord Rosebery replied, "that we were thirteen at dinner? Had that number been at one table, some one might have been disturbed in mind. I have no superstitions on the point myself, but others have." The incident Professor Blackie narrates took place just nine years earlier. It is quite possible it was in Lord Rosebery's mind when he made up two parties at separate tables. It was strange to find Queen Victoria susceptible 62 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS to the fetish. The subject coming up at the dinner- table of the late Lord Granville when he lived in Green Street, he told how whilst still a young man he was invited to dine with the Duke of Cambridge to meet Her Majesty. At the last moment he was disabled by an attack of gout. On the Queen's arrival, finding the dinner guests were by Lord Granville's defection reduced to thirteen, she posi- tively refused to sit at table. The difficulty was got over by sending for Princess Mary, at the time too young to have been included in the original arrancrement. Parnell, of all men, was a slave to the quaint superstition. There is a familiar story of his positively refusing during an election campaign with Tim Healy to occupy a bedroom numbered thirteen. Whilst in Kilmainham, there was sub- mitted to him by his colleagues the draft of a Bill amending the Irish Land Act. On discovering that the clauses counted up to thirteen, he threw down the manuscript with a gesture of terror and refused to have anything to do with it. Blackie, though he laughed at the superstition, was greatly interested in it. He used to tell a story about a society of merry souls who deliberately set themselves to flout its omens. They called them- selves the Thirteen Club. They dined together on Fridays, and walking to their rendezvous (num- bered thirteen in its street) would go some distance out of their way for the privilege of passing under a ladder. They sat down thirteen at dinner, PROFESSOR BLACKIE 63 deliberately crossed spoons and knives, helped cacJi other to salt, and otherwise outraged the ritual of the superstition. This was all very well. But there was a strange case in connexion with the history of the club — I forget whether it was located in Edinburgh or London — on which Blackie dilated. In certain company, a man of genius, whose name was at the time familiar to and popular with the English- speaking race, gleefully told how the previous Friday he had filled a vacancy in the membership of the Thirteen Club, and gloated over its prag- matical performances. Within a month he, of his own free action, took a critical step which finally wrecked his professional career. Resigning a high, in some respects unique position, he embarked upon an enterprise in which he lost not only money, but his hold on the public. That was, indeed, the strangest part of the story. With the change of circumstance and sur- rounding there unaccountably disappeared the skilful touch that had brought him renown and affluence. Of course, it was all a coincidence. But it is a striking one.* * On page 343 of the first volume of these Reminiscences, page 294 in the shilling edition, will be found another true, story of recent date illustrating this quaint superstition. MEMORIES When I lived in Shrewsbury, trying my 'prentice hand on journalism, a principal personage in the town was Dr. Clement. A strong Liberal, he, at election times and preliminary thereto, set himself diligently to defeat the machinations of a local hairdresser named John Frail, famous in his time, who by sheer genius in electioneering, untrammelled by nice scruples with respect to the law relating to bribery and corruption, succeeded in gaining the confidence of the Carlton Club, and the appointment as their election agent at Shrewsbury. I find among old letters one written by Dr. Clement in 1868, in which he tells a story about Disraeli which, as far as I know, does not appear in any biography. " It is," he writes, '' quite true that I was bound over to keep the peace towards Mr. Disraeli in 1841. It is also quite true that I referred to the incident in public, being anxious to show that in this great free country the highest ofiices are open to all men. In 1841 Mr. Disraeli was a mere political adventurer, and my friend, Sir William Yardley, was almost a briefless ])arrister." C4 MEMOEIES 65 The iuterestiiig episode lie refers to happened diiriug the Parliamentary contest of 1841, which resulted in Disraeli's election for the borough — a seat he held till July, 1847, when he found perma- nent quarters in the county of Bucks. At the inquest arising out of the wreck oflf Dungeness, held at Lydd on the 22nd January, 1873, of the emigrant ship Northfieet, involving the loss of 300 lives, to which passing reference was made in the first volume of this narrative, there flashed forth an unforgetable bit of comedy varying the grim tragedy. Amongst the pas- sengers on board the doomed ship who escaped with his life was one John Beveridge. It was known he had been on deck at the moment of the collision, and his evidence was looked forward to with extreme interest. Called to the witness-box, his grave countenance and something in the solemn manner in which he, having taken the oath, kissed the book, went to confirm this impression. I find in my notes, taken in court, the following con- versation : — The Coroner : " What is your name ? " " John Beveridge," replied the witness. " Were you a passenger by this ill-fated ship ? " " No, sir." "You were one of the crew then?" ''No, sir." " Then what are you ? " " I'm a fish curer." Blank silence fell upon the court. The coroner looking at his clerk, then round at the jury, and back at the witness in a puzzled way, Mr. Beveridge himself quietly staring straight before him, evidently p 66 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS ready to answer upon oath any further ques- tion. " What do you know about the wreck of the Nortkjieet P" the coroner at last asked. " 1 know nothing — except," added Mr, Beveridgc in a cautious manner, to which his broad Scotch accent gave additional efiect, " what I have read about it in the newspapers." After the consternation caused by this declara- tion, made with indescribable imperturbability, had partially subsided, he was asked to explain how he, knowing nothing of the wreck, came to be in the inquest-room at Lydd. "Well, sir, I'll tell you as far as I under- stand it myself. I got a telegram on Monday at Berwick-on-Tweed, where I live, telling me to come down to Lydd to give evidence at the inquest on the Northjieet. I wrote back to say I knew nothing about it, and what about my expenses. On Thursday I got this note from Messrs. Patton & Co., which says, 'The coroner requires you at the inquest without fail on Saturday at Lydd, so you had better leave Berwick to-morrow. You will have to go by rail through London to Folke- stone, and then take earriasfe on. Enclosed is a cheque for expenses £3 ; we will pay you any further reasonable expenses that may be due.' I did not know what it all meant ; but as the money for the expenses was there right enough, I came away." This astonishing story, told without movement MEMORIES 67 of a muscle of the face, was received with uncoil trollablc lau<,4itei'. Wheii it .subsided, Mr. Bevcridge (juietly resumed liis scat at the back of the court, safe iu the possession of funds for his " expenses." From Christie Mnrraij. "47, Barbara Street, Barnsbuuy, N., " November 25, 1874. '' My dear Lucy, — I liave to thank you for the kindest and most generous judgment ever yet passed upon any work of mine. Your praise is all the sweeter because I had such strong doubts about pleasing anybody with that fairy story. I am ill at dates, but I know that this is very nearly the anniversary of my arrival in London. Everybody partly knew — but nobody altogether — the poverty and sorrows which at that time beset me. Since that time the friends I have found, the good fortune which has befallen me, the kindness with which I have everywhere been treated are gratefully and wonderfully surprising. You will not think me too effusive if I tell you that your notice of my work has both surprised and touched me. It is one more of a hundred pleasant things which have come to pass for me during the last three weeks, and it helps to make the contrast between now and last year the greater. If I say too much, please remember that I am emptying on you the gratitude I owe to half a score of people. I am, dear Lucy, yours very truly, *'P, Christie Murray." 68 SIXTy YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS I forget the name of the fairy story alluded to in this letter, as, indeed, I cannot recall the title of a novel written some years later by the same gifted author, in which he did me the honour to create a character for which I unknowingly sat as a lay figure. It was not intended to be flattering. But it did not hurt me, and excuse was forth- coming from the fact that in the meantime I had opportunities, sedulously cultivated, to do him more substantial service than the one which finds acknowledgment in this epistle. Anyhow, it is pleasant to come upon this specimen of earlier manner. A lady, well known in London Society, was, and I believe still is, in possession of one of Whistler's earliest phantasies. At dinner one night, in reply to some remark I made about the picture, she said her original difficulty in hanging it rose from doubt as to which was the right side up, a little pleasantry devoid of intentional malice. Mention of the incident in May Fair brought a characteristic letter from the irate artist. I did not at the time know Whistler personally. The last occasion on which I met him, shortly before his death, was at dinner at Fisher Unwin's. He arrived three-quarters of an hour late, and did not seem to regard the matter as requiring either explanation or apology. MEMORIES 69 *' 9(), Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, " June lOth, 1877. " Dear Sir, — I find in Piccadilly of this week tliat May Fair and I have both suffered. Under the title of ' The Upside-down Joke,' an anecdote is taken from your columns that establishes a bond of union between us. We have both been abused. I have been turned ' upside down,' and you have been called ' stupid ' — both unwarrantable liberties. Believe, I beseech you, in my sympathy, and let us insist together upon the name of the aggrieved lady, that her complaint may be attended to, and whilst your intelligence be vindicated again as has already been attempted in Piccadilly, I may also profit, and, once for all, be placed before a sensible public ' right side up.' " Faithfully yours, "J. A. McN. Whistler. " To the Editor of May Fakr •^ VI "LABr.Y" As far as I know or have heard, Henry Labouchere, liaving once settled down to self-decreed exile in Florence, never revisited either the House of Com- mons or the Eeform Club. Both were dear to him ; in both he held a unique position ; in both his favourite resort was the smoking-room. When he seated himself and lit a fresh cigarette, a group quickly gathered round him, listening with delight to his piquant stories, his shrewd commentary on current affairs and on men who meddled in them. After the disruption of the Liberal i^arty, there were by chance two conversational groups to be found gathered in the smoking-room of the Reform Club after luncheon. Labby was the centre of one ; John Bright presided over C[uite another. They had this characteristic in common — both dis- cussed old political friends with freedom not un- tinged with bitterness. For Labby it was as impossible to keep Mr. Chamberlain out of the rauo:e of his thouo'ht as it was for Mr. Dick to exclude reference to the head of Charles I. when drafting his Memorial. Having, not without 70 "LABBY" 71 pathetic struggle, ])roken the spell of admiring affectionate friendship that for a quarter of a century bound him to Gladstone, Bright grew accustomed to pour upon his head the contumely and scorn in earlier days reserved for the Peerage and the Bench of Bishops. It was a curious and significant thing that, just before his last illness, Bright bent his clear mind and supreme capacity to almost exclusive study of the nonsense one Donnelly put forth on the subject of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. During his last appearances at the Eeform Club he talked hardly anything but cryptogram, and was just as scornfully angry with deluded people who believe that Shakespeare wrote " Othello," as twenty years earlier he had been with those who, in respect of Irish affairs, decried the doctrine that " Force is no remedy." In his House of Commons v\^ork, Labby from time to time closely associated himself with a chosen comrade. The first, for some years the most cherished, was Mr. Chamberlain. Up to the end of the Session of 1885 the two were inseparable. They lived together on terms of unreserved inti- macy, spending their days and nights in plots devised in the highest interests of the State. John Morley was another confidant, though wide diver- gence of character precluded the intimacy existing in the case of Mr. Chamberlain. This was most nearly realised when Sir Charles Dilke returned to the House. Labouchere from the first heartily 72 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS held out to an old friend the right hand of fellow- ship. During the run of the Unionist Parliament made possible by the General Election of 1900, the two sat together on the front bench below the gangway, the quarter made famous by memory of Randolph Churchill and the Fourth Party. Labby had the corner seat, Dilke on his left, with Reginald McKenna, possibly undreaming of the Home SecretaryshijD, next. In accordance with a Standing Order shrewdly compounding piety with business, a Member desiring to secure a particular seat must needs be in attendance at Prayers, when tickets securing the privilege are distributed. For Labby the summons of the Muezzin, whether sounded morn- ing or evening, had no attraction. But he must needs have this corner seat, and he always secured it. Any member doubting his right to the place would, on making examination more or less furtive, discover set in the receptacle at the back of the bench, the authorising ticket distributed at prayer- time. How did he manage it? The House, to its uproarious delight, was let into the secret by Mr. Sydney Gedge. Seated above the Gangway behind the Treasury Bench, where he shared with Macdona the enterprise of forestalling Mr. " Tommy " Bowles in possession of the corner seat, he noted (l) that Labby never was in his place at prayer- time ; (2) that when he strolled " LABBY " 73 in for Questions he dropped into the corner seat reserved for liini by the ticket that bore his name. To make quite sure, Mr. Gedge one day moved below the Gangway to a seat immediately opposite the one shrouded in mystery. Covering his face with his hands whilst the Chaplain recited prayers he, dexterously opening his fingers, observed Dilke, having fixed a ticket in the back of his own seat, insert one in that of the absent Member for Northampton. He formally brought the misde- meanour under notice of the Speaker. But nothing came of it, and to the end Labby, unsustained by devotional exercise, kept his corner seat. The siege of Tommy Bowles' seat alluded to was one of those personal episodes that delight an assembly which, though sometimes called the Mother of Parliaments, is not without strain of the schoolboy. The Member for King's Lynn, whose just claims to Ministerial ofiice Mr. Balfour studiously ignored, habitually displayed an inde- pendence distasteful to the I faithful above the Gangway among whom he sat. Assuming the privilege of an old Member, he appropriated the corner seat immediately behind the Treasury Bench, whence he not infrequently rose to rebuke the turpitude or correct the ignorance of his esteemed Leaders. Good Unionists takiuo; counsel too;etlier deter- mined they would not have this rebel seated in their midst in a specially favoured place. Sydney Gedge and Gumming Macdoua volunteered to deal 74 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS with the matter. Accordingly one afternoon when the Member for King's Lynn entered at question time and advanced to his corner seat he found it occupied by Sydney Gedge. Robinson Crusoe coming unexpectedly on traces of the footsteps of the Man Friday was not more surprised. Intrusion, however, might have been unpremeditated. But when the next day, arriving at his accustomed time, he found Gumming Macdona installed in his place he, so to speak, smelt a rat. An old campaigner he was hard to beat. Whilst, as explained, attendance at prayers is essential to procuring a particular seat, there is a preliminary process equivalent to pegging out a claim. At any hour of the morning after the House is opened there is obtainable a large white card bearing the inscription, " This card placed on a seat by a Member will secure it until he attends prayers." The next day Mr. Bowles, strolling over to the House before luncheon, obtained one of these cards, signed it and placed it on the corner seat. There remained only the necessity, duly met, of being present at Prayers in order to secure the coveted seat. The next mornino; he asrain looked in at the House with intent to peg out his claim. On the sent he found a big white card signed Sydney Gedge. Tliereafter followed a game, watched with intense interest by the House, wherein Tommy sometimes won and sometimes the conspirators triumphed. It was carried to the length of the winner putting " LABBY " 75 in an appearance at 5 o'clock in the morning. After a while the strain told upon men not accustomed to such early hours, and Tommy was left in undisturbed possession of the seat. Oumming Macdona had other claim to dis- tinction beyond this enterprise. After leaving Oxford he took Holy Orders and was appointed to a Cheshire rectory. A promising career was cut short by unparalleled circumstance. Officiating at a wedding he joined the wrong man in holy matrimony. The bridegroom being of retiring disposition fell a little to the rear of the group gathered round the altar. The best man uncon- sciously edged himself to the front. So the Rector, thiukinsf he was the brideojroom, married him to the bride. This little incident convinced Macdona he had mistaken his career. He changed his surplice for a barrister's gown, and in course of time was re- turned to the House of Commons by the Borough of Southwark. It was in the Parliament of 1885-92 that "The Christian member for Northampton," as Labby called himself by way of distinction from his colleague Bradlaugh, won his way to a position that in the opinion of the House justified expecta- tion of his being included in the next Liberal Ministry. That Gladstone's desire to justify this expectation w\as on personal grounds overruled by a higher power was the beginning of the end that closed in the villa at Florence. Disappointment 76 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS was not displayed iu the immediate withdrawal from Parliamentary life or even in marked limi- tation of attendance. This halting by the way was largely due to the interest excited in his mind by the Boer war. Kegardless of the tone of opinion out of doors, which whilst the campaign was draw- ing to a close triumphantly reinstated Mr. Balfour and his colleagues in power at what came to be known as the Khaki Election, Labby, in season and out, lifted up his voice against a business in the initiation and direction of wliich he recoo^nised the strong hand of an old friend and companion dear. I well remember the shout of laughter that rang through the House, when at the time Redvers Buller had set out for the scene of war, the public serenely resting in the belief that he would be in Pretoria by Christmas, Labby, looking ahead, declared that the war would cost the country a hundred millions sterling. He spoke in debate in Committee of Ways and Means when the Government asked for a vote of ten millions, assuring the Committee that it was a liberal estimate designed to cover all contingencies. Two and a half years later a paper was issued setting forth the accrued and estimated cost of the war up to the end of the financial year, March 31, 1903. It was a trifle under 223 millions. Labby brought me in the Lobby a copy of the paper just placed in the Vote Office. " I have " (he said) *' been looking up my speech " LABBY " 77 delivered in the War Session summoned in October 1899 by way of retort to Kruger's ultimatum. You remember how they jeered at me when I said the war would cost not ten millions, but a hundred millions ? If on the walls of the House an invisible hand had written 222,974,000/. a silence would have fallen on the laughing throng as tragic as that which broke in on the revelry at Belshazzar's feast." In 1886 Labby was at the height of his vigour, in the full flush of his political activity. A militant Radical, he was personally on friendly terms with the principal men of all sections. Lord Randolph Churchill and his colleagues of the Fourth Party were confidential friends, equally with Parnell and his lieutenants. On the eve of Christmas, 1886, the country v/as amazed at announcement that Lord Randolph Churchill, Chancellor of the Exche(|uer and Leader of the House of Commons, had resigned. Labouchere wrote : "The Reform Club, " December 23, 1886. " My dear Lucy,— This is the situation. On Saturday Randolph and Chamberlain dined together. On Sunday R. had no intention to resign altho' he thought that there might be a row ultimately about the Local Government Bill. Then came the Estimates. Salisbury definitely refused to have them cut down. On Wednesday Eandolph wrote to Salisbury to resign in a huff. Salisbury told no 78 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS oue, and his wife and the Duchess of Marlborough (who was at Hatfield) saw it iu the paper the next morning. " R. wrote to me yesterday. He says generally that the Govt, was ultra Tory, and that he thought, as he was C. of the E., it was a good opportunity to slip out on the Estimates. I know him well. It was all huff. Probably he had told Chamberlain that he was going to liave his way on these estimates. " This morning I saw Arnold Morley and Schnadhorst. They both insist that Chamberlain is climbing down. He is not. If you read his speech you will see that it is a mere attempt to cajole instead of to bully. The basis is the same. A large land bill, & Local Govt. He knows if these were passed, Home Rule would never be passed. It is true that many of his friends thought he went too far in his telegram, so he is seeking to put salt on their tails as well as on ours. We have to knock it into the heads of our masses that Joe is more thoroughly hated and distrusted by the Radical army than any other man, whilst the Whig army follow Hartington. ''Morley asked me what the Irish would do if Chamberlain proposed and Churchill seconded the rejection of the Govt. Local Govt. Bill. I replied that I should certainly advise them not to vote (which would give the Govt, a majority) unless Chamberlain agreed to act with Gladstone, and Gladstone agreed to brinor in ^ Home Rule Bill "LABBY" 79 as Lis first measure. I think that they will do this. " My idea of the situation lor the I^ciUj/ News is to hold to the Leeds programme, to protest against any liand Purchase or any shunting of Home Rule, and to tell Joe that if he wants to belong to the Party, he must accept the Party creed, at the same time explaining to him that the work will move on, with or without him. *' No one can complain of this. " As for Randolph, he ought to be depreciated. We don't know what he will do, but of this I am sure, he will smash up any Party to which he belongs unless he is dictator. It is constitutional. Had he known his own interests, he would have allied himself with the Whig wing of the Unionists, and thus pretty well got his way. But he hates Hartington and loves Joe. Salisbury had the sense to perceive that the majority of the Unionists are AVhiors and that with them he is safe. "Morley thinks that Hartington will join Churchill. That he will not do. The latter is evidently counting on Joe preventing him. Very possibly the House will be led by Goschen. " Yours truly, "H. Labouchere." It is interesting to observe that, with his re- markable insight, Labby at this earliest stage perceived the ultimate issue of a situation that at the time seemed fatally embarrassing to Lord 80 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Salisbury's Government. Randolph, as he admitted, "forgot Goschen." Labby instantly thought of him, and of the possibilities he commanded. Three days later he wrote again with further particulars of the political event of the hour. Incidentally the letter contained some obiter dicta on the tactics of the Home Rule campaign par- ticularly interesting at the present time : ^' Decemher 20, 1886. "My dear Lucy, — Drummond Wolff has just been in here, and this is exactly how it happened. Churchill had a finishing row with Smith on Monday about the estimates. He went down to Windsor, and from Windsor wrote to Salisbury and told him that he presumed he would take the same view as Smith and Hamilton, and therefore that he (C) resigned. Salisbury wrote stifily back accepting the resignation. On Wednesday Churchill wrote again, going more fully into details respecting the causes. This S. received at night when he was giving a ball. The next day it was in the Times. Wolff insists that if Randolph had not resigned, there would have been a row on the other side, the old Tories were so angry with him. But he admits that he did resign in a huff, and probably never intended to but expected Salisbury to knock under. "Wolff hopes that the matter will be made up, and is evidently (as the diplomatist of the party) trying to make it up. He thinks that Salisbury will cave in, if Hartington does not j<^in. His " LABBY " 81 estimate is — (1) If H. does not join and if Churchill keeps aloof, there will be a general smash. (2) If Churchill rejoins things may go on. (3) If Har- tington joins, this will give the Tories a majority of about 12, on the assumption that all vote with the Party. But as he sagely observes some men must be turned out [of office] to let in Hartington's friends, and they will vote against the Party on the first convenient occasion. " Wolff's idea is that John Morley has entirely knocked under to Chamberlain. I have not seen the former for a week. If he has C. will use it. He is very vindictive and will sell Morley. I hear from the Irish that they will not hear of Home Rule being shelved, and will be quite awake to the dangers of replacing a Tory Govt, by a Unionist Govt, supported by the Tories. Even if Parnell (whose dread of imprisonment gives him ' gastric complications '), developing a tendency not to push matters too far, were to agree to such a policy, they would not accept it. But there is no fear that he will, when he finds that they won't. " Evidently Chamberlain is trying to humbug all round, including Morley and Mr. G. His game is to precipitate a defeat of the Tories, knowing that the Queen would not send for Mr. G. How any one can be so silly as not to perceive this obvious tactical move, surpasses my understanding. " Parnell knew all about the Plan of Campaign. They will tone it down a little to prevent seces- sions from the English Liberals for, us they say, G 82 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS they can recommence whenever rent day comes round. O'Brien says he can make Ireland un- governable at a moment's notice. My advice to them is : Never let a Liberal Ministry come in unless it pledges itself to Home Rule at once. Do not let matters be quiet in Ireland and have rows in the House of Commons. Our people do not love the Irish, but they want peace and quiet. If once they think things will go quietly without Home Rule, we shall have recantations, particularly from our office holders. They must learn that Home Rule is the only road to the Treasury fleshpots. " Yours truly, "H. Labouchere." On the general political situation Labby wrote : " 10, Queen Anne's Gate, St. .James's Paek, " Decemher 22, 188G. " My dear Lucy, — The public don't like shilly shally from public speakers. This the Ripons and the Mundellas never can understand. The con- sequence is that I get full 20 letters every day asking me to go to meetings, and when I do go, I get an audience, whilst the pearls that flow from the lips of Mundella and Ripon fall on the floors of empty rooms. " I mean to speak no more, unless as is sug- gested we have a meeting at Wolverhampton, just after Chamberlain's meetinof at Birmino-ham, in order to reply to him. Over bumptiousness is his weakness. He imagines that he is the Radical " LABBY " 83 Party, and tliat all depends on him. This is true in Birmingham. Outside they regard him much as the Apostles would have regarded Judas, if he had come swaggering in to supper with an orchid in his buttonhole, and said that the Christian religion would not go on, if his ' flower ' were not adopted, and he recognised as its chief exponent. He is utterly spoilt by the adulation of his fellow- townsmen, and has to learn that England is not Birmingham. *' The Eadieal army is perfectly sound, and they have entirely rebelled against a few ' leaders ' in each locality who wanted to shilly shally. Allegi- ance to the 'venerated chief fetches them every- where. As for Home Rule, they do not love the Irish, but when they iind that no Home Rule means Tories in force, and Whigs supporting them, they accept it. " So far as I can make out the army is quite in favour of the Plan of Campaign — legal or illegal. Charles Russell suggested to me to transfer the issue to the forum of conscience, which is an excellent tribunal when one's law is shady. Lord Spencer, whom I met coming back from North- ampton to-day, says he questions whether Dillon has done anything illegal, for intimidation cannot be shown. If we boldly assert that the Irish are right, we shall carry the army. If we hesitate they will hesitate. "'Mr. G. ne^'or can understand that the end justifies the means. Churchill beat him by boldly 81 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS telling the Orangemen to resist. I consider that this wicked act was the cleverest thing he ever did. " Say when you will look in. We are going out to dinner to-morrow and Sat., but if you like to come in to dinner on Friday at 8 (without dressing) we shall be delighted, and still more if Mrs. Lucy will come. — Yours truly, " H. Labouchere." Here' again he touches a chord which sounds afresh to-day. The contrast between Mr. G., who " never can understand that the end justifies the means," and Lord Kandolph inciting Ulster to civil war is especially characteristic. Among other natural gifts, Labby was a born journalist. His letters from Paris in a state of siege are incomparable for their vivacity, grim humour, and graphic power. His creation and maintenance of Truth over a period of more than thirty years prove his administrative capacity. During my editorship of the Daily News he wrote frequently, conveying valuable suggestions. Here is a letter full of wise saws and two modern instances, for citation of which I of course have no responsi- bility : "10, Queen Anne's Gate, St. James's Park. " My dear Lucy, — I am by no means certain that I should not have headings to my leaders. I should always have one social subject on hand interesting to some lars^e class of Londoners. I " LABBY " 85 should have as many short political paragraphs as possible, containing information as to what Ministers will do, &c., &c. I should go in for interviews. The public likes individuality. It cares much more to know what A or B thinks than what a mysterious anonymous lecturer thinks. In Parliamentary re- porting, I should only report the men who have the ear of the House, and perhaps a few of the Metro- politan Members. " I have never understood why each London paper ignores the existence of other papers. I should be perpetually answering them, and ridi- culing them, whenever a good occasion presents itself. Mainly, I should answer two, the Time-'i and the Standard. Foreign intelligence : I would have my Paris letters as gossipy as possible. White- hurst's was the most successful. Though people laughed at him, they read him, and talked about his twaddle. Long telegrams are seldom of much value, unless on rare occasions. I should make my foreign correspondents send facts in the fewest possible words, and I should amplify these tele- grams in the office. The D. T. always does this, so I suspect does the Standard. As a rule the British public care very little for foreign intelli- gence. A good letter is just as useful as a telegram. The letter should be occasional and general. I should not do what is now done because it is and has been done. On the contrary I should start with revolu- tionary ideas, and especially study the American and our Provincial papers. 86 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS " All outcry by literary men is raised against sensationalism. It is the business of a newspaper to create a sensation. 1 would have every one say- ing, 'Have you seen what the Daily News is saying ? ' This is the best advertisement. The great diflerence between a good and a bad editor is this : the former looks at things subjectively, the latter objectively. The former forms an estimate of what the public likes by what he likes, and proceeds to endeavour to force it down their throats. The latter gives them what they like and cooked as they like it. In treating the politics of my Party, I should not be an advocate but a judge, summing up 'with apparent independence but with an eye to the verdict. — Yours truly, " H. Labouchere." VII RESIGN, OR HANG ON ? The division ou the second reading of the Home Rule Bill was taken shortly after the stroke of one o'clock on the morning of June 8, 1886. In a thronged, excited House of 656 members it was rejected by a majority of thirty. Gladstone, full of hope and courage, appealed to the country. The result of the General Election was the return of a Unionist majority of 110. The question presenting itself to Gladstone was whether he should meet the new Parliament or forthwith resign. After grave deliberation, the Cabinet unanimously decided in favour of resigna- tion, a conclusion of the matter hotly resented by Parnell, who privately backed up the suggestion set forth by Labouchere in the subjoined letters. "Pope's Yn.LA, Twickenham, " JiiJij 9 (1886). " My dear Lucy, — I have sent to Gladstone to ursfe him not to resign. If he is not dead beaten by the Conservatives he ought not to recognise the existence of the Unionists. There will be no Party 87 88 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS in opposition to him that can command a majority, only incoherent atoms. A man should never walk out of a fortress until he is kicked out, and the more the Irish question is discussed the better for us. "We have lost (1) because Morley clung to his damned land bill, which stinks in the nostrils of the Radicals, (2) because Gladstone was vague and tricky about what his Home Rule Bill was to be. " Let us have a Bill before the country. By clever manoeuvring we ought to be able to get another dissolution before Easter. Anyhow, the old man must stick to his guns. My suggestion to him is to meet Parliament now to pass the Estimates, and to wait until next year for his Home Rule Bill. Were he to do this, I don't sec how they could touch him by any amendment. — Yours truly, "H. Labouchere." "Pope's Villa, Twickenham, " July 10. " My dear Lucy, — I have a letter from Mr. G. which does not look like resigning if he can help it. He says : ' To-morrow I come up to town with nice matter for consideration in immediate crisis, but with no doubt or hesitation in my mind as to the principles on which to proceed. No step will be taken either by the Cabinet or by myself personally without much consideration. " ' I need hardly say that nothing will induce me to entertain the Home Rule of the P. M. Gazette. RESIGN, OR HANG ON? SO My forces arc limited, and must grow more and more so. But the claim of Ireland and of the rest of the country in connexion with it, is strong, and must not be lightly dismissed.' — Yours, " H. Labouchere." " Pope's Villa, Twickenham, " My dear Lucy, — Schnadhorst has just written to me to urge that the D. N. should not go for resignation. Morley, too, writes to say that he don't think that they ought to resign. Our creed is just now that Ireland and England are one, and that we have the majority over the Cons, and over the Unionists separately. Consequently Mr, G. ought to meet Parliament and see what turns up. — Yours truly, " H. Labouchere." Lord Morley, in his luminous Life of Gladstone, confirms Labby's impression that the Premier was disposed to hold on and see what the new Parlia- ment and a new session might bring forth. " For a short time," the biographer writes, " Mr. Gladstone wavered, along with an important colleague, and then he and all the rest came round to resignation." In a further letter Labouchere shrewdly and frankly discusses the situation : ''Jul// 11, 1886. " My dear Lucy, — I very much doubt whether the Dissentient Liberals will vote with the Tories on a general amendment of want of confidence. 90 SIXTY YEAES IN THE V7ILDEENESS Nor can it be said that Gladstone's policy has been defeated by any majority prepared to unite on a counter scheme. It looks to me pretty clear that we shall soon have another election. This being so, everything depends upon manoeuvring so as to present a good ' Contents bill ' to the public for that General Election, and to be the persons who do present the contents bill. " I ascribe the defeat to three causes which produced abstentions : 1. Home Rule was rushed. 2. The Land Bill was loathed by the Radicals, and neither Gladstone nor Morley would absolutely give up this [word illegible]. 3. There was an air of treachery about Gladstone's utterances respecting his Home Rule Bill. His own Bill had been con- demned in a variety of its clauses, and yet no one could quite make out whether he intended to give it up or alter these clauses. Whilst he denounced the privileged classes, he did not throw himself sufficiently on the Radicals. In fact, paradox as it may appear, his scheme was disliked because it was not sufficiently Home Rule. " Abstentions smashed us. Without them, we could win. But to win it is necessary that there should be a Bill in black and white before the electors. I doubt whether Chamberlain influenced a dozen votes out of Birmingham. The public seemed (rightly) to be of opinion that he w^as actuated by mere personal motives. " I know that I was written to by dozens of candidates and by Committees to give certificates of KESIGN, OE HANG ON? 91 Radicalism. The country is Radical, you may depend on it, and had it not been that every tactical fault was committed by the Govt, that it was possible to commit, we should have won. — Yours truly, " H. Labouchere." It is interesting to compare this review of the stricken field with a letter written by Mr. Chamber- lain on the following day : " Highbury, Moor Greex, Birmixgha:^, ''July 12, 18S6. " Dear Mr. Lucy, — I am not likely to be in London again until the meeting of Parliament, and at the moment I have nothing to communicate with regard to my own position or to the general situa- tion. Before forming any decision I should like to know the complete result of the elections, and also the decision at which Mr. C41adstone may arrive as to the course of the Government. " Meanwhile, I can only say that the result hitherto has been exactly what I expected. The Liberal party has been shattered and a period of reaction entered upon, the length of which depends entirely upon the way in which the Government accept their defeat. They may acknowledge their mistake and assist us to heal the difierences which have been disclosed. On the other hand, they may accentuate these differences, in which case the next general election will produce a large majority for the Tories. — Believe me, yours very truly, "J. Chamberlaix." 