ty of California 3rn Regional try Facility , MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 2)2) / MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE BY M. C. M. SIMPSON AUTHOR OF " LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF JULIUS AND MARY MOHL, " REMINISCENCES OF A REGICIDE," ETC. EDWARD ARNOLD 37, BEDFORD STREET, LONDON 1898 TO MY GRANDCHILDREN. THE last seventy years have been so full of progress and discovery that we old people cannot help feeling an ardent desire to know what wonders the next seventy have in store for those fortunate beings, like you, my dear children, whose privilege I trust it will be to live through them. I hope, however, that your eyes will not be so dazzled by the brilliancy of the future as to render them incapable of casting a glance on the past. It is most likely personified for you in me as the future is to me in you; and 1 think that the following sketches of a world that has changed so much will interest you all the more because they are dedicated to you and written by your loving old grand- mother. PREFACE. THE destruction of my old home in Hyde Park Gate induced me to write down some recollections of the society once gathered within its walls. A small part of these memoranda appeared in the New Review in the spring of 1893. I was asked by many of those whose attention they attracted to expand them into a book, and the following pages are the result. The many distinguished people whom I had the happiness of knowing naturally group themselves round the central figure of my father, and in most cases, as they were his contemporaries, disappeared with him. Others, however, whom he knew in his later years, were spared to us for some time longer, as will be seen towards the end of this book. I have omitted almost all mention of the friends of a still more recent date. The present generation needs no reminder of them ; but I am glad of this oppor- tunity for expressing my gratitude for their kindness to me and mine. M. C. M. SIMPSON. MlLLMEAD HOUSE, GUILDFORD, N member 22. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. CAGE Kensington Road Half-way House Gore House Kensing- ton Gardens Princess Victoria Kensington Square Cobbett Talleyrand Mill Lawrence Wilkie Callcott 13, Hyde Park Gate Turnpike Mail-coaches Our garden The Stephens Lucy Austin Sir Herbert Ed- wardes Malthus Blanco White ----- i CHAPTER II. EARLY FRIENDS. Archbishop Whately Love for children and gardening Re- gardless of appearances Resemblance to Dr. Johnson Irish schoolbooks Aphorisms Riddles Delight in Miss Austen A point of casuistry Fairy-tale Sydney Smith Coombe Florey Poor Law Commission Lord Chancellor Sugden His life as Attorney-General Speech at ninety Lunatic asylum Coronation Queen announcing her marriage Opening of Parliament Addition to house King Joseph Afternoon tea Rotten Row Lord Lans- downe Concerts at Lansdowne House Poet Moore Blue coats and brass buttons ' Partant pour la Syrie ' Bowood Miss Edgeworth The cat's-meat man French chef - n x CONTENTS CHAPTER III. SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS. FACE Brussels The Arconatis Gaesbeck Quetelet King Leopold compared with Prince Albert Carlsbad Polish friends Posting in Germany Dresden The Noels Castle of Wildenfels Curious manners Dress of peasants Switzer- land Mont Ce*nis Turin Camille Cavour Villeggia- tura Genoa Scientific congress Splendid fetes and beautiful women Bulwer Rain in the Alps Stopped by procession at Cortina Venice Grand fetes Play at Vicenza Distinguished visitors Duchess of Angouleme Marshal Marmont Thunder and lightning Turin re- visited in 1850 Genoa and Florence Mme. Lajatico Villa Trollope Naples and Sorrento Tocqueville and Ampere Rome Duke of Sermoneta Last visit to Italy . . . . - 32 CHAPTER IV. FRIENDS IN PARIS. Last days of the monarchy George Summers The Austins Faucher Guizot Says Tocquevilles Plays and operas Rachel Journal in May, 1848 Wolowski Lamartine His beauty, poverty, and lavish expenditure Alexis de Tocqueville First acquaintance Tocquevilles at Sorrento The Quai d'Orsay ' Ancien Regime' Reception in England Meets us at the Hotel Bedford Mme. de Tocqueville Visit to her in 1861 The Beaumonts Chateau de Tocqueville Ampere's admirable reading His devotion to Mme. Recamier and Chateaubriand, and to the Chevreuxs Guizot Exile Death of his mother Red Spectre Tocqueville's appreciation of Guizot Val Richer Families in the same house Walks in the lanes Guizot's orders Spanish marriages Family sorrows Power of work at eighty-seven A sincere Christian - 50 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER V. THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES. I'AGE Mrs. Grote Likeness to Queen Elizabeth Personal appearance and dress Piquant conversation Mendelssohn Jenny Lind The ' Elijah ' Drive in the Park and Bond Street Burnham Beeches History Hut Versatility Long Ben- nington Historian dislikes farming Concerts at Savile Row Whist Strong language 'Ma chere mere' Letters on French politics Another on Poor Law adepts Rela- tions with foreign statesmen Shere Admiration of her husband His gentleness and courtesy Trim, old- fashioned dress ' Case of the Rich against the Poor ' Sympathy Names for her friends Self-sacrifice Charlotte Bronte Self-confidence A valentine Jenny Lind Her perfect naturalness Engagement to Mr. Harris Finally broken off Farewell performances Paris Marriage Settles in England Concert for the Prince of Sweden Windspoint Manuel Garcia Mrs. Nassau Senior Her portrait by Watts Her singing Friendships with distinguished artists Elm House Love for children Helps Miss Stanley in the Crimean War Appointed Inspector to report on the female department in schools and workhouses Her social talents Serious illness and death Verses from the Spectator - - 73 CHAPTER VI. LONDON IN THE FIFTIES. Exhibition of 1851 Death and funeral of the Duke of Welling- ton Crimean War Sir Colin Campbell The White House Kent House The Villiers Thackeray His daughters Amateur pantomime Senior's review of ' Vanity Fair ' Diversions with the Thackerays Devotion of the novelist to his womankind Sudden death Mrs. Leslie Stephen The poet Rogers Breakfast parties Sir Charles and Lady Eastlake Charles Babbage His parties Hallam Abraham Hayward Mr. Fleming Lady xii CONTENTS TAGE Chantrey Mr. and Mrs. Austin Chartist demonstration Lady William Russell Her distinguished sons Mme. de Peyronnet Mrs. GaskeU Mrs. Procter Lady Bell - 102 CHAPTER VII. COUNTRY HOUSES. Visit to Ireland Buncrana Castle Mr. Hastings Mr. Bate- son His murder The Milmans The Club Fazio The Hampdens, Ewelme Oxford Hereford The Archer Clives Malvern The Carlyles Lord Lansdowne 'Pigeon' Paley The Fords The Lewis' Harpton English Prime Ministers Palmerston Gladstone Russell Broadlands Visit to Edward Ellice Glenquoich Dunrobin Stirling of Keir Lord Chancellor Campbell Dr. Jeune at Pembroke President Routh - - -122 CHAPTER VIII. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, AND SCOTLAND 1852, 1855, AND 1856. Unpublished journals of N. W. Senior State of politics in 1852 Conversations with Sir Frankland and George Cornewall Lewis Prospects of the Ministry State of the Foreign Office Ties of a member to his constituents The Welsh language should be discouraged Rebecca rioters Journal in 1855 Mismanagement of Crimean War Tocqueville's letter Lord John's resignation Lord Lansdowne on the Ministry Palmerston Sidney Herbert Difficulty of finding good commanders Incompetence of officers at this period Lord John indispensable Maro- chetti on the Italian Alliance The French and English armies ought to have been under one commander Letter from Massimo d' Azeglio Lord John's defence Extension of the franchise probable Lord Derby fails to construct a Cabinet No school for politicians Lord John cannot form a Government Gladstone and Disraeli Speeches in the House Unwise forbearance of aristocratic Ministers Dr. Jeune and the Oxford Commission CONTENTS xiii PAGE Promptitude and decision of Louis Napoleon The Credit Foncier Battle of the Alma Lord Raglan's declining health Position of Spain Palmerston Premier Lord Lansdowne Lord Monteagle on the situation Position of Lord John Lord Rosse on the war Scott Russell is building an iron-clad Mismanagement in the Crimea Tocqueville's letter English aristocracy knows not how to govern Senior disagrees Evils of a democracy in time of war Lowe and Layard Lord John Russell Defection of Peelites Overstone and Strelecki Lord Raglan did not believe in the war Sir John MacNiel Red-tapeism at Balaklava Lord Lansdowne Defence of Lord Raglan Louis Napoleon and Prince Napoleon Lord John's mission Weakness of Austrian army Obstinacy of Emperor Nicholas Our army insufficient Lord Grey Democracy trains no statesmen Van de Weyer Continental Ministers rejoice over England's failure All Europe surprised by the war Queen Victoria English army must be increased Mr. Grote disapproves of Ministers Democratic boroughs will not elect good men Dissatisfaction of Edward Ellice Ministers should have resigned Lord Derby Lord John Russell Lord Palmer- ston Duke of Newcastle Lewis Chancellor of the Ex- chequer Senior leaves London - 138 CHAPTER IX. JOURNAL IN 1855 CONTINUED JOURNAL IN 1856. Death of Nicholas Lord John Russell's mission Austrian propositions Palmerston and Lord John Comments of Hayter, Lord Monteagle, and George Cornewall Lewis Austrian propositions not refused by us Lord Aberdeen Lord Cowley's story Vaillant, Louis Napoleon, and Drouyn de Lhuys Remusat's opinion Resignation of Lord John Delane's account Sir Charles Wood Superiority of our navy to our army Functions of Govern- ment Lord Lansdowne on Lord John Louis Napoleon rejected the Austrian propositions Gladstone Van de Weyer on the Austrian negotiations Lewis on Lord John, xiv CONTENTS I'AGF Graham, and Gladstone Journal in 1856 Lord Aber- deen on Pitt Wilberforce Peel Wellington Grey The Queen Prince Albert Views of a High Church M.P. Gladstone Archdeacon Denison Georges III. and IV. and William IV. Bright The French alliance Palmer- ston Maynooth Parliamentary papers House of Com- mons Journalism a road to office Bright on the Austrian propositions Lord Stratford War was unnecessary French are triumphant They covet Savoy Louis Napo- leon's reason for courting the Pope Bright on Malta and Gibraltar Lord George Bentinck Olmtitz negotiations The war has strengthened the war party in France Louis Napoleon ready to attack us War costs nothing to a despot Progress of democracy in England Social habits The Kirk Objection to unwritten prayers Walter Scott Bright's political system Universal Suffrage He prefers Household Suffrage Parliaments should last only two years Restrictions on the Crown Church separated from State Primogeniture Heavy income-tax Lord Aberdeen's comments Bishops the poorest men in Eng- land Bright furious against the interference of the Factory Acts Lord Aberdeen on Molesworth and Lord John Durham letter Disapproved by Lord Aberdeen Thiers could not understand the Duke of Wellington End of Mr. Senior's journal - -212 'CHAPTER X. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND. Education Commission Duke of Newcastle Rev. W. Rogers Hallam Miss Carpenter Monckton Milnes Henry Reeve The Merivales Cardinal Manning Rev. W. Brookfield George Stovin Venables Sir Edward Bunbury James Spedding Matthew Arnold Kinglake Richard Doyle Sir James Lacaita Count Strelecki Sir Charles Newton Lowell Dr. de Mussy American friends Dean Stanley Lady Augusta Order of the Bath Pere Hyacinthe Archdeacon Denison Bishop Thirlwall's birthday Death of Lady Augusta Mrs. Craven Stanley's handwriting Canterbury Canon Robertson - - 267 CONTENTS xv CHAPTER XI. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS. PAGE Ball at the Tuileries Prosper Merimee Yellow tea Ver- sailles Victor Cousin Dulwich Gallery Michel Che- valier Mignet Prevost Paradol Jules Simon Circourt Comtesse de Circourt Paris the paradise of old ladies Mme. Anisson French evening parties Montalembert French preachers Abbe Perreyve The Sacre Cceur Good Friday at Notre Dame French country houses Val Richer The Kergorlays at Canisy The Corcelles at Beau Fosse Old houses in Paris Pius IX. French baby Marquis de Chambrun French marriages Duvergier de Hauranne at He"ry Changafnier Odillon Barrot M. Forgues M. Chambol M. de Vogue French farmers September in Paris Lomenie Chateau de Stors Drouyn de Lhuys at Amblainvilliers Cards in the vestibule Circourts at Les Bruyeres Mme. Cornu Her reconcilia- tion with the Emperor Ivan Tourguenieff Renan Ristori Renan in London At the College de France - 291 CHAPTER XII. LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE. Our house resembled a country house Exhibition of 1862 Polyglot assemblies Hekekyan Bey An Armenian lady Trip to Ireland The wild west Mount Trenchard 'The Colleen Bawn ' Killarney Birr Castle Lord and Lady Rosse The telescopes Mr. Trench at Cardtown Mr. Home and spiritualism Paris in 1863 Failing health of Mr. Senior Howick Ossington Edward Denison Death of many friends Miss Thackeray's ac- count of the last days All has passed away ... 320 As this Book is in great demand, it is respectfully requested that it may be returned to the Library as soon as read. DPLE CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. THE modern young lady who mounts her bicycle or climbs valiantly to the top of an omnibus on her way to attend the College of Music or the high classes in Kensington Square, or, if more frivolously disposed, to visit one of the grand shops in the High Street, has no idea what a different world she surveys from the one that would have met her view had she had the misfortune to be born in the previous generation, when bicycles were not and ladies did not travel in omnibuses. There were very few of these convenient vehicles at that time, and those few were filled with dirty straw and were otherwise repellent. Girls, indeed, never went abroad at all without an escort. If she wished to go to Kensington, a young lady of those days would probably have walked down Hyde Park followed by a tall footman in livery. Albert Gate was a recent erection ; the two huge mansions on either side stood alone and untenanted so long that they were called Gibraltar, because it i CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. THE modern young lady who mounts her bicycle or climbs valiantly to the top of an omnibus on her way to attend the College of Music or the high classes in Kensington Square, or, if more frivolously disposed, to visit one of the grand shops in the High Street, has no idea what a different world she surveys from the one that would have met her view had she had the misfortune to be born in the previous generation, when bicycles were not and ladies did not travel in omnibuses. There were very few of these convenient vehicles at that time, and those few were filled with dirty straw and were otherwise repellent. Girls, indeed, never went abroad at all without an escort. If she wished to go to Kensington, a young lady of those days would probably have walked down Hyde Park followed by a tall footman in livery. Albert Gate was a recent erection ; the two huge mansions on either side stood alone and untenanted so long that they were called Gibraltar, because it i 2 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE seemed they never would be taken. A shabby old barrack occupied the site of the present building at Knightsbridge, and a little farther down stood a most picturesque old country inn, called the Halfway House, at which the market carts huge waggons piled up with hay, fruit, and vegetables used to stop to refresh man and beast on the way to Covent Garden. There were many more large, country-looking houses, surrounded by gardens and shut in by high walls from the vulgar gaze, than are now left along the Kensington Road. Some have been pulled down to make way for commonplace squares and terraces, or hideous colossal flats. One of these was Gore House, where Lady Bles- sington held her court. I remember often seeing Count d'Orsay in his cabriolet (then the fashionable young man's vehicle) holding the reins in his white- gloved hands, displaying an immense extent of cuff and shirtfront, his crisp curly hair waving in the breeze. A magnificent figure he made as he swept rapidly round the corners, his diminutive tiger bumping up and down on the footboard behind. In 1851, when the Halfway House was pulled down, Gore House was turned into a restaurant by Soyer ; the Albert Hall now stands in majestic respectability on its site, and the solemn strains of the organ have replaced the brilliant sallies of that amusing but un- scrupulous circle. Someone is said to have remarked to Count d'Orsay of his wife : ' What a charming, pensive expression Lady Harriet has!' 1 She owes that to me,' was the reply. EARLY DAYS 3 A high wall enclosed Kensington Gardens. The path all along it, running parallel with Hyde Park, was much more sheltered and secluded than it is now. It was lined with fine old trees, which have long since disappeared ; I remember how I used to stumble over their roots. At the east lodge was a mound which we children used to behold with awe, for we were told that a little boy once broke his leg in trying to climb up it. In those very early days we often met Princess Victoria and her mother in the Gardens. She used to take great notice of my brother, whom she called her ' little favourite ' ; and I remember once our dogs, which we had taken to the Serpentine for a swim, shaking themselves over the dress of Her Royal Highness, to her great amusement. When I was about five years old, I did not take a cold bath with equal philosophy. I had on a new pink pelisse, and I ran away from these streaming dogs backwards and plunged head- foremost into the river ; between the shock and the damage done to my fine clothes, I was completely upset, and wept all the way home. A large corner, now taken into the Gardens, at the western extremity, was then an untidy barrack-yard, and immediately opposite the present lodge to the Park stood a homely brick house which for forty years was the resort of most of the interesting people of the time, English and foreign. It was built by my father, the late Nassau William Senior, about the year 1826. When he first married, Mr. Senior, for the sake of my mother, who thought she could not breathe in the streets of London, took a small house (No. 32) in i 2 4 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Kensington Square, then almost in the country. From its windows they often saw Cobbett working in his garden, and caught a glimpse of Talleyrand limping round the Square. James Mill, also, was a near neighbour ; his more celebrated son John was one of my father's great friends : in my early youth I had the honour of dancing a quadrille with him. Many authors and artists lived then, as now, in Kensington, and there was no lack of society. My father used to frequent the parties of the Duke of Sussex and the Duchess of Kent at the Palace, and at Holland House he was a welcome guest. Callcott, Wilkie, and Sir Thomas Lawrence lived near, and my brother, when a very little boy, sat for one of Lawrence's pictures (the boy playing with a dog), and our own dog Moulsey, a fine Norfolk spaniel, for one of Wilkie's. Periodical balls were given at the King's Arms (the site of which ancient hostelry is now occu- pied by a sky-high new hotel), and in it was kept a sedan-chair, in which I remember going with my brother, some time in the dark ages, to a children's party. The house at Kensington becoming too small for the family, my father took a piece of ground, which in his walks to and fro had struck him as an eligible site, and built upon it the house to which I have already alluded, opposite the Park. Neither money nor pains were bestowed on the outside. My father never appre- ciated the beauties of the modern villa, and certainly No. 13, Hyde Park Gate had no claim to the name, although, in a sarcastic article written by some political opponent, Mr. Senior was described as ' dictating from his villa at Kensington.' EARLY DAYS 5 There could not be a more delightful situation, the Park and Gardens in front and the real country behind. There is a miniature of my brother and myself as little children, sitting by an open window, through which is a lovely country view, with the Surrey hills in the distance. This was the view from our back drawing-room ; every inch of it is now covered by bricks and stucco. The road which divided us from the Park was very cheerful in those pre-railroad days. The turnpike was just below, and every evening at eight the mails assembled and halted in front of our nursery windows. The gay red liveries, the guards blowing their horns, the prancing horses, were a never-failing delight to the little people within, and almost made up for the flatness of going to bed. Before the house was quite finished my father took us all to St. Leonards, and it was there that, when I was about two, the event occurred which is my first recollection in life. I was lying before the fire, with my doll in my arms, my nurse having left the room for a few minutes, when a live coal jumped out and settled in my neck. I remember well, strange to say, not the pain, but the hubbub which ensued, and the potato-parings which were tied round my neck with a red bandana hand- kerchief, and being afterwards set upon my mother's bed for inspection. The next few years seem to me to have been chiefly spent in the garden at Hyde Park Gate. It was an enchanting playground. The small plot in front was uninteresting ; a damp gravel passage connected it with the garden at the back. This passage was not 6 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE without its charm, for in one corner stood the tap whence we filled our watering-pots and proceeded to soak our pinafores and flowers. Of flowers, however, there were few, for my father loved his trees and creepers, which grew with astonishing rapidity and overshadowed the borders. There was no attempt at the sort of gardening we aim at in the present day ; the wide lawn and shady trees were the only attractions, consequently there was little to spoil. It was the scene of our revels, in which we were aided and abetted by our next-door neighbours and earliest playfellows, the children of Sir James Stephen, of the Colonial Office, and their friend Frederick Gibbs, all more or less distinguished in after-life. My nearest contemporary was the late Judge, at that time a charming little boy with long fair hair curling over his shoulders. One day we had a grand siege. The gardener had tyrannically locked up our dogs in the lower part of the garden, which was enclosed within high walls. We battered the door ; it would not give way. At length two or three of the boys, encouraged by the barking and howling of the prisoners, climbed over the wall and brought the victims triumphantly down in their arms. On another occasion my brother thought of a splendid piece of mischief. The beer-barrel stood somewhere in the back premises, likewise some empty soda-water bottles, which he filled with the intoxicat- ing beverage. We sat down comfortably to imbibe, and buried our bottles when we had finished. But, alas ! when we were called in to tea we could not walk straight, and my brother shortly disappeared EARLY DAYS ^ under the tea-table. We were ordered summarily off to bed, and my brother, who had a prodigious memory, had to learn pages of Racine by heart. It used to be a great punishment when we ex- changed the liberty and shade of our garden for a little house at the seaside, whither our mother thought it good to take us every summer, and where my brother and I always got into terrible scrapes for want of something to do and of space to exercise our voices and muscles. When we had got over childish tricks our circle was often enlarged by Lucy Austin, afterwards Lady Duff Gordon. She was older than any of us, and wherever she went she commanded. She was tall, handsome, precocious, and self-confident, but so good- natured and amusing that we submitted willingly to her temporary rule. She used to organize wonderful games, especially charades. On one occasion the word was 'romantic,' and the last scene was to end in an elopement. The lover was bashful, so Lucy donned cloak and hat and showed him how to act his part with the most passionate emphasis and enjoy- ment. One of our principal performers was the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, of Indian celebrity. He was about the same age as our elder boys, and studied with them at King's College. He was full of fun, very witty, and a capital caricaturist. We all suffered at his hands in very droll little sketches, in which my long pig-tails, the fashion in those days, played a conspicuous part. It was not only to the younger members of the family that the neighbourhood of the Stephens was a boon. S MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Sir James (then Mr. Stephen) used to call for my father every morning on his way into town. Another walking-companion was John Stuart Mill. He used to stride up and down our dining-room, as we were finishing breakfast, talking energetically in his calm, measured tones. I remember an account which he gave us of a tour in Italy, which interested me ex- tremely. We lost sight of him, but not altogether, after he married and lived in the country. With the Stephens, on the other hand, although they also left London before I was quite grown up, our intimacy never slackened, and Sir James was so kind as to extend it to the younger generation. He used to say that change of place was a great refreshment to him, and that when a man began to grow old he felt the absolute necessity for looking on the face of Nature. I used to visit them wherever they pitched their tent. Every afternoon in the country we sallied forth for a two hours' walk. This he called winding up the clock. I remember how he used to skim over the ground at Haileybury, his wide-brimmed hat crowned with large ferns to keep off the flies. Every morning he worked in his study with a little National-School boy, who read to him with the most intolerable accent and absence of comprehension. My room was next-door, and I heard the reading going on and wondered how he could endure it. His sight was so bad that his historical studies had to be carried on in this way, but his memory was so accurate that he could point out the volume and even the page to which he wished to refer. He would talk at leisure times by the hour together, in somewhat of a monotone, with his eyes shut, deeply interested and interesting his hearers in his subject. He had a dash of romance which would surprise no reader of his ' Ecclesiastical and Historical Essays.' The epilogue, which does justice to all denominations, and expresses a trust that no human being will be sentenced to eternal damnation, created a great sensa- tion in the orthodox world. It was a subject which constantly engrossed his thoughts. I once heard him say, 'If, as I walk up Fleet Street, I believed that most of the myriads of human beings whom I meet were doomed to perish or suffer everlastingly, I could not endure to live.' He always declared that he should not live beyond his seventieth year the allotted age of man and in his seventy-first year he died, happily before his wife, for he never could have borne her loss. She was a woman calculated to awaken romance in a less imaginative mind than his. Beautiful from her radiant expression, her disposition was angelic. I remember once, when we children were playing in her drawing-room, one of us knocked over the lamp with a crash, which brought Mrs. Stephen in from the adjoin- ing study, where she was writing at her husband's dicta- tion. She gave us a sharp reprimand and went back. We stood repentant and aghast. In a few minutes she returned, her face beaming with kindness, and apologized to us for having lost her temper. We could have worshipped her. She was full of poetical feeling, and shortly before her death she gave my little girl and me such a vivid description of a railway-train gradually approaching and then flashing past in the darkness, that her little listener of four years will never forget it. Malthus was, in early days, a great deal in our house, io MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE but all I remember of him is that he had a cloven palate which impeded his utterance. Blanco White was my brother's tutor and very affectionate and kind to me. I can see him now running to meet me with outstretched arms after a short absence. He played exquisitely on the violin, and I remember his going with my mother to hear Paganini. He had been a Spanish priest, and the book he wrote on his con- version, ' Leucadio Doblado,' is very curious and made a great sensation. A young sister of my father, who had been converted in Rome by Cardinal Wise- man, found the book on the table after she returned to our house. After reading it she exclaimed : ' Who can have written this book, filled with lies ?' ' I did,' replied Blanco White. She was never easy till she got him to talk of it, and give his reasons for changing his opinions. A long stay at Archbishop Whately's completed her cure. [ti ] CHAPTER II. EARLY FRIENDS. WHATELY was the greatest friend my father had ; their intimacy began at college. It had not entered into my father's plans to strive for honours. In a letter to my brother, written many years afterwards, he says : ' My defect was in not having employed the first years of my residence in the studies of the place ; but I was elected* at sixteen years of age, and found the tutor anxious only to make his tutorship a sine- cure. I should have employed my two first years in the preparation for a first class. As it was I did not altogether waste them, for I read a great deal of Latin, French, and English, and some Greek.' He wrote to his father : ' MY DEAR FATHER, ' I have been plucked. I will get first class next term.' And he added a funny little drawing of a boy flinging a lexicon at his tutor's head. * A demy of Magdalen. iz MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE It was in Divinity that he failed. To the question, ' What is the inward and spiritual grace of baptism ?' he replied in the sense but not in the words of the Catechism, and on being reprimanded, he answered that if he had been asked the question when he was a child, he could have replied more accurately. Where- upon he was plucked. He at once engaged the services of Whately, who was then rising into notice as the first private tutor in Logic and Aristotle that the University possessed, and with his assistance and his own inde- fatigable exertions achieved the unprecedented triumph of winning at the very next public examination