92 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS Eighteen days later, on Friday (ominous day), July 30, Gladstone had an audience with the Queen, at which he placed his resignation in her hands, a proffer accepted with right royal alacrity. The General Election that compelled this reluctant move on the part of Gladstone returned 317 Conservatives, 74 Dissentient Liberals, 191 Gladstonians, and 84 Parnellites. The Unionists, as the allied forces of Salisbury and Hartington now styled themselves, were in a majority exceed- ing 100. What would they do with it ? Expecta- tion cherished by Gladstone and his Cabinet colleagues is expressed in the following passage from a letter written to me by one of them on December 5, 1886 : " The Tories know that when they really try to deal with Irish Government they will be in a mess. The landlords hate extension of local government more than Home Rule. Therefore, the Tories will try to shelve the question. But can the Dissentient Liberals join them in that? They have declared Irish Government to be bad : how can they not press on its improvement ? Second, they say they are hungering and thirsting to join their old friends. How can they be parties to keeping open the only question that prevents that desirable consummation ? If you could see your way one day to working that out, it would be useful." VIII THE KOUND-TABLE CONFERENCE On the very day announcement appeared of the resignation of Randolph Churchill, Mr. Chamber- lain, speaking at Birmingham, let fall the signifi- cant remark that the differences between the severed sections of the Liberal party were such as might be settled by half a dozen men seated at a round table. Harcourt eagerly seized what he regarded as an olive-branch, and arranged for a meeting at his private house of five members of the Gladstone Cabinet of 1886. They were Har- court, Chamberlain, Herschell, George Trevelyan, and John Morley. Mr. Labouchere, with unerring instinct, doubted the utility of the experiment. He wrote from — " Queen Anne's Gate, St. James's Park, ''Jan. 7, 1887. " My DEAR Lucy, — I have been talking here for the last hour with Morley. This is his line. Whatever may be the order of precedence in which Chamberlain submits his proposals, he must submit as one of them Home Rule before any discussion 93 04 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS can take place. Land would be idle to discuss unless there is an agreement on Home Kule, because no one wants to bring in a Land Bill alone, even if some do with H. R. " On Irish Members sitting here for Imperial purposes, and on the delegation of powers, Mr. G. will be yielding, provided the delegation practically gives the Irish Assembly the same powers as the Gladstone Bill did. He will insist — (l) on a Statutory Parliament. (2) On an Executive pro- ceeding from said Parliament. (3) And (this is essential) on an Irish measure becoming law with- out assent of English Parliament, or the Irish Bill lying on the table of English Parliament for dis- cussion. The measures will be precisely in the same position as Colonial measures. " If C. accepts this, well and good, if not, he may go to . Mr. G. is not hopeful and he sees that the opinion of the Constituencies is aoainst the Conference, although individual men may be for it. I am as certain as I exist, that nine out of ten Liberals dislike the Conference. I had a letter to that effect from Wolverton this morning. He says : ' I know our best men are suspicious, and say that the Conference will weaken Mr. G,' — Yours truly, "H. Labouchere." INIidway in tlie Conference Mr. Chamberlain's former colleagues thought tliey had reason to bi^lievc tlie strayed sheep would be brouglit back THE EOUND-TABLE CONFERENCE 95 to the fold. Whereat there would have been more joy in the Liberal camp than over the ninety- and-nine who stayed within it. Realization of the hope would have changed the history of England during the next eighteen momentous years. On January 14 one of the Liberal delegates to the Round Table Conference wrote to me (the italics are his) : " My dear Lucy, — The new points are 1. That we have met twice, and after long discussion have found enougJi common ground to make us arrange to meet again. ... 2. That the Times in assuming that we have only discussed Land and have shelved Home Rule, is utterly wrong. 3. That there has been no knocking under, but a good square discussion. " Chamberlain goes home with Harcourt to Harcourt's residence in the New Forest to-morrow on a visit. *' You might rebuke the unworthy fears in certain camps that they are being sold. There is no selliniT in the matter." '» So assured was hope of a happy issue of the Conference that every effort was made to smooth the way for Mr. Chamberlain. He was particu- larly annoyed at the wide acceptance in the Liberal camp of the term "Dissentient Liberal" invented l)y the Daily Nev:s as descriptive of his following. Like the historical juryman in 06 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS analogous circumstances, Lis assumption was that the Dissentients were not the ninety Liberals who voted aojainst the second readino: of the Home Rule Bill, but the 313 who followed Gladstone in sup- port of it. I received a private message from a Nestor of the Liberal leaders suggesting that the Daily News should for the present refrain from the use of the term. From this and other incidents, trivial in themselves, I gathered conviction that the Conference would result in the rehabilitation of the party. Suddenly, unexpectedly, clouds darkened over the fair prospect. Matters had gone so far that a report of the provisional results of the Conference, embodying agreement on issues chiefly responsible for the split of the party, was drawn up to be laid before Gladstone. Even whilst he was studying the document, there was placed in his hand a copy of a paper called the Baptist, in which appeared a letter from J\lr. Chamberlain, warmly advocating the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church, and lamenting that it and other useful legislation must be indefinitely delayed because some eighty delegates to the House of Commons, " representing the policy and receiving the pay of the Chicago Convention, obstructed public business until their disloyal demands were con- ceded." This thunder-clap falling out of a summer sky broke up the Conference. The sittings were adjourned indefinitely, and never resumed. Three THE ROUND-TABLE CONFERENCE 97 weeks later Mr. Cliambcrlain formally announced his withdrawal from further negotiation. His frame of mind at this critical epoch of his career is indicated in a passage from a letter written to me from Stornoway on April 21, 1887 : " I deplore with you the state of feeling now prevailing in the Liberal Party. There has been nothinor like it in our ejeneration and the outlook is very black. Like you I wish I were out of it all for Politics have lost all charm for me." H IX THE FRIENDLY BROKER Labby would, in any circumstances, have made bis mark in the House of Commons as he did elsewhere. On his re-entry on the wave of Liberalism that flooded the House in 1880, he had a stroke of exceptional good fortune. His colleague in the representation of North- ampton in the earliest days of the life of the new Parliament raised the controversy associated with the name of Bradlaugb. Labouchere ranged him- self on the side of a man who defied theauthority of Gladstone, fresh from triumph at the poll. At a bound he leapt before the footlights of the most attractive stage in the world, and for a dozen eventful years kept his place. I do not fancy he had any particular personal liking for his colleague. I met Bradlaugh once at a festival at Labouchere's riverside house, Pope's Villa. But he did not sedulously cultivate his acquaintance outside the House, nor was he profoundly moved, as was Gladstone on one side and, with less passion, Stafford Northcote on the other, by the constitu- tional and religious question that rent the House. 98 THE FEIENDLY BROKER 99 It was au excellent opportunity for bringing himself to the front in a novel sphere of action. He made the most of it. In one of his many speeches he summed up the situation in charac- teristically cynical phrase. " It is," he said, " repugnant to the feelings of all men of tolerant mind that any gentleman should be hindered from performing functions in this ^Yorld on account of speculative opinions with respect to another." In succeeding sessions of this Parliament Labouchere played an active part. An attractive speaker, delighting the House with the freshness of his views on current events and the cultured cynicism of his phrases, he always commanded an audience. His real influence wa« exercised beyond the range of the Speaker's eye. Nothing pleased him more than being engaged in the Lobby, the smoking-room, or a remote corner of the corridors, working out some little plot. By conviction a thorough Radical, such was the catholicity of his nature that he was on terms of close personal intimacy with leaders of every section of party, not excepting those who sat on the Treasury Bench. He was one of the few, perhaps the only man, whom Parnell treated with ap^n'oach to confi- dence. He watched the growth of the Fourth Party with something like paternal interest. Lord Randolph Churchill and he were inseparable. In these various episodes and connexions he delighted to play the part of the friendly broker. 100 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS One of his peculiarities was swift growth of desire to change his place of residence. In the course of a few years T knew him successively at three addresses. When I first made his personal acquaintance he lived in a charming old house whose back overlooked St. James's Park at a postal address that made him known to readers of Pimch as "The Sage of Queen Anne's Gate." Thence he moved to a big gloomy residence in Grosvenor Crescent. His acquisition of the house in Old Palace Yard, providing convenient oppor- tunity of keeping an eye on the House of Lords over the way, was the result of characteristic smart^:^ ness. One day Shaw-Lefevre (later Lord Eversley), at the time First Commissioner of Works, chanced to meet him, and gleefully announced that he had his eye on premises that would permit him to realise his cherished idea of establishing an annexe to Westminster Abbey, with the object of relieving that congested district from further interment of the illustrious dead. He had, he said, made a bid for the premises. There was a difference of a few hundred pounds between the owner and himself. But it would not be permitted to bar acquisition of so desirable a property. Labby entered with encouraging sympathy into the details of the transaction, learned where the house was situated, the price offered, and the sum demanded. Then he went off, surveyed the premises, found them exactly what he wanted for a town residence, sprung two or three hundred pounds THE FEIENDLY BEOKBR 101 on tlie price ofifercd by the First Commissioner of Works, and became possessor of the house. " Shaw-Lefevre was rather angry when he called to see the man and found the house was sold," said Labby when, with his sweetest smile and softest voice, he told the story. "I pointed out to him that, in the circumstances of close contiguity to the Houses of Parliament, it was better to have a live M.P. in the place than a dead statesman or poet." It was from Old Palace Yard that, shaking the dust of the House of Commons from his feet, Labby went forth to die in a foreign laud, com- forted by the reflection that, after long residence in the corner house, he sold the property to the nation at greatly enhanced value. Shortly after his marriage, he was for a while possessed by a curious fancy. A wealthy man, with the steady income from Truth supplementing divi- dends from shrewdly placed investments, he was haunted by the idea that, sooner or later, he was destined to be crushed by financial disaster, and would end his days in the workhouse. The weird fancy passed away in course of a year or two. Whilst it lasted it was from time to time oppres- sive. The oddest episode in a career full of varied interest was the voluntary exile to Florence. Up to the period of his departure there seemed to be no man to whom London was more indispensable. Above most things he dearly loved a gossip. During the Parliamentary Recess it was his custom 102 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS of an afternoon to retire to the smoking-room of the Reform Club, and there, with the eternal cigarette at hand, discom-se to a group gathered round his chair. When Parliament was sitting the scene was transferred to the smokino'-room of the House of Commons, where he regularly found an equally delighted audience. In both places he was accustomed to pass in frank review the current proceedings of Ministers or ex-Ministers. For many years after the rupture of 1886 the Statesman whom he invariably alluded to as "Joe" supplied a fruitful theme of com- mentary. Singularly free from personal resent- ment, cynically indifferent to questions of manners, he pursued Mr. Chamberlain with an animosity equalled only by the warmth of the intimate friendship existing between the two prior to the Home Rule epoch. Another antipathy was nurtured with respect to Lord Rosebery. He believed — a belief abso- lutely devoid of foundation — that it was he who had been responsible for his being overlooked when Gladstone was forming his Ministry in 1892. Alike in public speech, in private conversation, and in pages of his weekly journal he pursued Lord Rose- bery with almost savage animosity. I have the best reason to know that some ten years ago, acting under the influence of Mrs. Labouchere, he inti- mated to a mutual friend a desire and intention to renew former friendship. Lord Rosebery did not effusively respond to advances delicately made, and THE FRIENDLY BROKER 103 nothing came of the advance, except a gradual increase of the personal attack. It came to pass, while yet he figured in the parliamentary lists, that he conceived for Cecil Rhodes a detestation second only to that he cherished for his old comrade Mr, Chamberlain. When after the Jameson Raid the Army officers concerned in it were arraigned on police court charges while Cecil Rhodes went free, he said to me, with the quizzical smile and twinkling eye that accompanied the measured utterance of his good things, " It is just as if Eve were tried and sentenced in the matter of that apple, while the serpent was reinstated in his arch-diaconal position." In the brief Parliament elected in 1892 there was a story popular on both sides about a pushing Member of the House of Commons. Beginning life as an apprentice in the office of a country solicitor, he rose to the position of head clerk. Shortly after reaching this point of eminence, he casually remarked to his employer that he would like to be taken into partnership. The solicitor stared at him aghast. "Why," he gasped, "you've no capital, no position in town or county, nothing beyond the salary I pay you." " Exactly," replied the imperturbable head clerk, "but you know I am going to be married to Miss X." This gave his employer pause. Miss X's father was not only one of the wealthiest persons in the 104 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS county. In social status he was ranged in the first rank. He began to think he might do worse than take into partnership such a fortunate young man. Next day the head clerk approached the county mao-nate and asked for his daughter's hand in marriage. The father proved to be more irate til an the employer. "You're a pretty cool young man," he cried, re card in o; his morninoj caller from head to foot with indignant stare. " A clerk in my solicitor's office, with a salary probably of two or three hundred a year, you ask for the hand of my dauo-hter." " Excuse me, sir," said the head clerk. " I didn't like to mention it before, but I am about to be taken into partnership." This was a different thing altogether. The firm was of the highest standing, its head exceed- ingly wealthy. A new light shone on the county magnate. It brightened the way of the head clerk to the altar, to the inner office of his employer, in course of time to the House of Commons, and to a position of commanding influence in the business world. Strolling one afternoon with Labby on the terrace he remarked : " I heard that story for the tenth time in the smoking-room after luncheon. P. had no more to do with the affair than had the j^rophet Jonah. The fact is, the hero of the tale was an ancestor of mine, Peter Csesar Labouchere, THE FRIENDLY BROKER 105 father of Lord Taunton. More than a hundred years ago he made up a little plot much upon the lines of this story, and thereby succeeded in marrying Miss Baring. This led to his becoming partner in the firm of Hope Brothers, of Amster- dam." Nothing was further removed from Labby's habit than a spirit of boasting. But as he claimed the merit of this adventure for a kinsman, there was undoubtedly a note of triumph in his voice. Had need been and opportunity at hand, it was a double event he would himself have gleefully manipulated. There was an achievement scored during his long parliamentary career, of which he was un- feignedly proud. It was his custom of an after- noon to walk by the Horse Guards' side of St. James's Park to the Duke of York's steps, and thence to the Reform Club. The walk was all very well in summertime. In the winter, there being no pathway, it came to be something unpleasantly like a promenade across a morass. Labby made frequent application to the First Commissioner of Works urging him to lay down a footpath over this frequented way. The Minister always pleaded poverty, and the impossibility of increasing his departmental vote. One night in Committee of Supply Labby organised opposition to a particular Estimate. It came on in the dinner hour, and whilst the old campaigner had his men at hand the Governmeut 106 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDEENESS majority, if not over- mastered, would be danger- ously small. The debate, started by Labb}' in an cfFective speech, was proceeding when the perturbed Whip seated himself beside the Member for North- ampton below the gangway and besought him to refrain from carrying the matter into the Division Lobby. " Certainly," said Labby, " upon one condition. You go and get the First Commissioner to promise to lay down an asphaltc pavement from Storey's Gate to the Mall, and I'll draw off my men." There was no help for it. The pledge was given, opposition to the vote was withdrawn, and there to this day is the pathway, Labby's legacy to a public who have not hitherto recognised their benefactor. Labby had a rich store of narrative drawn from his experience whilst an attache for the Foreign Office. Some of these were done to death in the biographical notices forthcoming on his death. I did not come across one story he was accustomed to tell in illustration of his cynical belief that of all men Under Secretaries for Foreign Afiairs (Lord Cranborne for example) were the most ignorant. •' " When I was in the Diplomatic Service," he said, " I had a chum who obtained a nomination under rather peculiar circumstances. Tlie younger son of a peer, he thought he might as well get a berth in the Diplomatic Service, understanding that there was little to do and a pretty fair allow- ance to get. There was the preliminary difficulty THE FRIENDLY BROKEE 107 of the nomination. Of the questions upon which it was based he knew absolutely nothing. How- ever, there was at least prospect of a lark. So he went in for the exam. The result exceeded his wildest expectation. As far as he could make out he did not supply a single correct answer to the lono: catechism. Not accustomed to be taken aback by unexpected turn of circumstance he, to his breathless surprise, found he had not only passed but was placed at the head of the list. Meeting one of the examiners at dinner a few days later, he ventured to ask how the thing came about. ' We at once saw you knew nothing,' said the personage ; * but your manner was so free from constraint under what to some people would have been peculiarly embarrassing circumstances that we said to each other, " That's the very man to make a Diplomatist." So we gave you a start on your career.' " Labby loved the House of Commons, and was never so happy as when taking part in its inner or outer life. His preference was, perhaps, for the former condition. He was even more at home in his chair in the smoking-room than he was in his corner seat below the gangway, impartially chaffing Ministers or right hon. gentlemen on the Front Bench or on the other side of the table. He was at his worst when delivering a sedulously prepared speech in exposition of not infrequent resolutions submitted by him. He did not carry weight enough for the operation of a 12-inch cannon. 108 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS It was as a quick-firing gun in Committee or at question time that he was most effective. As a Parliamentary power, and his influence was considerable, he was more in his element about the ante-rooms of the House than when under full view of the Speaker's eye. He had a passion for intrigue. If there was any undercurrent of feeling hostile to the Government of the day, to the Leader of the Opposition, or to any individual Member of personal distinction, be sure Labby knew all about it and played a considerable part in its direction. This habit did not arise from envy, hatred, or malice. From these weaknesses he was absolutely free. He was animated solely by desire to be behind the scenes of everything that was going on — an impulse perhaps born of tendency to sheer mischief. A cynic in speech, he was at heart one of the kindest, most genial men in the world, preserving to the last his personal popularity with both sides and all sections of Party in the House of Commons. A born strategist, master of the forms of debate, he did substantial service to the Liberal Party in Opposition in the Parliament elected in 1886. When, largely owing to his unremitting efforts, the Unionist majority was whittled away, the General Election of 1892 finally disposing of it, he had good reason to believe that acknowledgment of his yeoman service would be made by appointment to otfice. It is no secret that Gladstone, reinstated in power, was prepared to meet the claim, but was overruled by a higher authority. THE FRIENDLY BROKER 109 Labby, though reticent on the main question, delighted to tell how one afternoon, when the Ministry was completed, and the name of the Member for Northampton did not appear in the list, Mr. G., uninvited, dropped in to tea at Old Palace Yard. He won the heart of his hostess by his enchanting manner. One likes to think of Labby looking on, smoking his cigarettes, whilst " the old man," as he called the chief, discoursed upon all subjects in the world save the one which at the moment filled his mind — a desire to make known to the man whom he personally liked, of whose services he was fully conscious, how pro- foundly he regretted inability to gratify his just expectation. MEMORIES It was stated at tlie time of Colonel Burnaby's death that he had left behind him the manuscript of a novel, for which there was considerable com- petition among the publishers. This is quite true. The manuscript, a bulky parcel, was handed to me with discretionary power either to publish it myself or to use it in connexion with the proposed biography. Here a singular and, as it finally proved, a fatal obstacle presented itself. Familiar for many years with Burnaby's handwriting, I could not, after diligent endeavour, make out more than a sentence here and there on the crowded page of manuscript. Burnaby's writing was, pos- sibly with the exception of Dean Stanley's, the worst I ever saw. It looked as if, before sitting down to write a letter, he had pulled a twig out of the hedge, mixed a little blacking, and then gone ahead. He wrote the whole of his " Kide to Khiva " and his " Ride on Horseback through Asia Minor" with his own hand. But before they reached the printer they were fairly written out by a copyist. 110 MEMOEIES 111 The hapless mau used to make out as much as he could, then leave blanks, for filling up which he had to seek the assistance of the author. Some- times there were more blanks in a page than words. Despairing of deciphering the manuscript it was submitted to a publisher, who turned upon it his most skilful hand. Nor head nor tail could be made of it, and the intention of publishing the novel was consequently abandoned. Later Mr. Percival Hughes, for some years Burnaby's private secretary, attempted tlie task with more success. Under his editorship the novel was brought out with the title, " Our Radicals : A Tale of Love and Politics." A characteristically rash enterprise of Burnaby's was an attempt to capture Birmingham from Mr. Chamberlain's supremacy. Writing to me from Spain, in January, 1879, he thus appreciates his adversary : " You ask me about the chances at Birmingham. I think they are fair and each day become better. Chamberlain, like most other individuals, is losing- popularity in Birmingham because having obtained power he is not sufficiently influenced by the susceptibilities of the people who put him there to think that they may some day remove him from his pedestal. It is a dangerous thing to be over- confident and that may lose Mr. Joseph his election. He is a clever fellow. This I admit unhesitatingly, simply judging him from his speeches, without 112 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS having the pleasure of his acquaintance. But it strikes me he wants Tact, and forgets that men are not machines — or at all events forgets himself and lets them find out that he thinks them so." When I last visited New York I heard a story about Senator Conkling illustrative not only of his personal character, but of a phase of the American Press against which Matthew Arnold, in one of his latest published articles, lifted up his voice. The story was told to me by a member of the editorial staff of the New Yovh World, who seemed rather proud of it as evidencing rare newspaper enterj^rise. At that time the World was at enmity with the former Leader of the Kepublican party in the United States. Nevertheless, upon one occasion it sent a representative to interview him on the current topic of the day. The senator was exceedingly wrath, and threatened that if a World man approached him again he would kick him downstairs. The would-be interviewer returned to the office and reported events to the editor, who immediately saw a great opportunity. A denizen of the Bowery was engaged, dressed in his best clothes, provided with a note-book and pencil, and despatched to Mr. Conkling's office with orders to seek an inter- view. He sent in his card, and the irate senator burst out upon him, foaming with rage at the insult. Equal to his promise, he set upon the supposed reporter, and tried physically to expedite MEMORIES 113 his descent of the stairs. But the Bowery maa was aa old pugilist, and was not got rid of till a relief party of clerks came to the aid of the senator. Next morning the World came out with three columns of exclusive report of an "Affray with Senator Conkliug," thus beating all contemporaries at the expense of a day's pay for the Bowery man. Matthew Arnold was not met in society so often as Kinglake — certainly not so frequently as Browning. But he went out a good deal, and in congenial company was a delightful causeur. This was only one of his moods, for he was capable of instinctive dislikes, and there were some people whose presence acted upon him like a wet blanket. It was all a chance, not to be determined before dinner. To those permitted to enjoy intimacy of acquaintance he bubbled over with fun. He had a curious way of telling little stories against himself. I remember two dropped in conversation at the dinner-table. Talking about Mrs. Arnold, he said: "Ah, you should know my wife. She has all my sweetness, and none of my airs." Another related to the episode of his unsatis- factory visit to the United States as a lecturer, a work undertaken at great personal sacrifice in order to meet what he regarded as a duty to his family. When the project was mooted, Arnold urged that it was not hopeful, since he was very little known in America. lid SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEBNESS " I do Dot suppose," he said, half hoping fur contradiction, "that there arc a hundred men in the country who possess one of my books." " Sir," said the agent, " I assure you you arc mistaken. I know America, and I will undertake to say that there is not a small town or village that does not possess in its institute library a copy of 'The Light of Asia.'" Arthur Arnold, long time editor of the Daily Telegraph, greatly appreciated this Mtise. I have the privilege of knowing two young ladies, daughters of a well-known member of the House of Commons, whose conversation is occasion- ally illuminated by startling flashes. The elder is aged eleven, her sister seven. One morning they had read out to them the twentieth chapter of Exodus, wherein it is written : " T the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." "I am very sorry to hoar that," said the younger, a note of profound disappointment in her voice. " I have always understood He had no faults." From my diary : September 30, 1888. — Morell Mackenzie tells me that without committing himself to a definite statement on so serious and delicate a subject, his MEMORIES 115 foi'tliconiiu!:; work will incidentally enable the reader to form an oj)inion as to the truth of a painful rumour circulated during the final illness of the Emperor William. It was said in Germany, where they ought to know, that a powerful party not absolutely free from the personal influence of Prince Bismarck, were determined to go any length in order to prevent the Crown Prince from ascend- ing the throne. According to a law which governs the succession of the Hohenzollerns, any member of the family proved to be suffering from a fatal disease is prohibited from succession. If the doctors could have asrreed that the Crown Prince was suffering from cancer, he would have been ipso facto debarred from mounting the throne, on to which would have stepped his son, an Emperor much more acceptable to the Junker party. The German doctors, to do them justice, were prepared for unanimity on this point. It was the English physician who stood out against the theory, hold- ing his ground and keeping the patient alive till he succeeded to the position of Emperor, with permanent advantages secured for his wife and younger children. It seems a monstrous conspiracy, more worthy of the darkest period of the Middle Ages than of Germany of to-day. A careful study of the re- markable document put forth by Prince Bismarck in reply to the Emperor Frederick's diary indicates that such a plot was at least possible. Evidence will be found in every paragraph of that interesting 116 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS State paper that the Crown Prince was at issue with Bismarck and all the powerful predominating influences he represents in the German Empire. The Prince, as his diary shows, was not only a man of peace, but was deeply impregnated with those principles of Constitutional government which are most hateful to the imperious Chancellor. Whilst the Emperor William was alive, Bismarck, according to his own admission, was enabled to keep the Crown Prince in the dark as to the work- ing of his policy. He looked upon him as an amiable, weak, meddling, peddling person who, when he came to the throne, would prate about the rights of the people, the privileges of Parlia- ment, and other inconvenient things. Prince William, on the contrary, is a man after Bismarck's own heart, and if he could have been placed on the throne in succession to his grandfather all would be well. That Morell Mackenzie, by his patience, skill, and the perfect trust he inspired in the breast of the doomed Prince, should have succeeded in thwarting these designs is sufficient to account for the venomous attacks which pursue him from Germany. October 10, 1888.— In Wemyss Reid's "Life of W. E. Forster " there is an interesting excerpt from Forster's diary under. date June 15, 1872. It describes how the Cabinet met at noon, expect- ing news of the results of the arbitration of the MEMOEIES 117 Alabama claims then going forward at Geneva. Ministers waited about till it was time to go down to the House of Commons, the Cabinet beinof meanwhile adjourned till half-past five, by which time questions would be over, and it was possible that the looked-for telegjram migrht have arrived. On returninsf to the Council-room in Downino^ Street there was still no news, and, having ex- hausted topics of conversation. Lord Granville suggested to Forster that they should have a game of chess. Accordingly they took out three chairs on to the balcony at the back of the Cabinet-room, one for each of the players and one to hold the chessboard. " We had three games," Forster wrote in his diary, "and, alas ! he won two of them." Still there was no news, and, after waiting about till midnight, expectation was given up for the day. Wemyss Reid told me that, shortly after the publication of the memoir, he received a curious and interesting confirmation of the accuracy of the incident described. A gentleman in the Colonial Office, looking out of the window which commands a view of the terrace, beheld the Cabinet Ministers stroll out, Lord Granville and Forster sitting down to play chess. Knowing what they were waiting for, and how historic was the occasion, lie made a sketch of the scene, of which he sent Reid a copy. It shows Granville and Forster at the game, Gladstone, in a very tall hat, gravely regarding them. 118 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS There arc more or less easily recognisable portraits of Lowe, Cardwell, Selborne, Bruce, and Stansfeld, who with his goatee beard looks more like a Yankee than a Britisher. The sketch is interesting, especially for Cabinet Ministers, who are reminded that even the terrace behind the house in Downing Street, though screened from the gaze of passers-by, may be overlooked fi-om some of the neighbouring^ offices. October 24, 1888. — Looked in on Parnell Com- mission sitting in the Probate Court of the new Law Courts. The Attorney-General (Sir Bichard Webster) still, on this third day, opening the case for the Times. In the course of his speech the President asked whether the famous letter, alleged by the defendants to be forged, was in Court. Soames, the Times solicitor, had the precious document in his bag, and it was handed up to the Commissioners, who severally compared the manu- script with the facsimile. It is now more than six years old, has passed through so many hands, has been so fingered and handled, inspected and copied, that it was in some danger from the ordeal it went through on reaching the table where Charles Russell sat, surrounded by his colleagues. The sheet is yellow with exposure rather than with age, black lines all about it showing that it has been folded and refolded. It was the first time Charles Bussell or George Lewis had enjoyed o^Dpor- tunity of seeing the original, and they pounced MEMOEIES 119 upon it with avidity. Sir Charles held it at arm's length up to the light, scrutinising it as if he were literally trying to see through it. What he was really looking for was some clue in the water-mark on the notepaper. Lewis subsequently subjected it to a similar inspection, and I believe that some- thing will be heard of the result. Parnell, who sits next to George Lewds at the solicitors' desk immediately fronting Charles Eussell, was the only person in that part of the court who did not show signs of interest, not to say excite- ment, when the forsjed letter was handed round. He languidly and carelessly glanced at it whilst it was in George Lewis's hands, l)ut made no attempt to take it into his own. The bench in front of that at which Queen's counsel gather is becoming one of the most prominent corners of the court. George Lewis is its most constant occupant, sitting immediately in front of his leading counsel, his place corre- sponding with that which Soames fills relative to the Attorney-General. At the other side of Soames is Macdonald, manager of the Times, faithful in daily attendance. Mr. Buckle, editor of the Times, on the right hand of his colleague, manages to spend some hours every day in listening to the not entrancing tones of the Attorney-General. It is to the other side of the bench, to the left of George Lewis, that most eyes are turned. Close to his solicitor sits Parnell, looking ill and worn. Beside him is Davitt, emerged 120 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS from his obscurity uuder the bookcase, and now taking notes as a person whom the judge has declared to have a locus standi. Next to Davitt sits Biggar, who occasionally conveys to Frank Lockwood, seated in the Queen's counsel place behind, sagacious remarks. The member for Cavan does not seem to care to force his company on his colleagues of the Land League. He has nothing to say to Parnell or to Davitt, nor do they press their attentions upon him. No one looking at Davitt as through the long day he sits watchful, his occasional interposition in the proceedings respectfully received by counsel and judges, would imagine that he has served a period of nine years' penal servitude. Yet such is the case, as he incidentally reminded me in a conversation I had with him during the luncheon hour. He speaks of it quietly, with no more passion or emotion than if it had been nine days spent at the seaside. He remarked that the term under Gladstone's admini- stration was more severe than that which he experi- enced during the period of Tory rule, but admitted that the times were different. It was while a Liberal Ministry was in ofEce that Davitt was chained to a criminal, working with him through the long day. He mentioned with startling frank- ness that he was at that time a Fenian. He has now, in the brighter days dawning over Ireland, put away Fenianism, and declares with a smile that the only reason why the Attorney-General hesitated to include him in his general indictment submitted MEMOEIES 121 to tlic Piirnell Commission was that they could find no offence against him. OctoherSO, 1888. — Sitting at dinner one night next to Sir Charles Russellj before he became Lord Chief Justice, a little incident happened which brought into strong light a possible embarrassment. It was a large party, where every one was supposed to know every one else, and if they did not the consequence of their ignorance was, after the modern fashion, thrown upon their own shoulders by the host. Nobody was introduced, but every one was on speaking terms. Some way down the table facing us was a gentleman in whom the famous advocate became suddenly interested. He asked his neighbour on either hand if they knew him, and gained no information. " I know him," he said ; " I have had him in the box, and am sure he's a thorough blackguard. I'll remember him by-and-by." So he did. The interestinsr stransrer turned out to be a man who had appeared in a famous will case, unsuccessfully disputed upon a very unpleasant allegation. He won the case, drew a princely income, and was well received in society. How awkward if, as might well have happened, instead of sitting some way down the table, he had been placed by the side of his former terrible acquaintance in a criminal court ! XI LORD CHARLES BERESFORD Returned to the House of Commons in 1874 as member for his native County of Waterford, Lord Charles Beresford, with intervals necessitated b}* professional calls, sat in the House of Commons for more than thirty years, delighting it with a breezy, unconventional manner that did not dis- guise sterling capacity. He never made speeches. He just talked to members. His oratorical style was subjective. Like the Redeemed Prize Fighter, or the Saved Sweep of Salvation Army platforms, he was always ready to quote himself as an awful example. Dwelling on the theme, he evolved a picture of a Beresford minor who was a terror to his pastors and masters, a hopeless, loveless vaga- l)ond who but for the grace of God would long ago have been hung at the yard-arm. " I was a scallywag myself," he confided to a shocked House of Commons in almost the last speech he addressed to it before his temporary return to active service. " If I had been subjected to penalty of imprisonment for breaking l)ounds, I would scarcely ever have been out of jail." 122 LORD CHARLES BERESFORD 123 Equally communicative about his short-comiDgs at a more advanced age, he incidentally mentioned that he was fifty-two years of age. " I may," he continued, " think I am as good as I was at forty." Members heartily cheered as who should say, " So you are." Lord Charles would have no trifling with truth. " BiU I am not," he added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, intimating that on the point at issue he knew a thing or two more than did his audience. In moods of retrospection Lord Charles occa- sionally supplied instances to establish his claim to have been a youthful scallywag. One story he told across the walnuts and the wine (of the latter, by the way, he does not now partake) reads more like a page from " Peter Simple " than the reminiscences of an Admiral who in his time has been a member of Her late Majesty's Ministry. Whilst still a midshipman he found himself at Lima. Having leave ashore, he, in company with some other youngsters from the wardroom, went to the opera. During an interval they sought the l)ar in search of refreshment, desirable in such heated climate. In the primitive arrangements of the opera-house they found the bar-room underneath the stage. Entering, Lord Charles's quick eye observed a pair of legs dangling from an opening in the stage and resting on a ladder which gave access to it. He recognised that they belonged to the conductor, who was seated on the stage with his back to the audience, his face and waving arms 124 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS to the band lie was conducting, whilst his legs were disposed of in the manner indicated. " We must haul him down," said Charlie, promptly. His companions welcomed the suggestion with wild delight. Casting about for a rope, they found a piece in a corner of the bar. They made a running loop, and with deft hands cast it round the legs of the hapless conductor. A wild shriek interrupted the ordered music of the opera. The amazed audience beheld the conductor, furiously brandishing his baton, slowly disappear, emitting yells of anguished terror. It was a great lark, but it cost the middies dear. The armed police were called in, and, roughly prodding the ofienders with the butt-end of their muskets, haled them to a dirty prison, where they passed the night, being released in the morning only after payment of a heavy fine by way of compensation to the con- ductor. There was another incident in later life over which Lord Charles mused with pleasure. Whilst Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was still alive and member for Sheffield, Lord Charles chanced to pay a visit to the town. Pleased to do honour to the popular sailor, Ashmead-Bartlett showed him round. At one of the ironworks for which the town is famous is a massive Nasmyth hammer. This having been put through its paces, performing marvels of irresistible strength, the visitor was invited to place his hat where the hammer would fall and see what LOKD CHAELES BEEESFORD 125 would hcappcn. The hat was a new one, worn in honour of the occasion. The company had just seen blocks of steel flattened out to the thickness of threepenny bits. But the commander of the Condor, who astonished the Egyptians at the bom- bardment of Alexandria, the captain of the boat that went up the Nile and mended its boiler under a heavy fire, was not the man to flinch in face of a new ordeal. He took off" his hat, placed it under the hammer, and set his teeth. Down flashed the colossal weight, stopping short within a hair's breadth of his glossy hat. " Most wonderful ! " exclaimed Lord Charles, turning to Ashmead-Bartlett. " Oh, not at all," was the reply. " Mere nothing ; they never fail. Now I'll try mine." He placed his hat in position. At a given signal the hammer fell, smashing the astonished hat much flatter than a pancake. There is, of course, no suspicion that Lord Charles had anything to do with the accident. But the influence of character upon bystanders is sometimes subtly contagious. His willingness to help a friend was widely known and not infrequently exploited. In one instance his good nature led him into an embarrass- ing situation. An old acquaintance retired from the Navy called upon him with assurance that he had a little business in hand which, properly conducted, would make both their fortunes. It turned out to be a new sauce, than which, according to the 126 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS sanguine inventor, nothing, not even soap, was more lavishly productive of wealth. Lord Charles declined to go into the business, but, in response to urgent entreaty, undertook that if a specimen of the product were sent to him he would taste it and, if it were found agreeable, would write the inventor a letter of approval. The sauce duly arrived, and was not bad. Lord Charles wrote a letter of moderate tone, stating that he had tried the sauce and found it very good. The inventor had hit upon what he regarded as rather a striking title, and proceeded to advertise it. Presently "Trelawney's Tickle" appeared prominently in the advertisement sheets of the papers, accompanied by the following note, jjur- porting to be addressed to the proprietor : " Sir, — I have tried your sauce, and find it excels all others with which I am acquainted. I may say that a spoonful of Trelawney's Tickle made my stomach laugh. — Yours faithfully, Charles Beresford." From 1893-96 Lord Charles was in command of the Steam Reserve at Chatham Dockyard. One Friday afternoon I received from him a telegram at the House of Commons, saying that he was going to take the Magnijicent — ^just completed — out for a trial trip, and inviting me to run down and join her. When I arrived at his rooms in the dockyard, he was making up a small parcel. He opened it to show me the contents — a silver tobacco-box, bearing an inscription to a boatswain on duty in the dockyard, relating how, on a certain LORD CHARLES BERESFORD 127 day of rcccut date, be aud Lord Charles had becu together in a boat which was overturned by a sudden squall. The terms of the inscription did not specifically state that the boatswain had saved the Admiral's life, but such service was hinted at. The gift had its origin in an incident of which the papers a few weeks earlier had been full. Crossing the harbour in a small boat accompanied by a petty officer, it capsized, and for a while the two passengers were in dire peril. A passing boat came to their assistance and naturally made for the Admiral. Lord Charles, however, waved it off. The boatswain was evidently a poor swimmer and might sink any moment. So liord Charles struck out for the wharf, where he safely landed, and had the pleasure of seeing the boat come along with freight of the rescued man. If between the two there had been any saving of life he had preserved that of his humble mate. So he gave him a silver tobacco-box with a pretty inscription. Lord Charles has seen lively service by sea and land. His gallantry at the bombardment of Alexandria, which, watched from the Admiral's Flagship, led to the running up of the famous signal, " Well done. Condor^' was followed by his organisation of a regular police system which checked rapine in the streets of Alexandria when Arabi fled. He was in command of the Naval Brigade at Abu Klea, and saw his old friend, Fred Burnaby, cut to pieces by the Arabs when he rode out from the square to the succour of a w^ounded 128 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS soldier. I do not know whether the fact has been publicly stated, but it is within my personal knowledge that when Burnaby fell he had in his pocket an order from Lord Wolseley instructing him to take command of the troops in the event of anything happening to General Stewart. Stewart fell in a later fight in which Lord Charles and the gallant Naval Brigade greatly distinguished them- selves. The leaderless men, mainly soldiers of the line, forthwith called upon the sailor to take com- mand, which he did, bringing into safe haven the remnants of the sorely wasted force. On the Unionist Government coming into power in 1886, Lord Charles, then member for Marylebone, was made a Lord of the Admiralty and took his seat on the Treasury Bench. But he did not run well in harness, and was constantly kicking over the traces. Early in his new career he ran up against the First Lord in circumstances which cannot be better described than in his own graphic manner. " One morning," he said, " a clerk came in with a wet quill pen and said : * Good morning. Will you sign the Estimates of the year ^ ' I said, ' What ! ' He said, ' Will you sign the Estimates for the year ? ' I said, *My good man, I have not seen them.' * Oh, well,' he said, shoving a little astern, 'the other Lords have signed them. It will be very inconvenient if you don't.' ' I'm very sorry,' I said. * I'm afraid I'm altogether incon- venient in this place. Certainly I sha'n't sign LOED CHARLES BERESFORD 129 Estimates I've not seen.' ' I must go and tell the First Lord,' said the horrified clerk. I assured him I didn't care a fig whom he told. Being at the time the Coal Lord, I knew the coal was not half enough to supply the Fleet as it stood ; and the Fleet wasn't near enough the strength it ought to be. So I flatly refused to sign, and the Estimates were brought into the House without my signa- ture. The omission was noted, and an explanation demanded. ' Keally,' said the First Lord, ' it does not matter whether the Junior Lord signs the Estimates or does not.' " The incident blew over, but Lord Charles's conviction that things were wrong in the Navy was so deeply rooted that after something less than two years* experience at the Admiralty he declined to share its responsibility. He had a choice collection of stories at the expense of laymen placed in office at the Admiralty as consequence of a turn of the political wheel. Of one Lord of the Admiralty he told a delighted House of Commons how, receiving a report, couched in technical phrase, of disaster to a ship, he wrote a reply remonstrating with the officer for his use of bad language. Another civilian Lord, looking over a chart, and observing that one of His Majesty's ships, homeward bound, passed within a space of two inches on the chart an island where castaway sailors were sheltering, wanted to know why it could not call and relieve them. Amid prolonged K 130 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS laughter Lord Charles explained that the two inches on the chart meant a distance at sea of four thousand miles. Every inch a sailor, Lord Charles has a foible common to some landsmen. He "fancies himself" as a Parliamentarian. His tactics in the House of Commons were much on the lines of his famous manoeuvre off Alexandria. When Arabi opened 6re from the Marabout batteries, which, served by British gunners, would have kept a hostile fleet at bay, the little Condor dashed in and gave the astonished Egyptians so much to do that they never found the range of the ironclad. Similarly in the House of Commons Lord Charles at unexpected times bore up against some massive force of Admiralty incompetence, opening fire with ruthless disregard of precedent and authority that gave deep pain to the official mind. There was, as a preliminary to his contributions to debate, an involuntary 'movement of hands and hips as if he were about (saving the Speaker's presence) to hitch up his trousers. No one would have been in the least surprised, or regarded it as out of keeping with the business of the moment, if, during a brief pause whilst he was consulting his notes, he had broken into a step or two of the hornpipe. Not that he was frivolously inclined, for when discussing Naval administration he was hotly in earnest. Nor was there tendency on his part to pose as a sailor of transpontine fashion. The fancy in the mind of the looker-on was simply LOED CHAKLES BEEESFORD 131 boru of associatiou of ideas as lie listened to the aturdy, ruddy-fai;cd tar breezily talking in the vitiated atmosphere of the House of Commons. During one of his early visits to China Lord Charles picked up what he regarded as a rare prize in the way of body-servants. Tom Fat was a boy of bright almcmd-shaped eyes, old-ivory-coloured skin, and a look of childish innocence that straight- way conveyed the impression that he was too good for this world, and needed the care of a watchful protector to guard him against the wickedness of man. Lord Charles engaged him as boy, a desig- nation covering many useful functions. He went errands, waited at table, looked after his master's clothes, and dusted his desk, these latter duties aflfording access to usually well-filled trouser pockets and cheque-books. One day, with pained surprise, Lord Charles, who fondly believed he was rolling in riches, received intimation from his banker that his account was overdrawn. On investigation, he discovered that presentation had been made of a multitude of cheques drawn for sums varying l^etween five pounds and twenty pounds. On examination, the signature of the cheques was found so perfect as to justify the cashier paying them, especially when, as it was remembered, they were presented by the Mercury with the face of angel-innocence who was known to occupy a confidential position in Lord Charles's household. Confronted by tokens of his villainy, Tom Fat, 132 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS with a sigh breaking; into a smile of ineffable inuo- cence, made a clean breast of it. It presently appeared that his financial operations had not been confined to cashing cheques drawn by himself with careful imitation of his master's signature. One day he turned up at the Marlborough Club and, obtaining an interview with the secretary, confided to him the information that his master was in temporary difiiculties and wanted a loan of twenty pounds. The secretary was delighted to oblige a popular member. But, being a business man, he suggested that it would be well if Lord Charles's emissary were furnished with an lOU in exchange for the cash. " lOU ! What's that ? " asked Tom Fat, his childlike eyes widening with marvel at hint of this new development of Western civilisation. The matter explained, he withdrew, returning in an hour with the document written out on Lord Charles's private paper. " Why," said the secretary, examining the paper, " this is an acknowledgment for thirty pounds. You said Lord Charles wanted only twenty pounds." Tom Fat explained that on consideration his master thought he might as well have thirty pounds, which were handed over, furnishing the youthful Chinee with funds for a little entertain- ment arranged for that night at the Criterion, for which he had made himself responsible. He had invited a party of thirteen to dinner. All the guests were ladies. At the head of the sumptuous LOED CHAKLES BERBSFORD 133 board sat Tom Fat, bland and prosperous, munifi- cent master of all he surveyed. His career was cut short by a term of imprisonment passed upon him by a London police court magistrate. Lord Charles's friends made merry at expense of his trustfulness in human nature, especially when moulded in China. One night in the House of Commons, shortly after Tom Fat's incarceration, debate arose on the eternal Irish Education question. Lord Charles, plunging in, confessed that he had a leaning towards denominational education. But the grounds of his support of the system were not entirely pleasing to sound Protestants. " The fact is, Mr. Speaker," he said, con- fidentially addressing the Chair, " it's all a matter of birth. The majority of the Irish people are born in the Roman Catholic faith, and they may as well be educated where its tenets are observed. If a Buddhist or Mohammedan runs straight," he con- tinued, " he has quite as much chance of going to heaven as I have." There was perhaps something a little dubious about this way of putting it, but the House under- stood what Lord Charles in his mood of large and generous catholicity meant. " What about Tom Fat ? " asked Mr. Jimmy Lowther, seated on hiw corner bench below the gangway. " Fat," Lord Charles promptly answered, " will certainly be in the Fire." 134 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS An inbred deference for Parliamentary usage precluded particularisation of the flames. Some years after Tom Fat's deliverance from the jaws of jail Lord Charles heard again of his old servitor. A message reached him just after his arrival on a moor in Scotland that promised prime sport with the grouse. It announced that Tom Fat was in a London hospital, sick unto death, and was wailing day and night for sight of his old master. Most men, with a memory of a perfidy that had cost them two thousand pounds, and with prospect of a week's shooting, would have ignored the summons, or at most sent a kindly message. That was not Charlie Beresford's way. He at once gave up his shooting, posted to London by the night mail, and drove straight to the hospital. " Me die, me die, master," moaned Tom Fat, tossing restlessly on the bed. " Not a bit of it, my boy," said Lord Charles, cheerily ; " you'll do nothing of the sort. You will be out of bed in a fortnight, and then I'll see to you." The prediction and the promise were both fulfilled. From the moment he looked on his master's face, Tom Fat took a turn for the better. When he came out restored to health, obviously nothing could be done in the way of recommending him to a new situation. His name and story were too famous. liord Charles accordingly helped him to a passage home, and never saw or heard of him more. When, eight years later, he revisited China LOKD CHAELES BERESFOBD 135 on a special mission on behalf of tlic Associated Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, he made diligent but fruitless inquiry after his protege. Who knows he may have entertained Tom Fat unawares ? Disguised in the garb of a mandarin, possibly a Minister high in favour at Court, Li Hung Fat may, in the course of Lord Charles's mission, have shown some courtesy, done some service to his old, still unsuspecting, master, at the date a Vice- Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet, as popular on board ship as he is ashore. In 1910, Lord Charles after a hard fight captured Portsmouth under the Unionist flag. His return to the long familiar scene at Westminster was as welcome on both sides (with the probable exception of the Treasury Bench) as a sea breeze on a sultry afternoon. In the spring of the session of 1912 he delivered a speech on the second readino; of the Home Rule Bill, which testified that ase had not withered nor custom staled the infinite variety of his unconventionality. It cannot be said that it added appreciably to the weight of argument for and against the Bill. The most attractive passages might have been introduced with equal appropriateness on the Welsh Disestab- lishment Bill or any other measure figuring on the Orders of the Day. That was a circumstance that, happily, did not detract from the pleasure of the audience. There was a touch of pathos in Lord Charles's voice when he lamented the degeneration 136 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS of Irisii mauners at the poll. Looking back over a space of forty years, liis eye dimmed with tears, his voice had in it something of a sob when he recalled the plaint of an old gentleman, one of an audience he was addressing at the General Election of 1874. Pressed to explain the cause of the emotion that shook his frame and led to incon- venient interruptions, the elderly elector said to the young candidate : " The last time one of your family stood for the county of Waterford I was up to my knees in blood and whisky for a month. This time I have not seen a drop of either." There was another countryman encountered at Kerry at an election two years earlier, Lord Charles had, as he put it, " escorted to the poll " 350 tenants. Having seen that they voted right, he walked out jubilant, and encountered a tenant from another estate whose political views were not in strict accordance with those of the Waterford family. Brief colloquy ensued. " Are you in favour of Home Rule ? " asked the gentleman (six feet five inches tall, according to Lord Charles's recollection). " To Hades with Home Rule," was the response. " Whereupon," said Lord Charles, speaking with a nicety of precision that recommended his story to the listening Senate, "my countryman hit me on the point of the nose. The back of my head struck the ground first, and I was not in a position to argue aljout Home Rule for quite an hour and a-half." LOED CHAELES BEEESFOED 137 The only doubt that suggested itself iu con- nection with this circumstantial story lingered round the bi-syllable " Hades." It did not seem to be exactly the word that would have sprung to the lips of a middy ashore, his spirits running hish at the consciousness of having served his country by taking 350 free and independent electors to the poll and fortuitously finding them all of one mind in plumping for the candidate favoured by their landlord. XII MEMORIES From Lord Granville. " 10r», Eaton Square, S.W., " January 2nd, 1888. " Dear Mr. Lucy, " Many thanks for your note and inquiry. The coin has not yet passed, but our boy is doing well. I have no remembrance of the Browning joke, I am afraid it is one of the cases, rare enough, of loans to the 'poor.' *' Yours sincerely, " Granville. " Best compliments to Mrs. Lucy." Lord Granville's son and heir had inadvertently swallowed a shilling. Hence the inquiry after his health. " The Browning joke " was the familiar one made by a friend on hearing that to Robert Browning and his wife had been born a son. "There were two Incomprehensibles, now there are three." It is generally attributed to Lord Granville. Edwin Arnold, long time editor of the Daily Telegraph, was one of the journalists who earliest received the recognition of knighthood. 138 MEMORIES 139 From Sir Edicln Arnold. " Daily Telerjraph, Fleet Street, London, E.G., " Jan. -drd, 1888. "Dear Mr. Lucy, " Your generous words of felicitation, public as well as private, fill me witli gratitude and pleasure ; for indeed — much above my deserts as this new honour is — it seems a greater honour to receive from colleagues in the Press — especially so well known and worthy as yourself — such friendly expressions of satisfaction. You are not, of course, strange to me, as far as reputation goes ; and your letter henceforth renders us of necessity ' unseen friends.' I am a bit of a recluse (not an ascetic), always considering that a journalist serves better when personally little seen, but I know I have lost many a pleasant chance by my habit. All the more gracious is such a kind note as that which you have been pleased to send me, and I shall preserve it with pride and gratification, hoping some day to tliank you personally. " Your very obliged and very truly, " Edwin Arnold." From the Rev. Dr. Alloii. ' 10, St. Mary's Road, Caxonbury, N. " Jafi. 9th, 1888. ''My dear Mr. Lucy, "Your card reached me duly. I was sorry that I had not the opportunity of shaking you by the hand. I was very seedy, having taken 140 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS a cliill on the Thursday, which half paralysed both energies and organs. Happily its ill effects have passed away. " Thanks for your note and for the newspaper. What a pulpit you preach from and how you preach ! " I hope you will not come into my parish again without giving me an opportunity of renew- ing our pleasant acquaintance and perhaps of a talk aljout Henry Ward Beecher, a dear friend of nearly twenty-five years' standing, in whom my faith never faltered, save in his discretion. His chivalry never took counsel of so prosaic a virtue. " With best wishes for the new year. " I am faithfully yours, " Henry Allon." March 3, 1888. — It is not probable that Morell Mackenzie will receive any money fee that will remunerate him for the expenditure of time incurred by his visit to San Remo in attendance on the Crown Prince of Germany. In these de- generate days no Royal personage of German birth or extraction is accustomed to equal the muni- ficence of the traditional potentate. In other ways it will be well worth his while. He leaves an enormous practice in London, a good deal of which is daily dealt with by his locum tenens. Even in San Remo his time is not fully occupied with attendance upon Prince Frederick and in wrangles with the jealous German doctors whom the well- meant but unfortunate interference of the Emperor MEMOEIES 141 sends to his sick sou's bedside. Wealthy patients are glad enough of the excuse of repairing to San Remo at this season of the year to see the famous doctor, and Sir Morell has a morning levee only less numerous and little less remunerative than that which awaits him in London. As for the poor Crown Prince, who has finally established the already well-grown fortune of the English specialist, his life is slowly but surely fading out. The semi-official telegrams which appear in the papers throughout Europe make the best of it. Some of Morell Mackenzie's profes- sional brethren in London in daily and intimate communication with him know too well his opinion of the case. Auf/ust 19th, 1888. — When I was in India some five years ago I heard a good deal about the Mr. Crawford whose arrest upon a charge of mal- versation and subsequent release have agitated India and shaken Bombay to its centre. Crawford is the Hausmann of Bombay. It is directly due to him that the city is now architecturally one of the finest in the East. Twenty-seven years ago, when the American war was in full fling and cotton was going up, pouring sovereigns by the million into the lap of Bombay, Crawford was Com- missioner, a position something between that of the Mayor of an English town and the Prefect of the Seine. The municipal administration of the city was conducted in some not very clearly established 142 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS Wfrnner by the Commissioner and the Beuch of Justices. Crawford happened to be a gentleman of large ability, over-mastering energy, and fine taste for street architecture. He pulled down and built up, broadened thoroughfares, created squares, levelled rookeries, and, above all, built a magni- ficent market, the finest in India, or, for the matter of that, in the world. This he named after himself — Christian and surname, so that there should be no mistake. Bombay was delighted. From a common- place town it was growing into a beautiful city. By-and-by, when the bills came in, there followed a period of consternation broken by a blast of indignation, which in some particulars is oddly identical with that under which Crawford has a second time succumbed. The popular aedile became the execrated spoiler. He stood boldly by his post for some time, asserting the inviolability of his office. But the wrath of the taxpayer prevailed, and finally the once autocratic commissioner was smuggled out of Bombay something after the fashion in which Sir John Falstaff escaped from Dame Quickly's in the hour of peril. For a second time after a lapse of nearly thirty years, he escaped, again in disguise, from Bombay, this time to be brought back, thrust into prison, and arraigned for trial. He seems to have come out of the business with his usual success. The whole affair is said to have been a mistake, and Crawford is agfain at liberty. MEMOEIES 143 August 25th, 1888. — The death of Lord Alfred Paget removes a familiar face and figure from a wide range of English society. I do not know that Lord Alfred lived to any greatly useful purpose. But he lived a great deal, and was one of the best-known men about town. Belonging to the younger branch of a noble family, he was not over rich, and having liberal needs, he displayed industry and ingenuity in supplying them. He had some salary from the State for performing the functions pertaining to the Clerk Marshal. This he supplemented by fees received as director of companies. Even the London and North-Western Railway was not above the attractions of his lord- ship's courtesy title. For many years he received director's fees on that Board, and, what was of even higher monetary value, the privilege of free railway travelling which pertains to the post. Indeed, Lord Alfred got without payment more of the good things going than most men of the age. He was always at the theatre, and, it is said, never paid for a ticket in his life. He was great at City dinners, and at free lunches wherever given, so that the meat was plentiful and the wine good. His was, indeed, an interesting career for a student of English society as constituted in these days. He was a descendant of the Marquess of Anglesey, who lost a leg at Waterloo. Some admirers of the gallant Marquess thought that so noble an appanage should have a fitting sepulture. So it was buried with military honours, and a Ui SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS tombstone was erected. Shortly after there was found written upon this travesty of monumental woe the following lines : — " Here lies the Marquess of Anglesey's limb ; The devil has got the remainder of him." September 28th, 1888.— The Whitechapel murderer still walks at large, while the police blindly grope around, hoping that their hand may fall upon him. People who live in Whitechapel have the uncomfortable feeling that the monster may be brushing elbows with them, reading the flatulent columns daily provided by the newspapers (which really have nothing new to report). Or he may be the person who, meeting them in tram or train, chats with them on the topic of the day. The evening papers, led far astray by the common excitement, have lost much of their interest. There was a flutter of excitement on Tuesday night when late editions came out with the flaring announcement of " another great murder at Westminster." For the rest no one looks to the evening papers for facts. It is the morning news- paper that is opened with fear and trembling, and the certainty that if not to-day then to-morrow we shall read of another swooping down of the vulture that holds the East-End in thrall. It is not the least ghastly incident in con- nexion with the whole afiair that further action on the part of the murderer is the one hope the police secretly cherish of ]->eing able to arrest him. Up MEMORIES 145 to the present moment, with all the millions in London on the qui vivc, with a bribe of £2000 sterling to quicken the energies of the amateur detective, and with all the trained and eagerly- applied resources of the police at work, there is not the slightest shred of a clue. The man has absolutely disappeared, and that he is in a position to keep his secret is testified to by the silence and darkness that brood over his retreat. It seems al)solutely beyond doubt that if he is arrested he will be caught red-handed, actually engaged in one of those fiendish works to which hitherto he has been able to devote undisturbed quarters of an hour. October 3rerb equanimity. A more kingly manner it was im- possible to conceive. All through the magnificent scene at Guildhall he was simple, unconventional, always dignified. As, entering the library, he walked np between the THE SHAH IN LONDON 175 crowd of brilliantly dressed ladies lining the approach to the dais on which he was to receive the address of the Corporation, he moved with leisurely pace, turning to the right and to the left, lookino- straiii^ht at the ladies as if their faces were ])onnets hanging up in a shop window. They had come out to see him. He meant to see them, and he accomplished his task thoroughly. When the ceremony in the library was over, and the pro- cession was formed for Guildhall, where luncheon was served, the Lord Mayor, giving his arm to the Princess of AVales, asked the Shah to conduct the Lady Mayoress. The proper thing to do was to present his arm to the lady. The Shah knew a better way of going about with a pretty woman. He took her hand, and thus the two walked into Guildhall like school-boy and school-girl going a-maying. At luncheon I had the good fortune to sit next to Sir Owen Burne. When the Shah visited England in 1873, Sir Owen, always indispensable, was appointed by the Government to personally conduct His Majesty. As partial reward for his service he came into possession of a copy of the Shah's diary, from which he showed me some piquant extracts. Banqueting at the Mansion House during this earlier visit, His Imperial Majesty seems to have been most impressed with the appearance and action of the Toast Master. Here is his note on the subject: "The Deputy Mayor stood behind me, and every now and then, 176 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEBNESS in a loud voice, gave notice to those of the company that they should prepare to drink, so that when the master of the house drank wine to the heaUli of the guests they should rise and drink." The Lord Mayor's costume worn at the Guild- hall was much talked of. The ermine tippet and the crimson velvet gown were unusual in City functions, though they seemed familiar on cere- monial occasions in the House of Lords. Sir James Whitehead tells me he wore the Court robes of an Earl, holding upon what diligent search regards as unimpeachable authority, that on occasions when he officially entertains a foreign Sovereign the Lord Mayor of London has from time immemorial held the rank of an earl. An interesting episode in the Shah's stay in London was a visit from Mr. Gladstone. After the luncheon at Guildhall the Shah met Lord Salisbury in a private room, where tea and cigar- ettes were served. The two talked together for some time, and the Shah was urgent in his inquiries as to the health and general position of Mr. Gladstone, evidently regarding the Premier as the person most likely to be able to give him an authoritative account. On the next day Mr. Glad- stone called to pay his respects to the Imperial visitor. It was, I hear from one who was present, pretty to see Drummond Wolff assisting to receive, in his character as British Minister at the Persian Court, his old adversary of Fourth Party Days. Mr. Gladstone, master of the French language. THE SHAH IN LONDON 177 got on admirably with the Shah, conversing with him for some minutes in animated fashion. Just before the Shah left town on a provincial tour he and Randolph Churchill came together and conversed for a few moments. It was funny to see the two, each filling up awkward pauses in the halting conversation by twirling his moustache. Throughout his banishment at Teheran, Drummond Wolff often had tender recollections of his revered colleague and leader brought to mind by observing the Sbah thus disporting himself. During his public appearances in London His Majesty incessantly went through certain manoeuvres worked with clock-like fidelity. First, with both hands he readjusted his gold eye-glasses. Then he stroked his hair down with the palm of his hand. Finally, first with the right hand, then Avith the left, he elaborately curled his moustache — not with that swift, violent action that marked Randolph's wrestlings with himself when George Hamilton was speaking in the House of Commons, but with grave, majestic sweep of the hand exceedingly comical to behold. When he had worked both ends of his moustache into proper condition he dropped his hands to his side, gave his head a little twitch, and looked slowly round the crowd spread out before him. Then he went through the whole process again, beginning with his gold- rimmed spectacles, finishing with the much-bela- boured moustache. Among the country houses honoured by a visit 178 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS was Invercauld. Sir Algernon Borthwick was rather boastful of the exceptional success of the entertainment, which he attributed to a simple device of his own conception. It was nothing more than to provide his guests with an unlimited quantity of weak tea. The difficulty of getting tea according to their taste had, Borthwick told me, been one of the most distressing incidents in an otherwise enjoyable trip. The Persians are accus- tomed to have a weak decoction of tea within reach throughout the day. In English country houses and at Buckingham Palace they observed that their hostess and her guests took tea at or about the inexorable hour of five o'clock in the afternoon, and took it strong. If the Shah or any of his suite rang and asked for tea at earlier or later hours there was a certain sense of commotion, and when at last the beverage was produced it was hatefully strong. At Invercauld the watchful care of the host provided weak tea ever on tap, and the happiest results ensued. XV MEMORIES Sir John Pope Hennessy, in succession Governor of several colonies, practically settled the Irish question in a particular district that came under his control. Home on leave from oubernatorial duties in the Mauritius, he bought a fine estate in County Cork. There were 17,000 acres, for which he gave £15,000. He told me that as soon as he came into possession he opened amicable intercourse with his tenants. He ascertained that here, as in other parts of Ireland they were only too ready to become their own landlords if the transfer of property could be effected on favourable terms. With a big estate, bought at something less than £l an acre. Sir John was in a splendid position to treat, and he conducted the transaction with characteristic ability. To-day every man on his estate is his own landlord, thoroughly satisfied with his bargain, while the owner got back the whole of his purchase-money, and was left in possession of the freehold of a lordly castle and eight hundred acres of rich land. Here is the Irish question in a nutshell, where, 179 180 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS years after, it was found by George Wyndham, who, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, added to the Statute Book an Act encouraging the system of peasant holdings. It is not the least of the triumphs of a busy life that John Pope Hennessy should have happily solved the perennial problem. From my Diarij. October 11, 1888. — At dinner last night I took down an American lady, a neighbour and com- panion of Mr. Chamberlain's bride, Miss Endicott. I asked what she was like, and the faithful friend answered, " Charming. She has fair hair and a delicious pink and white complexion, a beautiful figure full of grace, a low soft voice, and to crown all, she dresses perfectly. She is quite a type of the sweet, demure Puritan maiden, and, apart from her face, which is attractive if not very pretty, she has an air of refined distinction which would mark her out in any crowded room. She was very carefully brought up, Mr, and Mrs. Endicott being extremely particular people. Mary has quiet, demure ways, never going in for what AVashington girls call ' a frolic ' at supper-parties. After a ball — and I met her at several — she would always leave early. I was in Washington a few days before Mr. Chamberlain was expected, and, know- ing that I often visited London, she asked all sorts of questions about him. I left Washington before he appeared on the scene. I heard that he met MEMORIES 181 her at a dance almost immediately on liis arrival. It was love at first sififht. He devoted himself to her, would hardly dance with any one else, and followed her wherever she went." October 30, 1888. — On the stroke of seven o'clock a chill October morning breaking over Regent's Park beheld a strange sight. It was nothing less than Sir Charles Warren, Commis- sioner of the Police, chased by bloodhounds from cover to cover, and not a policeman in sight ? A gentleman who was present tells me the agility with which Sir Charles covered the ground as the hounds approached within measurable distance was more than could have been expected from his age and his official responsibility. The little entertainment took place in conjunc- tion with a Yorkshire gentleman who is the happy possessor of a pair of famous bloodhounds. Sir Charles, anxious to test for himself the possibility of the do2:s rendering service in connexion with the Whitechapel murders, made an appointment in Regent's Park, and, anxious to obtain the fullest personal information on the subject, he made believe that he (Sir Charles) was the murderer. Assuming a guilty air, he swiftly made off across the Park. After he had got a fair start the hounds were placed on the scent, and in two cases led straight up to the place where the agitated head of the Metropolitan Police was hiding. December 15, 1888. — The further parting of 182 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS Hartington and Gladstone effected during tlie past fortnight lends fresli interest to a little race between these eminent men run at the Reform Club. Early last year a movement was started to endow the picture-gallery of the club with a portrait of Hart- ington. After the enterprise was well floated, a proposal was made that Gladstone's portrait should also be added. The scheme went off with a tre- mendous rush, subscriptions rapidly advancing towards the position attained by the Hartington portrait. This had the effect of leading to a spurt on the part of the Dissentient Liberals, and when- ever the Gladstone subscription forged ahead the Hartington list was sure to be filled up. Harting- ton has throughout maintained the lead, though not by more than a head. To-day I hear the numbers stand —Hartington, £424 ; Gladstone, £411. December 24, 1888. — The question of Henry Stanley's nationality is once more raised. When the great explorer first came into prominence he was naturally taken for an American, an assump- tion he was at no pains to controvert. After a while some Welshman with a long memory claimed him as a compatriot. Stanley was at the outset led into the indiscretion of hotly denying this assertion. After a while the controversy dropped, leaving un- disturbed in the minds of Welshmen a conviction that the discoverer of Livingstone belonged to the Principality. MEMOEIES 183 The subject being a curiously sore one with Stanley, I never heard it alluded to in his presence, but those who are intimately acquainted with him will know that his tongue bewrayed him. Address- ing a public meeting, he speaks in deliberate manner with an American accent. In private company, talking at his ease with familiar friends, he inevit- ably lapses into the peculiar rapid high intonation peculiar to one of Welsh birth. This is more curious as he left Wales when a mere boy, and spent his time up to full manhood in the United States. January 22, 1889. — Pellegrini died last night quietly, apparently without pain. It is sad to find so valuable a life cut oft' thus early. We had nothing before like his contributions to Vanity Fair, and have had nothing since. The niino-linq; of carica- ture with portraiture and the artistic merit of his work form a unique combination. This was what Pellegrini could do best. As often happens, he hankered after something else he believed he could do better. He wanted to be a painter in oils, and at one time abandoned his connexion with Vanity Fair in order to push his fortune with the picture- galleries. He came back disappointed. Italiiin born, he bore transplantation to our northern clime with wondrous success. He spoke the language admirably, with just sufticient accent to make his talk distinctive. Many have tried to imitate the inflexion of his never-failing " My fellow," with which he comicallv interlarded his 184 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEENESS conversation. No one except Toole could quite catch it. A hearty, kindly, light-spirited man, he will be missed from many familiar haunts. Talking about him this afternoon, one said : " When Pellegrini reaches the gates of Heaven he is sure to hail St. Peter as * My fellow.' " He has not of late been seen in the Lob])y of the House of Commons, for several sessions his principal studio. He was as regular in attendance as one of the door-keepers. Anybody observing his movements could tell to a certainty who would presently turn up in the pages of Vanity Fair, skilfully caricatured by *' Ape." Having once selected his subject, Pellegrini treated him pre- cisely as if he were a lay figure. He made no notes, thumbnail, or otherwise. His man being in the Lobby engaged in conversation with another member, he slowly walked round him, scanning his features, his dress, his pose, the size of his feet, and the hang of his arms. He made no idle pretence about the matter. He was there to do his business, and he did it, with a thoroughness that made all his sketches a success. It was pretty to watch him, sometimes prettier to observe the manoeuvres of " the subject." If any member whom Pellegrini had taken in hand for the week's sketch failed to discover the fact himself, other members were ready enough to bring him the news. All the while he was lightly laughing and talking with a friend, he was furtively watch- ing the plump little Italian slowly circling round MEMORIES 185 him, makiug mental notes of his inches. The desperate effort to appear unconscious of what was cfoinGf on Qiwe an added touch to the familiar comedy. February 12, 1889.