the highest class of honours after a few months' appli- cation. He wrote to his tutor : ' DEAR WHATELY, ' I had got ready plenty of fine, or rather strong (for they would have been true), speeches to express how truly I felt my obligations to you, but the present event has spoiled all the need of them, for, solely owing to you as it is, it is what only the highest talents and the most friendly zeal in a tutor could have procured. . . . You may suppose how many people I have to astonish with the news, so for the present adieu. ' Believe me, most sincerely and gratefully yours, ' N. W. S.' For more than half a century the pupil and master remained firm friends, and they died within a few months of each other. Our house was Archbishop Whately's home whenever he wished to come to EARLY FRIENDS 13 London, and I cannot remember the time when his tall, gaunt figure was not familiar to me. He was very kind to us children (he was my brother's god- father), but he had a way of holding us over his head with outstretched arms ; this he called turning us into weathercocks, and it used to frighten me to death. When at that sublime altitude he would turn us round and round, and the next minute he would be crawling over the floor and growling like a lion. I liked it much better when he pretended to have a little pig squealing and running under his handkerchief, or taught us to make boomerangs, and told us about the trees and beasts and birds in Australia. I fancy that his deep interest in the colonies was partly caused by his anxiety to suppress transportation. One of his favourite occupations was budding trees. We had two mulberry trees, which, together with a copper beech and a weeping ash, formed the glory of our lawn. We owed the second mulberry tree to the Archbishop's skill. A large branch of the parent tree was for some time subjected to treatment, and then cut off and transplanted. It grew and flourished, and was a complete success. He was utterly regardless of appearance. If he came to us without a servant, and perceived a hole in his black stocking, he would put a piece of sticking- plaster on the corresponding part of his leg to conceal the defect. He used to sit by my side at breakfast, balancing his chair, with his legs twisted into some extraordinary knot which could not be untied in a hurry, playing with the tea-leaves, and scattering them over the table, and setting down his wet cup on the i 4 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE cloth so as to make a succession of little rings totally engrossed in the conversation that was going on. I never knew anyone drink so much tea except Dean Stanley. They would both gather round the tea- table and imbibe cup after cup till the tea became so attenuated that they could relish no more. I often thought that Whately resembled Dr. Johnson in other respects besides his capacity for tea and talk. He had the same good sense, the same power of picturesque illustration, the same sincere piety, but entirely without the old doctor's bigotry and super- stition he used to say that children were taught intolerance from their earliest years in the nursery rhyme : ' There was an old man who wouldn't say his prayers, Take him by the left leg and throw him downstairs ' the same originality, the same generosity, for he was known more than once to give ^"1,000 to a deserving object, although he declared that he had never given a penny to a beggar. His rule was to spend the whole of his official income on his diocese. He lived as a gentleman with about .3,000 a year might live. He had a house, Redesdale, a few miles from Dublin, as well as the palace on Stephen's Green, and in neither was there the least show or luxury. After Mrs. Whately 's death he gave up Redesdale and took a much smaller house, called Roebuck. When my father and I visited him there in 1862 we could not find the place, and asked several passers-by for the Archbishop's house, but all professed ignorance. At last we asked for Archbishop Whately's house. EARLY FRIENDS 15 1 Ah ! is it Misther Whately ye mane ?' was the reply ; and we were shown it at once. His theological works read somewhat cold in the present day. He was not a mystic, but rested faith entirely on reason. There never were such excellent schoolbooks as those he compiled for the National schools, avoiding all topics likely to disturb the consciences of Protestants or Roman Catholics. Archbishop Murray and he were excellent friends, but since the death of that prelate a special history has been used in all the Roman Catholic schools. In it Philip of Spain is described as one of the best and wisest kings of his time, Mary Queen of Scots as ' not only innocent, but holy'; James II. as 'the kind and good Duke of York, truthful, generous, and affectionate, the idol of his people'; Queen Mary II. ' was cruelly treated by her husband, William III., the inventor of blood-money, and the patron of Jonathan Wild.' He wrote a striking book called ' Historic Doubts,' in which he set forth the many reasons that could be adduced for disbelieving in the individuality of Napoleon Bonaparte, as plausible as those that may be given for denying the individuality of Christ. Excel- lent as were his writings, Whately's conversation was still more remarkable. Some short sentences have been preserved, such as : ' In a dark mind, as in a dark room, enemies may lie down in different corners with- out their presence being known. Bring in the light, and they instantly rise and fight till the one expels the other. The inconsistency of conduct which arises from the co-existence in the mind of opposite opinions is not a moral but an intellectual defect : it can be 1 6 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE remedied only by bringing in the light.' Again, ' Honesty is the best policy, but he who is honest from this motive is not an honest man.' ' A man is not a pig because he is born in a pigstye.' Many of such aphorisms are to be found in his editions of Bacon, of Paley, in his ' Logic and Rhetoric,' and in the selections from his commonplace book ; and some of his conversations are recorded in my father's journals in Ireland.* He was accused of quoting only from his own and his friends' works. His capacity for friendship was so great that he was, perhaps, inclined to overvalue his friends' doings and writings, and his own life was too full of action and duty to leave much time for general reading. This was one cause of his originality, and an original man is apt to repeat him- self. He was fond of puzzling his readers with riddles, such as : ' Why does it snow more in the night than in the day?' 'What is that which is made larger by being cut at both ends ?' and the old puzzle of the snail crawling up the wall. The Deceased Wife's Sister Bill was at that time a burning question, of which and the Gorham controversy one got so tired that one was inclined to echo the words of a lady who wished that ' Gorham would marry his wife's sister and have done with it.' The Archbishop was against the prohibition, as it was, he said, ' inventing a new sin.' He reproved me one Sunday for asking him if he was going to hear a certain preacher by saying he was 'going to attend public worship.' A lady once asked him if he was not very much out of heart, considering how much he had laboured for Ireland, that so little * Published in 1868 (Longmans). EARLY FRIENDS 17 improvement was effected. He replied that we were 'ordered to fight, but not to conquer.' He revelled in Scott's and Miss Austen's novels and in narrative poetry : lyrical, introspective poetry was not in tune with his active, healthy mind. Although his conver- sation was full of wit and anecdote, he seldom or never made one laugh. He must have been deficient in humour, and yet I never knew anyone appreciate as he did the delicate humour of Miss Austen's novels. Nothing pleased him better than to get a new disciple to whom to read them. He delighted in strange, true stories. There was one in which he took a special interest, as it presented a curious problem : whether it be a woman's duty under all circumstances to live with a husband beneath her in mind and habits. It was at breakfast one day in Hyde Park Gate that the story was told and discussed ;* the party present, besides our own family, consisted of Mme. Mohl and Mme. and Mile, de Peyronnet. The heroine of the story was a woman in humble life, who married when very young a soldier, and was wrecked with him on the coast of India. All the crew and passengers were supposed to have been lost except this one woman and an officer who saved her. She was very beautiful, and he educated and married her. In time she again became a widow and returned to England. Her second husband had left her all his money ; she was still very charming, and she was well received by his relations. One day her maid told her that she was going to be married to a discharged soldier ; the mistress approved, * This story is told in Mr. Hare's ' Story of My Life,' but it is wrongly attributed to Bishop Wilberforce. 2 1 8 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE and asked to see the suitor. When he was introduced, after looking steadily at him for some minutes, she went upstairs and fetched a shawl. ' Do you know that shawl ?' she asked. 'Yes,' he replied, 'I gave it to my wife when I married.' ' I am your wife !' she exclaimed. She took him back, he drank away his senses, squandered her fortune, and finally died, after making her life miserable. The discussion which followed was very animated. The Archbishop maintained that she was right ; that she had no business to consider her own happiness ; that the only worthy object for us all is to do our duty, and that when we have reached the end of this journey of life it will matter little whether we have travelled in a first-class carnage or plodded our way wearily on foot. Mme. Mohl was open-mouthed on the other side. She declared that no woman ought to degrade herself ; that she ruined, not only her own life, but the lives of her husband and maid, who would have done very well if she had held her tongue and let them marry each other. She and the Archbishop went into all sorts of moral questions, and we were all very much excited. Mme. Mohl wrote to me afterwards : ' It was a memorable conversation . . . the trimming' o I got for my immorality in declaring that she was a goose, and should have kept it to herself; and your leaving me in the lurch, instead of saying what you thought that she had no right to keep her second husband's money to maintain the first with. It was a fine story !' EARLY FRIENDS 19 Few people know that the Archbishop wrote one of the best of modern fairy-tales in a delightful child's book by Mrs. Whately, called, ' Reverses ; or, The Fairfax Family.' The tale is called ' Norval,' and describes a shepherd lad, disgusted with his position, who falls asleep in a fairies' ring, and wakes up to witness their revels. He longs to be a fairy, and is admitted to their band. The complete disillusion, and his endeavours to regain his mortal state, are admirably told and very suggestive. We had the happiness of knowing Sydney Smith, the most genial, witty, and humorous of men. I have not, however, much to say about him, although he was frequently at our house, for he died just before I came out. He, however, took a great deal of notice of us children. He used to pretend that my father did not appreciate me. ' " De minimis non curat lex," which being interpreted,' he said, 'meant, "The Master in Chancery does not care for Minnie." In 1837 we all went to Combe Florey, and he gave me the ' Mysteries of Udolpho ' to read, which absorbed me almost as much as they did Catharine in ' Northanger Abbey.' There was a pony, and the question was which of us, my brother or myself, was to ride it. Our host settled the problem by taking a book and saying that the first letter he came to beginning either of our names was to be that of the winner. We bought of him a beautiful chestnut mare, which I used to ride, and that we called Sydney. I remember his humorous account of how he doctored the villagers ; and I recol- lect his calling one day at Hyde Park Gate when we were decorating our house, and suggesting all sorts of 2 2 20 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE amusing subjects illustrating the Poor Law and Political Economy for adorning the walls and ceiling. His fun was absolutely spontaneous ; he enjoyed it as much as his hearers. His cordial manner, the way in which you saw a joke dawn in his face, and his hearty laughter after (never before, for that is fatal) he spoke, added much to the effect of what he said. The subject of all others which engrossed my father's thought in early days was the state of the poor. Many years afterwards, when I was riding with him in the green lanes round Hampstead (now, alas ! covered with houses), he said to me, ' When I was twenty-five I resolved to reform the English Poor Laws.' His early life in his father's parsonage had shown him the demoralising effect of the existing system, and in 1830, a few days after Lord Melbourne became Home Secretary, he asked Mr. Senior to inquire into the subject of combinations and strikes. The result was a Report,* which is still in the annals of the Home Office. The Royal Commission for the Amendment of the Poor Law, of which my father was the leading member, soon followed, and caused a complete change in the system of relief. A knighthood and a sum of money were offered to him, and refused. He also declined a Canadian Governorship, but he was very grateful to Lord Melbourne for appointing him one of the twelve Masters in Chancery in 1836. It was not an increase of income but of leisure, which he valued far more. He was at that time a successful conveyancer. His * Its substance is contained in an article in ' Historical and Philo- sophical Essays' (Longmans), 1865. EARLY FRIENDS 21 only legal instructor had been Lord Chancellor Sugden, who has often told me of the visit to his chambers of a middle-aged clergyman and his son, whom he offered as a pupil. The offer was accepted, and from a pupil my father soon became an intimate friend. The work entrusted to him was done so well and so quickly that his teacher acquired a high opinion of his talent, and when Mr. Sugden took silk Nassau Senior succeeded to a great part of his business. He was welcomed to Sugden's house, where his dislike of dancing, music and cards was sometimes embarrassing to his hostess ; but he was always ready to talk, and still more to listen to any conversation worth hearing. The career of Lord St. Leonards was a very suc- cessful one. He was born in humble life, and rose to the very top of his profession. I once asked him to describe his day. ' Well,' he replied, ' I will tell you what my life was as Attorney-General. I will begin at 3 a.m., when you may imagine me staggering with fatigue up the steps of my house in Guildford Street on my return from the House of Commons, to find Lady Sugden waiting for me with a cup of tea. I then used to go to bed, with strict injunctions to be called at six. My briefs were brought to me, and I set to work for a couple of hours. I then had breakfast, and slept for a short time before I had to attend consulta- tions. At ten o'clock I went into court, and there remained until it was time to go to the House, where I stayed answering questions until the small hours of the morning. Often I was called upon to make a speech at the end of the debate, and so da capo to the next day of toil and trouble.' 22 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE On one occasion when he was Lord Chancellor he had to reply to the Duke of Newcastle, who annoyed him by speaking of him constantly as a lawyer. He got tired of this, and said : ' I do not understand why the noble Duke is constantly calling me a "lawyer": I have never called him a "statesman." He went through all this labour although he was subject to severe attacks of illness. Even these did not permanently injure him, for on his ninetieth birth- day I took my little children to Boyle Farm and heard him make a speech to the school-children of the neigh- bourhood, to whom he gave a fete in commemora- tion of the event, and he lived four years afterwards. He told me an amusing story of his being shut up in the great lunatic asylum near Dublin when he was Irish Chancellor. All went well till he tried to get out, when the officials strenuously opposed his departure. ' But I am the Lord Chancellor,' he said. ' Ah, I dare say,' was the answer ; ' we have a many Lord Chan- cellors here !' I delight in pomps and vanities. I saw as a child the Coronation procession from Crockford's, in St. James's Street, and, next to our Queen, I was most interested in Marshal Soult. I used to enjoy Her Majesty's Drawing- Room, but above all other pageants I liked the opening of Parliament, before the lamented death of the Prince Consort always performed by the Queen herself. My father's position as Master in Chancery the Masters used to sit in turn on the woolsack, and carry messages from one House to the other enabled him always to obtain for me a Peer's ticket. The very first time was on the occasion of EARLY FRIENDS 23 the Queen announcing her marriage. The Bishop of Llandaff (Copleston) gave me his ticket under protest, for he said that he could not approve of a little girl being taken to witness the, in his opinion, indelicate act of a lady announcing her own marriage. Luckily, my father did not agree with him, and I shall never forget the splendid scene. It was in the old House of Lords, much smaller than the present. I sat up in a little gallery over the woolsack between the beautiful Lady Dufferin and Miss Pitt, a very handsome maid of honour. They were exceedingly kind to me. I remember well the Queen's sweet voice and that the paper shook in her hand. By her side stood Lord Melbourne repeating inaudibly we could see his lips move every word she uttered. Although never again on such an interesting occa- sion, I never tired of the ceremony. The gorgeous new House of Lords, the Peers in their robes, every lady in her finest dress, shown up by the gleams of sunshine through the high stained windows, and then the cannon which announced her Majesty's departure from Buckingham Palace, followed by the flourish of trumpets when she arrived, and the distant sound of the band. At length the doors were flung open, and in came the Ministers bearing the royal insignia, followed by the Queen hand-in-hand with her Consort, and the attendant ladies behind a real' fairy-tale Queen, with a crown on her head, and a long scarlet-and-ermine train, which was arranged over the back of the throne. A pause ensued, during which the Queen had always to be reminded to say, in her silver tones, ' I pray you, my Lords, be seated.' Then the gentlemen of the 24 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE House of Commons came clattering in like schoolboys escaped from school, and when at last silence was obtained the Queen read as no one else could read the Royal Speech. There was reality as well as romance and splendour in the scene, and I have never seen any other to come up to it. In the year when he was appointed Master in Chancery my father made an addition to his house. He added three rooms twenty-four feet square opening out of the old drawing-room, dining-room, and bed- rooms. He did all his writing in the old dining-room, now lined with books, and called the library. He was so thoroughly social that he liked us all to be sitting in the room, or, at any rate, to be running in and out of it. I remember once bursting in when I was a child, and seeing a short, dark, stout gentleman, whom my father called the Comte de Survilliers, alias the ex-King Joseph of Spain. On that occasion he told my father, after a eulogy of Napoleon Bonaparte, that his brother was ' plut6t bon homme que grand homme.' Over the addition to the hall was a large conserva- tory opening into the new drawing-room, which we called the music-room, and later on most eloquent music was discoursed within its walls. A shutter, composed of a large mirror, was drawn in the evening across the window looking into the Park. There never were rooms better adapted for society. Lady Duff Gordon used to say that ours was the best house she knew to meet a friend or avoid a bore. Sydney Smith called it the chapel-of-ease to Lans- downe House, where everyone with any claim to EARLY FRIENDS 25 distinction or celebrity gathered round Lord Lans- downe the Maecenas of the age. The furniture of our rooms was by no means aesthetic. There were some good pictures and statues, quantities of books, and comfortable chairs and sofas ; but the sofas stood straight instead of askew, and an ottoman occupied the middle of the room. A rather large table, on which we had tea, stood just within the opening into the next room, and many a pleasant talk we had round it. Everyone is afraid now of drinking tea at night, but in those days, when hours were earlier, the men as they came up from dinner were sure to gather round the tea-table and the tea-maker. Ours was one of the first houses where afternoon tea was an institution. It was the custom to ride all through the spring and summer from five to seven, and when my father came home to fetch me in the afternoon he used to find me drinking a cup of the servants' tea brought to me by my maid. He very soon joined in this agreeable habit, and tea was served regularly at four o'clock. Many of our friends found this out, and we had very merry little meetings at that hour before our daily ride. The ride in Rotten Row was a much more important function than it is now. Afternoon parties were rare, and were voted bores, and ladies' days of reception, except Sunday afternoons, were unknown. Three times a week a military band played to a motley, as well as a fashionable, audience, on foot, in Kensington Gardens, just before the bridge over the Serpentine, and the riders used to congregate round on the edge 26 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE of the road. Often the Queen in her carriage, with her military escort and outriders in scarlet liveries, would sweep through the Row, and the riders form into a hedge on either side, their horses reduced to unwilling obedience. Then the band would strike up ' God save the Queen !' and loyalty was stirred in every breast. Nowhere but in London could such a scene take place such an assemblage of fine horses and men and women completely at home in their saddles. Any attempt at show-off was in bad taste. The Emperor, at that time Prince Louis Napoleon, used to mount a fiery steed which pranced and curvetted down the Row, and excited nothing but ridicule. People of all sorts and ages rode : bishops, ministers, politicians, idlers, lawyers, beside the gay motes brought out by the London season. Early in the forties I was promoted to ride with my father, and for more than twenty years we were joined in turn by nearly all the most distinguished men of the day, including Delane, the formidable editor of the Times, and by no one more frequently than Lord Lansdowne, who talked over almost every political question with Mr. Senior. When in London they met several times a week, and when parted they kept up a lively correspondence, of which I have many letters on both sides. They were first drawn together by the new Poor Law Commission, and remained through life the most intimate friends. Lord Lansdowne was like my father in one respect : he preferred listening to talking, but in a small party no one told better stories or was more agreeable. His kindness and courtesy were perfect. He was essentially EARLY FRIENDS 27 a ' Grand Seigneur,' and fulfilled all the demands made by society on those who occupy an exalted position. At Bowood he had a splendid collection of pictures, most of which were chosen by himself, and his London house was also full of treasures. He was exceedingly fond of music, and there never were such concerts as those at Lansdowne House. It was in the palmy days of Italian opera, and Mario, Grisi, Persiani, Lablache, Tamburini, were all heard within the walls of the magnificent concert- room. None but the best singers were admitted to perform. Everybody made a point of being punctual, although the room was never crowded. The Royalties, the Duke of Wellington, and other great grandees sat in front. Presently a thrill went through the audience when Lord Lansdowne entered with Grisi on his arm, followed by the other performers. They always sang their best at Lansdowne House, for they knew how highly they were appreciated by their courteous host. The dinners and evening parties were equally pleasant. Besides all the celebrated people one wished to stare at, one met all one's most agreeable friends. My first great party was at Lansdowne House, and I was introduced to the poet Moore, whose last party it was.* As everybody knows, his cottage was near * A young friend insists upon it that I should say what dress I wore. It was a pale-blue silk, with what was called a Swiss bodice, the sleeves and front laced over white silk. If the party had been a ball I should have worn tarlatan, as young ladies never danced in silk. I had some wheat-ears, in silver and pearls, in my hair, which was in ringlets according to the fashion of the day. I followed my parents on the arm of Lord Glenelg, who had snow-white hair ; and the people around whispered, ' Spring and winter !' 28 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Bowood, where a room was always reserved for him, and called the Poet's Room. My father spent some time of every year at Bowood. There is a fine story of his being busily writing, quite abstracted as usual, in a room full of company, to whom Moore was singing, and the scratch of my father's pen was by no means an agreeable accompani- ment, so one of the guests said, very politely : 1 You are not fond of music, Mr. Senior ?' ' No,' said my father ; ' but it does not disturb me in the least. Pray go on.' It was not until the year 1850 that I was promoted to accompany my father in these interesting visits. The society was composed of the same elements as that at Lansdowne House : statesmen, philosophers, authors, beauties, artists, and distinguished people of all sorts. I remember very few musicians, but probably my father was not invited to the musical parties, as he was absolutely without ear and had to be told when ' God save the Queen !' was played. I remember one visit to Bowood, when the last four blue coats and brass buttons the ordinary dinner-dress in the beginning of this century were present. Our host wore one, and Lord Palmerston and Mr. Byng called in those days Poodle Byng the fourth, I think, was Lord John Russell. Sometimes, at Christmas-time, there was a family party the Howards, Lady Kerry and Mr. Gore, and the Flahaults. M. de Flahault was the father of Lady Shelburne the late Dowager Marchioness of Lans- downe and Mme. de Flahault was daughter of 4 Queenie,' and therefore the grand-daughter of Mrs. EARLY FRIENDS 29 Thrale. On New Year's Day the Calne band came to play in the gallery at dinner-time, and once, when they were playing ' Partant pour la Syne,' I turned to Lord Shelburne, who was sitting next to me, and said that it must be in honour of M. de Flahault (the original of the ' jeune et beau Dunois '). He was sitting on the other side and caught what I said, and replied, ' Et j'en ai le droit puisque c'est pour moi que cela a ete fait.' On one occasion Tom Taylor got up some very amusing charades. Miss Mary Boyle, who was an admirable actress, was the prima donna. The word was Gulliver, and for the whole the late Governor- General of India, then a small boy, was discovered lying asleep, surrounded by Brobdignags of whom Sir Henry Codrington was one (he was six feet five inches, and with a head on the top of his own presented an imposing appearance). In the mornings I generally walked alone with my father, and in the afternoons some drove, but my father and I always joined the troop of riders, who, with Lord Lansdowne at their head, went scouring over the country. Long before my time Miss Edgworth was staying at Bowood with her sister, and on the morning fixed for their departure Lord Lansdowne was handing her into her carriage, and said, with his exquisite urbanity, ' I am sorry you cannot stay longer ;' whereupon she replied, ' Oh ! but, my lord, we can.' The trunks were taken off, the carriage sent away, and the ladies returned, to the consternation of their hosts. There was nothing aristocratic in Lord Lansdowne's appearance. He was small and spare ; he had very 3 o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE bushy eyebrows, and by no means regular features ; but, when he began to speak, his voice, manner, and enunciation proclaimed him the Grand Seigneur which, as I have said, he was. It was curious that he retained the pronunciation of his own early days called Rome, 'Room'; obliged, 'obleeged'; China, ' Chaney,' and so on. The painter Turner's old caretaker does not seem to have been gifted with penetration, for one of Lord Lansdowne's favourite stories was of her calling to him up the area of the house in Queen Anne Street, where Turner stored his pictures, ' Please, be you the cat's-meat man ?' Another of his stories was of driving home in the afternoon from Holland House with the Lord Dudley of those days a singularly absent man, given to talk to himself. When they reached the turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, Lord Dudley began soliloquizing : ' I suppose I must ask this man to dinner. It's a great bore ; I don't want him.' So Lord Lansdowne began in turn : ' I hope I shan't be obliged to dine with this man. It's a great nuisance ; he gives shocking bad dinners.' This consideration would not really have had much weight in Lord Lans- downe's mind, for he told us that, when the French Ambassador, M. de St. Aulaire, left London, the Lansdownes inherited his chef. After a short time the cook gave warning, and, when asked what he had to complain of, said that there was ' nothing against M. and Mme. de Lansdowne ; but they never said anything about the dinners, and no ckefvfho respected himself could stand that.' So they began to praise and blame, and the cook was happy. EARLY FRIENDS 31 Our last visit to Bowood was in the winter of 1862-63. For the last few years, as we drove through what were called the ' Golden Gates ' of the Park, I had not been able to help saying, ' We shall probably never come here again,' and my father answered, rather impatiently, ' You have said that so often that I am quite tired of hearing it.' But this was the last time for host and guest. [3*] CHAPTER III. SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS. MR. SENIOR soon extended his social relations to foreign countries. In 1830 he visited Paris for the first time, and Brussels. He only passed through Paris, but in Brussels, where he already had friends, he made a much longer stay. Many Italian exiles took refuge at that time in Belgium, and of these many were known to us in London. The most distinguished, perhaps, were the Marquis and Marchioness Arconati, who lived in the fine old chateau of Gaesbeck, surrounded by a little court of their countrymen, in which Count Arrivabene was prime minister, and the poet Berchet, Scalvini, and Collegno were the principal courtiers. The Marchesa Costanza was one of the most remark- able and charming women of her time ; her brilliancy eclipsed her husband, who was, however, an able and excellent man. She and her sister, Countess Collegno, belonged to the ancient family of Trotti. She always reminded me of the descriptions of the ladies of the ancien regime, down to her habit of taking snuff, which much astonished my youthful mind. After the amnesty of 1838 the Arconatis returned SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 33 to Piedmont, leaving Gaesbeck to our dear old friend Count Arrivabene, who, as far back as I can remember, used to spend weeks together in Hyde Park Gate, and whom we frequently visited at Brussels and Gaes- beck. I shall never forget the delight of my brother and myself when we first found ourselves in that magnificent old castle ; it seemed to realize our ideas of the fitting abode of 'knights and ladies bright,' derived from the pages of Sir Walter Scott and Meyrick's ' Ancient Armour.' The castle stands on the edge of a steep declivity, looking south and west over a Flemish landscape, highly cultivated, dotted with farmhouses, and greatly resembling the fine Rubens in the National Gallery. To the north and east is a large beech forest ; we used to ramble and lose ourselves in its avenues, and in the never-ending corridors and chambers of the old castle, which is as large as a village. There had originally been six, in our time there were four, huge towers. In one was the drawing-room, a circular room forty feet in diameter ; the walls were ten feet thick, and each window formed a little sitting-room. The castle was inaccessible in bad weather, on account of the horrible state of the roads, at which the inhabitants rejoiced, for otherwise, as they were only five miles from Brussels, they would have been overrun with sightseers. Another of my father's Belgian friends was Quetelet, one of the most distinguished men that the Low Countries have produced. He created the Observa- toire, and was a voluminous writer on science and statistics. Prince Albert, as a youth, was his pupil, 3 34 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE and entertained ever afterwards the most friendly rela- tions with him. He told my father that Prince Albert had the most charming disposition of anyone he had ever known. In 1851 Quetelet visited London, where he was much appreciated. Years before, the Prince had said to him that, if he were a Sovereign, he would despise etiquette, and live with the most cultivated and intelligent people of the country. When Quetelet visited his old pupil in England, he asked the Prince if he found himself able to carry out his intention. ' Not altogether,' he replied. When at Brussels, and also in London, my father had frequently the honour of being sent for by King Leopold, whose conversation* he greatly enjoyed. Quetelet, who was intimate with both Princes, drew the following comparison between them : ' The King has a remarkable extent of knowledge and clearness of judgment, and he has the great advantage of per- fect self-reliance. Prince Albert scarcely does justice to his own superiority. He is too modest : he seems not to be aware of his own talents and knowledge. The King never forgets his.' ' I ventured,' Mr. Senior replied, ' when I had an audience from the King, to talk to him as I should to any other man for whose information and ability I had a great respect. I sometimes asked questions, .and did not always agree with him ; in fact, I was so much interested that I forgot that my interlocutor was royal.' 