— Dined in the Hall of Middle Temple. Being Grand Night, there was the wonted crowd of bar and student diners. The fun did not begin till dinner was over and the Benchers had retired. It took a little time for the champagne to circulate and the smoke to rise from cigar and cigarette. Once good spirits made a start they proceeded with startling velocity. Just below the dais is the table of the Ancients. The Ancients are the eight oldest barristers in hall not having taken silk. They get a better dinner — soup, as well as fish, brown bread, toasted cheese, and more wine. I mean they add these luxuries to the ordinary dinner, paying only the regulation price of two shillings. The first thing the young barristers did was to chair the Captain of the Ancients' table. They bore him aloft, a perilous elevation, round the hall. It was flattering, but risky. It turned out that one of them could play the bagpipes, and had brought that instrument of torture with him. Headed by the musician, a long procession, brimful of patriotism and champagne, marched round and round the hall, a sight to see and to remember. Out came the Benchers from their wine-room. Amongst them Sir James Hannen (who is Reader for the year) and 186 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Mr. Justice Day, who, united on the Bench in the Court of the Pavnell Commission, were not divided at the festive board. They both made speeches. Day tohl his young friends that forty years ago, on this very anniver- sary, he had himself changed the student's for the barrister's robe. The good omen was promptly accepted and loudly cheered. They would have cheered anybody. Indeed, cheering was not merely the order of the day, but of the night. When a couple of swords were laid on the ground in the position of the mark on old Dresden china and danced round by an enthusiastic and athletic barrister, the applause grew tumultuous. It seemed as if the Lord of Misrule had come back to the Temple. 2Uh February, 1889. — A member of the House of Commons, who has been touring in the South of France, brings with him an uncanny story which has in it the plot of a novel. Straying into a criminal court he chanced to hear it. Some time ago the wife of a wine merchant living in a large town in the Gironde w^as found dead in bed. A letter by her side explained the circumstance of her death. She had, she said, taken poison, being tired of life. She had been *' unfaithful to the best of husbands, and there was nothing for it but to die." So she had destroyed herself, leaving a message of passionate affection for the bereaved husband. The tragedy created a profound sensation in MEMOEIES 187 the town, wlicrc both husband and wife were well known. Every one was surprised at the confession and its result, Madame being the mother of a family, a devout woman, highly respected and esteemed by all who knew her. The loss was therefore all the greater for the husband, who was overwhelmed with sympathy. The wife was buried, the husband's dis- tress not being in any appreciable degree modified by the circumstance that a large amount of rentes forming her dot came into his hands. At the end of a year he had so far recovered from the blow as to contemplate a fresh marriage with a young widow who would bring another dot. All was ready for the wedding when it was interrupted by an untoward circumstance, namely, the arrest of the intended bridegroom on the charge of murdering his first wife. The weird story came out in court from the lips of the bonne who had nursed Madame's three children, and was in her service at the time of her death. On the night of the tragedy, she, entering the room, saw Monsieur in the act of mesmerising his wife. Dominated by a vague fear, she listened at the door, heard the husband dictate to the wife the letter found by her bedside, and heard him command her to take poison, which he had pre- pared. The bonne kept silence till her tongue was loosened by the fresh outrage upon her dead mistress contemplated by the new marriage. 188 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS " Many Happy Returns of the Day. " 38, Berkeley Square, W., " March 22, '89. " My dear Mr. Lucy, — You have, alas ! fixed for your dinner a day of private fasting and humili- ation to me. " You don't understand that May 7 is a domestic tragedy, the miss en scene of which is the bosom of my family. I should never be allowed to dine out on that day. " On that melancholy anniversary I scrape myself with a potsherd, and decorate my few re- maining hairs with ashes. Nor do I take meat or drink or repose. In short, it is my birthday. " Surelv your last Observer article is one of the best ? " Yours sincerely, " ROSEBERY." ^rd April, 1889. — When a few years ago I met in New York Ericsson (whose death is just reported), he was past eighty. Like another great inventor nearer home — Isaac Holden, of Bradford — he did not look anything like his age. He was a Swede by birth, and, except that he had the visual com- plement of two arms, recalled memories of Captain Cuttle in his Sunday clothes. He always wore a frock coat, made, I shovdd fancy, *' befo' the wah " ; a buff waistcoat, probably first donned on a morning in the year 1826 when he set out on the top of a coach to try the " Novelty " against MEMORIES 189 Stephenson's " Rocket " ; a loosely tied handkerchief round his neck, and a pair of generously designed trousers. Short and stout, with weather-beaten face, his hands betokened his birth in the miner's cottairc in far-off Sweden. He left his native country when a boy. 4^/i April, 1889. — An example of the remark- able change that has come over Bradlaugh's position in the House of Commons since the days when a majority of members used to assist in kicking him downstairs was forthcoming at question time to-day. Among the many absentees were Lord Charles Beresford and Colonel Mark Lockwood, who, having notices of motion on the paper, placed them in the hands of the member for Northampton. The House laughed to hear Bradlaugh rising, " on behalf of Lord Charles Beresford," to give notice of his inten- tion on that day month to move a resolution on the organisation of the Navy. Bradlaugh has been getting on for some time, and is now rather a favourite with the Conservatives than otherwise. 6th April, 1889. — George Grossmith never had reason to regret the bold severance of his connexion with the Savoy Theatre. What troubled him most in his temporary exile from London, touring in the provinces, was the necessary separation between himself and his beloved steam-engine. He once told me that if fate had not led him into the theatrical world he would certainly have l)een an 190 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS engine-driver. He had a perfect passion for any- thing connected with a steam-engine. To the occasional mystification of neighbours and the not infrequent disturbance of domestic arrangements, he kept one on the premises. On the basement lloor of his house he laid down a set of rails, along which, after much spluttering and groaning on the part of the engine, and considerable trembling on the part of the premises, he managed to make a journey of a few yards at a pace that sometimes reached the maximum of four miles an hour. To see Gee-Gee in a workman's cap and blouse, smelling horribly of oil, as he pottered about his steam-engine, was to discover a popular character in a new and unexpected light. XVI PARLIAMENTARY WHIPS During the last thirty years there has been no political event that equals in importance Mr. Gladstone's first descent on Midlothian bearing aloft the fiery cross. It seemed to onlookers one of those forlorn hopes that could not, by any chance, achieve victory. The Buccleuchs had ruled the county for generations, and there was no sign on the horizon that their hold was loosened. I remember how, when, in the autumn of 1879, announcement was made of the enterprise, I called upon the manager of the Daily News and suggested that I should go northward to describe events. Robinson O pooh-poohed the suggestion. Gladstone's power in the country, he said, was hopelessly broken, never to be re-established. Three days later I received an urgent telegram summoning me to Bouverie Street, where I received instructions to proceed to Edinburgh by the earliest train. A great deal had happened in the brief interval. The veteran statesman's journey northward had been a tri- umphal progress. At every town where the train pulled up a vast crowd besieged the railway 191 192 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS station, listening with enthusiasm to a stirring address, occasionally interrupted by the sudden onward movement of the train by direction of the guard. Some jealous partisans suspected this man of Conservative sympathies. Whereas he was simply performing his duty, which imposed upon him the necessity of getting his train to its destination in scheduled time. The inwardness of the historical event is set forth in the following note from W. P. Adam, at the time Opposition Whip in the House of Commons : "41 & 42, Parliamext Street, ''Feh. 7, 1879. " My dear Mr. Lucy. — Please back up Glad- stone. Whatever Dalkeith and his party may say, you may depend upon it I for one would not have allowed him to be put in nomination unless I had satisfied myself as to the certainty of a majority. Of course if the General election is delayed long enough to allow an unlimited creation of faggot votes by means of which the bond fide constituency may be choked by an influx of strangers brought in for no other purpose than to vote against Gladstone, then it would be impossible to answer for the result. But this cannot be accomplished in its full iniquity unless the election be consider- ably delayed. " They have put on faggots enough already, but they will, I believe, only have the effect of utterly disuniting the bond fide, constituency. And then a PAKLIAMENTARY WHIPS 193 faggot cannot vote till November next. I believe 120 is the number they have created. We have made none, and do not mean to soil our hands by any such proceedings. Mr. G. could not well, after retiring from Greenwich, have accepted the invita- tion of any other large urban constituency. The crisis is too important for him (in his own opinion) to fall back on a small borough. It is hopeless to run even him for any English county not already provided with a candidate. It follows therefore that a Scotch county seat is the right thing for him, and if so, why should he not fly at high game and attack the great autocrat of Scotland on his own dunghill ? I shall be here now if you want to see me. — Yours truly, • ''W.P.Adam." The result of the bold undertaking was instant and continuous, leading up to the capture of the Tory stronghold, the sweeping away of Disraeli's majority, and the inevitable succession of Gladstone to the Premiership, Towards the end of the year Adam wrote again : " Liberal Central Office, " 41 & 42, Parliament Street, "Zfa-. 10, 1879. " My dear Mr. Lucy, — I don't know whether anything more will be written about Gladstone's Midlothian Campaign. But if there is, in the Daily News or elsewhere, I should like that my name should be mentioned somehow in connexion 194 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS with it. I have really had all the responsibility of Mr. G.'s going there. He does nothing without my advice. I got Granville and Hartington to consent to his going to contest Midlothian, which he would not otherwise have done. If any failure had taken place, I should have got it over the knuckles from the Party generally. But it is the fate of AVhips ! When things go right, they are in the background and get no credit ; if things go wrong, they get all the odium, " I am accustomed to it and am really very indifferent to praise or blame, being (as Dyke said) pachydermatous. But on such a great national event as Mr. G.'s Scotch campaign, exercising as it must do much influence on future political events, one does not like to be entirely ignored when one really feels that it is all due to one's own advice. Rosebery and I were the original joint conspirators who set the whole thing in motion. He, very probably, has got plenty of kudos, but nobody thinks of the poor slave of the lamp who grubs underground. Don't think me too egotistical in writing to you, but I thought I might confide in you. — Yours truly, "W.P.Adam. " I may add that it is since my taking up the duties of Whip to the Party that our organisation in Scotland, formerly quite local and disjointed, has been made what it now is by extending Liberal associations to almost every constituency." PAKLIAMENTARY WHIPS 195 As this confidence makes clear, the Carnot of Liberalism, organiser of victory, did not think his services to the Party were adequately acknowledged. Nor did subsequent events remove the impression. Haying served as Whip through the dark days lying between 1874 and the Dissolution in 1880, Adam naturally thought he would be offered sonic important post in the new Ministry his efforts had done much to make ]>ossible. But in the matter of forming a Ministry, Mr. G. was subjected to what some concerned regarded as odd ways. Adam's hopes were dashed by nomination to the First Commissionership of the Board of Works. Later there came in his way the Governorship of Madras. There obviously being nothing else in prospect, he accepted the appointment and died in exile, having never overcome his feeling of disappointment. As a rule Party Whips, agents in the bestowal upon others of office and honours, have no cause for resentment at neglect of their personal claim. Within the last few years we have seen honours easy between a Unionist and a Liberal Whip, both being elevated to the House of Lords, where they sit opposite each other, forlornly thinking of days that are no more, when after the excitement of a pitched battle they were accustomed to hear the chimes at midnight before answering the call, *' Who goes home ? " Mr. Pease, Lord March amley's successor, was, on leaving the Whip's room pro- moted to Cabinet rank and the headship of an important Department of the Sta-te, 196 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEENESS The late Ministerial Whip, the Master of Elibank, who was equally popular on both sides of the House, found his reward, or at least a. foretaste of it, whilst yet he handled the whip. A year ago his prospects were darkened by peculiar family circumstances. He is eldest son and heir of a Scotch baron, the creation of whose title goes back to 1643. Lord Elibank, though a good Tory, never had a chance of enterinsj the charmed circle of elected Scotch Peers of Parliament. As an ex- Liberal Whip would have even less chance of pre- ferment, the Master of Elibank, on becoming the eleventh baron, would find shut against him the doors of both Houses. This awkwardness was averted by the happy thought of creating his father a Peer of the United Kingdom, and in due time — may it be far remote — the JMaster of Elibank will move on to the House of Lords.* Sir William Hart-Dyke, long affectionately known in the House of Commons as " Billy " Dyke, had reason to share the disappointment with which his ancient foeman in the Whip's quarter, W. P. Adam, regarded his own treatment. He was Con- servative Whip when the Party was in Opposition, 1868-74. When his friends came into office under Disraeli's Premiership he resumed the work of Whip under the genial influence of a salary, a Ministerial position, and the opportunity of * Since this was printed the Master of Elibank, retiring from the political arena, has become a Peer of the United Kingdom. PARLIAMENTAEY WHIPS 197 dispensing mucli patronage. He fulfilled this term of office without being made the recipient of the honour usually apportioned to a Whip, He may or may not have desired a peerage, possibly prefer- ring the honour of a family baronetcy that dates back through two centuries. However that be, he did not get the peerage ; and when his Party, recruited from the Liberal Benches, in 1886 came into power as well as into office, he was put off with a Vice-Presidency, and in 1892 disappeared from the scene where he had long been a familiar figure. His successor in the Whip's room, Mr. Rowland Winn, was more highly favoured, being made a Peer during the existence of Lord Salisbury's brief administration following on Gladstone's defeat on the Budget of 1885. He almost deserved it, if it were only for one achievement that lives to this day in the memory of those present on an historic occasion in the House of Commons. It fell to his lot to announce the figures that served as the death- warrant of Gladstone's Ministry. The Clerk at the Table having written down the figures in the Division, handed the paper, not to the long omni- potent Government Whij), but to the representa- tive of the liabitual minority. Every one knew what that portended. The Government had been defeated. Instantly there burst forth a scene of uncontrollable excitement. Lord Randolph Churchill was discovered upstanding on the corner seat below the gangway wildly waving his hat. On the })ench immediately behind roared Tim 198 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS Healy. Continuous cheering came from the Opposition Benches, while Eowland Winn stood at the table holding in his hand the fateful paper, not a muscle of his face moving, his countenance as imperturbable as was its wont when performing the ordinary functions of his office. Another Chief Whip, who to this day remains a Commoner, is Mr. Arnold Morley. He served the Liberal Party when in Opposition during six years following on the introduction of the first Home Rule Bill. When Gladstone was again returned to power in 1892, he made him Post- master-General, an office retained till the Liberals went out in 1895, when Mr. Morley, still young as Parliament men are counted, retired from Parliament, and has not attempted to re-enter it. XVII ARABI PASHA AXD BOULANGER In the personality and career of Arabi Pasha and General Boulanger tliere were striking simi- larities. Both sprang from the lowest range of social life. Both rose from the ranks to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Both coerced their Ministerial coUeagjues into con- ceding to them the position of dictator. For awhile the supremacy of each in turn threatened European war. Both were ignorant almost to the point of illiteracy. Alike they were showy in person, charming to the eye of populace as, plumed and uniformed, with sword in glittering scabbard, they caracoled about the camp or through the streets on big black horses. Nor was their similitude varied in the end. Having reached the pinnacle of power and fame, both toppled over as suddenly as they had risen, one to die by his own hand on a woman's grave, the other to spend the long after- noon of his day in exile, rounded oft' by the blank obscurity into which he sank when permitted to return to find a grave in his native land. I made the acquaintance of Arabi Pasha in one 199 200 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS of the early years of his sojourn in Ceylon. Re- turning home from Japan vid India, the steamer put in at Colombo. Having a letter of personal introduction, I seized the opportunity of talking with the soldier who for a short time stood on the steps of Pharoah's throne. His home of exile was about three miles out of Colombo. A heavy stone building, it stood in a garden careless of art. He was under no personal restraint as far as residence was concerned, being, indeed, free to do anything but leave the island. When I called, he was sitting on the broad verandah fronting the house, dressed in a loose, light brown overcoat of British make, with white duck trousers and waistcoat. The only mark of nationality was the fez that crowned his head. He was writing in an exercise- book, translating Arabic into English. He made no complaint of his lot except that the climate was damp. So far from wanting to return to Egypt, he, at this now distant date, declared unalterable aversion to the project. " I will never," he said, " go back to Egypt as long as it is enslaved by Tewfik. I don't want to see my country whilst it is a land of slaves. Once it was a garden that smelled sweet to the nostrils ; now it stinks. Its wells are covered with earth ; there is no refreshment in it. Why does not England make Egypt free ? " Arabi kept his word. When he again planted his foot on his native soil he found Tewfik dead and forgotten. For his old master, Arabi had a AEABI PASHA AND BOULANGER 201 contempt that was worse than hatred. Comj^aring him with his father Ismail, he said: "Tewfik is not clever enough to be a rogue. He is simply foolish. I do not think he knows the difference between rio^ht and wronsf." At first Arabi was politely disinclined to enter into conversation with casual passers-by. Presently he thawed and even became loquacious. With almost childish pride he showed us his lesson -book illustrated by strange caligraphic figures. He volunteered to give my wife lessons in Arabic, reciting a few phrases and laughing gleefully at her efforts to repeat them. Setting himself reso- lutely with elbows on the table, inking his fingers a good deal, and spending fully five minutes in the task, he wrote his name on a card and pre- sented it to her. " Ahmed Arabi, the Egyptian," was the stately signature, with Colombo and the date written underneath. Of England, whose arms chased him from Alexandria and finally routed him at Tel-el-Khebir, he spoke with unfeigned respect and aftectionate regard, which, if not real, were well assumed. " I hope to see England some day," he said, as he smiled farewell. " I am fast learning English, and write it too." This dream was never realised. Ahmed Arabi never drew nearer the setting sun than Helouan, a hamlet near Cairo, where eight years after we talked with him on the broad verandah that fronted his prison bouse in Ceylon, he died, 202 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS without leaving a ripple on the sea of international politics he for a while had lashed into storm. I met General Boulanger one night in Septem- ber, 1889, at dinner at the Constitutional Club. Our host was Sir Albert Rollit. The guests were almost exclusively Conservatives, among them being George Carzon, not yet raised to Ministerial rank, and Lord Claud Hamilton. It was a little odd to find the representative of anarchy in France received at one of the Tory headquarters in London, surrounded by lights of the Conservative Party. But many odd things take place during the London season. It was not his first visit during this year. Chasse from Paris, he showed a disposition to settle down in Brussels, a convenient tower of observation. He was driven forth from the Bel- gian capital just in time for the London season. He straightway became its lion. London society is always crying out for some new thing, and here was one ready to hand. The rush made for him suited the book of le hrav' General. It was necessary above all things that he should keep himself in view. If he were permitted to live in Paris and could find an apart- ment on the topmost floor of the Eiffel Tower, it would have been the ideal place for him. That being impracticable, London might be made to suit equally well. The lofty pinnacle of its social dis- tinction was the General's Eiffel Tower. Standing there he could be seen of all men and women, and AKABI PASHA AND BOULANGER 203 with tlie emissaries of the nifinifold, bustling, far- reaching English Press at his door and in his ante- rooms, he was more written about than would have been his good fortune in any other town on this side of the Atlantic. There is no doubt he was an interesting person- age. First of all, there was the mystery of his command of ready money. A few years earlier a mere soldier of fortune, havins: nothinoc to live on but his pay, he now travelled by special train and boat, engaged nearly the whole of a costly London hotel for himself and his suite, and kept his court like a reigning prince. All this was not done on £500 a year, and the question of the hour was, Who finds the money ? Who is " running " the General ? Still deeper was the mystery of how Boulanger came to be the personage he w^as at this time esteemed. It is easy to understand how Louis Napoleon finally fixed upon himself the eyes and hopes of the French nation. What had Boulanger done that the Government of the Eepublic should tremble at the mention of his name ? Of obscure birth, of no reputation as a soldier, of no skill in debate, of no special ability in any direction, he by rapid strides reached a position fraught witli danger to the liberties of France. People argued that, after all, there must be something in him. Accordingly, during his stay in London, all the world flocked to see, if possible to talk with, him. 204 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS Whilst London amused itself with this new- toy, France found in the General a problem of increasing difficulty. In the South of France, just before the Session opened, I saw a good deal of one of the Deputies of the Gironde. A compara- tively young man, he had already made a dis- tinguished position in the Chamber, and was spoken of on both sides as a coming Finance Minister. No man of his age or standino- seemed to have a more brilliant future. Chatting with him one day, he told me that in anticipation of a critical issue just then pending in the Chamber of Deputies he had made all arrangements, even to the packing of his clothes, for leaving France, to remain in exile probably for the rest of his life, certainly as long as Boulanger might maintain the Dictatorship. This conversation took place just after Bou- 1 anger's triumphant election for Paris. Whispers of a couj) cVetat were current, and here was the practical view a man living in the inner circle of political life took of the situation. If Boulanger held on, he and hundreds of other prominent public men, who had taken a foremost part in withstanding the advances of the new Dictator, must flee for their lives. This liirht Hashed on the situation impressed me deeply. We in England occasionally have political crises. There chanced to be one coming to a head at that very time. Many believed that the hour was at hand when Gladstone would march in triumph to take tlu; AEABI PASHA AND BOULANGEE 205 places vacated by Lord Salisbury and his col- leagues. It is safe to assume that in anticipation of this admittedly inevitable event there was no member of the Conservative Party, not even Arthur Balfour, who had his house set in order, his portmanteau packed ready for instant flight. They manage these things worse in France. Sir Albert Rollit's dinner happened during the height of a national crisis in France. On the previous day, Sunday, the people had polled, the simple issue being the assumed supremacy or the absolute downfall of the man who for some months had held the nation under a spell Napoleonic in its character and force. Every one felt that the issue of the struggle was peace or war in Europe. Had Boulanger triumphed at the poll he must inevitably have returned to Paris, seized by force the position for which he had long been struggling, and that gained, justified his advancement by flouting Germany. It would not all have been worked out in a month or even a year. But it must have come, otherwise Boulanger would have failed to justify his existence as President, Dictator, or whatever, being in power, he might have been pleased to call himself. I found that le hrav" General fell far short of realisation of the ordinary idea of a military conspirator. Rather under the average height, slight in build, he was, considering his world-wide reputation, a trifle insignificant. His personal appearance did not suggest the typical Frenchman, 206 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS Entering a dining-room where he stood on the skirts of a group of guests, one might reasonably imagine he was not the potential successor to the throne of the Napoleons, but the waiter come to announce dinner. To his credit was a total absence of affectation or pretension. His man- ners were perfectly simple. To use an expressive vulgarism, he put on no side. Looking at him and talking with him, I was more than ever puzzled to understand how or by what claims he came to be the centre round which political dis- content should range itself in France. The company asked to meet him included an ex- Secretary of State, one of the curiosities of English statesmanship, a dully pretentious person, eminently respectable, but wofully wearisome, with a fatal fluency of Anglo-French that gave one a sensation something akin to toothache. Sitting next to Boulanger he gave a naturally flat tone to the conversation with his everlasting '' Est-ce que vous avez remarque?" putting the poor General through a catechism as to the comparative breadth of London streets, the beauty of the parks, and the breed of the horses. It was just like a conversation in Ollendorf. Every moment one expected to hear the noble lord say to the General, " Avez-vous le parapluie que voire frere a?" and to hear the General reply, " Non, maisfai le ruhan noir que voire soeur a." These circumstances were not favourable to the General. But he did not convey the impression that he could have risen to others of greater altitude. AEABI PASHA AND BOULANGER 207 There was so much that was inscrutable in the position he gained in France one was driven to conceive liim endowed with certain supreme per- sonal qualities and attractions. He had not a historic name dear to the French as had Napoleon III. He was not a great soldier like the first Napoleon, nor an orator and man of affairs like Gambetta. Yet his name was sufficient to make the Government of the day tremble, and he was kept out of the country on pain of imprisonment should he set foot on its soil. It seemed there must be something about a man who without advantage of birth or fortune reached such a position. After sitting in his company for some hours talking to him, and hearing him talk, I confess I did not discover the secret. He appeared entirely devoid of anxiety or even concern in the elections in France, returns of which were hourly arriving in London. If he were dis- turbed by the accumulating result, he successfully dissembled uneasiness. In the course of the dinner telegram after telegram reached him. He tore open the envelope, glanced at the enclosure, went on talking, or listened with courteous attention. No one asked how things were going and he volunteered no information. When the next morn- ing I read in the papers the election returns for towns and provinces, I knew that every telegram Boulanger opened at the dinner-table was a stab, the succession bringing about the death of his political aspirations a fortnight earlier bounding high. 208 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS AVriting to me a week later from the Graud Hotel, Paris, Mundella said — " Boulangerism is finished. Next Sunday it will receive its final blow. I learn that the Royalists, the Jesuits, and the Church have bled very freely on its behalf. Funds and reputation are exhausted. The Royalists suff"er enormously in prestige. * The attempt and not the deed confounds us.' " So it proved. But the die was thrown on this first day of the poll, the result being faithfully fore- cast in the telegrams that poured in on the General as he sat smiling round the dinner-table of an English Club. XVIII MEMORIES Mil. Gladstone and the Eighth Duke of Argyll ''January U, 1890. "Dear Mr. Lucy, — I hope we may meet in town and I can speak to you more freely than I like to write respecting a gentleman with whom I have been intimate for thirty years [the Eighth Duke of Argyll], and in whose uprightness of inten- tion I fully believe, but who has injured himself deplorably by his last effusion to the Times. I had read your comparison with great interest where I read you daily, viz. in the Liverpool Dally Post. — Yours faithfully, " W. E. Gladstone." The following is the passage in my London Letter to the Liverpool Post to which Mr. Gladstone refers. It may have some interest as referring to the Unionist Party at the period in process of hatching. '' January II, ima. " It would be a mistake to suppose, because Mr. Chamberlain has not recently made public reference 209 p 210 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS to his idea of a National party, tliat he has there- fore abandoned it. In a private letter recently sent home, he still harps on the theme and in liis confident impetuous manner argues in favour of its practicability. It is a fascinating idea, so attractive as not to be new. There is an almost exactly parallel case set forth in English history nearly 150 years ago. In 1742, at the close of a splendid Ministry that lasted for twenty years, the faction against Sir Robert Walpole gained a force sufficient to encourage his arch enemies to strike a long-impending blow. The Opposition of the day was divided into two parties diametrically opposed in political opinions, just as are the Dissentient Liberals and the Conservatives of to- day. But they were united in hatred of Walpole. * Hatred of Walpole,' Macaulay writes, ' was almost the only feeling which was common to them. On this one point they concentrated their whole strength. So much did they narrow the disputed ground, so purely personal did they make the question, that they threw out friendly hints to other members of the Administration and declared that they refused quarter to the Prime Minister alone.' The leading part in the cabal against the Prime Minister was appropriately enough taken by the then Duke of Argyll. He dreamed Mr. Cham- berlain's dream of a National party, true ' Unionists,' who were to save their country and destroy the Minister under whose autocratic power they had fretted for twenty years. The onl}' dilference MEMOEIES 211 between the proposed National party of 1742 and that of to-day is in the matter of names. It was Sir Eobert Walpole not Mr. Gladstone against whom the former caballed. The coalition was called the Broad-Bottomed Party — not nearly so attractive a name as that Mr. Chamberlain has devised. The Broad-Bottomed Party succeeded in their enterprise by a narrow division. They defeated Walpole, he resigned office, and went to the House of Lords. Perhaps the most painful, though not the least instructive, part of the story is that which relates to the Duke of Argyll, the moving spirit in the cabal. He came to grief in the attempt to form a Ministry, was ousted from office and sank into a position of no more import- ance in the political world than that to-day occupied by the latest inheritor of the title." A pretty custom dating from the wedding of the late Queen Victoria was throughout her reign observed. A sprig of the myrtle which formed part of the bride's wreath was carefully cultured, and in due time planted out. When the Princess Royal was married sprigs were cut for her bridal wreath from this myrtle tree. The Princess, following her mother's example, had one of the sprigs cared for till it became a full-sized tree, which served for her daughter-in-law's wreath at the wedding of the present Emperor of Germany. The custom was observed on the marriage of the Prince of Wales and all other of Queen Victoria's 212 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS children and grand-children. There is already, as the result of this charming custom, the making of a grove of myrtle trees. Other customs attached to marriages of the Royal Family relate to the bouquet and the wedding-cake. Ever since the marriage of Queen Victoria a firm of Windsor florists had the honour of presenting the one, a Chester confectioner finding the other, neither accepting payment. Chauncey Depew has a good story about Mr. Vanderbilt, which brings into strong light the inconvenience a Protective tariff occasionally im- poses on good Americans. On one of his visits to Europe, Mr. Vanderbilt had his portrait painted by a French artist. It was despatched in due time to America, paying the ordinary Customs duty of thirty per cent, ad valorem. The portrait upon inspection seemed capable of improvement, and as Mr. Vanderbilt was revisiting Europe he brought it with him. It was retouched, once more packed up, and carefully stowed away with other baggage. On arrival at New York the Custom-house officers pounced upon it and demanded their full pound of flesh. In vain it was explained that it had already paid duty. The Customs authorities were inexorable, and the picture was left in the bonded warehouse pending representations to the Treasury Department. These were made by Depew just before he left New York, without success. j\[r, Vanderbilt could get his picture only after MEMOBIES 213 once more paying the Customs duty. He paid the artist a fee of £600 for the work, and by two levies he has paid to the New York Customs £400 additional. According to Depew's testimony, the millionaire is not nearly so strong a Protectionist as he was before he had his portrait painted. At the hospitable table of Henry Doetsch I made the acquaintance of a remarkable man named. Howell. An Anglo-Portuguese by birth, he was in his early days Ruskin's secretary and factotum. Later he was a sort of informal agent of Burne Jones and Rossetti, for whose pictures he was the first to find a market, A man of rare and cultured taste, he thus early discovered genius which in due time the world fell down and worshipped. His birth and belongings, like Jeames's were " wropt in myst'ry." Few knew where he lived, many had occasion to guess how. Always impecunious, he borrowed all round. Recognised only by a few, he lives in the pages of Watts Dunton's novel " Aylwyn." I met him frequently in New Burlington Street at a house vaulted by one of the finest wine-cellars in London, where Doetsch gave charming little dinners, pretty much to the same coterie of old friends. Among them was Colonel Fred Burnaby, to w^hom I owed my introduction to the circle. Howell was nearly always there, and honoured me by preference for having his chair next to mine. 214 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS He never tried to l)orrow money, and his talk about men, books, and pictures was fascinating. Sometimes, in moments of confidence, he spoke to me, with tears in his eyes, of his " little daughter " who lived with a governess somewhere in the country. When I lost a dog he presented me with a valuable terrier which he said he had himself bred "down in the country." That was the nearest approach I gained of knowledge of his private life. Of his professional pursuits, any one who sat at Doetsch's bountiful table had proofs at hand. The walls in the dining-room were covered with " Old Masters," Michael Angelo, Titians, and quite a cluster of Holbeins. They had all been fortuitously picked up, at home and abroad, by Howell, and paid for by Doetsch out of the bottomless revenues of the Eio Tinto mine. Once I took Du Maurier to dine in New Burlington Street. He greatly appreciated the rare claret placed on the table, but, warmed by the wine, he spoke dubiously of the Old Masters, and was never again invited to dinner. When Doetsch died his effects were sold at Christie's. His wine and cigars brought tip-top prices. Alack ! his " Old Masters," guaranteed by the happily dead and gone Howell, were, amid much merriment on tlie part of the dealers, knocked down at prices little in excess of the value of their frames. Fred Burnaby made the acquaintance of Doetsch in Spain during the Carlist revolt of the early MEMOEIES 215 'seventies. Burnaby was fighting for Don Carlos, Doctsch being engaged upon the more profitable enterprise of obtaining control of the Rio Tinto mine. Meeting again when Doetsch brought his prize to London, friendship continued with un- abated warmth till Burnaby went out to the Soudan and was killed. In the autumn of 1884 Doetsch and myself were visiting Burnaby in his ancestral home, Somerby Hall, Leicestershire. It was then arranged that in the December following we three should go out to Spain, visiting under Doetsch's guidance the Rio Tinto mine. Shortly after came the outbreak of war in the Soudan. Burnaby, thirsting for employment at the front, applied to the AVar Oftice for an appointment. Redvers Buller, who knew and admired his soldierly qualities, sent him out, and, as all the world knows, he died sword in hand at Abu Klea. Had he kept his holiday engagement and made a peaceful visit to Huelva, he might have been alive at this day. At Sandringham Edward VII. when Prince of Wales instituted a pleasing custom of weighing both the coming and the parting guest. At the first convenient opportunity after being shown to his bedroom the guest was weighed, and the result entered in a book, he being weighed again on the morning of his departure. The book forms one of the most interesting collections of autographs in the world. Amongst other signatures is that of " Salisbury," 216 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS with the portentous announcement that on his hist visit to Sandringham the Marquis weighed just over eighteen stone — a record not to be regarded without uneasiness even in reference to Lord Salis- Inuy's height. From my Diary. Augia^t 6, 1889. — I happened to be standing close by the new quick-firing gun when the German Emperor inspected it during his visit to the Teutonic at the Naval Review at Portsmouth yesterday. Having strolled through the saloon and the engine- room of the magnificent ship, he was led forward to the place where the guns are mounted. He passed through the throng of guests and crew with stiff military air, mechanically acknowledging salutes. His left arm, shrivelled from birth, was disposed with great care, the hand resting on the hilt of the sword in such a position that only if attention were particularly called to it would the existence of deformity be noticed. As soon as he stood before the gun his whole aspect changed. His face brightened with interest, his eyes gleamed rapidly over it. He listened with closest attention to explanations off'ered by the lieutenant in charge, eagerly followed the action of the gunners as they trained and fired the piece, almost knelt on the deck to examine the interior arrangements, tried the sight, and seemed sorely tempted to put his shoulder to the wheel and train the gun himself. Several times he spoke rapidly to MEMOEIES 217 members of liis suite. Turning to his brother as he moved oft' he said, " We must have that gun, and quick too." The Emperor is not quite so good-looking as he is generally represented. Passing through the crowd he wore a heavy, not to say sulky, look. Under the witchery of the new gun he brightened up marvel- lously. He is evidently a man of quick perception and swift decision. He does not bear striking re- semblance to the English Royal Family, his brother, Prince Henry, on the contrary, having face and manner which recall his uncles and aunts. The Germans were, as indeed they might well be, deeply impressed with the unparalleled magni- tude of the British fleet. It was a line of battle- ships, double, treble, at one place quadruple, four miles long, and cost, at the lowest estimation, twenty millions sterling. This is nothing compared with what it is intended to produce. Steaming through the fleet, on the way to take train, a dis- tinguished American remarked upon the enormous display of naval power. " Yes," said a Minister, particularly well in- formed as to the plans and prospects of the Admiralty. " But in five years if you come again this way, we shall have exactly double this force to show you." August 7, 1889. — There is something pathetic in the occasional visits of Lord Sherlirooke (Bob Lowe) to the House of Lords. To-night he was 218 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS led into the gallery by his wife, and sat there, as he is now used to do, listening to the debate. His eyesight, failure of which has been long threatened, incapacitates him from taking active part in the proceedings, as he could not seek his place on the floor without risk of stumbling. In the House of Commons the jDresence of blind men has long been an established fact, and there is an arrangement by which they are as far as possible relieved from inconvenience. Taken charge of at the entrance l)y one of the door-keepers, they are led up to the Bar. Thence a member escorts them to a corner seat by the Cross Benches. Here, for years, Fawcett sat, before promotion to Minis- terial rank gave him the right to enter from behind the Speaker's chair. When the division bell rings there is no lack of members to volunteer to pilot a blind brother through the lobby, bringing him back in safety to the corner seat, his by prescriptive right which no one would like to challenge. In the Lords no such j)r6cedent exists, and Sherbrooke shrinks from establishing it. So he lias his appointed place in the side gallery imme- diately facing the Ministerial Bench, where, under the guardianship of his Avife, he sits and listens to the debate. When the division is called he is led downstairs by the same faithful companion, and guided through the division lobby by a friendly Peer. Those who remember this brilliant fighting man in his palmy days in the Commons cannot regard otherwise than with a feeling of profound MEMOKIES 219 sympathy the stricken condition he uncomplainingly endures. August 8, 1889. — News which reached London at four o'clock this afternoon that Mrs. ]\Iaybrick lias been found guilty of the murder of her husband was received with absolute incredulity. It w\as believed there must be some mistake in the tele- gram. Subsequent dispatches confirm the report. The jury were, of course, in a better position to arrive at a just conclusion than readers of news- paper reports, however full and accurate. The fact remains that as far as I have heard opinion expressed it has been one of surprise at the verdict. In the House of Commons, where the case has been keenly discussed, the same feeling prevails. I have heard it talked over for days by the most eminent lawyers in the House, and have not met a single one who believed conviction would follow. Among the eminent authorities alluded to is the Attorney-General,* who, talking about the affair last night, did not conceal his opinion that the charge was at least not proven. There is certain to be a petition for remission of the sentence, which, if public opinion in other towns is anything akin to that which prevails in London, will be widely and influentially signed. The petitions for mercy will be supported by the ftict that the unfortunate woman is about to become a mother. Addison, Q.O., Crown Prosecutor in the May brick * Sir Richard "Webster. 220 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Case, was so certain that either the jury would return a verdict of not guilty or would disagree, that he referred for instructions to the Attorney- General. On receiving them he informed Charles Russell, who defended the prisoner, that in the event of the jury disagreeing no application for a fresh trial would be made, and Mrs. Maybrick would go free. This is important, not only as testifying to the opinion on the case reached by an eminent barrister who had the fullest information at his disposal, but of the view of the Attorney-General, who, though not in Court, had, as was his duty representing the Crown in a criminal trial, followed the evidence throughout. The Home Secretary has not awaited the presentation of any of the numerous memorials being signed throughout the country. He is already in communication with Mr. Justice Stephen, who tried the case, and will in the course of next week arrive at a decision. The feelinej in the House against the sentence being carried out rather increases than diminishes." December 15, 1889. — London society, which does not love Mrs. Gladstone — probably having no sympathy with her sterling qualities — is hugely delighted with a current story. At a dinner party where Lord Bramwell was present some one gave an enthusiastic account of how Mrs. Gladstone, deeply moved by one of her husband's oratorical successes, had, upon convenient opportunity, thrown her arms round his neck and kissed liim twice. MEMORIES 221 "Served him right," growled Bramwell from the other end of the table. December 21, 1889. — James Field Gibson, one of the few survivors of the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851, who has just died at the age of eighty-six, was an old schoolfellow of Lord Beaconsfield's. This year a study of the early life of Disraeli, contributed by me to one of the magazines, had the good fortune to attract his favourable notice. He was then living at Tun- bridge Wells, and wrote to me under date April 23 : " Dizzy was my schoolfellow^ for several years at the Rev. J. Potticary's school at Black- heath, from the age of eight or nine to twelve or thirteen. He was an impudent lad, and by no means fond of books, but writing talent broke out early. He used to publish on Saturdays a weekly journal of school matters, which might be read on payment of a sheet of parchment, this being a square of gingerbread, which from some forgotten derivation, w^as so called at our school." Mr. Gibson adds that from Mr. Potticary's school the lad Disraeli Avent to the Rev. E. Cogan's, at Higham Hill, Walthamstow. There he remained for three or four years, afterwards entering the office of a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Swaine and Stephens. December 25, 1889.— Sir Morell Mackenzie often wears a notable breastpin, which has a curious 222 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS histoiy. It is set with diamonds forming the figure 50, surrounded by a crown set in pearls. It is one of a few identical in value and design the Queen had made in celebration of her jubilee year. She presented one to each of her children, their husbands, and their wives. The late Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince, received one, and greatly prized it. When he died the Empress sent it to the English physician, with a note saying she would like him to keep it and wear it, since it had been peculiarly precious to her husband. Thus the pin has a treble association — with the Queen, with the late Emperor of Germany, and with his widow. December 28, 1889.— Mr. Gladstone's literary industry is not bounded by the limits of the United Kingdom. Through this year he has been a fre- quent contributor to our monthly magazines. Now he has undertaken to write an article for an American weekly magazine of phenomenal circula- tion. The subject is Motley, one that greatly interests him. He talked a good deal on the subject when, early in the year, Motley's corre- spondence came out. He specially noted a letter in which the German Chancellor invites ' Dear Jack,' his old college companion to visit him, talk of old times, and sing once more the old songs. '' For many years I have thought I knew Prince Bismarck. But this," he said, pointing to the passage, " sheds a new light on his character." MEMORIES 223 Mr. Gladstone, I believe, receives a fair price for his occasional articles in the Nineteenth Century. It docs not approach the fee he commands for similar work from American publishers. A little more than a year ago I happened to act as inter- mediary between the editor of an American weekly magazine and Mr. Gladstone in the matter of securing the ex-Premier as a contributor. I was authorised to offer for an article not exceeding 1500 words the sum of £100. This is pretty well for prose. He thereafter became an occasional contributor to this magazine, for which indeed he is writing the article on Mr. Motley. It is not probable that the rate of remuneration has been cut down. Mr. Gladstone's chief occupation at the present time is the arrangement of his library, to which he proposes to admit his friends and neighbours at Hawarden. A book buyer nearly all his life, the recipient of presents from a great army of authors, what to do with his books has long been a problem w^istfully confronted. About twenty years ago he hit upon a device of which he was almost as proud as of the passing of the Irish Church Bill. His library at Hawarden Castle is the largest apartment in the house. But when all the walls from Hoor to ceilinsc were lined with books there was still an embarrassing overplus unprovided for. Thinking the matter over, he had the happy thought of arranging one side of the library in a series of embrasures. Upright partitions, about 224 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS two feet deep, were set at right angles against the wall, shelves were fitted on either side of the par- tition, and thus the available space was practically doubled. This served for a while, but the books have asfain overflown, and he has now built a sort of annexe to the Castle. It is, to tell the truth, an atrociously ugly thing, made of corrugated iron. But it will serve its purpose, and he hopes to have it in order before he returns to Westminster to make another advance in the ^Home Rule Campaign. December 30, 1889. — Martin Tupper died this afternoon, at a green old age. It is five years since I last saw him, meeting him, of all places in the world, at the table of Colonel Fred Burnaby, who had a generous liking for the old gentleman, which did not extend to his verses. For many years Tupper lived quietly in a little house at Norwood, with some difficulty making both ends meet. He was accustomed bitterly to resent the assumption that since his books have a phenomenal circulation he must have made a mint of money out of them. He told me testily that this was entirely a mistake. He mentioned the sum he had netted from the " Proverbial Philosophy." I forget the amount, but it was a mere trifle. January 10, 1890. — The following story is going the round of the Press: "A young Irish lady was on a visit to Windsor I'astle, and the MEMORIES 225 Queen asked her to sing some simple songs. She sang * The Wearin' of the Green ' with great pathos. The Queen said, ' Thank you, dear,' and burst into tears." This story is true except in most of its details. I happen to know the lady, who related to me the incident shortly after its occurrence. She is not an Irish girl, having been born in Kent, and from her girlhood resided in London. She was not on a visit to Windsor Castle, but was the guest of the Algernon Borthwicks at their well-known house in the neighbourhood of Balmoral. The young lady accompanying her hostess on an afternoon visit to Balmoral was asked to sing, and adventured upon " The Wearin of the Green." When she finished, the Queen said through her tears, " Why, when I love the Irish so much, do they hate me so relentlessly." Q XIX EXPLORERS SIX Stanley and Nansen I FIRST met Henry Stanley in the early 'seventies on his return from his quest of Livingstone. He had completed his narrative of a journey for which all the world was waiting. Lately home from Paris I filled the part of a struggling journalist, my sheet anchor being an engagement to write a weekly London letter for a Birmingham paper newly started under the editorship of George Dawson. It was fully two thousand words in lensth, and broncrht in what I regarded as the satisfactory sum of one guinea. It struck me it would he a good thing if I could get an advance copy of Stanley's work so as to place my Birming- ham paper on a footing with the London journals in the matter of early review. It is a matter of course in these days. Forty years ago it was an attractive novelty. Stanley's headquarters were the office of the New York Herald, on whose staff he ranked as special correspondent. I remember making my way up a narrow ill-lit stairway, knocking at a 226 EXPLOEERS SIX 227 door, bidden by a gruif voice to " Come in," and finding myself in a dingy room in the presence of the man with whose fame Europe and America were ringing. " Well," he said. In reply to this laconic inquiry I murmured my name, which Avould not convey any impression to his mind fLivourable or otherwise ; told him of mv connexion with the Birmingham paper, and my desire to write a review of his book if I could secure an advance co23y. He looked me up and down and, as I uncomfortably felt, through and through. Then he said shortly, " You shall have one. Write down your address." This I did, and in due time an early copy of "How I found Livingstone " duly reached me, affording text for an extra column and a half in the Birmingham Morning News. As far as I remember, and I was not likely to forget the incident had it happened, I did not meet Stanley again for twenty years. On the second occasion he was back in London after rescuing Emin Pasha from captivity. The occasion was a big reception given by Sir John and Lady Pender at their house in Arlington Street " to meet the King of the Belgians." On entering the crowded room I caught sight of Stanley standing a little way back from the doorway. He was easily recog- nisable from photographs that flooded the land. I went up to him and said, " I don't suj^pose you will know me." 228 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS He turned upon my faee the searchlight of his eyes as he had done in the office in Fleet Street twenty years earlier, and after a moment's pause said : " Why, you're Henry Lucy." Thereafter acquaintance ripened into friend- ship, which drew closer when he became a Member of the House of Commons and I had more frequent opportunity of seeing him. Constitutionally re- ticent, I never heard him make complaint, but have no doubt, he was disappointed in his Parliamentary career. Unaccustomed to meet with, still less to admit, defeat in any enterprise undertaken, he confidently counted on conquest of the House of Commons. He made three or four efi'orts to establish ascendency, but failed in the attempt. A man entering the House of Commons with a great reputation won elsewhere is always handi- capped in the race. To begin with, Stanley knew nothing about politics, had little sympathy with Parliamentary manners and ways of thought, and entered on the new world too late to fall in with them. Outside Parliament^ when deeply moved by his subject, he could rise to heights of simple eloquence. I remember a speech he made at a banquet given in his honour by the Turners' Com- pany. Nothing could exceed the graphic touches with which he pictured his starving men in the wilderness, the departure of the band of foreigners, his journey in search of them, and the voice of agony expressive of utter hopelessness of the Moslems who cried aloud, " Allah is great." EXPLOREES SIX 229 He told me a curious thing with respect to this speech. He had been hard at work revising the proofs of "In Darkest Africa," and with other engagements was so beset that he was not able to carry out the custom adopted by him since his return of preparing his speech in manuscript. He had not a scrap of notes with him, nor had even thought of what he should say. He anticipated a breakdown, not being accustomed to extempo- raueous speech, and through the dinner somewhat gloomily faced the prospect. Seeing the people all about him bountifully feeding, there came back to his mind an episode of his journey when he and his men had not for six weeks eaten a bit of meat, nor for ten days seen a banana or a handful of grain, and for whom (130 of them) he made brotli with a pound of butter and a tin of condensed milk. Then he thought he would just tell this simple story, and was surprised to find how profoundly it interested the company. At first he spoke in a low voice with hesitating manner. As he went on before the intently listening audience, he became master of himself and spoke splendidly. After his return from the Emin Pasha Expe- dition, Stanley was subject to recurrent sickness, legacy of hardships sufi"ered in his journeys through the wilds of Central Africa. Whilst still in the House he told me he never knew from week to week, even from day to day, when the lurking fiend might not suddenly spring upon him laying him 230 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS helpless in bed. When he resolved to give up the hopeless fight, retiring from the turmoil of life in London, he built for himself a house in Surrey. He looked forward to entertaining once a year such remnant of men who had served with him in his various expeditions as were within hail. When the house was finished it turned out that only two men sat at the dining table — Stanley and Jephson, who commanded a detachment of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition which set forth on its mission in 1887. In the spring of 1890, Stanley was the lion of the season. He dined out every night, the com- panion of Kings, Ministers, Dukes, and even Arch- bishops, of whose part in the life of the nation it would have been interesting to hear his private opinion. After dinner there was usually a recep- tion, to which were bidden the rank, wealth, talent, and beauty of London. Stanley went through it all in his dogged, determined manner, marching throusfh the afiiuence of London life as fifteen or sixteen months earlier he crept wearily through the famine- stricken wilderness of Central Africa. He was not a brilliant conversationalist. On the con- trary, he had a distinctly depressing infiuence on small talkers of the dinner-table. AVhen they chattered to him in fashion they had found fasci- nating in other circumstances, Stanley had a way of saying nothing of itself embarrassing. Added thereto was a habit of turning upon the counte- nance of the chatterer a stern resolute face, lighted EXPLOEERS SIX 231 up by a pair of exceedingly penetrating eyes, which pierced through and through his companion whether man or woman. He talked volubly enough in the society of two or three friends. At the dinner- table — where he knew he sat fulfilling^ much the same purpose of attraction as good wine, fair flowers, rich ornaments, or a well-cooked meal — he was provokingly taciturn. Still he was dominated by sense of duty, and fulfilled it at whatever sacrifice of personal inclina- tion. By continual practice he fell into regular habits at social gatherings. He always stood at the entrance of a room, some paces in the rear of his hostess. After she had received the guests at the door they passed on to " find Stanley," who looked at every one with the same steadfast stare as if he was in search of a long-lost brother or sister. In briefest phrase he made reply to the commonplace of greeting or the exclamation of delight that at last he (or she) was privileged to shake by the hand so great an explorer. Stanley, by the way, had for a man who had grasped so many difficulties a very small hand. He did not wear gloves, and was evidently not ashamed of the fact that his hands were decidedly red and growing crinkly. He did not dress well, the cut of his clothes suggesting that they were made in his native village in Wales. From his chin downwards he was, to tell the truth, a little common-looking. His strong face and massive bead distinguished him above his fellows. 232 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS An old friend and sometime journalistic colleague of the explorer writes to me : " I first met Stanley on top of Magdala, when he was waving a bloody rag which he averred was part of King Theodore's shirt. I saw the dead King almost immediately afterwards, and his shirt seemed to me intact. However, Stanley and I became great friends, and I became the recipient of many curious confidences of his early journalistic life. "We met again at Zanzibar in 1874, and wc got again on the old confidential terms. Though naturally a reticent man, he could unbosom himself to a sympathetic listener, and I heard, among other things, the whole story of the romantic courtship which through woman's fickleness came to an untimely end. I was the recipient of the last letter he wrote before plunging into African depths, and of one of the first he wrote from Plymouth on his return." Among several occasions when I met him was the reception already alluded to given ])y Sir John Pender at his house in Arlington Street to meet the King of the Belgians. There was something almost comical in the contrast between the King and Stanley, as they stood together in conversation, or walked about the room. His Majesty was over six feet high, Stanley under five feet five inches. The King had a kindly but weak face. Stanley's face and head might have been carved out of a rock by some Titan sculptor. The King spoke EXPLOEEES SIX 233 excellent English in a soft gentle voice. Stanley's notes were guttural, and when he spoke rapidly, with rare approach to excitement, one could dis- tinctly notice an accent that betrayed his birtli at Denbigh, and his school days at St. Asaph. As the two men strolled through the brilliant throng, it was pretty to see the ladies curtseying, and the gentlemen bowing to the tall, mild-featured, tailor- made man, whom the accident of family circum- stance had made a king, whilst they permitted themselves to stand erect as Stanley brushed by. Yet if there was a king of men in the room it certainly was not Leopold II. Amons: the throng stood a tall, white-haired gentleman, with beetling snow-white eyebrows, the broad red ribbon of the Bath showing under the folds of his waistcoat. A grey-haired lady brought him in and never left his side, piloting him through the crowd, gently leading him to some compara- tively quiet couch, where they sat together, she telling him of the many people he knew who chanced to pass by. The feeble old man, with tottering steps and blinded eyes, so pathetically dependent on the care of a woman, was once known as Robert Lowe, fiercest swordsman in the political fray. It was the merest wreck, whether of mind or body, that survived under the title. Viscount Sherbrooke. Though hopelessly enfeebled, the old indomitable spirit prevailed to the extent that he at that time (May, 1890) positively declined to drop out of either Parliamentary circles or London 234 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS society. He did not go out to dinner. But if he were asked to a reception at a well-known house he went, even if he had to be led like a child. Stanley made a small fortune as a lecturer. On his last tour he rightly thought he had under- gone sufficient hardships in his journey through Central Africa, and decided not to rough it in future travel. In his engagement with the agent who arranged his tour in the United States, he stipulated that he should have a private car in which he might not only travel, but feed and sleep. Colonel Pond cheerily agreed to this request, having a car specially constructed for the use of the lecturer and his bride who accompanied him on the expedition. Stanley's remuneration for his lectures was on the same princely style. For his first he received £1000, and £lOO for each repetition. This com- pared favourably with his previous lecturing tour, following on his discovery of Livingstone. He then contracted to deliver a series of lectures at a fee of £25 each. He bore up against the fatigues of his lecture campaign in America in a way that seemed marvellous to those who saw him at Carlton Terrace on the day of his wedding. It was, how- ever, only his indomitable will and the adamantine chains of his engagements that kept him up. AVriting to me from Chicago, he declared himself utterly fatigued and prostrated by the labours of his tour. " My days," he wrote, " are occupied EXPLOEERS SIX 235 by visitors, and my evenings are devoted six times a week to lectures ; my nights to travel from one city to another ; my correspondence is utterly neglected, except for the most pressing business ; and I have not a single leisure hour before me. This rush of work will, I am told, continue until the middle of April, and then I must go elsewhere to meet other engagements. I long for the time when I can attend to my own private affairs and such objects as I sympathise with. When that may be I do not know, but I shall dearly appreciate it when it does arrive." At the time of writinc; he was about to start on a trip to the Pacific Coast, lecturing at all the big towns on route. This trip occupied him for seven weeks. I came across Nansen once or twice at a time when he was completing preparations for his expedition to the North Pole. At dinner one night he gave mc some interesting particulars. He was having a ship specially built. It was only 170 tons burden and the crew all told would be a dozen men. Compared with other expeditions this seemed a frail equipment. But the whole thing had been carefully considered and was based upon a scheme which at least had novelty to recommend it. The story of the origin of the expedition, which Nansen could tell in four lan- guages, was romantic. Some years earlier an expedition to the North Pole had been made in 236 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS the ship Jeannette under the direction of De Long. The Jeannette, like a long line of predecessors, came to grief, being nipped by ice-floes and sent to the bottom. Three years after there were found near Julianshaab, in Greenland, certain articles which the crew of the Jeannette had left with the wreck at the time of its abandonment. These had been carried from the opposite side of the Polar Sea to the coast of Greenland on a piece of ice. How this rare flotsam and jetsam made the journey was a problem that greatly excited Arctic experts, who finally came to the conclusion, that there must be a short direct route across the Arctic Ocean by way of the North Pole. Nansen deter- mined to start out to find this way, and the Norwegian Parliament voted him a sum of money estimated to cover his expenses. He proposed to take provisions for five years, and getting his ship in the place where the Jeannette went down, he hoped in time to drift across the mystic sea that encircles the North Pole, turning up three years later on the coast of Greenland. The fate of the Jeannette was kept in view in building of the new ship. She was so constructed that she could not be crushed by the ice but if nipped would be simply forced up from the water to the top of the floe. This is the story of the famous Fram as told l)y its Captain whilst she was yet on the stocks. Among other stories Nansen told (he spoke English fluently) was one that strikingly illustrates the sort EXPLORERS SIX 237 of men the Lapps are. Part of his equipment for his trip across Greenland consisted of two sleeping- bags made of undressed skins. On the first night of the journey Nansen and his two Norwegian companions got into one of the bags, pulled the mouth tight across their necks, and so slept in the snow with only their heads out. Before retiring to rest Nansen saw the three Lapps he had engaged for the expedition cosily tucked in. When he awoke in the morning, almost numb with cold, he observed that the bag in which he had tied up the Laps was empty, and they nowhere in sight. Afraid they had deserted him, he scrambled out of his bag, went in search of them, and found them fast asleep behind a hillock of snow which they had scraped together as protection against the wind. " Ah, master," they said when asked to explain this extraordinary conduct, " we couldn't sleep in that thing. It was too hot, so we got out and have had a comfortable night here." I observed that Nansen took no wine. Never in his direst straits did he cheer himself witli anything in the shape of alcoholic liquor. *' The only use I ever made of brandy during my tour through Greenland," he said, " was to melt the snow when we wanted water. It docs that admirably." His adventurous career was nearly cut off on the threshold. The first thing he did to call attention to himself was to cross at Christmas time the mountain range that separates Christiania 238 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS from Bergen. No human foot had ever before trodden these wilds. Young Nansen set out with no companion save his dog, no means of convey- ance other than a pair of ski. Night after night he slept in the snowdrifts, his dog clasped in his arms. Standing on the topmoist crag, in sight of Bergen, he determined to go down a little quicker than he had toiled up. Ski-ing down the slope at lightning speed, he continued for about half a mile, when he shot off into a crevasse, and was buried nearly up to his neck in snow. It was a terrible shaking, but no bones were broken, and picking himself up he completed the descent more cautiously. XX EXPLORERS SIX (continued) Sir Hatiry Johnston, Sven Hedin, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Dr. Schliemann One night in the summer of 1887, at a supper courageously given by Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton in the garden of his house in Onslow Square, I met Sir Harry Johnston. I happened to sit at a little table with Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman and the founder of the British Central Africa Protectorate. C.-B. made us acquainted with each other. Later in the same year Sir Harry was appointed British Consul- General of the Regency of Tunis, and before he left to fill his post it was arranged that my wife and I should pay Lady Johnston and him a visit. We had occasion to remember approach to what proved a happy time. We left Marseilles at the end of November in a flood of glorious sunlight, steaming over a summer sea with promise of a delightful voyage to the African coast. Entering the Gulf of Lyons shortly after dinner we found everything had suffered a sea change. In a journey 239 240 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEENESS round the world I have crossed several big oceans including the Pacific, so called because it can be exceptionally tumultuous. Only once have I had such experience on ship-board as was suffered in this French passenger boat making a twenty-four hours' trip across what might be regarded as nothing more than a huge lake. The other occasion was a voyage in an old tub of 250 tons from Yokohama to Yokkaichi. Crossing the gulf of Lyons a number of our fellow-passengers were English ladies resident in Malta who had been to Paris to replenish their wardrobe and were returning home via Tunis. Throughout the lono^ night the cabins were impartially flooded, trunks containing treasured garments floating nearly level with the sleeping-berths. Early in the night we were kept awake by thunderous noise on deck, followed in the course of an hour by sudden cessation. In the morning I learned that a cask of wine lashed on deck, breaking away, stumbled from larboard to star- board as the ship rolled and, finally crashing through the bulwarks, fell into the sea. At day- break a big wave swept the captain off the bridge, but at a curious whirl washed him back on deck astern. We were twenty-four hours late on a short passage, arriving at Bizerta breakfastless, for the sufficient reason that every article of crockery on board was smashed to atoms. But that is another story. On reachiuof Tunis we found our host and EXPLORERS SIX 241 hostess located some seven miles out of the town in an old Arab Palace presented by the Bey to the British Government. Within ten minutes' drive of the house over which the British flag flew lay the ruins of ancient Carthage. During our stay we frequently visited the historic spot. Of thrice- built Carthage nothing was left save scraps of dusf-out ruins. But the situation remains one of the most beautiful in the world — a promontory abutting on a blue sea, the horizon bounded by shadowy hills. We were promised the additional pleasure of the company of Sir William Harcourt, who at the time was interested in what is the most successful effort at colonising ever achieved by France. Expressing desire to study the problem on the spot he accepted an invitation from the Consul- General to visit Tunis. More pressing engagements interfered with his plans. It was a thousand pities, as he would have found Carthage not less interesting than Tunis. A pleasant picture rose before the imaginative mind of the Squire of Malwood stroking a meditative chin as he gazed on all that is left of the city that Dido founded, that Regulus stormed, whence Hannibal set forth to conquer Spain. Sir Harry Johnston is a man of diverse parts. If he had not given himself up to a life of adven- ture and administration he would have been by this time a Royal Academician. If he had de- voted himself to music he would have reached a high position. Had literature been his sole mistress R 242 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS he would have been in the first rank of authors. As it is he has written successful books, plays the piano with masterly touch, and has his pictures hunor on the line at Burlington House. Durinir the month we stayed with him he was hard at work upon -a painting which, apart from its technical skill and artistic value, was remarkable as reproducing a tropical scene few painters have had the opportunity of studying. The domestic household of the Arab Palace was a microcosm of the picturesquely mingled popu- lation of Tunis. Of over a dozen servants not two were of the same nationality. There were Parthians, Medes, Persians, and dwellers in Meso- potamia. The cook was an Italian who I gathered lived for the greater part of the day with his back to the kitchen wall, a dagger in his hand prepared to beat off attacks consequent on contumelious language addressed by him to his motley assistants. Their limited knowledge of Italian did not enable them to master the full purport of his remarks. But they shrewdly guessed they were not compli- mentary and were angry accordingly. Sir Harry told me a story picturesquely illus- trating life in these conditions. In celebration of the Queen's birthday, he had given a dinner-party to diplomatic colleagues in Tunis, The meal was so well cooked that he sent for the chef to compliment him. It happened that the message arrived whilst the cook in circumstances indicated happened to be with his back to the kitchen wall. Arrived in the EXPLORERS SIX 243 presence of his master he was ahnost foaming witli rage, gesticulating dangerously with his unsheathed dagger. After unavailing remonstrance, and pro- longed disobedience to the command to leave the room, it became evident that strong measures were necessary. Like Napoleon and some other eminent men who need not be particularised, the founder of the British Central Africa Protectorate is not a person of commanding height. Of the two the irate cook was taller and brawnier. Something*; had to be done, and without a moment's hesitation Sir Harry sprang upon him, disarmed him, and led him forth in the direction of the kitchen. " I was still in dinner dress," Sir Harry said, "wearing my Grand. Cross of St. Michael and St. George. During the struggle, the thing, suspended loosely from my neck, dangled in absurd fashion threatening every moment to snap at the chain. It was rather a serious moment. But I could not help laughing at the incongruity of the thing — the cook lying on his back kicking, my Grand Cross scraping his face as it waggled to and fro." Lord Salisbury, whilst Prime Minister, had a high opinion of Sir Harry Johnston's administra- tive capacity which seemed to promise advance- ment in the Service. On his return from Tunis in 1899 he was appointed Special Commissioner, Commander-in-Chief, and Consul-General for the Uganda Protectorate. The mission was accom- plished with additional success. But its fulfilment 244 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS was not marked by further engagements by the Foreign Office, the direction of whose affairs had by the death of Lord Salisbury passed into other hands. Dr. Sven Hedin I met at dinner at the Swedish Minister's house shortly after his return from his journey through Asia from Orenburg to Pekin via Lop-nor and Thibet. I found that, like Nansen, he spoke English fluently with almost imperceptible accent. He told me that at his earliest school tuition in the English language formed part of the curriculum. There are few educated people in Sweden who do not speak and write the tongue. He had, however, a natural gift, common with other famous explorers, notably including Colonel Fred Burnaby, of quickly picking up a foreign language. During his stay in Thibet he acquired sufficient knowledge of the vernacular to enable him to get about. It is, he said, like much else in the country, absolutely unique, having nothing in common either with Russian, Chinese, or the many dialects of India. Like Stanley and Harry John- ston, Dr. Hedin is somewhat below the average height and like them sturdily built. He showed no traces of the privations endured through his memorable expedition. I find in my diary of the year 1900 entry of a conversation with Captain Scott about to start in the Discover?