'You were quite right,' rejoined Quetelet, 'and the length of your audience is a proof.' * Published in the ' Conversations with Thiers, Guizot,' etc. SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 35 My father and mother spent almost all the legal vacations abroad, and took us children with them. My mother had a fancy for German waters, and usually started off with us in July, leaving my father to follow. We travelled very leisurely, in our own carriage, stopping whenever my mother felt tired, whereby we made acquaintance with many out-of-the- way places and horrible inns. Not long before our Queen's marriage we went to Carlsbad. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Prince Albert were there, and I had the honour of dancing with the Prince at a ball given by his father, who was, of course, extremely civil to the English, ' and particularly asked my mother to bring me, although it was long before I had any right to appear at a grown-up ball. Prince Albert was the handsomest young man I ever saw. There were a great many interesting people at Carlsbad. Lady William Russell, the Austins, Listers, Michel Chevalier, and others. To me the most interesting were a Polish family, the Mierjejewskis. The Count owned estates as big as Saxony, but took care to be as little as possible in his own country. The Countess was never in the same place as her family. The Czar Alexander I. had been a great friend of hers, and he begged her, so we were told, never to cut the nail of the little finger of her left hand, but to keep it intact in remembrance of him. We fell in with her once at Dresden, and I tried hard to see that little finger, but never succeeded : it was always hidden within her shawl. The daughters, who always lived with their father, were charming, 32 3 6 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE especially the younger, Constance ; she was very beautiful and graceful, and when she spoke of the wrongs of Poland her eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed, and she looked inspired. I was completely fascinated by her. We went again the next year to Carlsbad, and in succeeding years to Marienbad, Franzesbad, Toplitz, Kissengen, and on the way we visited many small German towns Nuremberg, Aschaffenburg, Bam- berg, Bayreuth, Brunswick, Fulda, Cassel, etc. We had plenty of time to survey the country ; at every post-house ' Gleich, gleich ' meant that we should get horses in about an hour. At one place a crowd collected round us, and when we asked the reason we were told that they had seen Lord Palmerston's name on our passport, and wished to see that ' beriihmter man,' as they supposed my father was he. At that time our Foreign Secretary was a terror to the Continent. I am very glad of the recollections of those days. Does anyone now go to see the sun rise from the top of the Brocken, or the black splash on the wall .where Luther flung the inkstand at the devil ? I fancy Bayreuth even is only visited when the operas are going on, when crowds congregate and lodgings are at fabulous prices. I did not, however, enjoy myself much at the time, for the irregular hours and want of sleep and food made me ill after a week or two. It was better when I grew older, and I remember the two months we passed at Dresden with great pleasure. My seven- teenth birthday was spent there, and at last I was SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 37 treated as a grown-up person, the summit of my ambition. We came in for the very end of Schroder Devrient's career, and thrilled over the ' Huguenots ' and ' Fidelio.' Music and painting can be enjoyed in perfection in that pretty capital : excellent concerts for about sixpence, and the best places at the opera for two or three shillings. The picture-gallery, although small, contains the finest picture in the world, the ' Madonna di San Sisto,' and the ' Cristo della Moneta,' the most dignified representation of our Saviour that I know. We were acquainted with many German families, the Von der Grcebens, the Krusens, and the Von Krauses. The latter lived in the same house with us, and the younger daughter, Louise, became my intimate friend. It was at Dresden that we first knew Mr. and Mrs. Robert Noel. They had not long been married, and were the handsomest couple possible. He was a very clever man, but he committed the error of entering no regular profession. He lived abroad, knew Metternich and all the foremost men in Germany, and spent his time in the brilliant society of Vienna, until he fell in love with and married the Baroness Haitzinger, who was a Chanoinesse and always wore the cross of her order. Her voice was as beautiful as her face, and it was delightful to hear her and Louise von Krause sing. The Noels' dearest friends were the Counts von Thun, and they spent an enchanting honeymoon of fifteen or twenty years in a rose-covered cottage in the Saxon Switzerland, close under the gates of the Thuns' Castle. When he began to grow old Mr. Noel longed for a more active life in his own 38 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE country, and they came to London. It was a sad change. A small house in South Kensington is not like a cottage in the Saxon Switzerland, and although they were both very attractive, society is not easy with a very narrow income in London. He wrote a book on phrenology, but that science had gone out of fashion, and he contributed several interesting articles on German politics and statesmen to various maga- zines which it would be interesting to recover. He was a near relation of Lady Noel Byron, and saw much of that family, All who knew him and his charming wife were proud to be numbered among their friends. From Dresden we went to spend a few days with the Count and Countess zu Solms Wildenfels (whose acquaintance we made at Marienbad) in the neighbour- hood of Zwickau. He was a mediatized Prince, a nephew of the Duchess of Kent. A man with a sword always stood behind his chair at meals, in token of his sovereignty. We breakfasted at half past seven, rambled about all the morning in an exquisitely beautiful country, dined at two, and drove every afternoon at full gallop up and down precipices in carriages that seemed to be coming to pieces, drawn by horses as rough as bears over roads that would have done dishonour to an Indian settlement Then home to tea at seven. The house was full of young people ; it was difficult to discover their relationships. The Countess was her husband's niece, and consequently first cousin to her stepchildren. From seven to nine we all, old and young, indulged in very noisy games blind-man's SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 39 buff, hunt the debtor (a German form of hunt the slipper), forfeits, etc. Supper at nine, and then games again till eleven, when each gentleman gave his arm to a lady, and we all marched in solemn procession upstairs to our bedrooms, where our cavaliers took leave of us in the middle of the room with a profound bow, on which we dropped a deep curtsey. We seemed to be living in the last century ; it was a most amusing and interesting visit, and our hosts were as kind as possible. The peasantry round Zwickau were very primitive. The women wore a very ugly, curious costume a sort of helmet and breastplate, and a skirt hardly reaching to their knees.* It was my great desire to cross the Alps, and I attained my wish in 1846. Our carriage was put on the steamboat at Cologne (I suppose no one goes up the Rhine in that manner now), and we steamed in two days to Basle. We paid a delightful visit to the Marcets at Malagni, and saw many of our Swiss friends then as now, bearing the names of Marcet, De la Rive, Prevost, Haldimand. There was, happily, no railroad over the Mont Cenis, or we should have missed the interesting experience of the gradual change in the vegetation as we climbed slowly, higher and higher, up the mountain until we reached the region of perpetual snow, the pine - trees, and the green tarn at the top. Thence we had a magnificent view of the plain of Lombardy, bathed in the rich glow of the setting sun. Rushing down the zig-zag road at full speed to Susa was a delicious sensation, and at last we were in Italy. * I am told that this dress is still worn at Zwickau. 40 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE We reached Turin next day. Here we had a delightful time. Our old and agreeable friend Signer Prandi, who, until the amnesty, had spent several years of exile in London, was devoted to us, and took us to see all the sights. We went to a room in the palace, and saw the Royal Family pass through on their way to mass. I shall never forget the face of Charles Albert. It was the saddest and most interesting I ever beheld. Three years afterwards he died of a broken heart. The society of Turin was at that time most agree- able; it was small, but not provincial, and there was a youth, a freshness, and a hope about it, produced by the feeling that the deliverance of Italy from the Austrians was at hand, and would be mainly effected by the rulers of Piedmont. We had many friends ready to welcome us, especially the Arconatis, and the famous Minister, Camille Cavour. We had long known him, for, when quite young, in the year 1836, he made my father's acquaintance on his first visit to England and Ireland. He came again a few years later, and I remember well how much my father was struck by his intelligence, and how I despised a very clever lady who said he was common- place. He was not imposing in appearance : he was short and thick, and always wore spectacles ; but his bright, expressive countenance, his delicate, girlish complexion, in which the colour came and went with every emotion, arrested attention at once, and his charming manners completed the favourable im- pression. He and my father took equally to each other. SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 41 An interesting pamphlet appeared two years ago, consisting of Cavour's letters to Mme. de Circourt. Mr. Senior's name is constantly mentioned. Writing in 1841, Cavour says apropos of an article on Ireland in the Edinburgh Review : 'II est d'un de mes amis, M. Senior, 1'esprit le plus eclaire de la Grande Bretagne. C'est I'economiste par excellence d'Outre- Manche. Pour mon malheur j'avais dans mon coin compose aussi un article sur 1'Irlande sans me douter qu'un homme aussi superieur que M. Senior preparait un travail sur ce sujet dans des vues absolument pareilles aux miennes. Ou peut m'accuser d'avoir copie M. Senior ce qui m'affligerait assez, ne con- naissant rien de plus digne de mepris que les hommes mediocres qui veulent se parer des pensees des intelligences superieures.'* It is interesting to find that the views expressed by my father coincided with those of this remarkable foreigner, and also to notice his modesty in describing himself as an 'homme mediocre.' In another letter he says, speaking of Michel Chevalier, ' Depuis que vous m'avez assure qu'il etait tres lie avec mon ami Senior, je n'ai plus pour lui le meme eloignement.'f * 'It is by a friend of mine, Mr. Senior, the most enlightened mind in Great Britain. He is the chief political economist across the Channel. Unfortunately for me, I had in my little corner also composed an article on Ireland, without suspecting that so superior a man as Mr. Senior was writing on the subject with exactly the same views as mine. I may be accused of copying Mr. Senior, which would greatly distress me, as I know of no more contemptible sight than that of mediocre men adorning themselves with the ideas of writers of acknowledged distinction.' t ' Since you told me that Chevalier was very intimate with my friend Senior, I am no longer prejudiced against him.' 42 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE With this strong liking and appreciation on both sides we naturally saw a great deal of Camille Cavour in England, France, and Italy. He introduced us to his brother, the Marquis Cavour ; and Count Pollon, the Sardinian Minister in London, made us acquainted with his sister, Countess Cristiani, and his brother, the Chevalier Pollon, and their respective families. In the summer most of the Italians are in ' villeg- giatura,' and they invited us to spend long days at their beautiful country houses, a little way out of Turin. The young ladies were very charming, more free than French ' demoiselles ' at that date. We used to roam about all day, and dance all the evening, and not get back to Turin till late at night. The most remarkable of the girls we knew was the daughter of Marquis Cavour, of whom her uncle Camille wrote, ' She is her father's and my greatest treasure on earth.' She afterwards married the son of Marquis Alfieri Sostegno, another very delightful acquaintance we made in Turin. There was a great deal of English blood at that time mingled with that of the Northern Italians, for a large contingent of the army was always quartered at Nice, where many English went, as now, for the winter, and several of the beautiful Italian ladies we saw in Piedmont were originally English. We found this also at Genoa, whither we proceeded leisurely in our carriage after quitting, with great regret, Turin. Genoa was en fdte, for there was a congress of ' Scienziati,' and the representatives of all nations were gathered together. We had the opportunity of seeing the inside of many fine palaces, decorated with SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 43 flowers and lighted up like day, and of admiring the beautiful ladies blazing with diamonds. There was one especially, a Marchesa Balbi, who was lovely I think most lovely one night when she left off her jewels and appeared in a simple wreath of roses, and also when we met her in the day walking about, her head covered with a white 'mezzaro,' such as is worn ordinarily by the women of Genoa. There was also a Marchesa Luisa Pallavicini, who was very beautiful, in the usual Italian style splendid dark eyes, and a clear white complexion ; whereas Mme. Balbi was tall and fair, with chestnut hair quite English - looking. On another night the Pallavicini Palace was all thrown open. In the Marchesa's bedroom was a costly toilet-table, the brushes, etc., all of gold, and on it a copy of one of Bulwer's novels, set open at the flyleaf, with the following inscription to our hostess in the author's handwriting : ' I long again to see your fair skies and to gaze once more on beauty such as Italy alone can produce.' There was one difficulty in getting about : a thunderstorm raged incessantly. However, we got quite used to it, and thought nothing of going to balls in thunder, lightning, and in rain. One night, when, as an exception, it was tolerably fine, there was a general illumination, and we went on board a Dutch man-of-war in the harbour to see the effect, which was marred to me by a grand salute fired from our vessel, which shook us to pieces, and deafened us for hours. We made two great friends in Genoa at this time, Marquis Sauli and Mr. Henry Bowyer. Sauli became 44 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Piedmontese Minister at our Court. When I pub- lished my father's 'Journals in France and Italy,' he gave me the short biographical notices of Italian states- men which are signed ' S.' in the notes. We revisited Italy in the following year (September, 1847), crossing the Brenner and Ampezzo Passes. Desperate, incessant rain pursued us all through the Bavarian Alps to Innsbruck, and on to Cortina, and spoilt our pleasure in the magnificent scenery. We found the inhabitants of Cortina equally exasperated, and a grand procession took place in the evening to propitiate the patron saint, and induce him to change the weather. It met with complete success ; from that time the rain ceased, and we had splendid sun- shine during all the rest of the autumn. At Venice we fell in again with the Scientific Con- gress, which enabled us, as at Genoa, to see the interior of palaces that had been shut up for years for instance, the Giovanelli Palace had had no social gathering within its walls for a century. We went to a magni- cent ball there. Nothing can exceed the splendour of these Italian fetes, the enormous size of the reception rooms (when we met the Minghettis at a concert at Lansdowne House the year after, they asked, ' Where are the large apartments?'), the walls covered with gold and brocade, and hung with gorgeous paintings, and filled with beautiful women sparkling with jewels. The dancers, however, struck me as looking old, and as none but married women danced at that time (an exception was made for me as a stranger), there was no natural limit to their dancing. One of the queens of society was an old acquaintance SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 45 of ours, Countess Polcastro Quirini, and at her house we saw all the best Italian society. We also went whenever we liked to her box at the opera. As in all Italian towns, the opera-box was the great focus of society. No one paid much attention to the music, and the box was always filled by a succession of visitors, who talked loudly and volubly. My father, on the strength of his interest in social questions, was enrolled among the ' Scienziati.' Sir Roderick Mur- chison and Sir Frederick Adam were also members. One evening the amphitheatre of Palladio at Vicenza was opened for the first time for a hundred years ; the famous actor, Modena, performed in the 'QEdipus Rex,' and we all went over by the train from Venice. In the same carriage with my father and me were Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Frederick Adam. Murchison was covered with orders, for which Sir Frederick chaffed him unsparingly. But we all bene- fited by his decorations. When we entered the theatre we were taken for very grand personages, and con- ducted, with many bows, to the front and only row of chairs, and sat next to Marshal Marmont, the Duchess of Angouleme, an Austrian Archduke, and other celeb- rities. We had a programme printed in gold on white satin, and refreshments between the acts, while the great ladies of Venice had to sit behind on most uncomfortable classical stone benches. The scene, in imitation of the ancient Greeks, was solid, and never changed. Modena was a great actor, and we enjoyed it immensely. Our grandeur vanished when we left the theatre : a thunderstorm was raging, and we missed our train, and 46 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE had to pass the night most miserably in the coffee- room of the hotel, for every room was full. Sir Roderick laid a big screen on the ground and reposed upon that, consoling himself with brandy-and- water ; while my father and I had chocolate and two chairs apiece. We were tormented with mosquitoes, and glad when at 6 a.m. we were able to return to Venice. We stayed a day or two at all the beautiful towns in Northern Italy (Vicenza, Verona, Padua, Pavia, Milan), and reached Lecco, the classical ground of the ' Pro- messi sposi ' on September 29. My mother and I took a lovely row on the Lake of Como to Sommariva at night ; it was so hot that I took off my hat. The next day we started over the St. Gothard, and it was piercingly cold, and equally so when we reached Lucerne. I have never appreciated Switzerland ; in consequence of travelling through it on returning from Italy, I missed the poetry, the warmth, and the colouring of the South. Switzerland ought to be -visited alone and in spring. Once again, in November, 1850, we crossed the Mont Cenis over into Italy, and spent some time at Turin, where we saw our old friends and acquaintances, and thence to Genoa, which was in a more sober state of mind than during the Congress. We saw there the Somervilles, and some Sicilian exiles whom we met three years before in Germany, the Princess San Cataldo, who complained bitterly of the dulness of society, and her father, the Duke Serra di Falco, and Prince Butera. As usual, the chief place of resort was the opera, although little attention was paid to the stage. The Duke Serra di Falco lived at Florence, SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 47 where we found him, a few days later, a very con- tented exile. He was a charming old man, and a great favourite. It was difficult to believe that King Bomba thought him a dangerous rebel. We found a great many interesting people at Flor- ence. The great lady in society was Marchioness Lajatico, of the Corsini family, and at her house we saw everyone worth knowing, for, besides being very hospitable, she was very clever and agreeable. No one would receive the Austrians, at that time the hated rulers of Tuscany. The Grand Duke himself was not completely under the ban at least, there were plenty of people at a ball to which we went in the palace and had the honour of being presented by our agreeable Minister, Mr. Scarlett, to the Duke and Duchess. We were all ranged in a circle, and the royal hosts went slowly round trying to say something appropriate to each guest, but not always succeeding. On another evening we went to the Villa Trollope, and were introduced to the venerable novelist, who, with her two sons, inhabited a charming villa in the then new quarter of Florence. We hired horses, and took long rides in the lovely country. I cannot say that these rides were all we could have wished, for the horses were very sorry nags. However, we saw the environs better in that way than from a carriage. The great Italian actress, Mme. Ristori, whom we afterwards knew well in Paris and London, was acting. We had the key of a box lent to us, and my father went and was much pleased, but I was not well enough to accompany him. From Florence we went to Leghorn, and thence in 48 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE a coasting steamer to Naples, where I was taken too ill to go on to Sicily. I revived during the quiet month we spent at Sorrento, in the delightful company of the Tocquevilles and M. Ampere, but fell ill again in crossing the Pontine Marshes. We took voiturier horses to our own carriage, and drove slowly by Capua, Mola di Gaeta, Terracina, and Albano to Rome. It was most beautiful, and a real privilege not to be hurried as travellers now are all through that interest- ing country. We entered Rome by St. John Lateran instead of the modern suburb. I have always rejoiced that I saw Rome before it was swept and garnished, when the cardinals and their retinue lit up the old streets in their purple robes ; and one sometimes met the Pope himself in his splendid carriage drawn by white mules. We saw all the Easter sights, the Holy Father at that time officiating, and were blessed by him from the top of St. Peter's. A few days after we reached Rome our Sorrento friend, M. Ampere, arrived, and it would be impossible to name a more admirable and enthusiastic cicerone. Of the many interesting people we saw (their con- versations are recorded in my father's journals) I think the one who struck us most was the Duke di Ser- moneta. He was said by his fellow-countrymen to be the cleverest man in Rome, and his conversation was original and full of interest, with a keen sense of dry humour. We saw at Rome those who professed the most opposite opinions at a time when the restoration of Pio Nono was the excuse for all sorts of tyrannical measures, certainly without the knowledge of the mild, SOME FOREIGN FRIENDS 49 courteous gentleman who was supposed to be the head of the Government. We were told that my father was followed by a member of the police, whose duty it was to furnish a particular report of all the places and people he visited. It would have been rather a com- fort if we had known it, for my father was a great roamer, and neither the streets nor the Campagna were by any means safe. My pleasure was very much diminished by the touch of fever I caught in the Pontine Marshes. Everything seemed a labour, and it was only the knowledge that I should bitterly regret lost opportunities that made me drag myself about the churches and galleries. I cannot say that the sort of cloud hanging over me seemed to break until, after a horrible passage, in which we were in some danger, from Civita Vecchia to Marseilles, we found ourselves once more on the soil of France. This was our last visit to Italy. [ So] CHAPTER IV. FRIENDS IN PARIS. I SAW Paris for the first time on our way back from Italy in 1847, in the last days of the monarchy, quiet and respectable, with the Tuileries intact (I must own the Place du Carrousel was very untidy), and before the old mediaeval streets were pulled down to make room for a new Berlin. We were fortunate in finding there George, brother of the celebrated American statesman, Charles Sumner. With the latter we had long been intimate. George Sumner was a capital showman, and took my mother and me to see sights of all sorts till we collapsed, exhausted by fatigue and the strain produced by the interest of all around us. At that time we had comparatively few friends in Paris. The Austins were living there for cheapness (no one would do so now), and had a very agreeable circle. M. and Mme. Leon Faucher, the Tocque- villes and Guizots were very kind to us ; likewise M. and Mme. Horace Say and their distinguished son Leon. Horace Say was quite charming. He had a sweet, benevolent countenance, not without shrewd- ness, and delightfully cordial manners. His country- men said he was full of finesse in a good sense. FRIENDS IN PARIS 51 Besides little friendly gatherings, we went several times to the theatre. One night we saw Mile. Plessis at the Gymnase. It was an affecting part, and when she turned up her beautiful eyes and exclaimed * Ma mere !' the audience was affected to tears. I heard a sob behind me, and turned round to see our dear friend Horace Say deeply moved, and consoling himself with pralines. The British Philistine was roused within me, and I could not help laughing, whereupon he murmured in broken accents : ' Mademoiselle n'a point de sentiment.' On another evening I had the delicious treat of hearing and seeing Lablache, Grisi, Mario, and Ronconi in the ' Puritani.' There were no long, dull passages, no distracting discords, as in the operas which find favour in the present day, no second-rate performers, no tremolo to conceal the defects of voices worn out with shouting everything was perfect. These were also the palmy days of Rachel, who was, without exception, the greatest actor I ever saw. If any of the young people of the present day want to know what she was like, they should turn to the admirable description of her as Vashti in the pages of 1 Villette.' I left Paris with great regret, not knowing that we were destined to spend so much time later on in the gay city, and that we should have almost as many friends there as in London. Friendship, indeed, plays a greater part in the lives of foreigners than in ours. They are more expansive ; an interchange of ideas and feelings is a necessity ; social intercourse is not a labour and a trouble, but a relaxation and a delight to them. My father, however, 42 52 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE was as sociable as if he had been born on the other side of the Channel. In the following year (1848) the monarchy, which had seemed to be so peaceably established, fell with a shock which was felt throughout Europe. As soon as the Whitsuntide vacation set him free, my father hastened to visit the scene of the great drama which was being acted in Paris. He came in for the attack on the Assembly, and was so much struck by all he saw and heard that he kept a journal, which was destined to be the first of a series, for in the following spring he went again, and continued to do so every year until his death in 1864. He became extremely popular in Paris ; he was a Membre Cor- respondant of the Institut (one of the five branches of the Academic founded by Richelieu). Many of the distinguished exiles in 1848 and 1851 found almost a home in our house, and were equally hospitable to us in return. In 1849, Leon Faucher was Minister of the In- terior. Like many French statesmen, he began life as a journalist. He also published several works on economical questions ; the most remarkable was his 1 Studies on England.' He was elected Deputy in 1846, but made no mark in the Tribune until 1848, when his speech on the Ateliers Nationaux placed him in the first rank of politicians. He and Mme. Faucher, who was a Pole, were always very kind to us ; we constantly went with them to their official box at the play and opera, and we met many distinguished Poles at their house, besides French people. I had once an amusing interview with Mme. Faucher, FRIENDS IN PARIS 53 illustrating the manner in which marriages are arranged on the Continent. We were both very intimate with Mme. du Quaire, at that time a very handsome widow. Mme. Faucher began by asking if I knew whether Mme. du Quaire intended to marry again. I did not wish to compromise my friend, so I replied that she had no precise intentions (' elle n'a pas de parti pris '). ' Because,' said my visitor, ' I know of a young man who would like to marry her.' ' Does he know her ?' I asked. ' No, but he has heard of her.' ' Well,' I said, ' remember she is a Protestant.' 