/ on his first search for the South EXPLOEEKS SIX 245 Pole. It was at a little farewell tlinner given to liim at the Savoy Hotel. Nine years later I dined at the same hotel, but in a much laro-er room, one of a company gathered at the invitation of Mr. Heinemann to meet Lieutenant Shaekleton (not yet knighted) on his return from the Antarctic regions where he had planted his flag considerably nearer the South Pole than the foot of man had hitherto trodden. He told me that as one of Captain Scott's officers — he ranked as third lieutenant on board the Discovery — he had been present on the earlier occasion. It was quite in accordance with his modest manner that he then passed unnoticed. Returning to London to find himself the hero of the day he had lost nothing of his almost boyish appearance. I did not at the time know his age, but as in conversation he maintained that the ideal age of an Arctic voyager is thirty, I suppose that was about the number of his years when he returned almost victor of the South Pole. Three of his mates who were present at the dinner were equally youthful in appear- ance. Remembering their privations, which finally reached a stage when starvation actually gripped them, they looked the perfection of health. Shaekleton told a pretty story illustrative of the daily life of the expedition and of the sort of men who composed it. One day he and his three officers, having finished their scanty meal, were hungrier than ever. As they trudged along through the soft snow, dragging their sledge, they 246 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS agreed with each other that if they lived to reach home, and ever saw a hungry man or child flatten- ing his nose against the window of a cook-shop they would take care that straightway he had a good square meal. After dinner Mr. Heinemann's guests had the advantage of seeing what was equal to a living representation of daily life with the expedition. Dr. Forbes Mackay, who accompanied it, is an expert photographer. Whilst his comrades were loading or unloading their sleighs, fixing or furliug their tents, trudging through the snow or, tired out with the day's work, gratefully disappearing into their sleeping bags, he took snapshots with his camera. These, thrown on the screen with the cinematograph, brought into the heart of London, in a room where a sumptuous banquet was spread, the daily doings of the gallant little band doggedly making their way to the South Pole. On the back of the menu was presented the picture of an old man, bearded, bareheaded, clad in thick jersey, with hands crossed and clasped. It bore the initials " E. H. S." and the date "February, 1899." It suggested an applicant for an old age pension, whose claim to have reached the statutory age was only slightly dubious. It was actually Lieutenant Shackleton as he appeared at that date, still in search of the Pole. By accidental efiect of light, his beard and moustache looked grey, and his body a little bowed as if with age. Returning to civilisation he was clean shaven. EXPLOEEES SIX 247 In the following August I had fuller oppor- tunity of making Shackleton's acquaintance, we beino^ fellow ji'uests on the Armadale Castle at the review of the Fleet at Spithead when King George was accompanied by the Czar. The fortuitous meeting was happy in more respects than one, since it enabled me to do the explorer some service. To the outsider it appeared that Shackleton's Antarctic expedition had been crow^ned not only with honour but by considerable monetary ad- vantage. His book, published by Mr. Heine- mann, appeared simultaneously in this country, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Its circulation on the Continent promised to beat the record of British books. Nine translators had been at work turning the chapters into the language of their several nations. Such a work naturally commanded a high fee for the author. In supplement Shackleton had accepted a pro- posal to deliver a series of lectures in the United States for which handsome pay was guaranteed. Together these sources of revenue appeared to make provision of a modest competency for life. Quite by accident I became acquainted with the facts. Shackleton was not the man to go about whining at the cruel irony of fate. I learned tlie story indirectly from Mrs, Shackleton who confided it to my wife. It appeared that not a penny of the proceeds of the book or the lecturing tour, in themselves combining a task almost equal in arduousness to another Antarctic expedition, would 248 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS go into Shackleton's pocket. It was mortgaged in advance to pay off the costs of the expedition. When that was planned |he had at his back the financial assistance of a small group of Americans. At a period when he was absolutely pledged to the enterprise and had incurred considerable pre- liminary cost, there befell a financial crisis on the other side of the Atlantic which brought ruin on a wide circle of erstwhile wealthy men. Among them were the backers of the new Antarctic expedition. In these suddenly disheartening circumstances, Shackleton approached a London bank, and upon his personal guarantee and that of members of his own and his wife's family, raised a loan of £20,000, by which means the great achievement was accomplished. On returning from the closest touch with the South Pole yet reached by man, the Australian Legislature voted a sum of £5000 as a contribution to the expenses of the expe- dition ; New Zealand supplemented this by another £1000. The British Treasury, however, declined to contribute to the fund, and Shackleton, saddled with the responsibility for £14,000, was left to meet the charge out of his own resources. It appeared to me that if the truth were made known to the public the reproach of leaving the gallant explorer in the lurch would not lie against this country. I accordingly wrote a signed article in one of the London morning papers, simply setting forth the facts. Before noon on the day EXPLOEEKS SIX 249 of publication the editor received a letter from a well-known man suggesting the opening of a public subscription which the writer headed with a cheque for c£500. It happened, however, that the brief article had attracted the attention of the Prime Minister. On reading it he sent for Shackleton, and the result of the conversation was that the explorer received a Treasury grant of .£20,000 which handsomely covered the deficit arising out of the cost of the expedition, leaving its leader in possession of the private earnings he had set aside for that purpose. Shackleton made rare acknowledgment of this small service. Preparing the chart of his Antarctic route which accompanied his book, he gave names to three mountains discovered by him and marked thereon. One was Mount Asquith, a second Mount Harcourt (after the Colonial Secretary), the third Mount Henry Lucy. Dr. Schliemann is not an explorer in wide sense of the word as applied to others here written of. But his explorations have added much to know- ledge of the ancient world. I met him in 1890 when breakfasting in Berkeley Square with Sir John Lubbock, now Lord Avebury. In personal appearance he much resembled the typical Lutheran pastor with whom his home days were spent. He was dressed in quaintly-cut black clothes, with a long gold chain festooned about his neck and waistcoat. Even at the breakfast hour 250 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS he was to be seen in a white necktie. He spoke a dozen languages, and if all were as excellent as his English he had a fresh claim to distinction. More than fifty years earlier he began life in a grocer's shop at Fiirstenburg, where he spent five years. He told me that he never smells a herring without there flashing upon his memory a picture of the grocer's shop and the little boy in a blouse sorting the herrings, dispensing the butter, and filling up spare time by grinding potatoes out of which a dubious liquid was distilled. From five in the morning till ten or eleven at night he grubbed away, excavating in the butter cask with all the diligence and single-mindedness with which in later years he turned up the priceless treasures hidden at Mycenae and Tiryno. Out of the grocer's shop Schliemann, just verging on twenty, got a place as clerk with a mercantile firm at Amsterdam. A few years later he set up in business on his own account at St. Petersburg, and quickly made a fortune. This done he devoted himself to archaeological investigation, his work beino; described in memorable books. At the time I met him he lived in princely state at Athens. Before he left for his visit to London he was hard at work in Crete, where he found fresh tombs and made excavations new. He returned to Crete and was hard at work among his excavations when death overtook him. He had come upon an ancient burial place which the islanders declared to be the tomb of Jove. EXPLOEEKS SIX 251 That was problematical, but there was no doul.)t of the great antiquity of the cemetery. The Cretans were eagerly disposed to make the most of the find, and hampered the explorer with preposterous demands for backsheesh. These he paid for some time, but finally he appealed to the Government for assistance in keeping off the vampires. His death put an end to interesting work which by his hand unveiled much of the mystery that shrouds ancient Greek life. XXI MEMORIES Mr. Gladstone and Scotch Disestablishment When, in 1890, Mr. Gladstone went to Scotland on Ills fourth Midlothian campaign he was hampered by the Established Church question. Three-fourths of the members of the Established Church were Liberals and Home Rulers. But they were Church- men first. On the other hand, there was an influential section of the Liberal Party, who, reckoning upon Mr. Gladstone's proximate return to power, insisted that the opportunity should be seized to disestablish the C^hurch. Between these contending factions the wary Old Parliamentary Hand found himself in an em- barrassing position. For his own part he was chiefly bent upon attempting to retrieve the rout of 1886, and carry a Home Rule Bill. He was advised by experts in Scottish politics that failure to raise the standard of Disestablishment would appreciably weaken his cause. On the other hand, there was the influential section who insisted that the Disestablishment question should be left entirely outside the field of battle upon which the 252 MEMOEIES 253 contending hosts were already marching. At a succeeding General Election they would not, they said, shrink from the inevitable struggle. But the forthcoming fight must, they insisted, be solely • fought on Home Rule, relegatiug the Disestablish- ment question for decision at the General Election ensuing. Having some personal knowledge of the situa- tion in Scotland, and probably not altogether unmindful of an avowedly constant reader of my London Letter in the Liverpool Daily Po^^t, I set forth the case in a couple of paragraphs published at brief intervals. The second brought me the following postcard written from Hawarden. "Dear Mr. Lucy, — I quite understood your first paragraph in the London Letter, but feared you had interpreted favourably the demand made upon us. I fear the true interpretation is accord - m- recovered from an illness that created some anxiety, the Queen left Windsor and is to-night safely housed at Osborne. I hear from a high official of one of the two railways over which the Koyal train passed some surprising details of the journey. For forty-eight hours preceding the start the attention 320 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS of the staff of both lines was concentrated upon preparations for it. Messages and peremptory in- structions flashed up and down the line. All the staff were kept on the qui vive, and the arrange- ments of ordinary traffic suspended, to the detri- ment of the public and the pecuniary loss of the companies. At Basingstoke the Great "Western Company handed their precious charge over to the South Western, whose engine conducted the train to Gosport. All along the two lines identical precautions taken involved a carefulness of prepara- tion and an attention to detail that could scarcely be exceeded if an army were passing through the heart of a hostile country. From Windsor to Gosport the line was kept clear for not less than twenty minutes before the Royal train was due ; no train, engine, or other vehicle (with one exception) being allowed to pro- ceed upon or cross the main line. The exception was the pilot engine, which started fifteen minutes before the Royal train left Windsor. In that space of time the pilot engine got ahead from ten to twelve miles, and till the Royal train passed the whole route was kept as private as the Queen's corridor in Windsor Castle. Every station at which the train stopped was locked, barricaded, and guarded, the people being kept off as if they were suspected of the plague. It has been a hard day for the men in charge of goods trains. No goods train, mineral train, or cattle train has been allowed to leave any station MEMORIES 321 or junction with intent to proceed over the line on which the Royal train ran, unless it could arrive at the next shunting station at least fifteen minutes before the pilot engine, half an hour before the Royal train was due. Perhaps the sublimity of precaution and the Heedlessness of inconvenience created are marked by another regulation enforced throughout the greater part of to-day on this important public highway. No goods, mineral, or cattle train has been allowed to run even on the opposite line to that used by the Royal train within fifteen minutes of the time the Queen was due to pass. If it happened to be there or thereabouts they were peremptorily pulled up at the last station, and kept till the Royal train passed by. Moreover, all shunting operations on the sidings adjoining the main line were suspended for half an hour before the Royal train was due. This rendered it possible to bolt and padlock all facing-points. Not only were the facing-points (the points of divergence met with on the main line) thus secured, but at each stood a platelayer or signalman on guard. These were in addition to the army who were drawn ofi" their day's work in order to stand within touch of each other from Windsor to Gosport. Every one of these men was provided with a hand signal and detonator, and was bound under penalty of instant dismissal to keep in view the man next in order up or down the line. This is a bare out- line of the intricate arrangements imposed upon Y 322 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS the unfortunate railway companies over whose line the Queen travels to and from her various pleasure houses. February 2, 1891. — Lord Randolph Churchill has come back to Parliamentary life bringing a beard with him. This remarkable disguise recalls the days when Parnell was constantly surprising the House of Commons by quick changes in his personal appearance. One night he would show himself with hair so long that it curled up as it fell over his collar. On the next he would present himself close cropped, and a week or two after, lo ! his hair was long again. On one occasion he excelled himself, rising to make a speech with the top of his head closely shaven, as if he were preparing for priestly orders. Lord Randolph's beard interferes with the prominence of the moustache, which plays a lead- ing part in his cogitations. He always sits in precisely the same attitude in the corner seat above the gangway, with elbow resting on the end of the Bench, and nervous fiugers rapidly twirling his moustache. May 6, 1891. — Less than a fortnight ago the Archbishop of York (Dr. Magee) was in his place in the House of Lords, in attendance on Committee on the Child Life Insurance Bill, over which he presided. He seemed to be in something better than his usual health. When I last saw him he MEMORIES 323 was sitting on the Bishops' Bench, chatting with Lord Ripon, who crossed over to congratulate him on his preferment. He seemed in the highest spirits. I am told by one of his intimate friends that he never thoroughly got over an illness suffered four or five years ago, which completely knocked him over and brought him almost into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. As an orator he never approached the excellence of his great speech on the Irish Church Bill, which at a bound established his Parliamentary fame. Not that he did not contribute to the dignity, eloquence, and in marked manner to the force of debate. But his audience, remembering either the speech or its fame, have been disappointed by reason of their expectation being pitched so high. Of late years Dr. Magee practically stood aside from Parliamen- tary affairs, though he commenced this Session by bringing in a Bill dealing with Church discipline, which succeeded in passiug through all its stages. The subject was not one that lent itself to flights of oratory, and he was content to make his speeches rather practical than eloquent. He died shortly after translation from the See of Peterborough to the Archbishopric of York. Pie lived long enough to pay the fees exacted in connexion with the event, and, as he was not a rich man, public attention was pointedly called to the business. It was reported that he paid a sum of £7000 in connexion with his installation. Questions put in Parliament showed that this 324 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS report was exaggerated. The money passed, but it was to a considerable extent for value received. Still, he had certain fees to pay which, if exacted in any other connexion and by less respectable people, would be regarded as a monstrous im- position. Between receiving his conge d'elire and taking his seat in the House of Lords, the new Archbishop had to pay in fees an aggregate sum of close upon £850. Several Departments of State had pickings out of the pie. There was the Crown Office, whence issued the conge d'elire ; the Home Office, which received it and charged accordingly ; the Board of Green Cloth, which mulct the Arch- bishop in " homage fees " amounting to £30 Os, 4c/. ; the Lord Great Chamberlain, whose satellite snatched a £10 note from the Archbishop on his way to take his seat ; the Dean and Chapter, who got fees for everything, and then charged 20 guineas for the bell-ringer and £13 14^. 8d. for the choir. Next came, with outstretched hand, the vicar of the parish in which is situated the cathedral where the ceremony of installation takes place. Finally a lump sum of £28 was exacted on the hapless Archbishop taking his seat in the House of Lords. May 28, 1891. — One of the finest but least well- known works of Herkomer is a portrait of himself. It bears date February, 1890, and forms one of a series of beautiful etchings which enrich his auto- biography. This work, like the etching, is not MEMORIES 325 known to the public, only a few copies having been printed for private circulation. Herkomer displays his usual originality in etching at the foot of the plate by way of remarque^ a likeness of himself before he shaved off beard and moustache. This gives the plate a double value. There are in the handsome volume etched portraits of his father and mother, one of the present Mrs. Herkomer, and a beautiful sketch of a tower built from Herkomer 's own design, erected on a piece of land adjoining the house in which his mother died. " Miitter- thurm " he calls it, in the language that in its home association is always poetical. As for the story of Herkomer's life, it is told with a directness of purpose and an unflinching frankness that reminds one sometimes of Marie Bashkirtseft". It is a record of indomitable genius fighting its way through successive obstacles, till it reaches the pinnacle of fame. The peeps at the felicity of domestic life, largely contributed to by the sweetness of the artist's disposition, are charm- ing. Nor is the domestic idyll without its touch of tragedy, reminiscent in a remote way of some chapters in Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece. From Sir Hubert von Herkomer^ jR.A. " LULULAUND, BUSHEY, HeRTS, "29 Jul//, 1912. " My dear Lucy, " I am puzzled, rather, to know to which biography you refer in your note in The Cor/i/iill. 326 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Two years ago I published the last word about my- self. Do you mean that one called 'The Ilerkomers/ or a very early one of 22 years ago, printed only for private circulation, a fragmentary and imperfect biography ? '* If you have not got ' The Herkomers' may I send you the two vols. ? "It is too bad that we have met so seldom, but I was for years not able to go out. Now I am rc- horn with a newly-made inside, and feel tlie per- fection of health. After 20 years' constant suffering I am a living wonder of surgical art. I trust, therefore, after the holidays, to see more of you and Lady Lucy. " My wife joins me in all good greetings. " Ever yours, "Hubert von Herkomer." June 10, 1891. — Miss Isabella Bird (she is Mrs. Bishop now), whose book on Japan is well known, has just returned from a journey through the untrodden wilds of Central Asia. She was privileged to accompany an official party through a mountainous district of Kurdistan never before visited by a European. Returning by Armenia, she made a study of the present state of the Chris- tian population in that country. The other night she met Mr. Gladstone at dinner and found him much interested in her adventures and experiences. A number of members of the House of Commons have ioined in an invitation to her to meet them MEMORIES 327 in the conference room to-morrow, when she will deliver an address. In one part of her journey Miss Bird crossed a district where her only prede- cessor among Europeans was the late Mr. Palgrave, brother of the Chief Clerk at the table of the House of Commons. This was a district forbidden to Europeans, and Miss Bird, like Mr. Palgrave, travelled in the disguise of a doctor. Palgrave used to tell an interesting story about his journey. It lay through a district where it was one of the religious tenets of the people that they should eat no vegetables. Any one disobeying this order would forthwith be put to death, not unaccompanied by torture. After some weeks Mr. Palgrave's yearning for a homely potato grew in- supportable. There were, of course, no potatoes ; nor, indeed, any other vegetables in the land. One day, in the course of his visits to a temple, he discovered a string of onions, which fulfilled some function in the religious ceremony. He hankered after these onions with an overpowering passion. Lying in bed one night, the temptation grew irresistible. Creeping forth from his couch he managed to enter the temple and reach the room where the onions were stored. Sitting down on the floor, he ate every one and with guilty step returned to his tent. For reasons not unfamiliar to persons who have the misfortune to find themselves in the com- pany of others who have included an onion in their meal, Palgrave carefully avoided the society of his 328 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS fellow-men throughout the following day and took an early opportunity of continuing his journey. He escaped undetected, but often through subse- quent wanderings found himself wondering what happened when the raid on the temple was discovered. August 29, 1891. — Cecil Eaikes did not rank as a popular figure, whether in the House of Commons or in his department, the Post Office. He had an acrid tongue not always kept under control. Moreover, he was that increasingly rare product, an out-and-out Tory. How he managed to retain office with a Government which during its five years' existence passed a succession of Liberal measures, including Free Education and promises to culminate in establishing something very like Home Rule for Ireland, is a matter on the face of it inexplicable. If he had his way he would have steadily pursued the narrow path of old-fashioned Toryism. As it was, he followed his leaders, and remained Postmaster-General through whatever devious course of politics they led him. Those who knew Raikes personally found it difficult to understand the popular conception of his character. In private life he was a particularly charming man, cultured and an excellent talker. He had, moreover, what rarely scintillated through his official life, a keen sense of humour. I saw him in the House a few days before the Prorogation, when he seemed in his usual health, though looking MEMORIES 329 forward wistfully to a period of rest at his Welsh home, to which he was much attached. It is almost forgotten that he was Chairman of Committees all through the Disraelian Parlia- ment, and though a strong party man, called to this delicate post at a time of peculiar difficulty, he succeeded in impressing the House with con- viction of fairness and impartiality. It is true the Irish Members regarded him with bitter hatred. That was a temperamental attitude they presented towards many other prominent Members on either side of the House. At the General Election of 1880, Raikes, offering himself for re-election at Chester, was made the object of a concentrated attack from this quarter. A. M. Sullivan, one of the gentlest and most chivalrous of men, devoted himself with almost ferocious energy to ousting the Chairman of Committees who had been so often the instrument of suspending recalcitrant Irish Members. In one address that aroused much attention at the time, he cited a long string of quotations from speeches delivered by Raikes at various periods. "The eternal Raikes" he called him, as his name came up again and again in suc- cessive passages not particularly favourable to his candidature. The name stuck, and for a session or two the Ex-Chairman of Committees \vas alluded to as " the eternal Raikes." Now, when beseemed to have fought his way into the sunshine, holding an honourable and lucrative office, with prospect of permanent settlement before his party went out. 330 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS " the eternal Raikes " has suddenly and unexpectedly demonstrated his share in the common mortality of mankind. November 7, 1891. — Dined this afternoon at Bentley's annual Trade dinner. With the excep- tion of Squire Bancroft and myself all the guests were bent on business, commenced as soon as the cloth was drawn. Stationers' Hall, where the feast was spread, provided a fitting framework for a picture now fast fading out of modern business life in London. Going back for nearly 200 years there are records of occasions when publishers invited the booksellers to come to see their wares, enter- taining them with cakes and ale. There is extant a catalogue of a sale held in 1743 by Thomas Osborne, who established the firm which now bears the name of Longmans. Having given the titles of the books to be ofi'ered for sale, Thomas Osborne sets forth in a special postscript memorandum of provision of " turkeys and chines, hams and chickens, apple pies, &c., and a glass of very good wine." Mr. Bentley's feast to-day was on a scale of even more royal magnificence, a truly portentous banquet to sit down to at 3 o'clock in the after- noon. He showed me a curious catalogue belonging to the firm, setting forth year by year particulars of the works published by them between 1831 and 1854. There Avere, all told, 126; amongst the writers being Jane Austen, Jane Porter, Bulwer, MEMORIES 331 Marryat and Fenimore Cooper. From first to last their production entailed an expenditure of £88,000. This includes everything — printing, paper, binding, and payment to the author. The average, it will be seen, reaches something like £700 a book, in itself a sum that a less popular author than Rudyard Kipling would to-day look at askance if offered simply for the copyright of a new novel. Walter Besant would probably like the sum worked out in further detail and a statement prepared showing what share of profit the publisher got and how much the author. Stationers' Hall is almost under the shadow of St. Paul's. It stands in a quiet courtyard within which the bustle of the great city becomes a rum- bling echo. The Stationers' Company were incor- porated more than 300 years ago, and their first Hall, which stood on the site of the present build- ing, was destroyed in the great fire of London. At the beginning of the century a musical festival used to be held every year on St. Cecilia's Day, and here Dryden's ode, " Alexander's Feast," was performed. Samuel Richardson was Master of the Company in 1754, and his portrait hangs in the Committee-room, with one of Dick Steele not far oft'. The Company of to-day is a very diff'erent corporation from the wealthy and powerful body which as far back as the beginning of last century had the exclusive monopoly of printing books. They still keep up their connexion with literature by providing a record in which the names and 332 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS particulars of all books copyrighted must be entered. " Entered at Stationers' Hall " is not now so familiar a legend on books as it used to be. But it remains necessary in order to secure copyright that the entry shall be made.* At the back of the Hall there spreads a little garden, now grimy rather than green, in which, at the bidding of the Star Chamber, the Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company burned seditious publications seized in the course of diligent house-to-house search made under its warrant. September 19, 1891. — Among the crowd of American visitors who, passing to and from the Continent, fill London hotels just now, is Governor Gilpin, a well-known American, one of whose claims to fame is that he sent the first message over the Atlantic cable. The line was completed on August 5, 1866. At that time Napoleon HI. was in the plenitude of his power, his every movement anxiously watched from both hemi- spheres. He was understood to have his eye upon Bohemia. Mr. Gilpin was then Governor of Colorado, and by way of a joke he handed in to the agents of the Atlantic Cable a message for the French Emperor. It ran thus : "Denver, Colorado, August 5, 1866. To Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor, Tuileries, Paris, France. Please leave Bohemia alone. No * This necessity was removed by Copyrit^ht Act added to the Statute Book this year. MEMORIES 333 interference will be tolerated by this Territory. John Gilpin, Governor." Mr. Gilpin penned his despatch in the exuberance of humour. The Cable people, eager for custom, and knowing that the Governor of Colorado was in a position to pay the bill, for- warded it. It was duly delivered at the Tuileries, and doubtless mystified the Emperor. The freak cost Mr. Gilpin £30, and all he got for his money was the reputation of having inaugurated the Atlantic Cable. In those far-off days the Emperor Napoleon must have grown accustomed to this kind of threatening action from outsiders speaking the English tongue. There was then, and I dare say there is to this day, a paper published in the south of Ireland called the Skibhereen Eagle. A. M. Sullivan used to tell a charming story of how one Saturday morning, at the time when Napoleon III. was ominously restless in his foreign policy, there appeared in the Skibhereen Eagle an article com- mencing : *' We think it right to let the French Emperor know that we have our eye upon him." There followed a column of mingled reasoning, reproach, warning, and threat. November 7, 1891. — The death of Prince Lucien Bonaparte relieves the British taxpayer of an annual payment of £250. Years ago this studious nephew of the first Napoleon was placed 334 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS upon the Civil List, which provides a sum of £1200 a year to be distributed among persons in com- paratively indigent circumstances who upon divers grounds recommend themselves to consideration. The " grounds " are exceedingly varied, as appears from a consideration of the persons who draw pensions. The general idea is that the department was created for the benefit of literary persons, under which heading Prince Lucien Bonaparte would come. His particular literary bent was research into dialects. He translated portions of the Scriptures into dialects spoken in England and Scotland. His proudest boast was that he had, either with his own hand or under super- vision, translated the Parable of the Sower into seventy-two of the dialects of Europe. These works were printed in small numbers. The Prince's life, on the whole perhaps more useful than his illustrious uncle's, might have been more profitably spent. • The Civil List of this year is a very curious one. Looking down it one finds that Literature does not have the full representation generally presumed. For more than half a century the son and daughter of a Deptford policeman have been in receipt of a pension of £25 a year. Their father was murdered whilst executing his duty, and they were put on the Civil List. Sir Hudson Lowe, jailer of the Emperor Napoleon at St. Helena, left his family in a destitute condition, and his daughter is still in receipt of £50 a year, MEMOKIES 335 enjoyed for forty-six years. It is, I think, not generally known that Lord Tennyson is on the list, and has been since 1845. Two hundred pounds a year, he draws " in consideration of his eminence as a poet." This in addition to his salary as Poet Laureate. Three daughters of Dr. Chalmers still live, and, "in consideration of the piety, eloquence and learning," of their late father, draw £25 a year each from the purse of a grateful nation. One of the most highly endowed bene- ficiaries was the adopted daughter of Lord Nelson. Horatio Nelson Ward was her name when, in 1854, she was dowered with a pension of £300 a year. Mr. Nelson AVard writes to me : "In 1854 (nearly 50 years after the Battle of Trafalgar), when the pension was granted to Mrs. Ward, she was getting on in years, and it was arranged, mainly through the instrumentality of Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P., that the pension should be continued to her 3 daughters, if they survived her. The pension was granted out of the Civil List, as Mr. Gladstone, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said it was the only fund which was available for the purpose. Mrs. Ward enjoyed the pension until her death in 1881, and it was con- tinued in favour of her surviving daughter, Mrs. Johnson, who died in 1890. Mrs. Ward was my mother, and I am the last survivor of her children and am now 84." One of the oddest uses of this fund is appro- priated for the benefit of the Vargas family. 336 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Members of the House of Commons, whose recol- lections of the place go back beyond a dozen years, will remember Vargas, who had charge of the Parliamentary messengers in the Lobby. He had been there for I don't know how many years, see- ing successive Ministries toppling to their fall, and going about his business with high indifference as to whether he chanced to be ranged under a Liberal or a Conservative flag. When he died he left a family of six girls, on whose behalf appeal was made to Members for their influence in obtaining a draft on the Civil List. This succeeded, and accordingly Sophia, Clara, Louisa, Emmelyn, Rosa, and Henrietta were each dowered with an income of £20 a year for the term of their natural life. Since the sister of John Keats draws only £90 a year, as compared with the aggregate of £120 for the family of Vargas, it would appear that, in the view of the authorities at the Treasury, it is better to be connected by family ties with the Superin- tendent of the Lobby messengers than with the author of "Endymion." XXVI LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL Fourth Party Days The first time I noticed Lord Randolph Cliurchill in the House of Commons was on a May day in 1875. Sir Charles Dilke, pursuing what threatened to be an annual crusade against uureformed corpo- rations, made merry at the expense of Woodstock, then represented by one who was known in the parliamentary arena simply as a cadet of the ducal house of Marlborough. From the third bench behind that on which Ministers ought to have been sitting rose a well-groomed young man with pro- tuberant eyes, pale face, and a ponderous moustache, with which as he spoke he nervously toyed. Mem- bers asking each other " Who's this ? " learned that it was the Member for Woodstock rising to defend the corporation of the borough that sent him to Parliament. Though assisted by notes, on which the speech was fully written out, the young Member was so nervous, his voice so badly pitched, his delivery so faulty, that there was difficulty in following his argument. Here and there flashed forth a scathing 337 2 338 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS sentence that made it worth while to attempt to catch the rest. When he sat clown Lord Randolph had made his mark, had established himself as an interesting personality, in an assembly in which within ten years he was predominant. Three years later he justified the promise made in this casual speech. It was in March, 1878, he appeared in the role^ subsequently familiar, of can- did friend of a Conservative Ministry. Mr. Sclater- Booth, President of the Local Government Board, brought in a County Government Bill, whose main object was to transfer the government of counties to bodies elected partly by the county magistrates, partly by the Boards of Guardians. The rejection of the Bill was moved by Mr Ry lands, a fussy Radical who, through successive sessions, was, like Martha, troubled about many things. To the as- tonishment of the House Lord Randolph Churchill rose from the Ministerial side to second the amend- ment. The personal conjunction was piquant enough to attract attention. Lord Randolph's speech held it in close grip. " I do not," said " the member for Woodcock," as Jacob Bright in his solitary unpremeditated flash of humour once called him, " want to say anything disagreeable ; but I have ransacked the whole arsenal of denunciatory phrases and have not found any that adequately express my estimation — or rather lack of estimation — of this measure." Failing full success in that direction, he characterised the Bill as "of Brummagem make, stuffed with all the little LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 339 dodfljcs of a President of the Local Government Board when he comes to attempt to legislate upon a great question." This brought him to the President of the Local Government Board, seated massive, apparently im- passive, on the Treasury Bench, over which Ran- dolph threateningly towered. " Remarkable," he murmured, contemplating the back of Sclater-Booth's head, '' how often we find mediocrity dowered with a double-barrelled name." " I have no objection," he continued, " to the President of the Local Government Board dealincr with such questions as the salaries of Inspectors of Nuisances. But I do entertain the stronjxest possible objection to his coming down here, with all the appearance of a great lawgiver, to repair, according to his small ideas and in his little way, breaches in the British Constitution." In these later years frank criticism by private Members of their pastors and masters on either Front Bench, is so common as to attract little attention. In 1878 it was not altogether unknown below the gangway on the Liberal side. It was quite new with Conservatives. As Randolph spoke the Min- isterialists sat silent in pained amazement : whilst the Liberals, gleefully watching Sclater-Booth, bolt upright on the Treasury Bench, with head slightly thrown back, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped across his portly figure, an unwonted flush on his stolid countenance, laughed and cheered. 340 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS The sheaf of notes held in Lord Randolph's right hand testified to careful preparation. At this time, and for some years later, he was in the habit of writing out his speeches, learning them by heart and recitinor them. Amid the excitement of his attack on Sclater-Booth his notes got inextricably mixed up. He attempted to sort them by arranging them between the open fingers of either hand, — a device that had comical result. Waving his hands about in the heat of oratory, the action suggested that he was playing with what schoolboys call clappers. Happily the laughter and cheering from the delighted Opposition was so persistent that he had time and opportunity to find successive clues, and triumphantly proceeded to the close of a speech that established his position as an original, daring debater. Having joined a turbulent Radical in opposing the measure of a Conservative Government, Lord Randolph proceeded to make things more unpleasant for right hon. friends on the Treasury Bench. He denounced the Bill as " this most Radical and Democratic measure, this crowning desertion of Tory principles, this supreme violation of political honesty." There was further echo of Disraeli attacking Peel in the peroration. '* I have," he said, " raised the last wail of the expiring Tory Party. They have undergone a good deal. They have swallowed an immense amount of nastiness. They have had their banner dragged along many a muddy path. It has been slapped in many a filthy LORD EANDOLPH CHURCHILL 341 puddle till it is so altered that nobody can recog- nise it." After this outburst the young Member for Woodstock, to the relief of Ministers— more esjDecially of the President of the Local Grovern- meut Board — temporarily retired from the Parlia- mentary scene. It is true that the following month he, with characteristic audacity, stirred the deep pools of the Irish Education question. But his attendance was rare, and thereafter his silence complete. It seemed as if he had finally relapsed into the state of indifference to political ambition and Parliamentary allurements that marked his earlier manhood. It is a coincidence notable in view of subse- quent events that on the threshold of their careers Arthur Balfour and Randolph Churchill were alike indifferent, even inimicable, to a Parliamentary career. By further coincidence, it was accidental vacancy in a family pocket-borough that led both to AVestminster and to a place in history. In the autumn of 1873 Mr. Balfour took counsel with his uncle as to what he should do with his young life. It happened that a vacancy was pending in the representation of the family borough. " Why not sit for Hertford?" Lord Salisbury suggested. After some hesitation the future Prime Minister accepted the invitation. Lord Randolph was almost driven by his father into the Parliamentary seat of Woodstock. Hertford and Woodstock have gone the way of all small boroughs lying in the 342 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS pathway of a Juggernaut Reform Bill. The names of their representatives elected to the Parliament of 1874-80 will live as long as English Parliament history is read. It was accident that brought Lord Randolph finally out of his shell. By fresh coincidence the same episode was the occasion of Mr. Balfour's emerging from the condition of Philosophic Doubt with which hitherto he regarded the assumed privilege and pleasure of membership of the House of Commons. In the haze that gathers round events even so recent as a quarter of a century ago, it is generally understood that Lord Randolph devised the Bradlaugh difficulty, that thin edge of the wedge inserted with fatal result in the frame- work of a great Liberal majority in the earliest stage of its existence. That is an error. It was Sir Henry Wolff who first raised objection to the Member for Northampton taking the oath. He was discouraged, his action discountenanced, by Sir Stafford Northcote. Sir John Gorst, not yet knighted, rallied to his side ; some of the country gentlemen, scenting sport, began to cheer the grave and reverend champions of Christianity. It was on the 3rd May, 1880, that Bradlaugh raised the controversy by presenting himself at the table claimino; the rio-lit to athrm instead of takinof the oath. It was not till the 24th of May that Ran- dolph Churchill appeared on the scene. With characteristic acumen and industry he had spent the interval in studying Bradlaugh's published LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 343 writings. He brought down with him a copy of one pamphlet entitled " The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick." Having read a passage, he flung the book on the floor and stamped upon it. This reminiscence of Burke and his dagger, in analogous fashion used to punctuate a passage in impassioned speech, momentarily took away the breath of the crowded audience. When it was recaptured, Ministerialists loudly laughed. In the end, as we know, it proved no laughing matter for them. As John Morley testifies in his " Life of Gladstone," the controversy thus begun " went on as long as the Parliament, clouded the radiance of the party triumjDh, threw the new Government at once into a minority, and dimmed the ascendency of the great Minister." Incidentally the Fourth Party was created. Various explanations of the origin of the historic name are current. Some find it in the fact that it was composed of four persons, " which," as Euclid emphatically remarks, " is absurd." In his '* Life " of his father, Mr. Winston Churchill suggests its origin in an interjected conversation in debate. A Member affirming that there were two great parties in the State, Mr. Parnell called out " Three," Lord Randolph, going one better, cried " Four." That incident may have contributed to the vogue of the phrase. It actually had its origin in a passage in a speech by Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, who, alluding to a condition of things at the time promi- nent in the French Legislature, named the Irish 344 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDEBNESS Nationalists " Le Tiers Parti." The suggestion of a Fourth Party thereupon becomes obvious. Absence of premeditation in connexion with an epoch-making combination was attested by the circumstance that when Henry Wolff and John Gorst, seated on the Front Bench below the gang- way, opened the Bradlaugh business, Lord Kandolph had settled himself on the third bench above the gangway corresponding with the place occupied by him on the other side of the House during his first Parliament. Warming to the work, he found it desirable to be in close communication with his new allies, and accordingly changed his quarters. His supremacy was speedily asserted. Paul Drummond Wolff might have planted the sapling of revolt against established authority ; ApoUos E-andolph Churchill watered it so effectually that its pro- portions spread till it overtopped the trees of the forest. Within a fortnight of his appearance below the gangway Lord Randolph was the acknowledged leader of the Fourth Party. According to long-established tradition, broken only in the case of Parnell who cherished inflexible scorn of all precedents of a Saxon Parliament, leaders of sectional parties, however minute, must needs hold a corner seat from which to address the House. At a time when Lord Randolph assumed leadership of the Fourth Party, seated all in a row on the front bench below the gangway, the corner seat was held by Beresford Hope, an old esteemed Member whose Batavian grace Disraeli in a historic LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 345 passage recognised. For the greater part of the session of 1880 he remained in near neighbourhood with the lively group. Approaching a dazed con- dition, he remembered the fact that though as a matter of practice the bench flanking the table to the left of the Speaker is reserved for ex-Ministers, Privy Councillors have equal right to share its accommodation. One afternoon to the surprise, when they realised the situation to the delight, of the House, Beresford Hope passed his accustomed seat, and crossing the gangway took up his quarters on the Front Opposition Bench. " They made it too hot for me," he whispered in the sympathetic ear of Sir Kichard Cross, whom Lord Randolph, scornful of spotless respectability, was accustomed to snub. The Leader of the Fourth Party personally succeeded to the vacant seat, jumping upon it and boisterously waving his hat when, five years later, his work in Opposition was done, his triumph complete in the downfall of a Ministry which in 1880 came back from the polls apparently impregnable. During the more or less tumultuous five sessions that limited the life of the Parliament elected in 1880, Lord Randolph Churchill increased in esteem of the House of Commons and of the country day by day. Having once put his hand to the plough, he, to the surprise of old friends, showed no sign of turning back. On the contrary he stuck to his post with a constancy that left no opportunity neglected. He had the advantage, attractive in 346 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS the House of Commons, of being the impartial critic alike of Ministers and ex-Ministers. On the whole he paid more deference to Mr. Gladstone than to his nominal leader, Sir Staflford Northcote. Once, to the huge delight of the House, Sir Stafford turned and rent his tormentor. Inter- posing in a controversy between the two front Benches, Lord Randolph moved an amendment which, if carried, would have extricated Ministers from a difficulty. ** The action of the noble lord," said Sir Stafford, " reminds me of the practice of the con- federate of the thimble-rigger on the racecourse. ' A bonnet ' he is called, I believe ; his business being, whilst concealing personal knowledge of the operator and complicity with his game, to assist by egging on the public in taking a hand." No one enjoyed this double-edged stroke more than Lord Randolph. Possibly his delight was in- creased by the fact that Sir Stafford of all men had managed, without being called to order by the Speaker, to liken Mr. Gladstone to a thimble- rigger. Sir Stafford's combativeness was exhausted by this flash of barbed wit. Once, early in the session of 1883, he wrote a private letter remonstrating with the Leader of the Fourth Party upon the appearance of what he regarded as an inspired paragraph in the morning papers, announcing that in a certain contingency they would act against the Front Opposition Bench. The reply he received LORD EANDOLPH CHURCHILL 347 did not encourage further correspondence on tliat line. Lord Randolph had no personal animosity to- wards Sir Staflbrd — one of the sweetest-natured, most highly principled men who ever attempted to breast the masterful tide of political life. He honestly believed that his leadership of the Party in the Commons was fatal to the interests and prospects of the Conservative Party. He was, accordingly, almost brutally implacable in his pursuit, finally succeeding, against the heart's desire of Lord Salisbury, in driving him out of the Commons. When the end of the Gladstone Government was in sight, some one asked Sir Stafford Northcote, " What place will you give Randolph when your Government is formed ? " " Ask, rather," replied the veteran statesman, " what place will he give me ? " The words were spoken in bitter jest. As the proverb affirms, many a true word is spoken in jest. Another occupant of the Front Opposition Bench whom Randolph " couldn't abear " was Sir Richard Cross. His native mediocrity, made more prominent by a certain pomposity of manner familiar in chairmen of Quarter Sessions, rankled in his bosom. With W. H. Smith he was some- what impatient. But that gentleman's modest manner, concealing sterling merit, disarmed animosity. There was an amusing scene in the House in the session of 1882 illustrating this little prejudice. 348 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS An amendmeDt to a bill before the House was moved without notice, and carried. Mr. Gladstone, in charge of the measure, submitted a consequential amendment. Naturally, it was not on the printed paper, and Lord Randolph, discussing it, was at a loss to recall the precise phraseology. Sir Richard Cross, above all things a man of business, made a note of the amendment as it was read out from the chair. With shrewd idea of propitiating the terrible young man below the gangway, he, with engaging smile, handed him his note. The consequences were akin to what followed in the case of a man who, fleeing from a grisly bear, remembered he had a bun in his pocket, and stopped to present the refreshment to his pursuer. Poor Sir Richard was snapped up, body and boots. " A pretty pass we've come to in the House of Commons," said Lord Randolph, with dainty repugnance holding the sheet of paper between finger and thumb, " when we have to consider amendments passed about from hand to hand on dirty bits of paper." The smile faded from Sir Richard's countenance. He, G.C.B., ex-Home Secretary, trusted lieutenant of Benjamin Disraeli, had condescendingly gone out of his way to pay personal attention to a young and unofticial Member, and had been rewarded by public accusation of harbouring a dirty piece of paper. Lord Randolph and his merry men were always LOKD EANDOLPH CHURCHILL 349 ready for a lark at the expense of portentous person- ages on the Front Opposition Bench. One night, the business on the paper approaching conclusion, Sir Stafford and his colleagues seized the oppor- tunity of going off to bed. " Come along," said Randolph to Drummond Wolff, and crossing the gangway, followed by two-thirds of his Party, he seated himself in the place of the Leader of the Opposition. Thence he raised debate apropos de bottes, which the three kept going for an hour, to the increasing anger of Ministers necessarily kept in their places, and the amusement of a small body of Members on both sides who had agreeably dined. Lord Randolph's often successfully concealed admiration for Mr. Gladstone was based upon intellectual sympathy. If gratitude played any part in politics, which it notoriously does not, his esteem would have been supported on personal grounds. Having once devoted himself to political life. Lord Randolph was irresistible. His goal was assured. It was Mr. Gladstone who gave him a good send-off at the start, sparing no pains to keep him going. With the generous instinct of a noble nature, he, at the outset recognising the capacity and genius of his ruthless assailant, missed no opportunity of paying tribute to it. He habitually conveyed what to an unofficial Member is the compliment, rare from a Prime Minister, of following him in debate. Towards the close of the long compaign termi- nating in Ministerial disaster, mainly consequent on 350 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Lord Randolph's caction, Mr. Gladstone instinctively, doubtless unconsciously, addressed his argument in current debate not to the Leader of the Opposi- tion but to the young man toying with his moustache on the corner seat below the gang- way. Lord Randolph was not slow to perceive the advantage thus secured for him. It would have been fatal to his aspirations and plans to have been severely ignored. When by accident approach to that calamity was indicated, the Fourth Party proceeded to " draw Gladstone," as they put it. Committee, wherein a Member may speak as often as human patience will endure, was their favourite field for this sport. Lord Randolph would lead oif, drawing that child of nature, Mr. Glad- stone, into leugthy reply. When the Premier resumed his seat, Drummond Wolff rose, and with profuse declarations of deference asked for informa- tion on a different point. Up got the Premier, brim- ming with energy and another speech. In this the subtle mind of John Gorst discovered a flaw, which he did not doubt arose from misapprehension of what his hon. friend the Member for Christchurch had said. On this he laboured for a quarter of an hour or more, Mr. Gladstone intently listening, whilst his colleagues on the Treasury Bench, con- scious of the snare, tossed about in despair. The temptation to instruct three guileless young men, evidently searchers after truth, certainly most deferential in their recognition of age and LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 351 experience, was too much for the Premier, who eagerly sprang to his feet with a third speech. Thus did Lord Randolph's strategy, excelling the poet's bedstead, contrive a treble debt to pay. It wasted the time of the House ; it undermined the authority of the Premier ; and it kept the Fourth Party well to the front. Zexith axd Catastrophe With the formation of Lord Salisbury's second Government, consequent on the rout of the Home Rulers at the poll in 1886, Lord Randolph reached his zenith. Mr. Cham])crlain, friend and ally in spite of what happened consequent upon the Aston Park riots, was so moved that he made rare incursion into the Latin tongue. Writing on the 18th of June, when the composition of the new Government was practically complete, he exclaimed : " What a triumph ! You have won all along the line. Moriturus te saluto." The Marquis of Salisbury, installed as Prime Minister, was the nominal, of course the ultimate, dispenser of Ministerial prizes. Lord Randolph was the ab- solute dispenser of patronage. Having selected his own position, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, he did not foro^et comrades in the fiorht that resulted in splendid victory. He wrote to Lord Salisbury saying Drummond Wolff ought to be made a Privy Councillor and John Gorst 352 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS appointed Under Secretary to the India Office. Whether in this kist suggestion he was influenced by consideration of the fact that his ancient animosity, Sir Richard Cross — who, he insisted, should leave the House of Commons solaced with a peerage — was to be head of the India Office, is not known. Certainly quick-witted, sharp-tongued John Gorst was exactly the man to buzz un- pleasantly about the ears of arch-mediocrity. His famous speech upon what was known as " the Manipur incident," his chief being during its delivery seated in the Peers' Gallery, of itself fulfilled any possible expectation of fun cherished by the prophetic soul of Lord Randolph. Lord Salisbury looked after his nephew, Arthur Balfour, making him Secretary for Scotland, thus completing provision of the Fourth Party. That was natural and expected. Where astonishment deepened to consternation was on the pitchforking into the Home Office of Henry Matthews, a gentle- man not only untrained in administrative affairs, but new to Parliamentary life. Lord Randolph highly esteemed his capacity, proved in the pro- fessional conduct of his case when he carried into a court of law his charges against Mr. Chamberlain in respect of the Aston Park Riots. He made it clear if Matthews were not made Home Secretary Lord Salisbury must be prepared to get along without Lord Randolph. The new Parliament met on the 5th of August, 1886, and was prorogued on the 25 th of LORD RANDOLPH CnURCHILL 353 September. The period was short. It sufficed to reveal a new phase of a many-sided character. At no period of his Parliamentary career did Lord Randolph display such high qualities as shone upon an astonished House during his term of leadership. His uncurbed temper, his imperious manner, abruptly changing to one of boyish reck- lessness, seemed fatal to success in the dignified office to which at the age of thirty-seven he was called. The poacher had been made head-game- keeper. Nowhere was the experiment watched with more nervous trepidation than on the Treasury Bench. That Lord Randolph himself felt the difficulty and delicacy of the situation was shown by his nervous manner when following Mr. Gladstone in debate on the Address. He speedily recovered full command of himself, and remained master of the situation. The general verdict on his conduct was expressed in a much-prized autograph letter addressed to him by Queen Victoria on the eve of the prorogation. "Lord Randolph" — she wrote in the third person form of address with which Majesty approaches meaner mortals — " has shown much skill and judgment in his leadership during this exceptional session of Parliament." This fresh start in a career which he jocularly said would lead to the Premiership and to West- minster Abbey, closed in a blaze of triumph. He was as popular as he was powerful. Every one save perhaps disappointed claimants for office and 2 A 354 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS Ministerial colleagues whom he contemptuously called " the old gang," rejoiced in his prosperity. The shock was the greater when, exactly three months to a day after receiving the Queen's gracious letter of congratulation, there appeared in The Times an announcement that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had resigned office. The occasion of the Cabinet quarrel rose out of circumstances now familiar. Lord Randolph, pledged to economy, had framed a Budget made impossible by the demands of the Army and Navy. Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Ad- miralty, yielded to the extent of modifying his demand by £700,000. AV. H. Smith, with a tenacity as unexpected as it was admirable in one of his mild and modest manner, was implacable. He declined to reduce his estimate by a penny. Lord Salisbury, eloquent with apology, stood by the heads of the spending departments. Lord Randolph resigned. There is no doubt he did not count upon his withdrawal from the Ministry becoming effective. Regarding the persons seated round the Council table he felt he was indispensable. There was, he thought, none among them who could stand up against Gladstone, either as Leader of the House or as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Un- fortunately, for him, for the Conservative Party, and for the country, his gaze did not extend beyond the walls of the dingy house in Downing Street. LOED EANDOLPH CHURCniLL 355 He " forgot Goschcn." In his biography of his father Mr. Winston Churchill throws doubt on the existence of this forgetfulness. As I gave currency to a phrase since become historic, this may be a convenient place for stating my authority. It was Lord Eandolph himself. "A little less than a week after I had written to Lord Salisbury resigning the Chancellorship," he said, in words of which I made a note at the time, " I was walking up St. James's Street when I met " (mentioning the name of a lady well known in political and social circles). *' She was driving, and stopped the carriage to speak to me. She asked how things were going on. I said I thought they were doing nicely. Har- tington had refused to join them, and whom else could they get ? ' Have you thought of Mr. Goschen ? ' she asked in voice and manner that indicated she knew more than the innocent inquiry indicated. It all flashed on me in a moment. I saw the game was lost. As I confessed to her, I had forgotten Goschen." Shortly after this conversation I met the lady, happily still with us, and mentioned Lord Ran- dolph's statement. She confirmed it with the curiously graphic remark : " Driving up St. James's Street, I never since that afternoon pass a certain lamp-post without thinking of Randolph — of the sudden change that came over his face when I mentioned Mr. Goschen, and the abrupt salute with which he passed on." 356 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS He had played liis game, laid liis last treasured card on the table, and it was trumped. When Parliament met for the session of 1887, under the leadership of W. H. Smith, there was reiterated rumour of reconciliation and return. Gradually it ebbed away, and Lord Randolph lapsed into the position of a private Member. His personal influence was, however, scarcely less powerful than when he was in office. His every movement in and out of the House was watched with keen interest. His lightest word was re- ported. At an early stage of the new situation there were indications of a coalition between himself and Mr. Chamberlain. For a while they dreamed the old dream of a Central Party free from the vices and weakness inherent to political partnership, a brotherhood where none were for a Party but all were for the State. Like earlier projects, since and before the time of Macaulay, it came to nothing. Presently hasty words spoken on both sides brought about a coolness in the relations of two men attracted to each other by certain similarity of character. Then came rupture. Lord Randolph held a safe seat in Paddington, but he had no sympathy with villadom, and yearned for a great constituency that would appreciate his democratic Toryism and strengthen his position as its apostle. Opportunity hailed him from Birmingham. John Bright was dead, and Central Birmingham, where by the irony of circumstance arisino^ out of the Home Rule Bill LOED RANDOLPH CHUECHILL 357 the once ultra-Radical had been supported by the Tories, was looking about for a successor. Lord Randolph, whose personal popularity in the Mid- land metropolis was barely exceeded by Mr. Chamberlain's, eagerly accepted overtures inviting him to stand. On the 2nd April, 1889, a deputa- tion representing the Tories of the constituency arrived at the House of Commons with formal invitation. Lord Randolph's course seemed so clear, his mind was so joyously made up, that pending the striking of five o'clock, the hour at which he was to receive the deputation, he in- structed his friend, Louis Jennings, to draft an address to his Paddiugton constituents, severing his connexion with the borough, and another to the electors of Central Birmingham accepting their invitation to contest the seat. As at an earlier crisis he forgot Goschen, so now he left Mr. Chamberlain out of his calculation. The blending of the Liberal Unionist element with the main body of the Ministerial forces was still so far from being complete, that there existed an understanding whereby certain seats should be reserved for Liberal Unionists. Mr. Chamberlain claimed Central Birmingham as one. Even whilst the deputation were approaching Westminster, assured of the success of their mission, whilst Louis Jennings was penning the two election addresses, w^hilst Lord Randolph was preparing to receive the emissaries, Mr. Chamberlain was at work. He saw Sir Michael Hicks-Beach as representative of 358 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS the Government, and warned him that Lord Kandolph's candidature would mean disruption of the Unionist alliance. He dragged the unwilling figure of Lord Hartington to his side. In despair Sir Michael saw Lord Randolph and explained to him the peril of the situation. With that loyalty to his former colleagues which, on several critical occasions since he quitted the Ministry, gave an air of irresolution to his actions, he left the matter in the hands of his old friend. The old friend loved Lord Randolph as a father loves a favourite son. But he loved his party more, and Lord Randolph was sacrificed. This was, I think, the hardest of the many knocks that were battering out the still young life. He felt it even more acutely than the sudden halt in his Ministerial career at its most l^rilliant hour. I happened to be in the Lobby when he came out of the Whips' room, where doom was spoken. He was so altered in personal appearance that for a moment I did not know him. Instead of the familiar swinging pace, with head slightly bent, but with swiftly glancing eyes, he walked with slow, weary tread, a look on his pallid face as if tears had been coursing down it. No one who knew him only in the fierce struggle of public life would have imagined him capable of such profound emotion. It was a blow from which he never recovered, though there was temporary re-birth of the ambition to represent something other than the bourgeois of Paddiugton, when, little more than a LOBD KANDOLPH CHURCHILL 359 year before liis death, he announced his intention of standing for bustling Bradford. Eleven months later another incident befell which ascain wounded him to the heart. When Lord Salisbury's Government announced their intention of appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into The Times allegation against Parnell, Lord Eandolph, generously mindful of the peril into which his old colleagues were blundering, drew up a reasoned protest addressed to W. H. Smith. Amongst State papers it is distinguished by keen insight, clear argument, and remarkable prescience. Ministers took no heed of counsel coming from this quarter, and affairs went on to the appointed end. When in March, 1890, the report of the Commission came before the House of Commons, Lord Randolph, in con- junction with his jidus Achates Louis Jennings, drafted an amendment in which censure was strictly confined to the procedure of The Times in the matter, ignoring the action of the Govern- ment. Mr. Jennings was in his place, prepared to move this amendment, expecting in accordance with custom that on resumption of the debate the Speaker would call upon him. But Lord Randolph, in his wilful way, had changed his mind, and in his imperious manner disregarded the claims of others, even though one might be his most intimate and faithful friend. To the astonishment of every one, not least of Louis Jennino;s sittino: on the bench behind him, 360 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS he rose and delivered a speech in which he made an uncompromising attack upon the Government. When he sat down the benches began to empty. Interest in the situation was exhausted. Promise of Louis Jennings' amendment had crowded the House because it was understood, correctly as I can testify, that it was actually Lord Kandolph's, and that he would support it by speech. On the contrary, he not only displaced the priority of the amendment, but delivered a speech wholly con- trary to its spirit, being a bitter indictment of the Government. Wounded in the house of a friend, Louis Jennings straightway severed his connexion with one to whom for some years his services had been chiefly devoted. Lord Kandolph, even as he sat down, perceiving how matters stood, tore off scraps from his copy of the Orders on which he pencilled pathetic little messages, and had them passed on to Jennings, seated midway on the bench behind him. They met with no response, not even that of an angry look. " Jennings has taken the needle," Lord Randolph said, coming up to me in the Lobby shortly after delivery of his speech. It was a quaint phrase I never heard before or since. It lingers in memory over the waste of years. The episode had a personal bearing which brings into strong light one of the marked features of a strange character. Lord Randolph was a LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 361 cleliglitful person as long as he was pleased with his company or his surroundings. But he could not stand anything in the way of diflferencc from his expressed oj^inion. Slightly to vary the characteristics of the little girl of fable, when he was pleased he was very very nice, when he was crossed he was 'orrid. In the course of time he quarrelled with all his intimate co-workers, with the exception of Michael Hicks-Beach, Ernest Beckett, now Lord Grimthorpe, his brother-in-law Lord Curzon, and Henry Wolff. John Gorst and Henry Matthews were amongst other former friends and companions dear whom he ruthlessly cut. My personal acquaintance with him, ripening into warm friendship, began early in his public career. It certainly was not nourished by monoto- nous adulation. In Punch, in the " Cross Bench " articles in The Observer, and elsewhere, I wrote of his Parliamentary phantasies with freedom un- trammelled by private relationship. He seemed to enjoy rather than resent the criticism. But there was a limit to this forbearance. Duriug the session of 1886 there appeared in The Dally News a leading article commenting rather sharply on a speech made by him the night before in the House. I was not the writer of the article, but chanced at the time to be editor of the paper. Visiting the Lobby of the House of Commons, I was accustomed to stand by the chair of the chief doorkeeper, and Lord Randolph passing in or out invariably stopped for a friendly cliat. On the evening of the 362 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS appearance of this article he looked me straight in the face as he passed and walked on without a word. Naturally I said nothing then, or later, and for four years we were strangers. At the beginning of the session of 1890 Louis Jennings several times approached me with intimation that Lord Eandolph wanted to make up the quarrel. In the end I said that he had deliberately cut me as I stood in my usual place in the Lobby, that I should be there every day after Questions, and if he came and spoke to me conversation would pro- ceed as nearly as possible in continuance of what we were saying the last time we spoke. On the next evening Lord Eandolph came up with out- stretched hand and beaming face. There was no apology or explanation. Only the old friendship was renewed, not to be broken again save by the hand of death. In the old familiar way he asked me to dine with him at the Junior Carlton on the following Sunday to meet some friends — an invitation I was delighted to accept. Among the guests was Louis Jennings greatly pleased at the result of his friendly offices. The date of the dinner was Sunday, 31st March. On the following Tuesday happened the event recorded in connexion with the Parnell Commission. Passing through the Lobby, having announced his intention of not moving the amendment of which he had given notice, Jennings said to me, in tones whose bitterness LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 363 testified to his hurt, " It's an odd thing. Randolph has just as many friends to-day as he had a week ago. He has regained you and he has lost me." The rupture was final. Lord Randolph made several attempts to recapture his old friend. They were sternly, stubbornly ignored. Three years later, Jennings, one of the truest-hearted men that ever breathed, died, not having in the meanwhile broken the pained silence that brooded over his blighted friendship. In 1890, the Salisbury Government being in a parlous state, there seemed prospect of Lord Ran- dolph's being called to its assistance. Michael Hicks-Beach, probably not altogether easy in mind recollecting the part played by him in the matter of Mr. Chamberlain's repulse of Lord Randolph in his candidature for Birmingham, personally urged Lord Salisbury to recall the strayed reveller. But the Premier, small blame to him, had had enough of the company in the Cabinet of his intractable young friend. Perish the Government rather than resuscitate Lord Randolph. Accepting what he regarded as the close of his political career. Lord Randolph set out for South Africa in search of gold and big game. The former he found ; the latter, in the person of a lion, nearly found him. He came back early in 1892 improved in health, his interest in politics quickened by the circum- stance that the Unionist Party was now in Oppo- sition. At Mr. Balfour's request he seated himself 364 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS among his old colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench. Thence he rose to take part in debate on the second reading of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. The appearance of the House testified to the deathless interest he commanded. Every bench was filled, a crowd of members, unable to find seats, thronging the Bar. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. It was arranged that Lord Randolph should resume the debate immediately after Questions. Had that been possible all might have been well. But some one raised a question of privilege, discussed for a full hour, through which Lord Randolph sat fuming. He had at the jDroper moment taken some drug designed to "buck up" his frail body through the hour he intended to speak. When the hour had sped the tonic effects of his medicine were ex- hausted. It was a decrepit man with bowed figure and occasionally inarticulate voice that at length stood at the table, — a painful spectacle, from con- templation of which members gradually withdrew. The Chamber, which once filled at the signal "Churchill's up," was almost empty when he sat down. Yet Mr. Brycc, who sat attentive on the Treasury Bench opposite, and heard every word of the speech painfully read from MS., told me it was a cogent argument, admirably phrased, illumined by happy illustration, in these respects falling nothing short of earlier successes. Lord Randolph was an habitual diner-out, even LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 365 more enjoying opportunities of giving dinners. At the end of the session of 1880, when the Fourth Party had succeeded in making themselves an organised power in the House, they, gravely mimicking the prevalent custom of Ministers, dined together at Greenwich. Lord Randolph was rather a trial to hostesses, none being quite sure in what mood her festival might find him. It came to pass in time that he acquired the habit of Royalty, commanding that the list of guests should be sub- mitted to him before he replied to an invitation. The first time I met him at table, precursor of many delightful foregatherings, was at a farewell dinner Colonel Fred Burnaby gave on the eve of my departure on a journey round the world. Burnaby told me that, showing Lord Randolph the list of guests, he asked him whom he would have as companions at table. He named Frank Bur- nand, then editor of Punch, and myself. And a very jolly night we spent. In the height of the Fourth Party campaign I was several times privileged to form one of a quartette driving in a four-wheeler from the House to dine at Lord Randolph's residence in Connaught Place. On such occasions our host, Drummond Wolfi", and John Gorst were like boys just let out of school, not only speaking disrespectfully of their pastors and masters, but ruthlessly chaffing each other. I never met Mr. Balfour at these symposia. Lord Randolph frequently gave little Sunday-night dinners at the Turf Club, where one occasionally 366 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDEENESS had the felicity of meeting those renowned Irish wits, Dr. N«dley and Father Healy. The dinner-party alluded to on an earlier page, the last time Lord Randolph and Louis Jennings sat at the same table, was memorable in other ways. The invitation was " to meet H.R.H. the Prince of Wales," who in course of time became Kinsj Edward VIL The fact leakinoj out that among the company was Dick Power, the popular Whip of the Lish Nationalist Party, complaint was sounded in Unionist circles that Randolph was plotting to bring H.R.H. and the oJSicial Home Rulers together. What the host chiefly had at heart was to draw round his royal guest a cheery company, an effort in which he was successful. Of other persons present I remember Sir William Harcourt, seated on the host's right ; Lord Morris on the Prince's left ; on other chairs, Frank Lock- wood, Louis Jennings, and George Lewis, not at that time knighted. The last time I dined with Lord Randolph was on what proved to be his final appearance in the character of Amphitryon. Contemplating a journey round the world, he bade to his mother's home in Grosvenor Square a score of old friends, whose names testify to the wideness of his range of personal sympathy. On his left hand sat Arthur Balfour, in old Fourth Party days a private under his command, now his successor in the leadership of the House of Commons ; on his right was Henry Chaplin, from whom in the early 'eighties his LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 367 vagaries had compelled grave reproof. Round the table sat David Plunket, now Lord Rathmore ; Rochefort Maguire, Henry Laboucherc, Edward Dicey, George Lewis, Henry Calcraft of the Board of Trade ; Edward Hamilton, sometime Mr. Glad- stone's private secretary ; Sir Edward Lawson, now Lord Burnham ; Michael Hicks-Beach, Alger- non Borthwick (Lord Glenesk), John Morley, Henry Arthur Jones, the dramatist, and Sir Francis Knollys, secretary to the Prince of Wales. Lord Randolph told me he had asked three others, whose presence would have further diversi- fied this notable gathering. They were Sir William Harcourt, detained at home by a dinner engage- ment ; Mr. Asquith, on Home Secretary's duty at White Lodge in anticipation of the birth of an heir to the Duke of York ; and Henry Irving, en- gaged on theatrical duties. The host was not in talkative mood, but he kept a watchful eye on the comfort of his guests. One noticed how nervously his hand beat on the table as he gazed around. After dinner he talked with ^eager interest of his coming journey. Two prospects that chiefly attracted him were the shooting of big game in India, and the opportunity of visiting Burmah — " Burmah which I annexed," he proudly said. As on his visit to South Africa he sent letters to a London paper, he had now accepted a commission from a Paris journal to write descriptions of his tour, intending to fill them chiefly with narratives of his shooting 368 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS expeditions. But he did not reach India : and Burmah never looked on the face of the statesman who, in his brief tenure of the India Office, added the glow of its rubies to the splendour of the English crown. This dinner took place at 50, Grosvenor Square, on the 23rd June, 1894. At Christmas time of that year — once more a memorable epoch in his life — Lord Randolph was hurried home and carried a mere wreck into his mother's house, where he died early in the morning of the 24th January, 1895. He was in his forty-sixth year, the very prime of life as others count it. XXVII MEMORIES January 3, 1889. — The last time two ex- Speakers and the present Speaker of the House of Commons appeared together in public was on the Sunday preceding Jubilee Day, when they sat in a pew at St. Margaret's Church, taking part in the special House of Commons service. To-day Lord Hampden, the late Speaker, and Mr. Peel, his successor in the chair, stood together in Kensal Green Cemetery, by the grave into which were laid the remains of Viscount Eversley, the veteran Speaker who was inducted into the chair nearly fifty years ago. Lord Hampden, long known to the House as Mr. Brand — durinsj the final term of his office as Sir Henry — looked remarkably well, his ruddy countenance being in marked contrast to the pale face of Mr. Peel. I noticed as the two stood together how much Sir Henry Brand owed to the costume the Speaker wears, and the dais upon which his chair stands. When in the chair he conveyed the impression of being rather above the average height. To-day Mr. Peel towered above him by at least a head. 369 2 B 370 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS It was a miserable day, with a cold, damp wind sighing through the cemetery, and the remains of Monday's fog still lying low on the ground. As the portion of the service at the grave was read all stood uncovered, a perilous thing in the circumstances. Gladstone is the only man nearing fourscore who can with impunity sit or stand bareheaded in wintry weather. January 20, 1889. — When the split in Glad- stone's camp first took place. Chamberlain was peculiarly bitter in his feeling towards John Morlcy, from whom he had hoped better things than that he should stand by Gladstone when his old companion took another pathway. They met in friendly converse at the "round table," and though after that came to nothing there was another separation, they have always remained on speaking terms. There are several of his old col- leagues on the Front Bench with whom Chamberlain is cut off from intercourse. George Trevelyan and he, for example, never recognise each other when they meet. The mutual attitude assumed by these former friends fairly marks the sharpened antagonism that is growing up between Gladstone's followers and the Dissentient Liberals. It is inevitable that on some early day of the session, should Hartington, Chamberlain, and Henry James con- tinue to claim places on the Front Opposition Bench, there will be regre table scenes. The question of MEMOEIES 371 political adversaries foregathering iu the same quarter of the House is not a new one. Reference to its earlier occurrence is, oddly enough, made by Bright in one of his letters which appear in the recently-published " Life of Duncan McLaren." Writing to McLaren under date March 5, 1885, Bright says : — " The Peelites sit on our bench, have, indeed, taken seats, but I know not if they have any intention of going with us. Lord Aberdeen, I believe, advised them to consort with us, though he was opposed to their resignation of office." January 26, 1889. — iVrthur Balfour goes forward undauntedly on the path he has laid down for himself. His answer to the Govan election was the arrest of Sheehy, an Irish Member, who had taken a prominent part in the contest. AVhen Parliament meets towards the end of next montli nine Irish Members will be in prison, running up by so much a Government majority that was beginning to decline witli uncomfortable celerity as bye-election followed bye-election. In addition to entertaining Irish Members in Her Majesty's prisons, Balfour has been receiving Dublin society in the spacious corridors of the Castle. It is a curious contrast, the representatives of the Irish people shut up, with the prison dress for garb by day and a plank bed for rest by night, whilst the Chief Secretary, with his fascinating smile and his gentle manner, leads the cotillon at Dublin Castle. 