1 " Justement, il demande une Protestante." If she would meet him at the opera, he would have a rose in his buttonhole ; she might see whether she liked him.' I repeated the conversation to Mme. du Quaire, but I never heard of any sequel to the affair. Leon Faucher was one of the few remarkable men whom Louis Napoleon tried to attach to his Govern- ment. He served under him several times as Minister, but, finding his master incorrigibly absolute, left him in 1852. He died in 1854. M. Wolowski, Mme. Faucher's brother, was a dis- tinguished political economist. He was a most amiable and obliging friend. In 1870 he escaped from Paris during the siege, with great difficulty, on a mission to London. From a fat, round little man, he had become, through starvation and anxiety, thin and white and haggard. One day Sir Louis Mallet saw him at the Athenaeum sitting alone before a most luxurious dinner, but with a sad face, and a tear in his eye. ' Quand je pense,' he exclaimed, ' qu' cette heure-ci ma 54 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE pauvre femme n'a pas de quoi manger. II y a quatre canons qui couchent ma maison en joue.' He had a little grandson, who made the happiness of his life, but the poor little fellow died, and his grandfather did not long survive him. We used often to go to the Lamartines'. He and Mme. de Lamartine never went out, and they re- ceived every evening. We used to meet there many bearded men patriots whom we saw nowhere else. M. de Lamartine was exceedingly handsome, and distinguished both in appearance and manner. Two magnificent large white greyhounds, his great pets, and strikingly like him, wandered about the room. He was always complaining bitterly of poverty, and there was a story that a poor old lady, who admired him very much, brought her savings as a gift to him. She was shown into his dining-room, where he was feeding his dogs with the breast of a chicken. She did not leave her bag of money with him after this experience. In his inner drawing-room was a portrait of himself, with this legend round it : ' Les siecles sont a toi, le monde est ta patrie.' Among our friends abroad there was no one whom my father loved and valued more than Alexis de Tocqueville. He was also one of the earliest. One day in the year 1833, when my father was quietly at work in his chambers, a knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a very young man, who said : ' Je suis Alexis de Tocqueville, et je viens faire votre connaissance.' He had no other intro- duction. FRIENDS IN PARIS 55 Mr. Senior was already well known on the Conti- nent as a social reformer and professor of political economy ; his treatises and lectures had been trans- lated into French, Italian, and German, while Tocque- ville was as yet unknown to fame, for his first great work, the ' Democracy in America,' although written, was not yet published. My father, however, at once perceived the distinction of his visitor, who came frequently to Hyde Park Gate. I do not remember him before his second visit in 1835, in company with his friend M. Gustave de Beaumont, and even then I was more amused with the latter, who had all the fire and gesticulation of a Southerner, while Tocqueville's manner had the sobriety usually characteristic of an Englishman. By this time his book had made a great sensation, and he was received with the warm welcome always accorded in London to recognised literary superiority. My first visit to Paris was, as I have said, with my parents in 1847, and it was then that I was able to appreciate his delightful conversation and exquisite personality. He gave me the idea of extreme delicacy and refinement. Mrs. Grote used to say of him that he was porcelain all through. From the time of his first introduction, and until his death in 1857, Tocqueville kept up a lively correspondence with my father,* and the two friends met both in France and in England. In the winter of 1850-51 the Tocquevilles promised to join us in Italy, and the first person we saw * Published in 1872. ' Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville.' (H. S. King and Co.) 56 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE when we landed at Naples on a blazing hot day (December 6, it really was as hot as June) was Tocque- ville. He and his wife were settled for the winter at Sorrento. She was an Englishwoman, neither rich nor noble, and his family had very much disapproved of the match ; but there never was a happier marriage than their union of twenty-five years. Tocqueville frequently came over to Naples to join in our sight-seeing, and he and I went up Vesuvius together. My father and mother remained at the Hermitage, for they would not walk or submit to be carried up the mountain ; but M. de Tocqueville and I started, each led by a guide with a leathern strap over his shoulder, to which we clung, our feet sinking at every step into burning cinders. Every now and then we halted, exhausted, but our guides cried ' Corraggio,' and on we went. My companion con- fessed afterwards that he was always in hopes of my giving up, but I did not flinch, and we were amply repaid by the glimpse of the infernal regions which we fancied we obtained when we looked down the crater. On January 25 we joined the Tocquevilles at Sorrento. They and Ampere, who arrived soon after- wards, occupied the second story of the Palazzo Belve- dere Guerracino, and the first floor was made ready for us by putting in a fireplace there had not been one in the house when the Tocquevilles arrived. The Palazzo was beautifully placed half-way up a hill about a mile from Sorrento, and from our loggia and terrace we overlooked the orange-covered plain, the white houses of the town, the sapphire sea, Naples, and the dream-like island of Capri in the distance. The air FRIENDS IN PARIS 57 was so pure that we could almost count the houses in Naples. Every day we used to make long expeditions on foot and on donkeys over the mountains. ' Sometimes/ Ampere says, writing of this period, ' we halted in some lovely spot, with the sea spread out before us, and the sky of Naples above us. We rested to take breath, and then resumed our conversations. Tocque- ville's inexhaustible mind, which at no time displayed more activity or more freedom, touched, without undue haste or too rapid transition, but with even flow and infinite variety, one subject after another. They succeeded each other without effort, from the most important discussions down to the most piquant anecdotes. Though always perfectly simple, he pre- served in the most intimate and familiar conversations the purity of expression and admirable choice of words which were a part of his nature. While sitting on the rocks around Sorrento I might have written down and why did I not ? all that escaped from his lips in those moments of friendly intercourse.' * Mme. de Tocqueville's health was so uncertain that she seldom was able to join us in these expeditions. Whenever she was well enough she accompanied the two gentlemen in the visit which they paid to us every evening after dinner. Tocqueville was at that time writing his ' Souvenirs,' which were published two years ago. He never intended them to appear in his lifetime, and they consequently contain more personal details concerning himself and his con- temporaries than any other of his writings. He * My father fortunately supplied this omission. 58 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE describes even peculiarities of gesture, manner, and appearance, and he speaks with the utmost frankness of his own motives and opinions. He was also medi- tating at Sorrento his great work on the 'Ancien Regime.' He had given up literary work for politics during the thirteen years, from 1839 to 1852, he sat in the Chamber as deputy from Valognes. Although to the end an Orleanist, he saw clearly the mistakes made by Louis Philippe, and his speech, on January 27, 1848, warned his hearers of the impending Revolution. In the May following he was elected member for La Manche in the new Parliament. He and his friend Gustave de Beaumont (at that time Ambassador in England) used all their influence in favour of General Cavaignac, but after Louis Napoleon was elected President, Tocqueville yielded to his urgent appeal for help, and accepted the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. He retained it until the President plainly showed that his real object was Empire, on which Tocqueville resigned office, but continued to sit in the Legislative Assembly until the coup (Cttat in December, 1851.* From this time he gave up politics altogether for literature, a field far better suited to his sensitive temperament, and in which he was unrivalled. He was imprisoned with the other most dis- tinguished members of the Assembly on the evening of * M. de Tocqueville wrote an interesting account of this event in a letter to Mr. Henry Reeve. It appeared in the Times of Decem- ber n, 1851, and is published in his 'Life.' (' Memoir and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville,' translation published by Macmillan in 1862, vol. ii.) FRIENDS IN PARIS 59 December 2. Three weeks afterwards he said to Mr. Senior : ' The gayest time I ever passed was in the barrack of the Quai d'Orsay. The tlite of France in education, in birth, and in talents, particularly in the talents of society, was collected within the walls of that barrack. A long struggle was over, in which our part had not been timidly played ; we had done our duty, we had gone through some perils, and we had some to encounter, and we were all in the high spirits which excitement and danger shared with others, when not too formidable, create. From the courtyard, in which we had been penned for a couple of hours, where the Due de Broglie and I tore our chicken with our hands and our teeth, we were transferred to a long sort of gallery or garret, a spare dormitory for the soldiers when the better rooms are filled. Those who chose to take the trouble hired palliasses from the soldiers. I was too idle, and lay on the floor in my cloak. Instead of sleeping, we spent the night in shooting from palliasse to palliasse anecdotes, jokes, and pleasantries. Cttait un feu roulant une pluie de bons mots. ' The success of the ' Ancien Regime ' even surpassed that of the ' Democratic en Amerique.' On his next visit to London, Tocqueville was received with a perfect ovation ; and on his return to France ' the English Admiralty,' he writes to a friend, 'put at my disposal a little steamer which carried me straight from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, to the great astonish- ment of the natives of the latter place, who, waiting in the hopes of seeing at least a prince land from the vessel, saw only your humble servant.' 60 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE After the coup d'e'tat Tocqueville ceased to have a home in Paris. He used to say that he had intervals of sauvagerie, or rather the times when he was not sauvage were the intervals ; he easily tired of Paris, and longed to fly to the fields, woods and sea-shore of his native province. He lived there latterly almost entirely, and when he came to Paris he had rooms in the Hotel Bedford, which we also frequented. Mme. de Tocqueville used to take this opportunity for visiting her aunt. Alexis was therefore dependent upon us for his family life, and he came every evening to tell us what he had been doing. Once I remember he was much elated at having sat next to Georges Sand at some public dinner. He was so little of a Bohemian that he had never seen her before. In person he was small and delicate. He had very thick and rather long black hair, soft yet brilliant dark eyes, and a finely marked brow. The upper lip was long, and the mouth wide, but sensitive and expressive. His manner was full of kindness and playfulness, and his fellow-countrymen used to say of him that he was a perfect specimen (he belonged to the old noblesse] of the ' Gentilhomme de 1'Ancien Regime.' Although he had a keen sense of humour, his countenance was sad in repose. His was an essentially introspective mind, never satisfied with its own achievements. Again and again in his letters to the friends of his early youth, we come upon passages of morbid self-depreciation, combined with a restless craving for perfection and an impatience of doubt. His untranslatable phrase, ' Les opinions ne sont que des points de vue,' has often been quoted. Even his FRIENDS IN PARIS 61 complete domestic happiness, deeply conscious of it as he was, could not still his restlessness. But none of this appeared in his gentle manner and quiet, yet brilliant, conversation. He gave himself no airs of superiority ; he united high-bred courtesy with abso- lute naturalness. The delicate frame which had endured so much labour and trial suddenly broke down in the autumn of 1858. He was ordered to the South, but deferred going until too late, and he died at Cannes early in 1859, at the age of fifty-three. His life may be summed up in the following reflection found among his papers : ' La vie n'est ni un plaisir ni une douleur, mais une affaire grave dont nous sommes charge et qu'il faut conduire et terminer a notre honneur.' It is rather the custom, when a man is exceptionally gifted and charming, to lament his wife's inferiority. Accordingly, many people did not appreciate Mme. de Tocqueville. But she was in reality a worthy help- meet to her distinguished husband, as he was fully aware, for, writing of her some time after their marriage, he said :'...! cannot describe to you the happiness yielded in the long-run by the habitual society of a woman in whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even improved. Not a day passes when I do not thank Heaven for having thrown Marie in my way, or without my think- ing that if anything can give happiness on earth it is the possession of such a partner.' She suffered from very delicate health. She fre- quently was shut up for weeks in a dark room ; her 62 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE eyes could not bear the light, and at the same time an affection of the throat prevented her speaking. I asked her how she could bear the long hours, and she replied that when she was pretty well she learned pages of her favourite authors by heart and repeated them to herself in illness. We were very much attached to her, and she was particularly kind to us. Two years after Tocqueville's death my father and I paid a visit to her in Normandy. She had gathered round her three or four intimate friends, M. and Mme. de Beaumont and their son, and Jean Jacques Ampere. The portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville hung over the mantelpiece ; we talked continually of him, and he seemed to be still amongst us. How much we wished that we could hear his voice, which, low, sweet, and varied in its tones, added so much to the charm of his conversation ! Although Alexis was the youngest son, the old family chateau of Tocqueville was left to him, the elder brothers having places of greater size and im- portance. It was built of granite, the modern part in the time of Louis XIII. The rest is very ancient, especially three round towers ; one of them contained two inhabited stories, one room on each. My father occupied the lower and Ampere the upper chamber. The walls were so thick that the temperature never rose above eighty or, we were told, fell below seventy degrees. Another tower contained a wide granite stair- case, up which Mme. de Tocqueville told me she rode on her first visit as a bride, her horse led by her husband and brothers-in-law. The park consists of about thirty acres, and is FRIENDS IN PARIS 63 traversed by a fine avenue leading to the front of the house. To the west the ground rises to a wild common overlooking the sea and a green plain covered with trees and hedgerows, and studded with the picturesque towers and spires of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Tea or coffee was brought to our rooms about eight, and we were not expected to appear before the half- past eleven o'clock breakfast. We used to drive and walk in the afternoon, meeting, as at Sorrento, on some beautiful spot looking out on the sea, where we sat down and talked, Ampere and Beaumont bearing the chief part in the conversation. In the evenings Ampere read aloud to us a play of Moliere's. It was quite equal to being at the Francais, and he kept us in fits of laughter at the ' Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' There was no one more amusing than Ampere. Tocqueville used to say of him that he had the ' viel esprit fran9ais ' ; he certainly had the old French gaiety. His father, Andre" Ampere,* was a great mathematician. The son's talents lay in a different direction, that of literature. But he was far more eminent as a talker. ' His conversation,' said Mme. Mohl, who was a first-rate judge, ' was like a stream of sparkling water, always fresh, never fatiguing. His wit was so natural that you never thought of anything but the amusement he gave you.' His whole life and character were absolutely French, no Englishman was * One of the most charming books of modern times is Mme. Chevreux's ' Memoirs of the Two Amperes.' It was reviewed by Lady Eastlake in the Quarterly. 64 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ever like him. He had an astonishing capacity for friendship, and his friends of both sexes were enough to fill up his life without any nearer tie. At the age of twenty he was introduced to Mme. Recamier, then a beautiful woman of forty-three. He attached himself to her court, and for many years made the fourth at her habitual dinner-party ; the others were her husband, her father (M. Bernard), and Ballanche. Chateaubriand spent with her every after- noon, and every evening after dinner. He dined always with his wife, which was thought a sufficient sacrifice to conjugal propriety. ' The most illustrious of our party,' said Ampere, ' was Chateaubriand, and the most amusing was Bal- lanche. My only merit was in being the youngest. The most agreeable period of Chateaubriand's reign was when he ceased to exact a tfoe-a-tfoe, and Ballanche and I were admitted at four o'clock. Chateaubriand was delightful : tres en train, tres facile a vivre, beau- coup d'imagination et de connaissances.' ' Facile a vivre !' exclaimed my father. ' I thought that his vanity was very exacting.' 'As a public man,' replied Ampere, 'and in general society ; but in intimate society, when he was no longer posing, he was charming. Later in the evening came Miss Clark' (Mme. Mohl). 'Chateaubriand, always subject to ennui, delighted in her. Later on in Mme. Recamier's life, when she had become blind, and Chateaubriand deaf, and Ballanche infirm, the even- ings were very sad. I had to try to amuse persons who had become almost unamusable.' In the early days Mme. Recamier had a niece living FRIENDS IN PARIS 65 with her, afterwards Mme. Lenormand. A friend suggested that something might be going on between the young people. Mme. Recamier one day hinted this suggestion to Ampere. He hid his face in his hands and burst into tears. At last he exclaimed, ' Ce n'est pas elle /' Mme. Chevreux's book abounds in amusing stories of the elder Ampere's absence of mind. In this respect his son was like him, and in a total disregard of money, comfort, and appearance. In early days he lived with Julius Mohl in the Rue de Crenelle ; his affairs were always in the greatest confusion, but his companion took care of them and set them to rights. The concierge and his wife, M. and Mme. F61ix, made a great pet of Ampere, and when he was ill used to send him up every day a tisane of a different colour ' to amuse him.' M. Felix was a character. He had been in the army, and was fond of recounting his adventures. M. Mohl wove them into a narrative, and read it aloud to the old man, who was so moved by the recital of his own deeds that he burst into tears. After Mme. Rdcamier's death, Ampere, for love of her, devoted himself to Chateaubriand, visited him every day, wrote for him in short, became his slave. He left the Hotel Garni in which he lived, sold most of his books, did not even choose which were to be kept, but left everything to his friends. ' I suppose,' wrote Mme. Mohl, ' he will go on wandering till he settles at Rome or dies somewhere in an inn. He attached himself to Mme. Re"camier for the twenty best years of his life, and now she is gone he is like a bird on the branch. However, he seems quite happy and con- 5 66 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE tented.' Another interest was in store for him. In his travels in Italy he met M. and Mme. Chevreux (the distinguished chemist). They were taking their daughter, Mme. Gueymard, who was attacked by con- sumption, to the south. She was a charming young woman. Ampere became as much attached to her as he had been to Mme. Recamier, and after her death he was equally devoted to her parents. Henceforth, when not travelling, their beautiful chateau, Stors, in the lie Adam before the Revolution the splendid abode of the Prince de Conti became his home. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, wherever he might be, he had a mass said for Mme. Gueymard, M. de Corcelle, at that time French Ambassador to the Vatican, told me that six years afterwards, when they were both in Rome, he was invited to be present, and he saw poor Ampere kneeling in a corner of the church in floods of tears. The name best known in England of all our foreign friends is, I suppose, that of Guizot. My father was acquainted with him when he was Ambassador to our Court in 1840, but I do not recollect him until he came to England as an exile in 1848. The feeling against him in Paris at that time was so strong that he barely escaped with his life. His children had preceded him, under the care of his aged mother. She was a grand old lady.* Her husband's head fell on the scaffold in 1792, and at the age of eighty-six she lived through another revolution. Once more she heard the tocsin, the terrible ' (^a ira,' and the cries of the populace, this * She is immortalised by St. Beuve in one of his Causeries. FRIENDS IN PARIS 67 time demanding the head of her son. The fatigue and anxiety were too much for her, and she died within a fortnight of reaching London. No wonder the respectable classes in France are afraid of revolution the Red Spectre for its horrors touch them very nearly. Of the people written of in these few pages, all had suffered in those nearest and dearest to them. The Comte de Tocqueville (father of Alexis) narrowly escaped the guillotine in 1793, when he was imprisoned for nine months, with six members of his family, and saw them all leave the prison in one afternoon for trial, judgment and execu- tion. His own trial was fixed for the loth Thermidor, but fortunately Robespierre fell on the 9th. He had accustomed himself to spend part of the afternoon from three to four, when the victims were summoned in sleep ; but the tension turned his hair white, although he was under twenty. Mme. de Beaumont was a grand-daughter of Lafayette. Her great-great-grandmother, her great- grandmother, and great-aunt (marriages were very early in those times : the great-aunt was only twenty-four and the great-great-grandmother ninety), were all guillotined on the same day. The head of Ampere's grandfather fell on the scaffold, and a similar fate, as I have said, befell the father of Guizot.* The memoirs published by the great statesman during his lifetime give a voluminous account of his public life, but they convey an erroneous impression of his personality. He felt * My father's journals abound in conversations with Guizot, but, as he was still alive when they were published, I did not venture to put his name, for which I substituted the letter Z. 52 68 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE this keenly, for in a letter respecting an article on the book by Ernest Renan, he wrote, ' Renan makes me out to be the same stiff, tragical, solitary person that will end by becoming legendary and as false as any other legend.' Nothing could be more untrue ; nothing could be more open and friendly than his manner, which at once set his most insignificant visitor at ease. His voice was in itself a cordial, it was so full of hope, and neither age nor infirmity ever dimmed the brightness of his eye or the vivacity of his mind. Although during the last years of Louis Philippe's reign Tocqueville and Guizot were on opposite sides, the younger politician never failed to appreciate the elder. ' Guizot,' I heard him say, ' is always charming. He has an aplomb, an ease and a verve arising from his security that whatever he says will interest and amuse. He is a perfect specimen of an ex-statesman, komme de lettres and pere defamille, falling back on literature and the domestic affections.' And again, in a letter to my father, apropos of a visit to Sir John Boileau : ' You saw there M. Guizot in one of his best lights. The energy with which he stands up under the pressure of age and ill-fortune, and is not only resigned, but as vigorous, as animated, and as cheerful as ever, shows a character admirably well tempered, and a dignity which nothing can impair.' After the death of Mme. Guizot the family con- sisted of M. Guizot, his two young daughters, his son Guillaume, and Mile. Chabot, a great friend of the grandmother's. They lived in a little house in Pelham Crescent, Brompton, at that time much more out of the way than it is now, and bore their reverses with FRIENDS IN PARIS 69 the utmost simplicity and cheerfulness. Society made much of them, as it did of the rest of the brilliant little band of emigrants who greatly enlivened London during their exile Dumon, Remusat, Marochetti, Azeglio, and many others. Perhaps the most sparkling converser was Dumon, Minister of Finance under Louis Philippe. We saw a great deal of all of them. They often came to our late breakfast, and, uninvited, would drop in after dinner in the evening. The summer was unusually cold and wet, and when Guil- laume Guizot went back to Paris, and his friends asked him what he was going to do, he replied, ' Me secher.' In August, 1860, my father and I spent ten days with M. Guizot at his country house, Val Richer, near Lisieux, in Normandy. It had been an ancient monastery. M. Guizot saw it soon after the death of his second wife, and it was put in order and arranged by the son of his first marriage, Francois, who did not live to see it completed. Although it was full of sad and tender recollections, M. Guizot liked it better than any other place. He lived there in patriarchal fashion, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and waited upon by his old servants and their descendants. He also gave an asylum to the aunt of his two sons- in-law, Conrad and Cornellis de Witt. (The two brothers married Henriette and Pauline Guizot.) His deference to the old lady was beautiful ; he always gave her his arm when she entered and left the room, and took her in to dinner before anyone else. The possibility of different generations living together under one roof is partly, I think, owing to French habits. The women of the family do not think it 70 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE necessary to sit together ; every bedroom has its cabinet de toilette, and is more like a sitting-room than a bedroom. The arrangement, however, is not always blissful, for a friend of mine who was dining in a French house expressed his admiration of the system to the daughter-in-law, his neighbour, whereupon the young lady turned upon him a pair of very sparkling black eyes, and hissed out between her teeth, ' C'est une vie d'enfer.' This must have been an exception, for the tie between parent and child is certainly stronger in France than in England, and even when not very congenial, public opinion imposes filial devotion as a duty. Little children live much more with their parents than usually in England. They appeared at Val Richer, as in every other house I have visited in France, at every meal, and were extremely well behaved, and never obtrusive. It always distressed me that they were allowed, almost compelled, to sit up late. I have seen them lying asleep on the sofas, and when roused imploring to be sent to bed, which was granted as a favour. The sitting-rooms at Val Richer, as at Tocqueville, occupied the whole breadth of the house. There was no passage, and they all opened into each other. Our second breakfast was at half-past eleven. At three there was a sort of luncheon of cake and fruit, and then we used to go out for long walks. M. Guizot always offered me his arm, and I felt obliged to take it, although it was somewhat embarrassing as we plodded along the country lanes and paths, M. Guizot talking all the time most agreeably. FRIENDS IN PARIS 71 Normandy is very like England green and culti- vated, with high, wide hedgerows and old trees. On Sunday, as there was no Protestant church, Mme. Pauline de Witt read prayers, after which Guizot read us quite admirably a fine sermon of Bourdaloue. In the evening the young people danced. One rainy day Mme. de Witt brought out her father's orders to amuse us the Golden Fleece, the Elephant, and a Chinese order. The last was the grandest ; the owner wears a blue button, and ranks next after the Emperor. Guizot's collar of the Golden Fleece was the one worn by Philip II. of Spain. Queen Christina wished to make him Duke of San Antonio as a reward for the Spanish marriages ; when he refused she sent him a fine Murillo. In talking to us, he did not appear to think that any blame attached to that iniquitous transaction. He was a most delightful host. My father concludes his record of our visit in these words : ' M. Guizot is never greater or more amiable than in his own family.' In a letter of condolence on the death of my uncle Colonel Senior, 'in 1861, he wrote to my father: ' Personne ne sait mieux que moi ce que sont les douleurs de la famille. J'ai connu en ce genre tout ce qu'on peut connaitre de joie et de tristesse.' He lost his first wife in 1827, and his second in 1833. They were both of them very distinguished women, and he was tenderly attached to them. His only child by his first marriage, on whom he counted to take charge of his little motherless children should they also be deprived of their father, died in 1837. Besides all these family sorrows, M. Guizot paid the 72 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE penalty of a long life in the loss of almost all his con- temporaries and early friends. ' I am weary of seeing my friends die,' he said by the open grave of Herbet, in 1867. A last sad blow was to fall on him. His daughter, Pauline, would not leave her husband, and they were shut up in Paris during the siege. She never recovered from the grief and privations of that time, and died three years afterwards. Six days after that event Mme. Mohl visited him. ' His power of work,' she wrote, 'goes on, and that is his salut. He wishes ardently to finish his " History of France." It is very touching to see the old man of eighty-seven working so hard. When I saw him he was at his desk, as busy as possible. Alluding to his age, he said death was but a short separation.' It was indeed short, for in six months he followed her. He was a sincere Christian. A few days before his death he said to his daughter, ' Ah, my child, how little do we know !' Then, suddenly lifting up his hands, he exclaimed : ' However, I shall soon enter into the light.'* And when he bid his children good- bye for the last time, and his daughter cried, 'We shall meet again, my father,' he replied, ' No one is more convinced of that than I am.' * Goethe's last words were, ' More light !' [73] CHAPTER V. THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES. MRS. GROTE, the wife of George Grote, the historian, and a no less remarkable personage, was one of our earliest and most intimate friends ; we lived in the same circle, both in London and in Paris. In speaking of Archbishop Whately I said that in many respects he resembled Dr. Johnson ; it also constantly struck me that Queen Elizabeth lived again in Mrs. Grote. They both had extraordinary and versatile abilities, strong affections, a great power of ruling, and, withal, not a little vanity. I think one liked Mrs. Grote all the better for this vanity ; it seemed to render her more individual, more human, and to temper the awe she would otherwise have inspired. She had sufficient reason to estimate highly her moral and intellectual qualities, but I believe she set more value on her small foot and Vandyke hand than on any other of her gifts. She was tall and stately, but not graceful ; her movements were angular and masculine. When first I knew her she was no longer young, but she retained to the last her luminous blue eyes and her delicate complexion. Her features were small and regular. 74 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Her dress was characteristic ; it did not change with the fashion. She always wore short skirts, no crino- line, white stockings, and high shoes ; in the summer a print dress (she found fault with me one chilly morning for appearing in black silk ' So stuffy, my dear '), long white cambric cuffs trimmed with narrow lace, a collar to match, and a white muslin apron completed her morning costume. It was always scrupulously fresh and clean. In the evening she dressed handsomely, but equally independently of change. She generally wore a sort of head-dress she called a ' toque,' and was partial to red shoes, which she said were admired by Sydney Smith. Her ringing laugh and clear contralto voice added much to the charm of her stimulating conversation. She saw the fun, the humorous side, as well as the pathos, of every phase of human life. She was, as she said of herself, ' a good affliction woman,' and she entered as heartily into the joys as into the sorrows of her friends. It would be impossible to give an idea of the sparkle and originality of her talk ; its wit and raci- ness made a piquant contrast with her somewhat formal old-fashioned manner. In her published writ- ings, though full of excellent sense, expressed in downright nervous English, the fun seems to have evaporated, but some of her familiar letters are less serious and more like her real self. She had a deep and true affection for my father ; he often took me to see her in the morning, and when he was going away she would say, ' Can't you leave M to play with me ?' Soon I began to visit her THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 75 alone, and generally found her at a very late break- fast, for she suffered terribly from neuralgia, and had very bad nights. She used to say to her butler, with stately formality, ' Well, Mr. de Konigs, what have you got for me ?' and he would produce some dainty dish to tempt her appetite. On one occasion in Eccleston Place, Mendelssohn was present, and I had the immense delight of hearing him play. On another morning she said, ' I have got Jenny Lind here, but she will not let you or anyone see her.' This was before the Swedish nightingale had enchanted London. Later on I had the great pleasure of hearing the first performance of the ' Elijah,' conducted by Mendelssohn and sung by Jenny Lind. Mrs. Grote was absolutely unconventional. One afternoon, when my sister-in-law Jeanie Senior and I went to call on her, she proposed to take us for a drive in her buggy. She put on a gray hat with a green feather and a long green veil. There were only two seats, so Jeanie had to cling on as best she might, and in this style we dashed, Mrs. Grote driving, down Bond Street, and all round the crowded Park. We were in high glee ; but Mrs. Grote remarked on the ill-breeding of the English, for 'they would stare.' It never occurred to her that there was anything to stare at. I went often to stay with her in the country, first at Burnham Beeches. These visits were delightful, especially when I had Mrs. Grote to myself, for she would pour out her shrewd reflections and curious stories of people and things with complete unreserve. She seemed no older than I was, and sometimes we 76 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE indulged in real rollicking fun. One evening, in the little house she built when she left Burnham, ' History Hut,' she read to me two little memoirs she had written on Jenny Lind and Fanny Ellsler, and sud- denly she jumped up, and, seizing a bronze ewer which was on the table, performed one of Fanny Ellsler's character dances. We were so excited that we did not go upstairs till three o'clock, and then she followed me into my room and we had some more representa- tions. There was nothing that she could not do. She was especially proud of her business talents, and, in order to set her husband free to work at his History, she undertook the chief management of their property. In a letter to me from their estate, Long Bennington, in Lincolnshire, she describes her diligent supervision and the ' boredom ' of the historian. ' I only slept Sunday in Savile Row, starting next day for this place, where we have been ever since hard at work, hearing grievances at every turn, dealing with demands for repairs and improvements, and per- secuted by unrelenting bad weather. I have been from three to four hours on horseback, most days under umbrella and cloak, taking surveys of our various dominions, which lie three miles apart in some cases, the ground being too wet to allow of my walking, except on Tuesday, when I passed three hours in walking through glorious wheatfields, mangolds, rich pastures studded with beasts, and the like. For a little estate of this character, it is incredible what a quantity of matter arises for adjustment as between landlord THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 77 and tenant, stewards and tenants inclusive. . . . We are putting in a new wheel to our watermill, at a cost of ^150, begad! which does not help to make us gay under the dolorous atmospheric conditions. The historian, who just now is figuring as the squire, is longing to escape from the cares of government, and to get back to Aristotle. Meanwhile, he has Hum- boldt's " Cosmos " with him, which ever and anon is drawn forth from pocket, as other men light their cigars, to soothe his vexed spirit withal. ... If you and Mr. Senior want to see us, as I take it for granted you must, I am open to an offer in the week after next.' She understood the practical part of farming as well as superintending ; once, when my sister-in-law and I were at History Hut, she drove a plough half round the field no easy matter, as I can vouch, for I failed ignominiously in the endeavour. On this occasion we resumed our drives in the buggy in the same dashing style as in Bond Street, but with fewer spectators. She also used to set us to play bowls, in which she was a proficient. She sketched and painted up to a late period, she played Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. When she was eighty-four we heard her play, with admirable precision, the piano part in a trio of Beethoven's, at a concert she gave in Savile Row, and, what was very unusual in those days, she performed on the violoncello as well as on the piano. I never, however, heard her play upon it except when we were tete-a-t$te. She gave charming musical parties (no wonder, as she could command the best talent of the time Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind, and others) 78 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE as well as dinners (the dinner was always carved on the table), and now and then a dance, or ' shake-leg,' as she called it, for the young people. Backgammon and whist were great resources in her declining years. Hayward, Dr. W. Smith, and Mme. du Quaire frequently dropped in to play in Savile Row. It was very trying when Hayward was there, for he was equally angry with bad play, whether on the part of his partner or his antagonist. In the winter of 1849 my father suffered severely from bronchitis, and was confined to the house. Our evenings were often enlivened by Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Marcet, and a few others. My father always detested all games except chess, and did not know one card from another ; but Mrs. Grote insisted on teaching him whist, and we had great fun. He always would arrange his suits on his fingers for the edification of the company. There was not much play, but all the more merriment, and when towards the end of each hand my father exclaimed, ' What are trumps ?' the room rang with our shouts of laughter. Mrs. Marcet* was a charming old lady ; her ' Willy's Seasons ' is the best of children's books. She must have been eighty at the time of which I am speaking. No one, however, was so amusing, so full of fun and high spirits, as Mrs. Grote. The evening used to close with what she called ' the master's hospitality ' a bottle of seltzer water which was the signal for renewed hilarity. * She was a Swiss, widow of Dr. Marcet, sister of M. Haldimand. She and her family are often mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's and Miss Berry's ' Memoirs.' THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 79 Besides her other accomplishments, Mrs. Grote was an enthusiastic housekeeper, very kind to her servants, helping them and sympathizing with them in all diffi- culties, although she sometimes used strong language to them. Indeed, her language was often strong, and had the unreserve of a former generation. She did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. Among other old fashions, she used, in the winter, to brew some excellent punch in a beautiful china bowl, which, with packs of cards, was passed on to the servants to make merry. Frederika Bremer, who was a personal friend, attempted, in her novel ' The Neighbours,' to draw her portrait as ' Ma chere mere,' and the picture is not unlike the original. She took as much interest in foreign as in domestic politics, and, like my father, had almost as many friends on the Continent as in England. In a letter written in 1849 she reproaches him with want of sympathy with the French conduct of affairs : 1 DEAR MASTER, ' By all means send me the proofs of your article on Lamartine.* I said that you habitually spoke of the authors of the upset of Louis Philippe's throne as if they were " The French," and stigmatized them accordingly as being devoid of political foresight, victims of personal dislike, of which they had paid the just penalty in the unsettled impoverishing sequel, etc. In fact, your tone in speaking of them always has struck me as pitched in the key of the ancient fable of " King Log and the Frogs." Well, we can't discuss * Published in ' Journals in France and Italy.' 8o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE on paper more's the pity ! nor quarrel. Where you and I branch off in politics is where you take the line of abolishing all the sanction attendant on the agency of the masses. You are for striding along your own gait, under, it is true, the consciousness of obligation ; but you never seem to me to provide any apparatus for enforcing this sense of obligation. I lament, as you do, the absence of a sagacious and well-judging public in France ; but, as no Government has ever challenged the approbation of such a public, one cannot be angry that the sentiment of attachment should be awanting. Remains, the sanction of a half-instructed public, whose passions are the source of its impulses more than in most nations. Therefore, the rulers of the French are bound to manager those passions, or to suffer by their imprudent dealings. Guizot ex- asperated them, and paid for it. ... ' Are you not glad of the denouement at Rome ? How it reminds me of Bob Acres and Sir Lucius in "The Rivals"! ' " Sir L. : And if he did do so, Mr. Acres, well, sir, what would you say to him ? [i.e., Pio Nono]. ' " Acres [collecting himself, and dropping the hoity- toity altogether] : Why, Sir Lucius, I should tell him I thought him a mighty uncivil gentleman." 1 The part of Acres by Louis Napoleon ; but not, we might subjoin, for this occasion only. The part fits him obviously, and he will repeat it. 'As to our seventh volume,* it is all printed. It is deeply interesting ; but Gramminy ! how he does pique, repique, and capot old Mitford ! and how t'other side * Crete's ' History of Greece.' THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 8r of the picture comes out ! The whole volume is story and instructive commentary on story.' She wrote to my father, in answer to a letter from him, describing the very interesting meetings of the members of the Education Commission in a lighter vein : ' BARROW GREEN, SURREY. ' DEAR MASTER, ' Received yours yesterday. Cannot say how thankful I felt to be 100 miles away ! What incredible ennui should I not have been subjected to had it been my hard fate to fall amongst Poor Law adepts ! Your enumeration of the quorum which assembles round Minnie's black decoction of an evening quite gave me a qualm of aversion. You only needed Chadwick to be au complet. What does poor do for a living amidst the hubbub of dietaries, per- centages, statistic calculations, schedules, and various districts' expenditure and the like, and you all taking a malicious pleasure in stifling all other talk on the specious plea of "public utility" and "vital questions," and similar professional formulae ? Well, I thank my stars that my ears have been regaled with other sounds of late, we having had a visit from Jenny* and spouse, who drove over in their own carriage and stayed a couple of days here. I had my Swedish nephew (Von Koch), and my English nephew (Lewin) to play with her, and she was as happy as a queen, sitting out of doors all forenoons, stitching, and riding to and from Marden Park with her young and attractive * Mme. Lind Goldschmidt. 6 82 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE countryman, we all in britska in attendance. She is in good trim, and sang charmingly all the evening quantities of Swedish songs, to Von Koch's delight, who also joined himself in the national airs. Best regards from my good man concludes me, ' Dear Master, ' Most truly and affectionately, ' H. GROTE.' She kept up long correspondences with her foreign friends, among whom the principal were Faucher, Circourt, Lavergne, Bunsen, and, above all, Tocque- ville. A great many of his letters to her appeared in the ' Memoirs and Remains.' Her memory was extra- ordinarily retentive. On one of the last visits I paid to her, not long before her death, she went through all the changes of Ministry in France since 1851. She delighted in all the accessories of country life, and latterly lived almost entirely at the Ridgway, Shere, a commonplace villa which she bought and finished according to her fancy. She used to say, ' Grote and I built this house when we were seventy, and we have never regretted it.'* In her memoir of her husband she gives an amusing and interesting description of her early life, courtship and marriage. She had the greatest admiration and veneration for Mr. Grote. He was tall and hand- some, altogether what she called a ' personable ' man. She said that ' no sculptor or painter had ever been * She would have been pleased if she had known that her friends the Arthur Russells became the next owners and greatly improved and embellished it. THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 83 able to give the mingled sweetness and majesty of Crete's countenance.' His gentleness and stately courtesy were very attractive in such a distinguished scholar. Like his wife, he retained the dress of earlier days, and was always carefully brushed up and attired in glossy broadcloth. His coat was often brown, and he was never without a jabot a finely-crimped shirt- frill, trimmed with narrow lace ; no boots in the house, but pumps and silk stockings. To him she owed her intellectual cultivation the ability was always there and after their marriage her husband set to work to supply the defects in her education. She gave away readily money, advice and sympathy to the poor, but she greatly disapproved of the lavish, indiscriminate almsgiving to unworthy objects advocated by many well-meaning persons and societies. Her article on the 'Case of the Rich against the Poor ' is about the best of her essays.* Her friends in her own station felt sure of her help and sympathy. If they got into any difficulty, it was safe to turn to Mrs. Grote, and she liked her friends, whether in the wrong or the right, all the better for appealing to her. She revelled in a love affair, and always sided with the young. ' Keep the heart warm,' she used to say. She had all sorts of original expressions and names for her friends. Sir George Cornewall Lewis was 1 Fish,' on account of his cold manner ; another friend was ' Puffendorf ' ; a subservient wife was a ' door- mat '; an amateur lady companion a 'dab.' I had the honour of being one of these 'dabs.' In 1855 I * See ' Collected Papers,' by Mrs. Grote. 62 84 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE attended her in this capacity on a tour of visits in the North. She suffered greatly from the railway, and chuckled much over the idea that we took a week to get to Settle in Yorkshire. Three days of that time were far from entertaining, for she was laid up at Rugby with one of her violent headaches, in bed, and taking morphine to allay the pain. When this was over we amused ourselves vastly in Northumberland, at the Lakes, and finally at the Helpers', where we met my father and Mr. Grote. She had a strong sense of duty and of family obligation, although she was impatient of twaddle, and thought self-sacrifice might be carried to excess. She wrote of a charming young friend : ' Give my love to J., whose sense of duty must always command encomiums, and sympathy for the wearisome cost. I have Charlotte Bronte in my thoughts when I think of J.'s devotion. Still, the figure of " Duty " with J.'s face at the top is not the scare-crow it appears with Charlotte Bronte's on the title-page. Did ever mortal render the idea of conscientious sacrifice so unattractive and unedifying ! I think the father must have asked him- self at odd moments how his poor children came to let him ride " Juggernaut- wise " over their souls and bodies. I long so to review the book ; but no review will ever take sense and reason, or anything in fact, if it be not to the conventional pattern, and I will not write commonplace twaddle ; so good-bye, dear child.' Part of her charm was her self-confidence. She felt as sure as a queen of giving pleasure, and had always the command of her faculties. She did not spare her dearest friends ; she told them freely of their faults, THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 85 and expressed her opinion without reticence ; but she liked them to stand up to her, and had no pleasure in crushing an abject sufferer. She was one of the few people who succeeded in snubbing Monckton Milnes, in whom, however, she delighted, as we all did. She gave a party from nine to eleven, and Milnes (the 4 cool of the evening ' as he was called by Sydney Smith) chose to come after eleven ; so she stood at the top of the staircase and forbade him to come up. Mrs. Procter, however, would not submit tamely to a rebuff. On one occasion when she asked for a sub- scription, Mrs. Grote, who was as open-handed as possible, but chose to give where she listed, refused the application. ' There is a coolness between me and Mrs. Grote,' Mrs. Procter told me, 4 that is, if there can be a coolness between two such ladies.' Mrs. Grote felt the estrangement very keenly, and consulted Dean Stanley as to what she should do. 4 Send her a valentine,' said the Dean.* So Mrs. Grote sent her a poetical valentine, and the breach was healed. It was thoroughly healed, for the two ladies met by chance one day in our drawing-room, and were equally cordial and entertaining. As happens to all who live to a great age, Mrs. Grote's latter years were saddened by the deaths of almost all her contemporaries and many of her juniors, and, more than all besides, by the loss of her beloved and revered husband. But time and sorrow made her only more tender and lenient. To the last she was surrounded by loving friends, anxious to claim her * Dean Stanley himself told me this. I have seen a different version of the story. 86 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE advice and sympathy. Her old ' dabs ' were almost all married and unavailable, but she found in her niece, Miss Jessie Lewin, a compensation for those who were gone. No companion ever suited her so perfectly ; and while regretting her irreparable loss, Miss Lewin must find comfort in reflecting that she was the prop and consolation of her aunt's declining years. Mrs. Grote died on December 29, 1878, in the eighty-seventh year of her age, and was buried in the beautiful churchyard of Shere, that loveliest of English villages, set in the midst of parks and commons, shady lanes and gorse-covered heaths. Although I think that no country can beat that of Shere and its neighbourhood in its way, Mrs. Grote's house at Burnham, taken altogether house, garden, and country was preferable to any of her other country abodes. The garden was delightfully old-fashioned ; a broad gravel walk, with a border on each side, full of hollyhocks, roses, carnations, sweet peas, and other common flowers divided it, and led up to a large summer-house. It was bounding up this walk, pre- tending to beat a drum and singing the ' rataplan ' refrain from the ' Figlia del Reggimento,' that I first saw Jenny Lind. Mrs. Grote's sister, Mme. von Koch, married to a Swede, and living in Stockholm, was one of the singer's earliest and kindest friends hence the intimacy between her and the Grotes. No one could see Jenny Lind and not fall under the charm of her perfect naturalness, freshness, and originality. Although her features were irregular, she THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 87 was anything but plain ; her complexion was fair, she had abundant flaxen hair, and the most wonderful gray eyes, a beautiful figure, hands, and arms, and graceful movements. Hers was not the slow, sinuous grace which has a charm of its own : her movements were light, decided, and expressive. She always seemed to do everything more quickly than anyone else. At this time she was studying the part of Susanna a ' sweet part ' she said it was and had the partition of the 'Nozze' almost always on her knee. In the evening she sang her Swedish songs, and then we all went out to listen to the nightingales singing under the old beeches. She had a passion for the song of these ' little sisters ' of hers, and used to mimic them and excite their rivalry, so that the air was filled with music. It was strange that it should have been the fate of my father, who was entirely destitute of musical sense, to be of use to the most celebrated singer of the day. It was in 1849 5 sne na ^ resolved to give up the stage, and had affianced herself to Mr. Claudius Harris, a young Indian officer, brother to Mrs. Joseph Grote. My mother and I had just returned from a drive one cold afternoon in April ; I found in the hall a note from Mile. Lind, asking me to beg my father to call on her next day to meet her trustees about her mar- riage settlements, either at 3 p.m. or, if that were not possible, at 9 a.m. It so happened that he was not free at three, so he went to her at nine. She did not expect him, and was quite alone. They entered at once upon business, and my father soon found out that she was very half-hearted about the matter alto- 88 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE gether ; indeed, she could scarcely have found a partner less suited to her. Mr. Harris and his family had very strict opinions, and they thought that the remainder of the great prima donna's life could not be more appro- priately spent than in atoning for her theatrical career. The attraction to Jenny Lind was in her lover's good- ness. She said he had such a ' pure mind.' The Stanleys supported her in her resolution to give up the stage, and so, indeed, did Mrs. Grote from a different reason, for, in spite of her intense sympathy with her young friend's artistic career, she saw that the strain was too great. Jenny Lind was worn out with fatigue and emotion. She threw herself into every part, and suffered herself the woes of the heroine unlike other great actors and actresses, who, with the exception of the charming Italian actress, Mme. Duse, succeed in making their representations to a certain degree mechanical. But Jenny Lind's essentially truthful spirit could not do this. The tears she wept in ' La Sonnambula ' came from her heart. We had more than once the stage-box, and could see that she was almost overpowered by her feelings. This was even more striking in the ' Lucia/ when the scene in which she renounces Arturo reminded her of a passage in her own life. She had led this trying and exciting life for nearly twenty years, and she longed for rest and the peace and regularity of a home. The manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, Mr. Lumley, was in despair. It was almost ruin to him to lose her, and he urged her to give him at least a few farewell performances. She offered instead a series of dramatic THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 89 concerts : only one took place. Although the ' Flauto Magico,' which was chosen for the first performance, would seem to be independent of acting (the libretto is so eminently stupid and undramatic), yet, in spite of Jenny Lind's splendid singing, the whole affair fell flat, to her great disappointment. Never before had she met with a cold reception. Mrs. Grote and Lumley entreated her to give the operatic performances, but she would not yield. At length my father succeeded where they failed. He suggested that Mr. Harris could not object if he really loved her ; he urged the unfairness of disappointing Lumley ; and, finally, the unsatisfactory termination which a failure would put to her whole career. So she promised to give six fare- well nights. Lumley was overjoyed, and sent us boxes for all six. The enthusiasm of the audience knew no bounds. Yet no one could believe that the singer, in the very plenitude of her powers (she was only twenty-eight), really intended these to be the last of her triumphs ; but it was so, and after the curtain fell on the last of the six she never appeared again on any stage. Mr. Harris had consented to these performances, and he and Mile. Lind were once more on good terms. She lived in a little house very near us, called Clairville Cottage ; it was covered with roses and creepers, had a pretty garden, and was thoroughly rural. The backs of the houses in Brechin Place now occupy the ground. She and Claudius Harris often accompanied us in our country rides : in those happy days the country began at Hogmore Lane, now Gloucester Road, and continued right into Surrey. 