372 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS In such surrounding he will be seen at his very best. I always fancy that for people who have only read of Balfour, or followed the move- ments of his ruthless iron rule, the first sight of him in the flesh must be a little startling. They would naturally expect to see him present some realisation of their idea of Cromwell, a rugged, hard-featured, ill-dressed man. Actually he more resembles the popinjay who, coming up to Hotspur after the battle, stirred feelings of angry indig- nation in the breast of the veteran soldier. He was — " made mad To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman." At the dinner-table, in the drawing-room, in any social circle, there is none more graceful, more fascinating (when he so pleases) than this slim young gentleman whom countless lips in Ireland curse day and night. February 2nd, 1889. — It is a curious and happy coincidence that two of the most eminent English painters of the day should have fathers who lived to extreme old age, basking in the pros- perity achieved by their sons. Herkomer's father died the other day : Sir Frederic Lcighton's still lives to enjoy the ever-advancing prosperity of his son. Sir Frederic is a busy man. But once a week at least, whatever may be his engagements. MEMOEIES 373 he spends some hours with his father, an old man now nearing ninety. On Sunday afternoon the P.R.A. has an informal reception, at which his friends drop in for a pleasant chat. When the room empties he walks over to his father's house, a few streets off, and spends the evening with him. Whilst yet in harness Leighton senior was a doctor, and at one time thought his son Frederic could do nothing better than join the profession. But the President of the Royal Academy was a painter from boyhood, and very early his parents yielded to his preferences, and furnished him with every opportunity of practising the art he loved. Sir Frederic passed many years on the Continent, where, amongst other things, he learned to talk French and German with an accent few Englishmen possess. In spite of temp- tation, he remains a bachelor, faithful to his early love — art. He has a beautiful house near Holland Park, with a garden wonderful even for that favoured spot. He bought the ground years ago, before the Empire of Fashion had spread so far west. The little street which forms the approacli to his spacious enclosed grounds was of so little account that it found no place in the " Red Book," that invaluable brochure to which people who want to find out their friends invariably turn. Leighton tells me that findiuq; the immense inconvenience of being left out in the cold, he more than once 374 SIXTY YEABS IN THE WILDERNESS unsuccessfully approached the compiler of the " Red Book " with humble entreaty to be included within the charmed circle. He will be found there now. Aachen, August 6th, 1891. — Sir William and Lady Harcourt came like shadows at ten o'clock last night, and so departed at ten this morning, Loulu being left at home to mind the small boy, his brother. They came into the breakfast-room of the hotel whilst I was feeding, and really seemed as glad to see me as if I were Loulu. Harcourt, in blue serge suit of nautical cut, was evidently bent on enjoying himself. They stopped here especially to soe the Cathedral, and were sur- prised to hear I had not explored its recesses. I said I never went to see churches, unless my wife was with me, and then I was taken. " I'll take you this morning," said Lady H., and she did. Sir William accompanied us, insisting upon walking round the sacred edifice till he had sufficiently admired the exterior and (incidentally) quite finished his cigar. Mass was going on when we entered. H. said he would dearly like to see Mr. G., Old Morality, and Arthur Balfour in the priests' robes doing the service. : He told me he called to see Hartington before he left London. Found him with his eyes bunged up and cheeks swollen with neuralgia. Seems bored to death with his good doctor, Robson Roose. '* Always," he told Harcourt, " imploring MEMORIES 375 me to take care of myself for the sake of the country. I told him I'm damned if I would. Expect he says exactly the same thing to Labby." That seemed to rankle in his breast. If he were sure Roose did not represent to Labby (another of his patients) that the country was concerned for the state of his health, I fancy he would not so angrily resent the suggestion in his own case. Roose been begging him to go to Homburg. Hotly declines ; but he confided to Ilarcourt that he secretly intends to go as soon as he can get about. I asked about his succession to the leadership in the Commons. Balfour told Harcourt that W. H. Smith w^ould any time during the last three years have given £10,000 to be out of harness. II. aorees with me that Balfour is in- evitable. As to Goschen, he says, what he would dearly like to say in public : " No party could accept as leader a jobbed man." That is the best and bitterest thing he has said for a lono; time. o Novemher 10th, 1891. — Mr. Chamberlain is determined to lose no effort next session to carry into law his scheme of old age pensions based on a State grant, and working in harmony with existing friendly societies. He is most anxious to associate his name with a work which, should it prove suc- cessful in operation, would bring great access of popularity to the promoter. If it is to be done 376 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEKNESS at all he feels it must be done next session. He can now command the friendly assistance of the government, and, to a certain extent, the vote of the majority. The next House of Commons will be diflferently constituted, and will not be inclined to view with favour proposals, however admirable in themselves, handicapped by his per- sonal advocacy. He will therefore devote all his energy to carrying his Bill through before the dissolution. He has made close study of what is being done abroad. He finds that in Germany old age pensions have been established for ten years, affect- ing a circle of not less than 13 million people. Insurance becomes compulsory for the working classes of both sexes as soon as they reach the age of 16. They pay a weekly subscription varying from about three-halfpence to threepence. When they reach the age of 70 they become entitled to a pension varying from £5 6s. 4d. a year to £9 lis. Od. In addition there is a system of pensions for infirmity. These are given to all insured persons, irrespective of age who, on account of sickness or accident, are permanently incapaci- tated from earning a living. Pensions in this class vary from £5 lis. Od. to £20. The paternal care of the Government is shown in the case of habitual drunkards. If there be any such, they are not permitted to draw their pensions in coin of the realm exchangeable for beer or schnapps. The money is paid over to the parish authorities, who MEMORIES 377 dole out to the habitual, but disappointed drunkard wholesome supplies of solid food. November 11, 1891. — Those who came in close contact with Lord Salisbury at Guildhall last night were struck by signs of failing health. They may have been due to the generally wretched con- dition of the weather and the worry of the occasion. Anyhow they were unmistakable. It is the custom at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day for the great body of invited guests to seat themselves in their ap23ointed place at table. To them enters a pro- cession which passes along the outer fringe of the tables, and so round to that at which the Lord Mayor and his principal guests are seated. The Prime Minister is in fact taken round and shown to the guests just as in some great houses, it used to be the fashion to carry round the fish or the venison preparatory to cutting up and serving. He went the appointed round with head bent down irresponsive to the cheers that greeted him. His face was of ashy paleness, and his whole bearing, little varied even when on his feet addressing the meeting, was that of a man wearied almost to death. Novemher 14, 1891. — Lewis Wiugfield, whose death is announced to-day, came nearer to being a Viscount than most men who never achieve that distinction. He was the third son of Lord Powerscourt. His eldest brother, Mervin, succeeding 378 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDERNESS in due time to the peerage married. Tliis was in 1864, at wliicli time LeVis Wingfield's interest in the succession was modified by the seniority of a second brother, also married. In 1866 the second brother died childless, and the elder brother, Lord Powerscourt, having no issue, Lewis Wingfield was the heir-apparent. Years rolled on, as the story books say, and still no son and heir was born to the Viscount. When a union has existed in these circumstances for fifteen years there is little ex- pectation that the heir-presumptive will be disturbed in the prospect of inheritance. In the sixteenth year of her marriage, Lady Powerscourt had a son and Lewis Wingfield was once more nothing beyond an ordinary commoner. This was in 1880, and strange to say, at subsequent intervals of some two years a child has been born to the Powerscourt family. Lewis Wingfield took the disappointment philosophically, devoting himself more assiduously to the Bohemian life that always had allurement for him. November 21, 1891. — Up to a period three years back, and for a time before that going beyond the memory of many men, there was seen in the lobby of the House of Commons a little old gentle- man, whose identity puzzled new-comers. He was certainly not a Member, and since he always appeared, summer and winter, in an overcoat and with an umbrella in his hand, he could hardly be an ofiicial of the House. He did not talk to many MEMORIES 379 people, and generally stood by the doorkeeper's seat watching the busy ever-changing throng that fills the lobby through the long night. This was Mr. Hansard, proprietor of the famous Reports of parliamentary proceedings. He had for office a little dark room leading out of the octagon hall, now appropriated for the new passage to the Strangers' Gallery. He complained bitterly of this, thinking that " Hansard " should be better lodged. There was a greater indignity in store for him. When the reforminix hand of a Conservative Government, wandering all over the treasured institutions of the House of Commons, came upon Hansard, they determined to abolish him. The little old gentleman with umbrella and overcoat was happily incredulous. That Parliament should go on without " Hansard " was as impossible as that it should exist without a speaker or a Mace. Never- theless it came to pass. " Hansard " was abolished in favour of a newer arrangement, and the little old gentleman, wandering about the lobby with feebler step and at longer intervals, vanished from the scene. And now he is dead. His heart was broken when there was taken out of his hand work that had been in the family for nearly a century. Novemher 30, 1891. — The shock created by news of Arthur Balfour's illness and the regret expressed in all circles, irrespective of politics, testify to his unique position among public men. In the House of Commons, more especially within 380 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS liis own camp, one occasionally hears murmurs of discontent. Early in his career as Leader of the House of Commons, these reached a height at which they could not be disregarded. Balfour quietly intimated to the Whips, with instructions to make his decision known, that if the Party were tired of him he certainly did not hanker after retaining his position. Only, as long as he did, he would expect to be followed. This sufficed, and what, had it happened in the Liberal camp (as it has since happened in the case of Campbell- Bannerman), would have proved an awkward business quietly subsided. The simple fact is Balfour would be hard to beat by any possible competitor. It is quite true he is a little weak on vulgar fractions whether they affect figures or facts. Also he has an intellectual impa- tience which makes it impossible for him to remain hour after hour at his post listening to the dribble of commonplace. That endurance, alike possessed by Disraeli and Gladstone, is absolutely essential to the perfection of leadership. Failing in this respect he offers compensation by a charming manner and a pretty gift of speech. The news suddenly coming that he had been stricken down by an illness apt to prove fatal reveals as in a flash of lightning his true relative position in the Ministry. There is no man in it — not even Lord Salisbury 7— whose cutting off would prove a greater disaster. December 5, 1891. — News of the death of MEMORIES 381 Dick Power — in the House of Commons never known otherwise than by the caflfectionate diminu- tive — casts a gloom over a wide circle. Power was one of the few remaining members of the Irish Party that came with Butt to Westminster in 1874. He was young then, barely of age. To all appearances he remained young to the last glimpse of him caught in the Lobby of the House of Commons at the end of July, when, amid general handshaking, he passed out of the familiar scene, never again to figure in it. A handsome, light-hearted, well-to-do Irish- man, it was always a marvel among his friends that he long remained single. Like Benedict, he used to say he would die a bachelor, and like him too when he said it he never thought he would live to be married. That his marriage took place only ten days before his death gives added touch of pathos to the tragedy. The Irish Party could well have spared from their service a more prominent man. Power, born a country gentleman, was never so happy as when he was in the hunting field. At the call of duty he took on himself the thankless and arduous task of Whip to the Irish Party, and he stuck to his post, with only occasionally drolly pathetic reference to the fact that away in Co. Waterford the hounds were out. His services to his Party were priceless, inasmuch as none other could have performed them. There was a time in the heyday of obstruction when Parnell's then comparatively small following were treated by the outraged majority as pariahs. None would speak 382 SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDEBNESS to them, mucli less sit near tlicm in smoke-room, or tea-room, or at dinner. Dick Power was their recognised agent in all parliamentary business, and it speaks volumes for his tact, his ability, and the estimation in which his frank, honest conduct was held, that he found no difficulty in transacting the business which brought him into constant con- tact with the Whips and the private members of the other two Parties, then at one in their burning animosity to the Irish. When the crisis came he could not brinsj himself to desert his old Leader Parnell. But he seized the opportunity of temporarily retiring from parliamen- tary life, spending much of last winter and early spring at Hyeres. Though he did not talk much about it, it was known to his most intimate friends that the state of his health was not satisfactory. He was back at the House of Commons towards the end of the Session, going about his daily work with his old bonhomie. Prominently standing in the thick of a civil war as venomously bitter as anything waged since the days of York and Lancaster he was without an enemy in cither host. December 10, 1891. — Henri Rochefort has settled down in his London home, and seems to cherish no desire to return to Paris. He still edits his paper, V Intransigeant, which I fancy brings him in a handsome income. Certainly his house, which looks on to Regent's Park, has about it a fine air of prosperity. AVhcn I knew the Count MEMORIES 383 first he lived in the Quarticr Latin in a very modest style. Tliat was in the last years of the Empire, indeed the very year that preceded Sedan. Rochefort was then producing La Lanterne, whose red cover was often seen peeping from the pocket of some of my class-mates at the Sorbonne. I have a vivid recollection of seeing Rochefort carried down the Boulevard St. Michel on the shoulders of a crowd of students. The impression conveyed to me was that he was terribly fright- ened, and was really grateful when, with great promptitude, the police came up and dispersed the jubilant mob. He is a different looking pierson from what he was in those days. His face is still as pale, but not with the ghastly whiteness that shone under the lamps as, twenty-one years ago, he was hurried down the Boulevard. It has a well-preserved tint as of a man who dines well, knows good wine, and drinks it. His hair is still abundant, but quite white. He has lived at Regent's Park for some ten years. A true Frenchman, he is content with his own tongue, and can neither converse nor write in English. December 20, 1891. — Cardinal Mannino's executors have made discovery tliat his sole possession in the form of money was a sum of £100 invested in Consols. This is realisation of a cherished wish. Two years ago, when a deputation of Catholics waited upon him with a handsome cheque in honour of his jubilee, the 384 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS Cardinal, in the course of his remarks, said : "Much has passed through my hands in these five-and-twenty years ; nothing has stayed. Under this roof all has gone into the work which has been entrusted to me. My desire is to die as a priest ought, without money and without debts." He seemed to regard his jubilee, or was probably by increasing infirmity driven to accept it, as a fitting termination to active public life. He was rarely seen abroad last year, though articles and letters from his pen occasionally appeared. At one time he was a frequent visitor to the Lobby of the House of Commons, keeping in close touch with the Irish National Members from 1880 up to the assembling of the Parliament of 1886. There was no spectacle in the Lobby or the corridors more familiar or more striking than that of the refined sesthetic face and head of the Cardinal bent attentive to the voluble address of an Irish Member. Mr. Gladstone at the time had his hands full on the Treasury Bench, and was never seen in the Lobby or the precincts open to the Cardinal. Otherwise he might have chanced to come across his University contemporary of sixty years ago. December 26, 1891. — Eeviewing the life of the seventh Duke of Devonshire, it is strange to find how little part it filled in public affairs. The Cavendishes were born to the heritage of Ministerial office, their succession going back to the time of Henry VIII. At the University, the late Duke MEMORIES 385 won a record almost unique in its accumulation of honours. He was Second Wrangler, first Smith's prizeman, and in the first class of the Classical Tripos. Men at college to-day point to the fact that the examination is now severer than it was sixty years ago when William Cavendish was at Trinity. Still, it is a notable record, and seems to prove the truth of the axiom that First and Second Wranglers are rarely heard of in the real battle of life. Probably, if the Second Wrangler of the year 1829 had remained plain William Cavendish, younger son of a great family, hopelessly out of the direct line of succession, he might have achieved another kind of fame. As it happened, by a suc- cession of deaths which find a parallel only in those that led to Lord Rosebery's banishment to the House of Lords, William Cavendish came into the front line, and was never anything more than the Duke of Devonshire. Saddled with responsibility of a great estate and princely revenues, the Duke devoted himself entirely to the direction of family afi'airs, discharging the duty with a kindliness and generosity rare with his order. A shy man, he instinctively shrank from public recognition of any kind. But it is said he admitted that nothing gave him greater pleasure than the statement made in the House of Commons by one of Parnell's lieutenants to the effect that *''If all Irish landlords were like the Duke of Devonshire there would be no need of a new Land Bill." 2 c 386 SIXTY YEAES IN THE WILDEENESS December 12, 1891. — Announcement of the betrothal of the Duke of Clarence to the Princess Victoria Mary of Teck has been received with universal satisfaction. The Princess May, as she is always called — an improvement on her formal address — is perhaps the most popular of the younger generation of royal princesses. She is pretty, piquante, well dressed (a circumstance which, as the daughters of Princess Christian testify, is not a matter of course with royal princesses), has all the happy nature of her mother, and some of the abounding bonhomie of her father. This is the positive aspect of the advantage of the match. As has been shown in the case of the Princess of Wales, it is of enormous support to the Heir- Apparent to have for a wife a lady who appeals directly to the affection of the public. For this Princess May, whether ranking as Duchess of Avondale, Princess of Wales, or Queen of England, may be counted upon. It is curious, considering he is now in his 28th year, how little is known by the general public of the Prince of Wales' eldest son. This is clue in some measure to the tireless energy of his father, who is always ready to take upon himself functions devolving upon the representative of the head of the State. Of late years the Duke of Clarence has occasionally appeared in public as deputy for his father, but he has not shown any eagerness to consolidate or extend his position. When he has speeches to recite, at the laying of MEMORIES 387 foundation stones, or the opening of bazaars, he, like the Northern Farmer, said what he had to say " and coom'd awa'/' not leaving on the mind or memory of his audience the impression of meteoric intelligence or any large share in the endowment of popular manner that, in different ways, grace his father and his mother. This may be due to the peculiar position he holds, with his grandmother on the throne, and his father called upon to perform the ordinary functions of Royalty in its relations with the public. Nothing could be more to his advantage than the possession of such a consort as he will find in the charminjr, sprightly Princess May. December 24, 1891. — News of the death of Peter Taylor chiefly surprises the world with information that so recently as Sunday morning he was still alive. There was a time when this sturdy uncompromising Radical filled a place in public estimation almost as prominent as that now held by Labouchere. In the Parliament of 1874, he was a busy and a popular personage. At that time Radicals were not so numerous or so influential as they are to-day. Peter Taylor, happily wedded with a constituency whose Radicalism has always been untainted, was something of a personage. I have keen recollection of the shock dealt when, sometime in the year 1878, there reached me under cover, addressed in his well-known handwriting, a portly volume illuminated with a 388 SIXTY YEAKS IN THE WILDERNESS magnificent coat of arms, setting forth the pedi- gree and history of the Taylor family. I had admired and respected him as a son of the people and was more or less agreeably surprised to find that he was able to trace his parentage back to a fine old Huntingdonshire family of the time of Edward III. It was the only sign of grace about this remarkable production. An ordinary man bent upon such enterprise would certainly have gone back to William the Conqueror. Peter Taylor drew the line at Edward III. The book was the beginning of the end which found this erstwhile sturdy Radical a hot pro- testor against bestowing on the Irish people equal laws with their English brethren, and a sup- porter at the poll of a Conservative candidate in the Jingo borough of Brighton. Of the many odd transformation scenes witnessed in political life during the last ten years this was surely the strangest. In private life Peter preserved all his old qualities of keen common-sense, dry humour and generous large heartedness. It was only against the national desire of Ireland that his sympathies ran cold. Without attempt at oratory he was an eff'ective House of Commons speaker. He never wound himself up to deliver an oration, but just chatted with the House as he was wont to talk to guests at his hospitable board. The open- ings of museums on a Sunday was one of the bene- ficent movements for which he was chiefly urgent. Year after year he brought in a resolution designed MEMOEIES 389 to attain that end and died when it seems within measurable distance of accomplishment. A story he told in one of his speeches immensely tickled the House. It recorded a tragedy narrated by a clergyman to a Sunday School class. The victim was a little boy, who, according to the clergyman, " had broken the Sabbath day by eating lollypops." " The lollypops," quoted Peter, in a tone that thrilled the crowded House, " stuck in the little boy's throat and choked him, so that he died ! " Taylor in his prime was pertinaciously per- sistent in participating in debate. The Premier (Disraeli) was the object of his profoundest dis- trust. In the 1874-80 Parliament I wrote a rhyme that became highly popular on both sides of the House. It ran thus : " Preposterous Peter ! prythee cut it short. We know that Dizzy doeth what he didn't ought ; Still we would hold life sweeter That spared us Dizzy and dispensed with Peter." INDEX A'Beckett, Gilbert, 257 Aberdeen, Lady, 61 , Lord, 371 Acton, Lord, 279-280 Adam, W. P., 192-19^6 Addison, Mr., Q.C., 219 Alexandra, Queen, 170, 171, 175 Allon, Eev. Dr., 139-140 Anglesey, Marquis of, 143-4 Anglo-South American Bank, 153 Arabi Pasha, 199 seq. Argyll, 4th Duke of, 209 seq. Arnold, Arthur, 114 , Sir Edwin, 138-9 , Matthew, 112-113 , Mrs., 113 Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis, 124 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 269, 367 Avebury, Lord, 249 " Azamat Batuk," 18-19 Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 51, 73, 76, 161, 205, 259-260, 285, 288, 363-6 ; and Lord Dudley, 164- 6; and Free Trade, 267-274; on W.H. Smith, 300, 375; early career, 341-2, 352 ; in Ireland, 371-2 ; illness, 379-380 Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, 273 Bancroft, Sir Squire, 330 Bank of England, 151 Bax>tist, 96 Baring, Miss, 105 Beaconsfield, Lord, 15-17, 64-5, 160, 211, 257, 261, 344, 389 ; his ^plagiarisms, 5-7, 318 ; death of his wife, 25-30 ; death, 298 Beaconsfield, Lady, 25-28 Beecher, Henry Ward, 140 Belgians, Leopold IL, King of the, 227, 232 Bentley, Mr., 330 Beresford, Lord Charles, 122-137, 189, 276-7 Besaut, Sir Walter, 331 Beveridgc, John, 65-7 Biggar, John Gillis, 120, 260-1, 305, 312 Bird, Miss Isabella (afterwards Mrs. Bishop), 326-7 Birmingham Morning News, 227 Bismarck, Prince, 115-116, 222, 264-5 Black, William, 53, 58 Black ie. Prof. Stuart, 53-63 , Mrs., 59-60 Bonaparte, Prince Lucien, 333-4 Boswell quoted, 257 Boulanger, General, 199 seq. Bouverie, E. P., 282 Bowles, " Tommy," 72-3 Bradford, Sir Edward, 167 Bradlaugli, Charles, 75, 96, 189, 342 seq. 392 INDEX Bramwell, Lord, 220-1 Bright, Jacob, 338 , John, 70, 356, 371 Brougham, Lord, 292 Browning, Mrs., 138 , Robert, 138 Bryce, Right Hon. James, 148, 364 , Prof., 279 Buchanan, Mr., M.P., 254 Buckle, Mr., 119 Buller, Sir Redvers, 76, 215 Burnaby, Col. Fred, 110-112, 127- 128, 213-115, 224, 244, 365 Burnand, F. C, 7, 8, 262, 365 ; letters quoted, 256 Burne, Sir Owen, 175 Burne-Jones, Sir E., 213 Burnham, Lord, 367 Butt, Isaac, 306, 311-12 Byron, Henry J., 2, 7 Calcbaft, Henry, 367 Cambridge, Duke of, 62 Carapbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 48, 239, 269, 380 Capel, Monseigneur, 31, 34 Carnarvon, Lord, 161 Carson, Sir Edward, 164 Carthage, 241 Chalmers, Dr., 335 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, 269 , Rt. Hon. Joseph, 47, 70, 77-82, 90-7, 161, 170, 277, 357, 370-1 ; and Labouchere, 71, 102; letters quoted, 91, 180-1, 261-2 ; marriage, 180- 1 ; Col. Burnaby on. 111 ; and Free Trade, 264-273 ; and the Aston Park riots, 351-2 ; and Lord Randolph Chuichill, 356 ; his proposed Old Age Pensions, 375-6 Chamberlain, Mrs., 170, 181-2, 261-2 Chaplin, Henry, 267, 366 Child Life Insurance Bill, 322 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 72, 77- 88, 93, 155, 197, 209, 287, 299, 337-368 ; and Gladstone, 83-4, 254 ; and Labouchere, 99 ; racing interests, 151-2; meets The Shah, 177 ; and Parnell, 308-9 ; his appearance, 322 ; Queen Victoria's letter to, 353 , Lady, 155 , Rt. Hon. Winston, 343, 355 Civil List, 334-5 Clarence, Duke of, 386-7 Clement, Dr., 64 Cogan, Rev. E., 221 Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice, 258 Condor, torpedo boat, 195, 130 Conkliug, Senator, 112-113 Consolidated Goldfields of South Africa, 314 Corlet, John, 2, 4, 5 Cornhill Magazine, 17, 40 Cowen, Joseph, 38 Cowper, Lord, 149 Cranborne, Lord, 106 Crawford, Mr., 141-2 Crewe, Marquis of, 319 Cross, Lord, 171, 301, 345-8, 352 Curzon, Lord, 202, 361 Daily News, 4, 15, 20, 79, 89, 191, 361 ; Editorship of, 36 seq., 54 ; and dissentient Liberals, 95-6 Daily Eevieiu, 54 Daily Telegraph, 3, 4, 85, 114, 138 Dalziel Bros., 8 INDEX 393 Davitt, Michael, 119-123 Dawson, George, 226 Day, Mr. Justice, 186 De Beers Mine, 314 Delane, John T., 14 Depew, Chauncey, 212-213 Derby, Lord, 15, 17 Devonshire, 7th Duke of, 314-15 Dicey, Edward, 367 Dilke, Sir Charles, 41-49, 337 ; and Labouchere, 71-3 , Lady, 44-8 Dillon, Patrick, 83 Discovery, ship, 244-5 Disraeli, James, 29, 259 Dobson, Austin, 8 Doetsch, Henry, 213-15 Donnelly, Mr,, 71 Dover, Lord, 31 Dryden, quoted, 13 Du Maurier, George, 214 Dudley, Earl, 160, 164-5 Dundee Advertiser, 39 Dunraven, Lord, 152, 157, 163-4 Edwakd VII., King, 167-8, 170, 173, 366 ; entertaining at San- dringham, 215-16 Egyjjt, Khedive of, 15-18 Elibank, Lord, 196 Eliot, George, 280 Endicott, Mr. and Mrs., 180 , Miss (afterwards Mrs. Chamberlain), 180-1 Ericsson, explorer, 188 Eversley, Lord, 100-1, 369 Fairbairn, Dr., 279 Fat, Tom, 131-4 Fawcett, Henry, 218 Field-Gibson, James, 221 Fletcher Moulton, Lord Justice, 239 Forster, W. E., 116-117 Fourth Party, 343 seq Frail, John, 64 Fram, ship, 236 Freeman's Journal, 2,11 Fullertcm, Lady Georgina, 31 Fun, 7-11 Gedge, Sydney, 72-4 Germany, Emperor Frederick of, 115-116, 140, 147, 216, 217, 222 , Prince Henry of, 217 , Emperor William of, 115, 140 -, Prince William of, 116 Gilbert, W. S., 7, 78, 145 Gilpin, Governor, 332-3 Gladstone, W. E., 36, 46, 55, 78, 81, 96, 117, 149, 197-8, 204-5, 282, 285, 313, 316, 326, 346-8, 370, 384; and John Bright, 71 ; and Labouchere, 75, 98, 102, 108-9; and Lord E. Churchill, 83-4, 349-350; his Home Eule Bill, 87-90, 94, 157-161 ; resignation, 92 ; meets The Shah, 176-7; his portrait, 182, 286-7; descent on Midlothian, 191-3 ; and the 8th Duke of Argyll, 209 ; letters quoted, 209, 253 ; contributions to magazines, 222-3; his library, 223-4 ; and Scotch Disestabhsh- ment, 252 seq. ; friendship with Lady Rosebery, 290-1 ; on Beaconsfield, 298 ; and Parnell, 305, 3C8-9. , Mrs., 61, 220-1 Glenesk, Lord, 178, 225, 367 Qlasgow Herald, 4 394 INDEX Gorst, Sir John, 342, 344, 350-2, 361, 365 Goschen, Lord, 79-80, 355, 375 Gosford, Lady, 294 GranvUle, Lord, 62, 117, 194; letter quoted, 138 Green, Paddy, 12 Greenwood, Frederick, 13, 14, 18 ; and the Suez Canal shares, 15- 17 Grey, Sir Edward, 264 Grimthorpe, Lord, 361 Grossmith, George, 79-80, 355, 375 Hamilton, Lord Claud, 80, 202 , Edward, 367 , Lord George, 177, 273, 354 Hampden, Lord, 50, 52, 369 Hannen, Sir James, 185 Hansard, Mr., 379 Harcourt, Sir William, 93-5, 241, 366-7, 374-5; quoted, 47; on W. H. Smith, 299 , Lady, 374 Harris, Sir Augustus, 174 Hart-Dyke, Sir William, 196 Hartington, Lord, 78-81, 194, 293, 355, 358, 371, 374; his portrait, 182, 286 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 150 Healy, Father, 366 , Tim, 62, 198, 305 Hedin, Dr. Sveu, 244 Heineraann, William, 245-7 Hennessey, John Pope, 179-180 Herkoraer, Sir Hubert von, 324- 6,372 , Mrs., 325 Herschell, Lord, 93 Hicks-Beach, Sir Michael, 268, 270, 357-8, 361, 363, 367 Hill, Frank, 37 Holden, Isaac, 188 Home Rule, 78 seq. ; Dunraven Scheme of, 157 seq. Home Rule Bill (1886), 87 seq., 161 Hood, Thomas, 2, 7; Editor of Fun, 8-9; death of, 10-11 Hope, Beresford, 344 Bros., 105 Houghton, Lord, 317-18 Howard, Lady Anne, 31 , Lady Mary, 31 Howell, Mr., 213-14 Hudson, George, 152-3 Hughes, Percival, 111 Hume, Joseph, 335 Iddlesleigh, Lord (see under Northcote, Sir Stafford) Innes, Taylor, 54 Irish Church Bill, 323 , Land Act, 62 , Land Purchase Bill, 156 , Reform Association, 158- 165 Irving, Sir Henry, 367 Italian Exhibition, 154-5 James, Henry, 279, 371 Jeannette, ship, 236 Jennings, Louis, 357-363, 366 Jcphson, explorer, 230 Jerningham, Admiral, 31 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 257 , Mrs., 335 Johnston, Sir Harry, 239-244 , Lady, 239 Jones, Henry Arthur, 367 Keats, John, 336 Kendal, Tom, 2 INDEX 395 Kendals (actors), 7 Kenny, Dr., 311 Kerr, Lord Walter, 31 Kingsburgh, Lord, 147 Kipling, Eudyard, 331 Kirby Hall, 150 Knollys, Sir Francis, 367 Labouchere, Henry, 36, 47, 70- 86, 96-102, 367, 375; letters quoted, 77-94; and Parnell, 308 , Mrs., 102 , Peter Csesar, 104 Land Purchase Bill, 156, 160 Lang, Andrew, 37 Lansdowne, Lord, 163, 169 Leigh, Henry S., 8, 12 Leighton, Lord, 372-4 Leland, Charles, 8 Lewis, Sir George, 118-119,366-7 Liverpool Daily Post, 209, 253 Lockwood, Sir Frank, 120, 366 , Mark, 189 Long, Rt. Hon. Walter H., 168 Longmans, Green & Co., 330 Lowe, Sir Hudson, 334 Lowther, Jimmy, 133, 308 McCarthy, Justin, 161 McColl, Canon, 279 Macdona, Cumming, 72-5 Macdonald, Mr., 119 Macdonnell, Lady, 168 , Lord, 156-169 MacKay, Charles, 57 , Dr. Forbes, 246 McKenna, Reginald, 72 McKenzie, Sir Morell, 114-16, 140, 221-2; letter quoted, 146-7 McLaren, Duncan, 371 Magee, Archbishop, 322-4 Magnificent, H.M.S., 126-7 Maguire, Rochefort, 367 Manchester, Duchess of, 293 , Duke of, 294 Manning, Cardinal, 383-4 Marlborough, Duchess of, 78 Martincau, James, 58 Mary, H.M. Queen, 386 Matthews, Henry, 352, 361 Maybrick, Mrs., 219, 220 Mayfair, 5, 38, 68-9 MiUais, Sir E., 287 Miller, Joaquin, 296 Montagu, Lord Charles, 294 Morris, Lord, 366 , Prof., 280-1 Morley, Arnold, 78-9, 198 , Lord, 52, 90, 93, 172, 257, 280-5, 367, 370 ; and Labou- chere, 71, 81 ; his Land Bill, 88 ; quoted, 89, 343 Motley, Mr., 222-3 Mount Asquith, 249 Harcourt, 249 Henry Lucy, 249 Mount-Temple, Lord, 148 Mundella, Mr., 82, 208 Murray, D. Christie, 67 Nansen, Fkidtjof, 226, 235 seq. Napier of Magdala, Lord, 26 Napoleon III., King, 332-3 Nedley, Dr., 365 Nelson, Lord, 335 New York Herald, 19, 226 Sun, 19 World, 112 Nineteenth Century, 223 Norfolk, Duke of, 31 North, Colonel, 149, 152-3 396 INDEX Northcote, Sir Stafford (after- wards Lord Iddesleigh), 98, 342, 346-9 Northfleet, wreck of the, G5-6 Nubar Pacha, 17-18 O'Brien, William, 82 Observer, 37, 39, 188, 3G1 O'Donnell, Frank H., 343 Oppeuheim, Henry, 15-18 Oranmore, Lord, 319 O'Shea, Captain, 308 Paget, Lokd Alfred, 143 Palgrave, Mr., 327 Pall Mall Gazette, 13, 14, 18, 19, 52 Palmerston, Lady, 24, 149 , Lord, 20-24, 149 Pamell, C. S., 49, 62, 77, 81, 260, 297-8, 304-12, 322, 343-4, 381-2; and the Home Rule Bill, 87 ; and Labouchere, 99, 308 ; and Lord Carnarvon, 161 Commission, 118-121, 309, 359, 362 Patton & Co., 66 Payu, James, 262-3 Pease, Mr., 195 Peel, Arthur, 146, 369 , Mrs., 316 , Sir llobert (1st Baronet), 146 ;(3rd Baronet), 145, 160 Pellegrini, 183-4 Pender, Lady, 227 , Sir John, 227, 232 Persia, Shah of, 170-8, 288 I'iccadillyy 69 Piggott, 305, 308 Playfair, Lyon, 278-9 Pond, Mr., 2 , Colonel, 234 Potticary, Eev. J., 221 Power, Dick, 307, 366, 381-2 Powerscourt, Lady, 378 , Lord, 377-8 Pulitzer, Mr., 255 Fundi, 7, 8, 39, 100, 256, 299, 361 Raikes, H. C, 51-2, 328-330 Rathmore, Lord, 367 Redistribution of Seats Bill, 165-6 Redmond, John, 163 Reid, Sir Wemyss, 116-17 ; editor of The Speaker, 278 ; " Life of Lord Houghton," 317-18 Rhodes, Cecil, 103, 313 Rio Tinto Mine, 214-15 Ripou, Lord, 82, 323 Ritchie, George W., 268, 271-4 Roberts, Earl, 46 Robertson, Tom, 7 Robinson, Sir John, 191 Rochefort, Count Henri, 382-3 Rogers, Thorold, 294-5 Rollit, Sir Albert, 202, 205 Roose, Robson, 264, 375 Rosebery, Lady, 60 ; death of, 290-1 , Lord, 60-61, 194, 385; letter quoted, 36-7 ; Labou- chere and, 102; and Imperial Federation, 281 ; death of his wife, 290-1 Rossetti, D. G., 213 Rothschild, Baron, 16, 153-5 Rowcliffe, butcher, 20-22 Rowton, Lord, 16, 29 Ruskin, John, 213 Russel, Editor of the Scotsman, 53 INDEX 397 Eussell, W. H. ("Billy"), 3 , Sir Charles, 2, 4, 83, 121 ; in the Parnell CommiBsion, 118-119; in the May brick Case, 220 Rylands, Mr., 338 Sala, G. a., 2, 3, 8, 278 Salisbury, Lady, 78 , Lord, 77-80, 161, 171, 205, 215, 243, 347, 351, 354 ; meets the Shah, 176 ; and Mr. Balfour, 341 ; failing health, 377 Sambourne, Linley, 257 Schliemann, Dr., 249-251 Schnadhorst, 78-9, 313 Sclater-Booth, Mr., 338-340 Scotsman, 42, 53 Scott, Clement, 7 , Captain Eobert F., 244-5 Selborne, Lord, 276 Sexton, Mr., 305 Shackleton, Sir E. H., 245-9 Sherbrooke, Lady, 218, 233 , Lord, 217-219, 233 Shorthouse, Dr., 4 Sims, George R., 8 " Sixty Years in the Wilderness," 304 Sketchley, Arthur, 8 Smith, George, 13-14 , Dr. George, 53-4 , George Adam, 54 , W. H., 80, 297-304, 316, 347, 354-6, 359, 375 Soames, Mr., 118-119 Speaker, 278 Spectator, 266 Spencer, Lord, 83 Spiers & Pond, 1, 2 Sporting Magazine, 5 Sporting Times, 4 Sportsman, 4 Standard, 3, 85 Stanley, Dean, 110 , Sir Henry, 182-3, 226-235 Stationers' Hall, 330-2 Stephen, Mr. Justice, 220 Stewart, General, 128 Suez Canal shares, 15-18 Sullivan, Arthur, 145, 329, 333 Sumner, Charles, 292 Sutherland, Sir Thomas, 271 Swaine and Stephens, 221 Talbot, Dr., 31 Taunton, Lord, 105 Taylor, Peter, 387-8 Teck, Duke and Duchess of, 26 Tennyson, Lord, 335 Tewfik Pasha, 200-1 Thieblin, M., 18-19 Thirteen Club, 62 Times, 3, 80, 85, 95, 118, 159, 209, 283, 354, 359 Toole, John L., 184, 285-6, 317- 18 Trevelyan, Sir George, 40, 93, 370 Truth, 84, 101 Tupper, Martin, 224 Turner, Godfrey, 2, 4 Unwin, T. Fisher, 68 Vanderbilt, Mr., 212-13 Vanity Fair, 183-4 Vargas, family, 336 Victoria, Queen, 61-2, 81, 92, 211, 225, 292; Jubilee gifts from, 222 ; travelling pre- cautions for, 319-322 ; letter to Lord Randolph Churchill, 353 398 INDEX Waddington, M., 46 Walpole, Sir Robert, 210-11 Ward, Nelson, 335 , Mrs. Horatio Nelson, 335 Wardour of Arundel, Lord, 31 Warren, Sir Charles, 181 Watts-Dunton, W. T., 213 Webster, Sir Richard, 118, 219 Wellington, Duke of, 5, 318 West, Sir Algernon, 61 Whitehead, Lady, 171-5 , Sir James, 170-6 Whitehurst, Paris correspondent, 85 Whistler, J. N. McNiel, 68-9 Wilde, Oscar, 279 Williams, Charley, 2-4 Willyams, Sarah Brydges, 29 Winch elsea. Lord, 149 WingHeld, Lewis, 377-8 Winn, Rowland, 197-8 Wolff, Ueury Drummond, 80-1, 171, 176-7, 365; illness of, 288-9; and Bradlaugh, 342; in the Fourth Party, 344, 349- 351, 361 Wolverton, Lord, 94 Wolseley, Lord, 128 Woods, Nick, 2-3 Wyndham, George, 156, 159, 162-5, 168, 180 Yardley, Sir William, 64 'Yates, Edmund, 8, 37 THE END PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AJID BOSS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. ei. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ^p, ttffC I-os Angeles jnn«»^^tl»is book is DUE on the last date stamped below. i h 1981 ORION Mfly02'fi9 LD/URL ™'' "^ O^ REC'DLD-DJa MAV ^^ Form L9 — 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS AN(;tLES 3 1158 00669 5240 FLF UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY DA 565 L9A2 1912 ft lUci cu. AA 000 406 537 i r---> ■■••v ^ W itut m 1