90 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Lord Lansdowne sometimes joined us, and also came to meet them at dinner ; but we did not venture to invite anyone else at that time, except the Grotes and one or two of Jenny Lind's most intimate friends. All seemed to be going on swimmingly, and Mrs. Grote went off to Paris, followed soon after by my father ; but before he went he said to Mile. Lind, ' Something tells me that your marriage will not take place. If it should be broken off again, write no letters, and have no farewell interviews, but join Mrs. Grote in Paris immediately.' Affairs had not been going on so smoothly as appeared. Mr. Harris had asked Jenny Lind to insert in the settlements a promise that she would never act again. To this my father objected, and he also in- sisted that she should have uncontrolled power over her earnings. Mr. Harris said this was unscriptural, and the engagement was nearly broken off, but re- newed in consequence of the despair Mr. Harris exhibited. Not long after Mr. Senior reached Paris there was a tap at the door of Mrs. G rote's apartment one evening about seven o'clock, and in came Jenny. The ill-assorted marriage was finally broken off. The emotions of the last few months had told heavily upon Mile. Lind, but with the sense of freedom the power of enjoyment returned, and she rode in the Bois de Boulogne, walked on the Boulevards and in the Tuileries, and listened to the nightingales. One day she took my father to a house in the Square d'Orleans, near the Rue St. Lazare. It was built round a courtyard, with a fountain in the middle. Jenny gazed at it without speaking. Afterwards she THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 91 said, ' I was so miserable in that house ; I envied the fountain because it was not obliged to sing.' The house had been the residence of Manuel Garcia, the most celebrated master of singing in Europe, and she alluded to the time when, in despair at the loss of her voice from fatigue and bad management, she slowly regained it by means, first of rest, and then by skilful practice under Garcia's teaching. The domestic happiness for which she had so long sighed was soon to be hers. After singing in concerts and oratorios in Germany, Sweden, and Liverpool, she sailed for the United States on August 21, 1850. Her success in the New World was as brilliant as it had been in the Old, and her charities as munificent. Her company was joined in 1851 by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who succeeded Benedict as pianist. A deep and true attachment sprang up between the two young artists, and they were married on February 5, 1852. She did not give up the use of her splendid gift ; she continued to sing at concerts both in England and on the Continent. She ultimately fixed her home in England, and, I am happy to say, we never lost sight of her. I find recorded a dinner at 13, Hyde Park Gate, when the guests where M. and Mme. Lind Goldschmidt, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, Mme. Mohl, Mrs. Norton, Mme. Ristori and her husband the Marquis Capranica, Thackeray, and Lord Lansdowne. Thackeray said that he had never seen so strong a cast. Her horror of being lionized led her sometimes to reject overtures which were made in perfectly good faith to express the respect and admiration felt for her ; hence she was not always popular. 92 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE She delighted in giving children's parties. I re- member one in 1865, at her house in Wimbledon, and her joyous participation in the amusement she provided ; and again in Moreton Gardens, when she waltzed like a girl with her eldest son. The last time I heard her sing was at a concert she gave at her own house in 1880 for the Prince of Sweden.* She had become very nervous about her voice, and it was not certain whether in the end she would summon up courage to sing. At last she yielded to the persuasion of her friends, and sang the splendid cantata, with violin accompaniment, from Mozart's ' Re Pastore.' It was a thing to remember for the rest of one's life. In her latter years she took a little house called Windspoint, which she arranged and improved until it resembled a Swiss cottage, on the top of the hills above Malvern Wells. On one side lay Herefordshire, tossed about in hill and dale, and on the other side the rich plain of Worcestershire, dotted over with spires and towers, and intersected by the silver Severn. We had in the summer of 1884 a house just below hers, and we saw her much more frequently than is possible in the turmoil of London. We often used to sit with her in her garden, enjoying the magnificent view. She was always uneasy lest she should be stared at, and if any presumptuous wight peeped in at the gate, she would instantly shoot open a large red umbrella and shelter herself beneath it. My daughter Gaynor, who is devoted to music, frequently went to see her alone, and one day ventured to ask her to write her name in her birthday-book. They were in the draw- * Now King Oscar. THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 93 ing-room. Jenny Lind rose up, saying, 'Well, I did not think you had been a commonplace person,' and walked through the open window into the garden, leaving my daughter to repent her indiscretion. Presently her hostess came back and gave her a beautiful rose, and went on talking as if there had been no pause, and when Gaynor was taking leave Mme. Goldschmidt said, quite cheerfully, ' Now, where is your birthday-book ?' and wrote her name in it. It must have cost her more than many an apparently greater sacrifice. I like to think of her as she stood in the hanging balcony of her cottage, waving good-bye to us, the sun setting behind her picturesque figure. It was at Windspoint that she died, in 1887. 'At the very close of her life, as she lay in weakness and misery, her daughter opened the shutters and let in the morning sun ; she just let her lips shape the first bars of the song she loved : " An den lieben Sonnenschein." They were the last notes she sang on earth.'* The retirement of Jenny Lind proved nearly the ruin of the manager of Her Majesty's Opera but he was fortunate enough to secure for the next season the well-known prima donna, Mile. Sontag (at that time Countess Rossi), who, having lost her fortune, had recently returned to the stage. She was still beautiful, and the sweetness of her voice and the perfection of her singing were still unimpaired, but she had not the genius and dramatic fire of Jenny Lind. However, all London flocked to hear their old favourite, and the number of bald and white heads seen in the stalls * 'Jenny Lind the Artist,' by Canon Scott Holland. 94 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE (survivors of the day when she and Pasta used to electrify the world in ' Otello ') was extraordinary. One day Mrs. Grote invited the whole corps of the Opera to Burnham Beeches. She was so kind as to ask me to meet them, and I thought it very grand to be strolling about the garden with the celebrated tenor Gardoni. Another guest was Manuel Garcia, the teacher of Jenny Lind, whom I first met on this occasion, and who proved, and is still, such an excel- lent friend to us all. It was in this year (1849) that my brother brought to our house its brightest ornament, his charming young bride, Jeanie Hughes, the daughter of my father's old friend, John Hughes, and sister to the author of ' Tom Brown.' She is now known to fame by her devotion in the latter years of her short life to the cause of the poor and friendless, and in those early days by her beauty and accomplishments, and by the nameless charm which won all hearts. The great painter, George Frederick Watts, has preserved a record of her beauty in the fine portrait which was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1859 and fre- quently of late years in exhibitions of Mr. Watts' works. It represents her kneeling on a chair, watering a pot of lilies-of-the-valley, a fitting emblem of her sweetness and purity. Her wonderful pale golden hair stands out against the green background, but as the face is nearly in profile, the beautiful gray eyes are half veiled by their broad lids.* She filled our house with music. From a child she * The picture is now in the possession of her son, Walter Nassau Senior. THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 95 had sung sweetly, and after her marriage she studied under Garcia as thoroughly as if she had intended to make singing her profession. He was delighted vith her voice and dramatic power, and under his tuition she became a perfect drawing-room singer. Had her circumstances been different she would no doubt have obtained public success. Although most kind in responding without any affected reluctance to the entreaties of her friends, she liked nothing so well as singing for her brother Tom Hughes' concerts LOT the poor ' penny gaffs,' as we used to call them and her voice was sufficiently penetrating to fill even the Albert Hall. No greater compliment could have been paid to her singing than the fact that our friends at Hyde Park Gate preferred it to the sound of their own voices. However lively the talk, perfect silence was sure to follow when she began to sing. She also read aloud and acted admirably ; she was fond of painting and modelling,* and she attracted to our house some of the most distinguished artists of the day. The novelist and ex-minister, Massimo d' Azeglio, who for some time lived with Marochetti, and tried to support himself by painting, was one of her greatest friends. He was not a great painter, but he was the perfect type of a graceful preux chevalier. The sculptor Marochetti, the 'Signer,' as Watts was called by his friends, Millais (who painted her as the mother in the ' Rescue '), Phillips, Richard Doyle, Halle, and Garcia, were frequently at our house. One evening Garcia brought Gordigiani, who was * A bust that she modelled of her boy was first-rate. My father had it executed in marble. 96 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE delighted with my sister-in-law's rendering of his songs, in which he accompanied her himself. Nothing could surpass her singing of sacred music. Her voice was mezzo-soprano, and she sang the old Latin hymns to perfection, also Handel and Mozart, and the Irish melodies, to which her clear enunciation gave a special charm. Florid bravura was not in her line. She was anxious to sing French as perfectly as Italian, and she took lessons of Lefort, who often dined with us when we were alone, and sang to us in the evening. One of her most intimate friends was Mrs. Sartoris, who used to sing her thrilling adaptations of Tennyson's words. A frequent guest was Tom Taylor, who, with his irresistible drollery, often kept us up even my father, who disliked late hours half the night in fits of laughter. The Wigans, who did so much for the English stage, were also friends of ours. It was at the time when Wigan was manager of the Olympic, where the inimitable genius Robson ran his short and brilliant course, and used to convulse us with laughter in ' Villekins and his Dinah,' or dissolve us into tears in ' The Porter's Knot.' Towards the end of the fifties my sister-in-law was attacked by the malady which ultimately caused her death. Her devoted friend and physician, Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, advised her to leave the turmoil of London, and my brother took a nice roomy old- fashioned house on the top of Lavender Hill, Wands- worth. There was a large garden which, under the assiduous care of Jeanie and her mother, who was now a widow and lived with her daughter, was full THREE DISTINGUISHED LADIES 97 of roses and other flowers. It was delightful to reach this green retreat at such a short distance, and their London friends continually found their way down to the shady lawn and pleasant company of Elm House. In 1860 my sister-in-law's brother Hastings lost his wife, and he and his four children joined the family circle. She doted on children, and was charmed to have the care of these little ones. She was the centre and sunshine of her home, and yet her heart was unsatisfied ; she could not forget the sufferings of those who were less happily circumstanced. For a time during the Crimean War she had helped Miss Stanley in sending supplies to our soldiers and their families, and when it was all over she never ceased regretting the interest which this public duty and hope of doing good on a large scale had afforded her. Some time afterwards Miss Octavia Hill asso- ciated her in some of her valuable charities, and in February, 1873, Mr. Stansfeld, President of the Local Government Board, appointed Mrs. Nassau Senior to the post of temporary, and, in the following January, permanent Inspector ' to inquire and report, especially on the female department of workhouses and workhouse schools, the care and education of pauper girls, and the nursing of infants.' She was the first woman ever employed in this capacity. My father had always advocated the employment of women as inspectors for women, and it would have been a great pleasure to him had he known that his daughter-in-law would be the first to lead the way. Of the zeal and intelligence with which she performed her duties it is impossible to speak too 7 98 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE highly. She travelled all over the country. When at home she would visit unexpectedly a school before daylight, to ascertain the atmosphere in which the children slept. Her tact and never-failing sweetness made suggestion and evet\ reproof welcome from her lips. She embodied the result of her inquiries in a masterly report, which is st but cannot put in a man unconnected with his family, even if he were such a man as Macaulay was when he returned him thirty years ago. With the exception of these sons and nephews, our members are middle-aged gentlemen, great landowners, or manufacturers, or the people who have banking-houses in a borough, or CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 163 villas, with little parks and clipped hedges, near one, and who have not taken to politics, except parish politics, till they were forty or fifty. I spent some time in one of the new manufacturing boroughs in the autumn. ' The man whom we like for a member,' they said, ' is somebody who lives with us, or near us who can take the chair at our meetings, tell us the London gossip, and hear from us what we think of public affairs. We don't want a man who is too busy to come among us, and thinks our internal affairs a bore, and our political opinions twaddle.' The youngest men in the late Ministry were in Parliament before the Reform Bill, and they have no successors. The great families and their sons and nephews afford too narrow a field of selection, and there are no others who have taken to political life." ' " France," I said, "under Louis XVIII. and Louis Philippe was equally without professional politicians, and yet she obtained distinguished statesmen." ' " France," he answered, " was governed by men of letters. Journalists, historians and professors were gradually promoted to be ministers and ambassadors. We may have to do the same in England. If our constituencies are to choose for themselves, if we had rather have the member for Calne named by the grocers and butchers of Calne than by Lord Lans- downe, they must choose either their neighbours, or men old enough to have already established their reputations. Literary reputation is more diffused in the country than political reputation, and no literary fame is so wide as that of a writer of narrative. Dickens and Thackeray and Macaulay and Bulwer, or II 2 1 64 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE the men who then will fill their literary places, may, perhaps, twenty years hence, occupy the Treasury Bench ; but we are not ripe for that yet. In the meantime we are trying over and over the same little knots of ancient gentlemen, and finding them yet more feeble and more quarrelsome every day. ' " If I were Minister, I would try something new. If we must lose Sir. J. Graham, I would put Sir Baldwin Walker, or any other good naval man, at the Admiralty, and if he were a parvenu, so much the better. The aristocrats have been tried long enough in vain. I would recall Lord Raglan, and put Sir Colin Campbell or Canrobert in his place." ' Sunday ', February 4. I am still confined to the house, and hear only what my visitors tell me. ' The news of to-day is that, Lord Lansdowne's negotiations having failed, the Queen sent for Lord John, and that he is still charged with the commission. It is said that Herbert and Gladstone refused to join him, that Palmerston is ready to serve, but fears the fatigue and responsibility of the War Department. Elliot thinks that Panmure must have it. He is an' intelligent second-rate, bold, honest, and fond of society, and therefore more accustomed to men than the Duke. ' Elliot regrets deeply that Lord John has accepted the task of forming a Government. In the first place, it kept him from the House on Friday, and prevented his defending himself, which he says that he can do triumphantly, against the Duke's attack. The accusa- tions, therefore, have three days to circulate and implant themselves. In the second place, it gives CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 165 plausibility to the charge that his conduct is the result, not of public spirit, but of ambition. ' " I do not believe," said Elliot, " that charge. I believe Johnny to be eminently honest, straight- forward, and public-spirited. But those who do not know him well that is to say, all England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the exception of some twenty of his relations and connections will believe that he has been intriguing against Lord Aberdeen ever since he joined him. He had it in his power to act dis- interestedly and patriotically, to say to the Queen : ' Palmerston is the man demanded by the public, und I am willing to serve under him.' But his little family clique tell him that he is the only man to save the country ; he talks to no one else, and believes them. Palmerston is wiser. With claims far superior to Lord John's, he accepts office under him cheerfully, even cordially. ' " As to the secession," he added, "of Herbert and Gladstone, it is a great blow to the future Government and a prodigious accession to the Tories. But I am not sure that it is a loss to the country. If Gladstone had remained, he could only have made a loan and raised the Income Tax to 10 per cent. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer can do that as well as he could. And we may find a Secretary of War as good as Sidney Herbert, or we may abolish the office by merging it in the Department. We have been trying, without great success, a strong Ministry and a weak Opposition. Now we shall have a strong Opposition. Perhaps if we had had one sooner, we might have escaped some of our present disasters." 1 66 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 1 " Will Gladstone," I said, " oust Disraeli ? Will he be able, as soon as he crosses the floor of the House, to assume the command of his old enemies ?" ' " Not immediately," said Elliot. " He will at first take a neutral position. He will protect the Govern- ment, but from time to time candidly admit its short- comings, and gradually, from damaging them by his support, will slide into damaging them by his attacks until Dizzy is deposed, and Herbert and Gladstone and Cardwell become the leaders of the Opposition, without anybody's knowing how it was done." '"Dizzy," I said, "will scarcely submit to be so blandly absorbed. If the Tories throw him off he will return to his early love, the Radicals." '"He may try it," said Elliot, "but he will fail. They will not accept him. He is purely a rhetorician, and a rhetorician powerful only in attack. He wants knowledge, he wants the habits of patient investiga- tion by which it is to be acquired ; he wants sincerity, he wants public spirit, he wants tact, he wants birth, he wants fortune he wants, in short, nine out of ten of the qualities that fit a man to lead a party. Nothing but the penury of talent among the Tories after the secession of the Peelites gave him importance. If the Peelites rejoin their old associates he is lost." ' Henry Bowyer dined with us. ' " I do not understand," he said, " this general wish that Lord John may not be Minister. He may have behaved ill to his colleagues, he may have intrigued against Lord Aberdeen, he may have let the Duke go on until he became intolerable to the country, and have then seized this opportunity to stab the Ministry CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 167 through him, and to escape himself by turning a sort of king's evidence ; but what has the public to do with all this ? They say that he ought to have retired before. But so ought they all. If you defend them by saying that they did not perceive the Duke's incapacity, that is to save their honesty at the expense of their intelligence. If they did perceive it they acted much worse than he ; for they did not retire till they were kicked out. Lord John has clearly shown more sense, or more patriotism, than any of his colleagues. If the world is ready to take Palmerston or Clarendon, why object to him ? 1 " As representing the public, all that I wish is to have the war vigorously carried on. I care nothing about the squabbles in the Cabinet. I want the man .who can and will fight. Lord John has shown the most willingness to do so. I hope that he also possesses ability. ' " It is true that he has not shown it as War Minister, but neither has Lord Palmerston, nor, indeed, anyone else, except, perhaps, Lord Grey." ' Monday, February 5. We went to the House of Lords to hear Lord Lyndhurst's motion, but, as I expected, it was put off. ' I went to the Commons, where I found that Lord John had finished his answer to the Duke of New- castle, and that Gladstone was replying to Lord John. I was told that Lord John's speech was well received, particularly the passage in which he complained that Lord Aberdeen, knowing that the Duke had virtually resigned, had accepted his (Lord John's) resignation, without further explanation, without telling him that 168 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE the Duke's war-ministry, the ground of his resignation, was over. ' Gladstone's reply was heard coldly, and when he said that Lord Aberdeen could not communicate to Lord John the Duke's intention to resign, because it was only an intention, which he might have revoked, much disapprobation was expressed on each side of the House. ' All sorts of reports are current : one that Palmer- ston has failed ; another that Lord John is to be in his Cabinet, and that Gladstone will not sit with him ; another that Lord John refuses to serve under Lord Palmerston, either as having been Premier himself, or from a feeling that his present unpopularity would communicate itself to his associate. ' Many persons think Gladstone indispensable. Any other Chancellor of the Exchequer, they say, would be torn to bits by him. ' There is a general impression that this discussion is discreditable to aristocratic institutions ; that the Cabinet seem to think much more of their duty to each other than to the country ; that the Duke was made War Minister on a point of etiquette, merely because he held an office which was called War and the Colonies ; that Lord Aberdeen kept him because he was doing his best, and to remove him would hurt his feelings ; that Lord John did not press his removal, because it would give pain to Lord Aberdeen, and oecause he, as the head of the Whig section in the coalition, was not the fit person to turn out his Peelite associates ; that the rest of the Cabinet shut their eyes to the Duke's incompetency, because they did not wish CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 169 to break up the Government. In short, that the only things left unconsidered were the safety of the army and the safety of the country. ' I hear that the Duke has long been dissatisfied with Lord Raglan, but that, with the characteristic politeness of an aristocratic Minister, instead of recall- ing or reproving him, he has administered only kind notes of advice. ' I walked for some time in Westminster Hall with Layard.* '"I hear," he said, " that Lord John tells every- body that it was my speech that opened his eyes to the state of our army." ' Wednesday, February 7. Dr. Jeune,t the Master of Pembroke, breakfasted with us. He is in attendance on the Oxford Commission. The purpose for which it was supposed to have been created, the purpose to which the powers given to it point, is to make the reforms which the colleges are unwilling or unable to effect by themselves. But the men have been so ill and so perversely selected, that it seems likely to be an obstructive instead of a motive power. ' The most active members, Judge Coleridge and Awdrey, are timid Puseyites, full of prejudices and of scruples, talking of the wishes of the founder and of the claims of property, and would keep the colleges clerical almshouses for those born in particular counties or parishes, instead of great diffusers of education to all British subjects. Pembroke proposes * The Right Honourable Sir Austen Henry Layard, the excavator of Nineveh. t Afterwards Bishop of Peterborough. 1 70 ; MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE a thorough reform, gets rid of founders' kin and parochial and school preferences, and of all the follies of the seventeenth century. The commissioners, instead of receiving their improvements with gratitude, are trying to pare them down. The Bishop of Ripon attends little, and when he does attend sympathises with the obstructors. Lord Ellesmere is liberal, but indolent and yielding, and George Cornewall Lewis is absent. The only good man is Johnson, the Dean of Wells, but he is unsupported. . ' Jeune told me that he had been with Potter, who, with his partner, Price of Gloucester, had supplied the wooden houses for the Crimea. Potter told him that for three weeks after he had made his proposal to the Duke of Newcastle he got no answer ; that he wrote to ask what was to be done, and was told that the paper had been mislaid, and that they wished for a copy of it ; that at length the War Department having, after great delay, resolved to have them, they were made and sent by rail to Southampton, but that the contract entered into by the Ordnance ended when they reached the railway terminus ; that, after some delay, another contract was entered into for putting them on board of steamers, but that this contract merely heaped them on the deck ; that a further con- tract and a further delay was necessary to get them down into the hold ; and he does not believe that at this instant they have got beyond Balaklava. Louis Napoleon sent for Potter to Saint-Cloud to consult about their being supplied to the French army. In a couple of hours the whole matter was arranged between Louis Napoleon and himself. The question then was CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 171 how soon the execution of it could be begun. This was Saturday. A letter could not get to Gloucester before Monday. Louis Napoleon rang for a courier, gave him fifteen napoleons, and ordered him to be in Gloucester in twenty-four hours. Potter proposed to go to his hotel, write out the contract and specification, and return with them. Louis Napoleon said no, they must be written out immediately ; that he was going out for a couple of hours, and hoped on his return to find all ready. Potter was thus left two hours alone in Louis Napoleon's cabinet, with all his private papers about. The contract, etc., was ready in two hours, was in Gloucester on Sunday, and the workmen were employed in executing it by six o'clock on Monday morning. 1 We dined with the Trevelyans, and met there the Booths, Milmans, and Macaulay. We talked no politics, for there are none to talk. Nothing is known, and everybody is tired of guessing. Macaulay spoke with great affection of Lord John. 1 Thursday, February 8. Herbet, the French Consul, and Sir Edward Colebrooke dined with us. Garcia came in the evening. Herbet spoke with deep regret of Faucher* as one of the boldest and most honourable of 'French statesmen. I asked what was to become of the Credit Foncier, since it has been absorbed by the Government and put under totally new management. ' " I cannot tell," said Herbet ; " but I should be sorry to hold its shares. This totally new manage- ment has been an after-thought. The intention of * Faucher, formerly Minister of the Interior, had just died. 1 72 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Bineau, the Minister of Finance, was to retain Wolowski, Faucher's brother-in-law, the old directeur, as second in command, and he had consented to serve, but Louis Napoleon personally interfered and ordered his removal." ' This seizure by the Government of the funds of a private commercial company, and delivery of them over into new hands, without consulting those who have lent to it, or borrowed from it, or purchased its shares, is characteristic of the I dees Napoleoniennes. ' Herbet maintains that both Louis Napoleon and Drouyn de Lhuys are Free-traders. I objected to this belief Louis Napoleon's pamphlet on the French sugar duties, which is full of Protection in its worst forms prohibitions and bounties. ' " That," said Herbet, " was before he had been in England. His mind was constantly at work when he was with you, and you will see the fruits of it." * " Drouyn de Lhuys," he said, "has risen in reputa- tion more than any other French statesman. His whole soul is intent on rendering the Anglo-Gallic alliance not a partnership for merely one venture, but a perma- nent consolidation of interests." '"Does he write," I asked, "many of his State papers ?" ' " Almost all the important ones," answered Herbet, " which is a deviation from the tradition of our Foreign Office." ' Sir E. Colebrooke saw the battle of the Alma from the deck of the Agamemnon, and remained in the Crimea till after the battle of Balaklava. ' I asked him about Lord Raglan. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 173 '"He is gentleman-like," said Colebrooke, "and brave, but seems to want the power of locomotion. No one ever saw his horse out of a walk. Lyons, who went out with him on a reconnaissance, came back, after having had to walk his horse for five hours, numbed with cold." ' " What were the criticisms," I asked, " in the camp, as to the battle of the Alma ?" ' " I cannot answer," he replied, " as to the camp, but to us in the Agamemnon, it seemed that he charged too soon. When we saw the Zouaves in possession of the heights on the right, we supposed that the Russians, taken in flank, would be easily driven off, but Lord Raglan charged before the French could come to his assistance. ' " What do they say," I asked, ' about the charge at Balaklava ?" ' " They say," he answered, " that Lord Raglan, who was two miles from the spot, ought not to have given an order which did not obviously allow the officer who was to execute it any discretion. He ought to have known that during the ten minutes which it took Captain Nolan to bear the order things might be altogether altered. The rest of the blame is divided between Nolan, who was rash and violent, and Lord Lucan. The great fault, however, lies with those who gave an important command to the latter." ' " Is it true," I asked, " that Lord Raglan is invisible ?" ' " Quite true," he said. " I have heard of men who were seven or eight weeks in the camp without seeing him. To move seems to give him pain. 174 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ' " Our first great blunder," he continued, " was com- mencing the siege with insufficient forces ; our second was turning our whole force on the attack before we had fortified our position and made our road. It is true that we had not men enough to do both, but if the attack had been delayed till we had secured our communications with our base of operations, we should not have been forced to suspend it for want of ammuni- tion, or have seen our men die by thousands for want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. ' " Our third error was dividing the attack into two halves, and taking one for ourselves. This may have been right at first, when the numbers in each army were about equal ; but when the French were doubled and trebled by their reinforcements, and we were reduced to one half by disease, the disproportion in the tasks allotted to the armies respectively became enormous. The greater part of our loss is to be attributed to this. We have not half enough men for the trenches alone, leaving, as to a great degree we do leave, all our other duties unperformed." 'I asked Garcia .if he thought that Isabella would keep her throne. ' " Certainly," he answered. " We are too wise to incur another war of succession, and whom could we put in her place ? Not Montpensier : our importa- tions of sovereigns from France have never succeeded. Not Montemolin, for he is despised. I have seen the women who sell vegetables and fruit at the end of the day collect the refuse still unsold, and cry out, ' Who will buy my Montemolins ?' using that term as signify- ing valueless remnants. Our best hope is to marry CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 175 our Infanta to the King of Portugal, and unite the crowns, but we fear that you would object. We believe that you wish to keep Portugal in your depen- dence." ' "The dependence of Portugal," I said, "was very useful about fifty years ago, when it enabled us to use the men and the resources of that country to fight your battles. If Portugal had been part of Spain, the Portuguese troops would not have been officered and commanded by Englishmen, and would not have afforded us the auxiliary army that enabled us to drive the French out of Spain. But Portugal now is a mere encumbrance. We have to defend a weak ally, and to countenance a perverse Court. I wish from my heart that you had it." ' Friday, February 9. The Government is supposed to be constructed, giving the Treasury to Lord Palmer- ston, War to Lord Panmure, the Home Office to Sidney Herbert, and the Council and lead of the Lords to Lord Granville, keeping every other department as it was. But there is a difficulty as to Roebuck's motion for an inquiry into the management of the war. Herbert says that he will not remain Minister if he is to be under trial ; that he cannot conduct the Home Office and conduct his defence, and Gladstone threatens in that case also to retire, not choosing to be the only surviving Peelite. The French Government, too, is said to have sent a strong remonstrance. We cannot inquire into the management of the war by the English without inquiring, to a certain degree, into its management by the French, and for such an inquiry neither the French army nor the French people are 176 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE prepared. There is also a hitch about Layard. Lord Palmerston is very anxious to have him as Under- secretary at War. But Admiral Dundas is furious at Layard's letter from the Agamemnon, and until this quarrel is vide", it is thought that Layard ought not to be put into an important post. ' This seems to me, under present circumstances, a childish objection. If the duties were unimportant, or if we had a single other candidate of equal qualifica- tions, it might be well to keep Layard waiting until he had repelled Dundas' accusations. But he is so obvi- ously pointed out by his peculiar knowledge and by his energy as the best man for the office, and such immense consequences may follow its being well or ill or moderately filled, that I would take him if all, or more than all, Dundas' imputations were established. 'Saturday, February TO. I am confined by bron- chitis. Lord Lansdowne called on me on his way to the Cabinet. We talked of the difficulties of the Government. One is the inquiry. It is impossible to carry it on without showing up our allies in blue- books, the mere idea of which has seriously alarmed the French ; and yet the House is pledged to it. Some means of escaping from the pledge must be afforded, perhaps a Commission which need not report till the war is over. Another difficulty is Lord Raglan. ' "That he has done ill in some respects, and not so well as he ought to have done in others," said Lord Lansdowne, " is certain. On the other hand, he has shown great military qualities, and what, without showing great qualities, shows rare ones he has lived on good terms with the French. Where can we CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 177 find a man of military and administrative genius, and also of conciliatory temper and manners? Sir Colin Campbell may have the former merit, but he has not the latter. I hear that he is hot-tempered, almost to violence. What would be the consequences of a quarrel between him and Canrobert ? To put the whole allied army under one commander would, of course, be the right thing if it could be done. But there would be an outcry against it, perhaps irresistible, and if a calamity followed it would produce a storm which no one could stand. I believe that we must keep Lord Raglan, requiring a complete change in his staff, and sending out the best man that we can find to be at its head. 1 " What would Lord Derby," I asked, " have done with Lord Raglan ?" ' " Recalled him," answered Lord Lansdowne. " Ellenborough is furious against him, and is rash enough for anything." 'February 10. Still confined by bronchitis. Lord Monteagle called on us. '"I am glad," he said, "that this anxious fort- night is over. I grieve over our penury of military talent ; I deplore an interregnum of ten days when every minute was valuable, and I lament the fall, perhaps the ruin, of my dear friend John's political reputation ; but the result is good. It is true that years have told on Palmerston, but in some respects they have improved him. His fault will not now be rashness. He has broken off his relations with the press. Foreign Ministers will not now complain, as they used to do, that they find the substance of their 12 178 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE conferences in the columns of the Morning Chronicle. And his powers of labour are unimpaired. They are as vigorous and as untiring as ever." '"What sort of a War Minister will Panmure make ?" I asked. ' "Very good," said Lord Monteagle ; " better than a man of greater capacity, Lord Grey. He is acces- sible to argument ; Grey is not. He can change his opinions ; Grey cannot. Then he was for fourteen years a regimental officer. He has been poor ; he has been kicked about in the world ; and he is a good judge of men. ' " That was the Duke of York's merit. He was not an able man, but he knew where to find, and how to keep, able men. He took Torrens and Calvert and Fitzroy Somerset, and the others who made our army in the last war." ' " What is to be done," I asked, " with the Duchy of Lancaster ?" ' " I hope," said Monteagle, " that a use will be made of it which no one now suspects. I hope that Johnny will take it." ' " But if he joins this Ministry," I said, " will not he be always suspected of being engaged in an intrigue to subvert it ? And will not he, in fact, join it as a slave, unable effectually to oppose any of its measures, or effectually to enforce any views of his own, because he cannot again resign ?" * "It is true," said Monteagle, "that his position in the Ministry will be a painful one. But what will be his situation if he stands aloof? The leader of a great party and that he still will be cannot give to any CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 179 Government a constant support, unless he is a member of it. Things will be done, and things will be omitted, to his intense disapprobation, without his knowing why. He will not be able to support the Government, because all its motives cannot be explained to him. Some- times he will stay away, but he will be suspected of prompting his followers to oppose. Sometimes he may be tempted to oppose himself, and woe be to him if he ever succeeds ! I cannot conceive a greater mis- fortune to him than his putting a Liberal Government into a minority. He had better join it in any capacity, and on any terms." ' February 12. Tom Taylor dined with us, and told us that F. Peel is to be the Under-Secretary for the War Department. As Peel's transfer to the War Department vacates a Colonial Under-Secretaryship, it is hoped that Layard may still be brought in, not precisely for that vacancy, as it would not do to put him under Sidney Herbert (who now takes the Colonies), whose management he has been attacking, but by a further shuffle of the official cards. ' It seems that there has been a little disturbance in the Cabinet about Windsor. Gladstone desired Hayter to move for the writ for it on Thursday. Hayter demurred, as he was not aware that the Government was prepared with a candidate. Glad- stone assured him that all was right, and that the candidate was ready ; and he ended by saying that if Hayter would not move for the writ Lord Elcho would. Hayter acquiesced, and moved, and Hope, a Peelite, brother of Hope-Scott, instantly addressed the electors. The Whig members of the Cabinet had 12 2 x8o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE not been consulted. They disapprove of Hope, and have sent Sampson Ricardo to oppose him, so that there are now two Government candidates a Peelite and a Whig opposing one another. ' In the summer, before Lord Rosse returned to Ireland, we had a good deal of conversation as to the possibility of attacking Sebastopol with shot-proof boats. I had a letter from him to-day, dated Parsons- town, February 8, from which what follows is an extract : '"As you suggested, I wrote in last June to the Duke of Newcastle, referring him to my letter to Sir J. Burgoyne on the subject of shot-proof ships. I stated to him that no doubt in common with others I had been considering in what way the great mechanical and engineering resources of this country could be brought to bear against the Czar, and that my letters to Sir ]. Burgoyne were the result. '"Sir J. Burgoyne so far concurred with me, that he thought a target should be at once made, and the experiment at once tried. ' " That I had spoken to several Fellows of the Royal Society and eminent engineers, and that they had not suggested any substantial difficulty. ' " That there was not the slightest doubt either that iron could be made of strength sufficient to resist cannon-shot till doomsday, or that the sea would be able to carry the weight. ' " That a target could be made in a week, and the preliminary experiments at once tried. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 181 ' " The Duke, however, was too great or too busy to look for aid from science. He did not, so far as I am aware, take the slightest notice of the suggestion. 4 " At length, in the autumn, when I was about to make a target myself (having procured iron from England for that purpose), I found from the papers that a target had just been made at Portsmouth, at the earnest request, it is said, of the French Government. The result of the experiment, I need hardly say, was strictly in accordance with the result which had been previously attained by theory. ' " The Illustrated News and the other London papers have given a detailed description of the floating batteries now, I believe, nearly finished, and of course they have made the Czar acquainted with all that he desires to know. ' " By whom these floating batteries were designed and calculated I know not, but / should have made them much stronger and more powerful. ' " In what a different position we should now have been with even one floating battery, proof against everything, in the middle of the harbour of Sebastopol. Nothing could have kept it out. What an unequal contest we have engaged in, with the War Minister profoundly ignorant of everything relating to war and its appliances, opposed to the Czar, who, perhaps, of all men in Europe is the best informed on all such matters ! ' " Ever yours, 4 " ROSSE." 1 Henry Phillips, whom I saw in the course of the morning, told me that he had dined yesterday with i8 2 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Scott Russell, who is building an iron vessel, or rather a vessel armed with iron, for the Government. The model, he was told, came from France, and no dis- cretion was given to him. The plates are four inches thick, fitted one to another like bricks, thus - - without any of the edges overlapping. The consequence, he says, will be, that a ball hitting an angle may start three or four plates. Assuming four inches to be the proper thickness, on which Scott Russell gave no opinion, he would have had two plates, each two inches thick, so arranged as that the joinings of one set of plates should never coincide with those of another. Whether such a double coating would be sufficient, Scott Russell will not decide, but he is convinced that the single coating, though of four inches thick, is not sufficient. This seems to be also Lord Rosse's opinion. ' Elliot saw yesterday an intelligent traveller just returned from the Crimea. ' " No description," said the traveller, " can exaggerate the confusion, want of accommodation, and delays. ' " A day or two before I went away it was resolved that the sutlers' booths and warehouses, which fill up more than half of the little wharfage, and ought never to have been allowed to be there, should be removed. All persons interested in the safety of the army were delighted ; but the very day that it was to have been executed, an order came down from headquarters, say- ing that it was hard on the sutlers that their places should be removed without more notice, and giving them leave to remain for a fortnight longer. And CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 183 this, when their presence materially interferes with landing the supplies on which the lives of our men depend." ' He called on Lord Raglan at twelve o'clock, ana was told that it was impossible to see him at so early an hour. He went in to Canrobert, and was told that it was many hours too late ; that if he wished to see the General he must come at eight. He was there at eight next morning, and found Canrobert surrounded by his staff, having just finished his morning's work, and ready to ride with him round the works.' 'February 14. I have cut out of the Spectator a letter the authorship of which will be evident to the initiated.* {Translated Extract^ ' COMPI&GNE, 'February 6, 1855. ' " . . . But to talk of more important topics, or, rather, of the all-important one, the war. My mind is continually dwelling with painful interest on the situa- tion of your brave army an interest inspired by admiration for the army itself, as well as by the concern which I feel for the honour and credit of your institutions, now in some danger of falling into dis- repute through incapable and inexperienced adminis- tration. ... If you do not succeed in repairing the mischief, and that quickly (which indeed seems to me next to impossible), England and her Government will assuredly come out of this struggle somewhat discredited, whatever may be the ultimate results of * Tocqueville, writing from his father's house at Compiegne. 1 84 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE the war, and of the heroic achievements of your soldiers. ' " I have a difficulty in believing that this will not have a considerable influence, though one, perhaps, little foreseen, upon the future course of your domestic affairs. I suspect that it will accelerate the pace at which you appear to be departing from the character of aristocratic government, according to the old accep- tation of that term. At any rate, it is impossible but that the English must discern the immense advantages which in time of war attend a centralized government, or that they can be long in contact with an army where everyone can and may become an officer without its producing upon them a serious impression. Your army can hardly avoid undergoing a sort of revolution, and a revolution in the constitution of the army will surely not be confined to the army alone. You are the only people of the present day (except, perhaps, the Russians, and they less than you) who are officered exclusively by gentlemen. You will discover that an army commanded solely by gentlemen is not neces- sarily the best army to make war with ; it is better able to fight than to sustain itself before and after the battle. We have had good reason to know this under our old monarchy. On the other hand, an army com- manded by gentlemen has the advantage of being good against revolutions ; while an army of the opposite character either makes revolutions or suffers them to be made by others. Reeve told me the other day that the aristocracy had never been stronger in England than they are now ; for that they had never poured out their blood more freely. But I must remark that CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 185 it is not altogether by military services that an aristo- cracy can maintain itself ; otherwise ours would not be levelled to the dust, as it actually is, for who ever were more prodigal of their lives than the French gentils- hommes, of all grades, the lesser as well as the greater ? My grandfather and my grand-uncle both met their death on the field of battle ; their father and their grandfather experienced the same fate, and there is hardly a family in the neighbourhood of whom as much cannot be said. Yet there remains not a trace of their power. The last cannon which was mounted on the old baronial chateau of Tocqueville in my neighbourhood, now half-buried in the earth, serves as a post to tie up cattle, while the chateau itself is degraded to a farmhouse. I will conduct Reeve thither when he comes to see me ; it will show him what must be the fate of an aristocracy who, though they know how to die, do not know how to govern. Yours has till now done both, and this is the reason why it still holds its ground, although the temper of the age is anything but favourable to its continu- ance." ' The opinion suggested, rather than expressed, by the writer is, that our aristocracy no longer know how to govern. ' This I do not believe. I believe that our aristo- cracy know better than they ever did how to govern. I believe that they fully participate in the general progress, and have among their ranks, not only more men, but a greater proportion of men, of diligence, knowledge, and intelligence, than they ever had. 186 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 4 Our difficulties seem to me to arise from the unfit- ness for government, not of our aristocracy, but of our democracy. The Reform Act has thrown into demo- cratic hands a large portion of the power of which it has stripped the aristocracy. By diminishing by more than one-half the aristocratic members of the House of Commons, it has narrowed into less than one-half the field from which we can select aristocratic statesmen. But it has given us none at least, none of any eminence and it promises none. The ten- pounders do not elect statesmen, and if one of their members tries, like Hawes, to be useful in office to the country, they turn him out. Thence it is that we are forced to keep turning round and round in the narrow circle of aristocratic statesmen to whom the incapacity of our democratic Members of Parliament confines us. I fear that there is some ground for Nicholas' prophecy that our bourgeois Parliament would not be able to carry on a war. Not, as he supposed, from its economy, but from its want of administrative talent. G tells me that he has refused the secretary- ship of the Board of Control, vacated by Lowe. If Layard had been appointed Under-Secretary of War, G would have joined the Government. Layard, as might be expected, talks in the same strain. He told me that he was delighted at not being connected with a Government which would have silenced him, discredited him, and at length dragged him down in its fall, for he does not expect its duration. He and G both look forward to a Derby administration. Lowe's retirement from the Board of Control is not a good omen. He has great talents, great ambition, and CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 187 no scruples. He too says that he would have remained if Layard had been taken in. He has returned to the Times, and wrote a violent democratic article in the paper of the i4th. I hear that he thinks this Ministry shortlived.' 'February 17. Lady William Russell and Hastings Russell* called on us. Hastings refused the Secretary- ship of the Board of Control he says, because he did not think himself fit for it, and because he wishes to keep his vote unfettered ; but I suspect that distrust of the permanence of this Government influenced him. Neither Lady William nor Hastings thinks that it can last. "If the House," he said, "had come to a vote last night, Palmerston would have been in a minority. We shall see what will be done when Roebuck names his committee on Thursday, but at present there is a majority for carrying on the inquiry at any risk." ' Lady William has no hopes of Lord John's success in Vienna, but is anxious to get him out of England. "His family," she says, "are trying to keep him at home, not only because he is now in bed with influenza and not fit for the journey, but also with vague hopes of his return to the Premiership. I have no such ex- pectations," she said, "at least at present, for nothing can equal his London unpopularity. It is perfectly true that he ought to have resigned in November, but he tells me that Lord Lansdowne, Lord Palmerston, and Sir G. Grey all entreated him to remain. Perhaps I have lived too much abroad to enter thoroughly into the English feeling that a man's first duty is to his party, and his second to his country." * Afterwards Duke of Bedford. i88 . MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ' My son brought home news from the Chancellor this evening that the Government have resolved, if Roebuck's motion for naming the committee of inquiry is carried on Thursday, to dissolve.' ' Wednesday, February 22. I wrapped myself in furs, and got to the Athenaeum. The first person that I saw there was Charles Austin. ' He is alarmed at the defection of the Peelites that is, of Gladstone, Graham, Herbert, and Lord Canning which was announced last night. He fears that it may pave the way to a Derby Government, which must be disastrous, not because they are pecu- liarly dishonest all statesmen are dishonest but from their gross, hopeless ignorance. ' ''You don't live," he said, "among country gentle- men ; I do. They are very kind, very gentlemanlike ; but they know nothing, and they wish to know nothing. They never read ; they are afraid to do so, for fear of unsettling their opinions. They look on Adam Smith as the Archbishop of Canterbury does on Strauss : as a book that would disturb their faith. Have you heard how they received Lord Derby at the Con- servative meeting yesterday ? With hisses and howls, and cries of ' No Puseyites, no Papists !' He was forced to beg pardon for having asked for the assist- ance of Gladstone and Graham, and to promise never to do so again." '"What would you do," I asked, "to avert a Derbyite reign ?" ' " I would take in Layard and Lowe," he said. " I would make Lowe Chancellor of the Exchequer, or, if that belongs to Cardwell, President of the Board of CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 189 Control, or anything else to get him into the Cabinet. His speech to his Kidderminster constituents in to-day's Times is the most statesmanlike thing that I have seen for a long time wise and temperate. I would send Bright to the Home Office." ' " How could he join," I said, "a War Cabinet?" ' " That is his look-out," said Austin. " We have no business to know anything about his superstitions. Either he would do well and then you have a good public servant or he would be extinguished, as Milner Gibson was, with his poison-fangs drawn. I would take in Cobden, too." ' Lord Overstone and Strelecki joined us. Over- stone agreed thoroughly with Austin in admiring Lowe's speech, and in wishing to see him in the Cabinet, and Layard in the Government. He fears that Palmerston is not up to the emergency, that he is encumbered by the traditions of a forty years' peace, and does not see that such a war as this is not a business of routine. '"People complain," he said, "that the House of Commons is angry and unmanageable. It ought to represent the feelings of the people ; it ought to require that the strength and safety of England is not complimented away to avoid hurting the feelings of a few excellent, amiable, well-conducted, scrupulous, timid incapables." ' " You and Strelecki," I said, " ought to throw your- selves into the breach. You ought to go to the Home Office, and Strelecki, who has administered in a famine,* should go with MacNiel to the Crimea." * The Irish famine in 1848. i 9 o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 1 ' ' Any office," said Overstone, " for me must be a home office ; but before you put me into one you must take twenty years from me, and give me back my eyes and my nerves." '"As for me," said Strelecki, "I have never re- fused my services, for they have never been asked for." ' " One source of our misfortunes," said Overstone, " was that we did not believe in the seriousness of the affair. We thought that it would be a mere demon- stration to keep the Russians on the north of the Balkan, and that the army would return in six months." ' " Such," said Strelecki, " was Lord Raglan's own expectation. He told me just before he started that he expected no fighting, and accordingly he took his friends on his staff, to give them a pleasure tour and the chance of promotion." '"I believe," said Overstone, "that our chief motive for going to the Bosphorus was to prevent the French from being sole masters of Constantinople. We have so managed matters as to have incurred all this calamity and disgrace, and to make them as thoroughly masters there as if we had stayed at home." ' W T hile we were talking, Sir John MacNiel came up to me. ' " When do you go ?" I asked. '" To-morrow morning," he answered, "and I hope to be on the spot in a fortnight." ' " I trust," I said, " that you have full powers ?" ' " When Panmure," he answered, " telegraphed for CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 191 me, and told me that he wished me to go to the Crimea, I told him that I never had asked for any office, and never had refused one in which I thought that I could be useful, but that I must know precisely what was expected from me, and what were my powers. I will not tell you what was his answer to my first question, but I will tell you that my powers are sufficient." 1 " Can you dismiss ?" I asked. 1 " No," he answered ; " but I can cause dismissal." ' "In what time?" ' " In an hour, and I am determined that not one of my powers shall be unemployed. I go fully resolved to show no favour, no affection, no mercy. I know that our people here and Trevelyan among the rest have so fettered every department and every pro- ceeding with forms, and delays, and responsibilities, that our Administration is like a man in the collapse of cholera : the circulation is stopped, and the muscles do not act. I heard a characteristic story yesterday. A party of marines were landed at Balaklava ; the snow was on the ground ; the officer in command applied to the store - keeper for tents ; they were furnished. A couple of hours after came down an order from the Quartermaster-General's office threaten- ing the clerks who had furnished them without an order with dismissal, and ordering the tents to be struck. It was done, and the men passed the night in the snow." '"I wish," I said, "that Strelecki went with you." ' " So do I," he answered, "and Strelecki would go. 192 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE I wanted him, or Oliphant, or John Paget ; but they have given a very good man Tulloch." 4 "Of course," I said, "you might have had whom- soever you wished ?" '"I suppose so," he answered, "but I made no terms whatever." ' Saturday, February 24. I breakfasted this morn- ing with Lord Lansdowne. ' "Well," he said, " I hope that you think that we were right in holding on." ' " I heard," I said, "last Saturday that you thought of dissolving." ' " What good," he answered, " would that have done ? We know that at the meeting of the Derbyites the first pledge required from Lord Derby was that he would prosecute the inquiry, and he gave it. If we had dissolved, such a pledge would have been exacted at every hustings. The war and the inquiry are the only things that now interest the electors. There is no other subject for them to think about, and if there were, no other subject, unless it were a religious one, would be attended to by minds which are full of the loss of an army, and the failure, at least for the present, of a war. If we had dissolved, there would have been in the new House a still greater majority for the inquiry. If we had resigned, Lord Derby would have been as impotent against it as we are. By staying in, we hope at least to diminish the mischief. By resign- ing, we certainly should have aggravated it. Roebuck is reasonable, and we shall have a fair and intelligent committee. We shall give them all the reports from the commissioners whom we have sent out, and shall CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 193 send out, and I hope that they will be satisfied with that. This morning we had a paper from Lord Raglan, containing his defence. I have not had time to see more than the outside. It is voluminous. He tells us that the day before he wrote that is, a fort- night ago they had a council of all the generals, and decided unanimously on the next operation. Our army, too, is improving from day to day ; the convalescents are rejoining it, not by hundreds, but by thousands. I hear an excellent account," he added, " of the Pied- montese and of La Marmora." ' " Where are they to go ?" I asked. " I hope to Eupatoria. I should be sorry to see them exposed to the disease of Balaklava." ' " It is not decided," he answered. ' " Do you believe," I said, " in Louis Napoleon's journey ?" ' " He has talked the matter over fully," answered Lord Lansdowne, " with Lord John. He certainly was bent on it, and he will not admit that he has given it up. It seems that there has been much disagree- ment in the French camp, and he thinks that his presence would compose it. All his Ministers, and all those about him, are strenuously opposed to it, and no one more than Plon-Plon.* He swears that he will not return. Louis Napoleon, however, does not like to leave him." ' " On what terms are they ?" I asked. 1 " There is a fair exterior," answered Lord Lans- downe, " but I fancy that the Emperor has judged Plon-Plon, and that Plon-Plon knows it. I hear that * Prince Napoleon, Jerome's son. 13 i 9 4 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE his Crimean campaign has excited so much disgust and contempt as to put an end to his chances of the succession." ' " I presume," I said, " that there was nothing in the rumour of the legitimization of Morny ?" ' " There could have been nothing in it," said Lord Lansdowne. " I almost wonder that it attained currency. Lord John's mission," he added, " has given great pleasure in Vienna. They are getting over their prejudices. Haynau is forgotten ; and though there is a strong Russian party in the Court, the Emperor is decided. He is not like the poor King of Prussia. His confidence once given, even to a burgher and democrat, is not easily withdrawn. The old dislike of Palmerston is over ; but as to his active alliance, I believe that that depends on Sebastopol. He has a good general perhaps the best in Europe and a good army, but it is not equal in numbers to the Russian force opposed to it. ' " I thought," I said, " that the Austrian army amounted to 460,000 men." ' " It may do so, on paper," said Lord Lansdowne ; "but, exclusive of the forces in Italy, which must remain there, I do not believe that it amounts to 200,000. The Russians still keep their best troops on the Gallician and Hungarian frontier. The Imperial Guard is there, and I believe their army to be stronger than Hesse's. If we take Sebastopol, a French army may march through Germany to aid them, or may occasion in the South a more important diversion than the Crimean operations do ; but I do not expect to see the Austrians move while Sebastopol resists." CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 195 "'I have sometimes thought," I said, "that the capture of Sebastopol might retard the peace." ' " Do you suppose," he answered, " that we should ask higher terms than we do now ? I do not think that we ought, and I do not believe that we should." 1 " No," I said ; " I do not suppose that after the fall of Sebastopol we should ask for more, but I think it possible that Nicholas would be able to grant less. If he makes peace now, he makes it on equal terms. Each party has had its successes and its calamities, and he has shown that he can resist France and England united. But if we take Sebastopol he makes peace as a beaten man. That would be humiliating to him, and perhaps unsafe. The Russians put me in mind of the Romans, and, like them, may resolve not to terminate a war except at a moment of success : to be multis pugnis, nullo bello, victi. If Nicholas were a man of sense he would hurry on a peace while Sebastopol stands." ' " If he had been a man of sense," said Lord Lansdowne, " he would not have made the war. Disbelieving in his sense, and believing in his obstinacy, I expect him to go on fighting until he is subdued by want of money and of men." ' " The power of raising men," I said, " does not seem to depend on the population, or even on the wealth of a country. Prussia, with 15,000,000, has, it seems, almost as large a force as Austria with 37,000,000, and we, with nearly 30,000,000, find it difficult to equal even Prussia." ' " I am beginning," said Lord Lansdowne "to let go an opinion to which I have clung all my life, that 132 196 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE we can continue to rely on volunteers now that the Channel is bridged over by steam and that all Europe is sacrificing domestic improvement, and wealth and comfort, to a rivalry in keeping up large armies. I fear that we must have one so numerous as to require some sort of conscription. ' " One thing," he continued, " has been done of great and, I trust, permanent importance. We are disciplining a Turkish force under English officers : the men delight in it. They prefer infinitely our officers to their own, and if Turkey is to be preserved, such an army seems to give her the only chance of being able to stand alone. ' " To return," he added, " to home affairs. I hope that we shall get a friend of yours George Lewis I was very anxious for Lord Grey, but hisfiatx a tout prix is a serious objection, and his military reforms, though wise and energetic, would have been forced on with a disregard of friction and of individual feeling which would have endangered their success. I, who have known him and loved him from a child, can laugh at his ebullitions, and make him laugh at them, but they are bitterly offensive to strangers. A very able friend of mine told me that he never left Lord Grey without thinking whether he ought to call him out. I believe that we are safer with Panmure. He seems to be doing admirably. He is very active, quite cool, and thoroughly decided. Grey has promised his zealous assistance, and I have no doubt will give it." ' " I find," I said, " a great wish to bring Lowe into the Cabinet." 4 " Well," said Lord Lansdowne, " he certainly is CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. ^g^ able. Among our difficulties," he added, " is one that I have heard you mention, that the democracy, which takes half our seats, gives us no statesmen. A second, or perhaps a cause of the first, is that the enormous demand for talent and energy in industrial pursuits turns those who might be politicians into engineers and railway contractors. The clever young men in the high aristocracy go naturally to politics, or to what is a branch of politics to the law ; but if a country clergyman has two or three sons, he hopes that the best of them may tread in the steps of Brassey or Peto, rather than in those of our permanent officials. '"It is true that the reformed House sympathizes much better with the people than the old one did, for it represents them better. The old House represented only birth and wealth, and of wealth only the wealth that was invested in land or in money. The great manufacturers or merchants seldom found their way into it. The House, therefore, like its constituents if patrons could be called constituents was timid, routinier, and prejudiced and self-interested. We never could have carried Poor Law Amendment, or Municipal Reform, or Tithe Reform, or Irish Church Reform, or Free Trade in the unreformed House. But we probably should have had twice as many men fit for high office, and they would have been younger men, and at the same time men of more experience. They would have been trained in politics, which com- paratively few are now. What are called our young men now, such as Lowe and Layard, are men who have made their reputation in literature or law, and have to learn politics as a new pursuit. Even Lewis' 198 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE reputation is much more speculative than practical. He is a distinguished writer, but has not yet risen to real political distinction." ' " What," I said, " will the seceders do ?" ' " It is impossible," he answered, "to promise more fairly. Sidney Herbert would have stayed in if he could have persuaded the others to do so. At the same time, if there was anyone that ought to withdraw, it was the Secretary at War. He said that he was anxious to show that an ex-Minister can give real support to his former colleagues. So, indeed, said they all ; the only subject on which there is a shadow of difference between us is the inquiry ; and even on that, as respects its mischief, we are agreed, but we thought it clearly irresistible ; they thought that it might be opposed with at least a chance of success." 4 Sunday, February 25. I breakfasted with Van de Weyer.* ' " I have been confined," he said, "to my bed for six weeks in the country, and came to town, knowing little of politics, only a few days ago. ' " I am alarmed and indignant at the conversation of my colleagues. With the exception of Coloredo, who is a man of sense, they are all exulting over what they think the collapse of the phantom of English power. Even Walewski talks very imprudently of your dependence on France, and of the ease with which you might be conquered. He even hinted to me that your Government ought to be required to interfere against the press, and to prevent its telling * The Bel ian Minister. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 199 stories disadvantageous to the allied armies. I warned him, as he valued the friendship of England, to avoid touching that string. I tried to point out to him that if one's child were ill, one would rather be afflicted by daily bulletins than hear nothing, or nothing but lies. After all, what is the real amount of your failure ? ' " You have lost 30,000 men out of 45,000 ; the Russians, in their two campaigns, admit officially a loss of 150,000 men, exclusive of that among their sailors and marines, which must amount to 30,000 more. The French admit a loss of 67,000 men. They have sent 157,000, only 90,000 now remain. When last I heard from the Crimea, about a fortnight ago, the French loss, on the previous day, amounted to several thousand men. All Europe was as unprepared for the war as you were none more so than the Russians. They believed that a mere demonstration would do, and invaded the Principalities with 40,000 men. Their 40,000 men were destroyed or driven out, and that by Turks, in a few months. The French sent their army, a besieging army, without heavy artillery, and so mismanaged their attack that their batteries were silenced in two hours. ' " I believe that out of these calamities will come much good not perhaps equal to the evil, but still positive good. Fortune will pay you a dividend. ' " In the first place, it is something that the Queen should have behaved so admirably, and that, having been tried by prosperity, she has now been tried by adversity, and has nobly supported each. Secondly, I cannot but think that you will improve your military education. Your men are the best in the world your 200 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE officers are among the worst. You will subject them to examination ; you will abolish purchase ; you will give free room to promotion ; you will not let the army be a profession in which merit and demerit are on a par. And, lastly, I trust that you will see the absolute necessity of letting your army bear a less absurd proportion to your population and your wealth. You would find it far easier to keep up an army of 200,000 men than Russia or Austria or France find it to keep up their armies. It is hard, without doubt, that you should be forced to spend eight or nine millions a year in feeding and clothing and lodging 100,000 men, to march and mount guard, whom you could profitably employ in making railroads or draining your fields ; but it is the price you have to pay for security, and with less than that army, in the present state of the Continent, you are not safe. You should study the arrangements of our camp at Beverloo, near Diest. It is the best military school in the world." ' " Are you still afraid of France ?" I asked. 1 "A year ago," he answered, "my fears had sub- sided ; but they have revived since I came to London and have listened to Continental politicians. Depend on it that unless you regain your military character, unless it is again believed that you are formidable, you will no longer be able to protect us by giving us mere moral support. When you cease to be dreaded, we shall be attacked." ' " Do you believe," I asked, " in the Crimean journey ?" ' " I do not believe," he answered, " that it has been given up. Louis Napoleon's intention to make it has CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 201 led to some remarkable scenes between him and Plon- Plon. When Plon-Plon returned the Emperor received him very coldly, kept him only a short time, and never alluded to the Crimea. Plon-Plon was furious. He called Emile Girardin to his counsels, and together they concocted a pamphlet on the Crimea, which was sent to Brussels for publication. Common friends interfered and they were reconciled, and Plon-Plon had another audience, in which the Emperor embraced him and shed tears in short, there was an affecting scene, and the pamphlet was suppressed. Then came Louis Napoleon's journey, and he required Plon-Plon to accompany him, not thinking it safe, probably, to leave him. Plon-Plon refused ; they quarrelled, and Plon-Plon sent orders for the publication of his pamphlet. It is out ; I have sent for a copy, but it has not yet arrived." 'Van de Weyer then showed me a letter from King Leopold, in which he affirmed that there could be no doubt that the pamphlet was by Napoleon Bonaparte. ' " It is said," he added, " that he intends to prosecute the printer ; but if the printer tells all that he knows about the author a jury will not readily convict him." ' Mrs. Grote and H came to us in the afternoon. Mrs. Grote is violent at Lord John's appointment to the Colonies. ' " A fellow," she said, " who from the time he joined Lord Aberdeen was plotting to turn him out, with the shoes not two months old in which he scrambled over the ship's side after he had cut a hole in her bottom, 202 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE to be thus rewarded for his intrigues and his falsehood ! If Grote were not so young a man, if he were seventy instead of sixty, and had attained the proper age for public life, he should stand for the City and beat him. Then his pompous embassy to Vienna! That, I suppose, is to be abandoned to suit the little man's convenience. Then Charles Villiers is to be brought into the Cabinet. I have a great mind to post up a reward for anyone who will give information where he has been, and what he has done, for the last three years." '"His silence was convenable" said H . "To do little and say nothing, and get into no scrapes, is the peculiar office of a subordinate member of a Government." '"Well," continued Mrs. Grote, "if this rotten, worn-out coach, with not a single new piece of wood in it, except George Lewis, runs through the session, it must find smoother roads and better coachmanship than I expect. When it upsets, you will see the people take the reins, and my fear of such a con- summation is much abated. The mischief that the aristocracy have done us during the last six months, and the results which they have heaped on us during the last six weeks, are going far to reconcile me to democracy." ' "They ought," I said, " rather to reconcile you to despotism. I see much in the events of the last six months, and of the last six weeks, in favour of the rule of one nothing in favour of the rule of the many." ' " Do not you think," said Mrs. Grote, "that if we were not tied down by the bonds of our aristocratic CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 203 routine, we could find hundreds of men fit to govern the country ? Is it not true that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it ?" ' "Quite true," I answered; "but the bonds which tie us down are not those of aristocratic routine, but of representative institutions. Under such institutions you must choose your statesmen from your represen- tatives, and the ten-pounders will not elect statesmen." '"Do the patrons," she answered, "elect them? Where have the ten-pounders elected more useless members than the three brothers whom we know, nominated by their father, the Earl ? The democratic boroughs seem to me always to wish for the best men." ; "Then," I said, " they do not know where to find them, for they elect only mediocrities." ' " What did you hear," asked Mrs. Grote, " at Van de Weyer's ?" '"Van de Weyer," I answered, "hopes that we shall keep up an army of 200,000 men." ' " Then," said Mrs. Grote, " I will go to America. Can we no longer trust our fleet ?" ' " Would our fleet," I said, "have kept Russia out of Constantinople ?" ' " I believe," answered Mrs. Grote, " that it would. But, after all, it was not our business ; it was the busi- ness of Austria. We might have trusted to her to keep Russia from the Bosphorus." ' " As we could not trust her," I answered, "to keep Russia out of the Principalities, or even to keep open the Danube, I would not have trusted her with any- thing. In fact, she is too weak, too heterogeneous, and too poor to resist Russia, unless she is backed by the 204 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE assistance, military as well as naval, of France and England. And even so backed you see that she is afraid to move." 'Monday, February 26. I breakfasted with E. Ellice, and found him on his wheel-chair, rendered by gout incapable of standing. ' " I am sick," he said, " of what is going on. It is not so much indignation that worries me as contempt. The indecision of these clever Ministers has ruined the peace, has ruined the war, has ruined Palmerston's first Cabinet, and will ruin his second. ' " If they had known what they were about, and what they intended, we should have had no war ; or if they had been forced into one, we should have kept our army, or have got Sebastopol. And now with the rump of an administration their best men gone, and their next-best discredited they are to fill the double characters of Ministers every day, and prisoners under trial every evening." ' "Their defence," I said, "is that the inquiry was irresistible." ' " I have no doubt that it was," he answered, "but they were not bound to submit to it as Ministers. They should have gone out, formed a strong Opposi- tion, and let the Derbyites carry it on at their peril. However, we have got this by it, there will no longer be the troublesome third, Peelite party. We shall come back to Whigs and Tories." 4 " We are told," I said, " that Derby pledged him- self not to have recourse again to the Peelites." ' " By no means," said Ellice ; " he has been mis- represented. He spoke very sensibly. ' When you CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 205 talk to me,' he said, 'of parties, and of consistency* recollect my own history. In 1831 I was a Radical, in 1842 I was a Tory, and in 1846 I became a Con- servative. Why am I not to allow to others the freedom of action and opinion that I take for myself? Why are you not to allow to Gladstone and Graham the latitude which you allow to me ?' He refused to pledge himself. Depend on it, notwithstanding their professions, you will see the Peelites absorbed by the Derbyites, and the Radicals by the Whigs, or the Whigs by the Radicals that is to say, if the people do not rush in, which, unless we make a triumphant peace, or a triumphant war, they will do, sooner or later. It will not be the next change. When these people fall, as fall they will if Sebastopol stands, Derby will come in. He may do better : he may get out of the old routine ; but if he does not, if he keeps within the noble circle, you will have a perfectly unmanageable House unmanageable perhaps from their dispositions, and still more so from their pledges. You will have a raw, violent, Ttmes-and- Daily-News Government, and God knows how it will act." * " How do you expect," I said, " these men to be killed?" '"A coups d'tpingles" he answered; " by a suc- cession of petty defeats. The people behind them are indifferent : they will vote for them, but they will attend ill. The people below the gangway think that this Parliament is not good for six months, and vote only as they think it best for the hustings." 4 " What could have been the motive for the appoint- ment of Seaton ?" I asked. 206 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ' " I suppose," he answered, " intimacy with Har- dinge. Hardinge, like the rest of us, does not see that his coevals get old.'|, ' " Would you have kept Hardinge ?" I asked. ' " Of course I would not," he answered, " nor any of them. Before I took the Secretaryship of War in 1830 I had a committee on the army. One of our unanimous recommendations was that all the higher posts in the administration of the army should be held, at longest, for only five years. That is almost a quarter of a century ago. In no one point has our recommendation been attended to. If it had been followed we should now have five times as many men with a general knowledge of the army as we have now. Now, if a man displeases his irremovable chief, he is forgotten, or remembered to no good. If there had been a rotation, he would have had his appeal to the successor. ' " Then for the Cabinet appointments there are men in the Commons better than many whom they have taken, or at least as good, with the advantage of not being nobles. There are Collier* and Lowe. I would have offered the Colonies to Lord Stanley, Derby's son. I would have brought in Charles Villiers." ' " Would you have taken in Lord John ?" I said. ' " He is a strange being," said Ellice, " but I think that it was only by taking him in that he could be kept straight. He is utterly ignorant of men ; he takes no advice ; he acts upon impulse, but he is as honest a little fellow as ever breathed. ' " When he joined the coalition everyone believed * Afterwards Lord Monkswell. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 207 that in a year or two, by the time the new party was consolidated, he would succeed in the course of nature to the premiership. Then came his absurd Reform Bill, which disgusted everybody, and his quarrel with Palmerston, which hit the coalition hard.* When the war came he wished Newcastle to keep both offices. Newcastle said that he could do the work, and Johnny believed him. Johnny believed, too, when he went away to Scotland in the autumn, that all was going on well. He came back, read the Times, and got frightened, tried to get rid of Newcastle, and was overruled. He acquiesced, remained in the Govern- ment sulky, but with no plans of quitting it, still less of destroying it, till Roebuck's motion was coming on. Then he sat down by his fireside in the evening, thought over his speech in answer, found that it would not do, and without consulting his friends, or even his followers, wrote his letter of resignation. The night of the debate he came to me, and asked me how I should vote. ' " ' How shall I vote?' I answered. ' Do you sup- pose that I shall vote against my friends, and for a mischievous thing ?* " 1 " In what spirits," I asked, " is Palmerston ?" 1 " Not good," he answered ; " he is too old for his work. He spent a couple of hours with me yesterday. I advised him to make more use of his subordinates. ' Don't answer Dizzy,' I said, ' yourself. Leave that to Cockburn, Keogh, and Bernal Osborne. Set them to work on Hansard. Let them prepare themselves * For Lord John's conduct see Spencer Walpole's ' Life of Lord Russell,' vol. ii., pp. 176-269. 2 o8 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE whenever Dizzy speaks and he seldom speaks with- out one's being able to foresee it to search out his antecedents, and trust them for covering him with mud.' ' " I have had a long letter," he continued, " from the Prince* clever, like everything of his, but im- practicable. He wants a large standing army, which no British Parliament will keep up in time of peace ; he wants military schools, and examinations, and com- petition. Now I think that we have military schools enough, and though I am anxious for examinations, I do not wish for competition, except for the staff. A very little knowledge is all that you need from a regimental officer. Macdonald, who defended Hougoumont, who was one of the best men ever seen in the field, could scarcely read. I would require every man who came for a commission to pass, and would give them a little more to do for each step, and I would let them get their knowledge where they could. For the staff I would have professors and competition, and only the successful candidates should be eligible. The same sort of minimum standard I would apply to the civil service, not Trevelyan's senseless concours. The only papers worth reading in that Blue-book are Stephen's and Waddington's. As for having the bulk of our officers composed of any but gentlemen, it is nonsense. There may be some bad regiments, where there has been an incapable colonel, but in general the feeling between the officers and the men is perfect. The men are ready to die, or even what is much more starve for their officers. They would not feel so towards their old companions who had risen above them. * The Prince Consort. CONVERSATIONS IN WALES, LONDON, ETC. 209 ' " I hope," he added, "that my gout may relieve me from serving on this committee ; but if I am forced into it, I must do my duty. 1 " The first questions that I shall ask the Duke of Newcastle will be : 1 " ' Had you any definite plans when you sent the troops to Malta? 1 " ' Had you any definite plans when you sent them to Varna? ' " 'When did you determine on the attack of Sebas- topol ? ' " 'What did you believe to be the Russian force then in the Crimea ? I " ' What did you believe to be the force necessary to attack the town ? ' " ' What provision had you made for keeping up the strength of our army, and how soon could the neces- sary reinforcements reach it ? ' " I believe that the answers to these few questions will show that the war has been conducted with a want, not merely of foresight, but of inquiry, which would disgrace a Turk. The Duke seems to have reasoned Orientally. ' If it be the will of Allah that we take Sebastopol, we shall take it, whatever be its strength, with 50,000 men, without cavalry, siege artillery, or reinforcements. If it be the will of Allah that we do not take it, the more men and material that we send the greater will be our loss." I 1 received a letter in the evening from Lady Theresa, announcing Lewis' acceptance of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Her pleasure at his being in the 210 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Cabinet is mixed with anxiety as to his success in an office in which few have retained their reputation, and fewer their popularity ; in which so much harm must be done, and so much good must be rejected. I think, however, Lewis eminently fitted for it. He has great knowledge, diligence, and intelligence. He is not bold. He would not have undertaken the succession duty, or the extension of the income-tax, nor does he possess the wonderful fertility of argument, illustration, and resource that enabled Gladstone to carry them, but he will thoroughly understand the system which he finds established ; he will see clearly and judge calmly the different mischiefs produced by every tax ; he will apply to finance, to political economy, and to general politics a profound knowledge of the principles of legislation. Other members of the Cabinet may know more of the art of government, but not one has gone so deeply into its theory.' ' Calais, T^lesday, February 27. I left London this morning. ' When I began this journal, a month ago, I saw that we were at the beginning of a long struggle, the result of which might influence for some years the state of parties and the progress of events ; and I thought that I might be able to preserve some facts, or, at least, some opinions, which may be interesting twenty years hence. 1 I did not foresee that I should be imprisoned more or less strictly during nearly the whole period by bron- chitis, nor that my little grandson should be attacked by scarlatina, and consequently that I should be able MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 211 to see few people out of my house, and that few, espe- cially those with young children, would choose to enter it. ' These accidents have confined me to so narrow a circle that my journal is meagre as a collection of facts, and monotonous as a picture of opinions. ' I am glad, however, that I have kept it. My interlocutors are few, and they often repeat themselves, but they are, in general, men of great experience and intelligence. ' NASSAU W. SENIOR.' 142 CHAPTER IX. JOURNAL IN 1855 (continued) : JOURNAL IN 1856. MR. SENIOR spent the four months after he left London in Paris and Algiers. In Paris, as in London, nothing was talked of except the war. The Emperor Nicholas died on March 2, but still the war continued. Lord John Russell went on a mission to Vienna, to meet the Plenipotentiaries for France, Austria, Russia and Turkey, to negotiate a peace, but was not successful. ''Kensington, Saturday,Jiily*j, 1855. I left England at the end of February, just after a Ministerial crisis, and it seems that I have returned to a new one. ' Ever since Lord John Russell's return from Vienna there have been rumours of a difference of opinion in the Cabinet respecting the war, and it has been said that he heads the party which believes that the Aus- trian propositions* ought to have been accepted, and, if they could be renewed, ought to be accepted now. * 'These famous points, as they were originally framed, were, shortly, as follows: (i) The protectorate which Russia had hitherto exercised over the Principalities was to be replaced by a collective guarantee. (2) The navigation of the mouths of the Danube was to be freed from all impediments. (3) The Treaty of 1841 was to be revised in the interests of the European equilibrium. (4) Russia JOURNAL IN 18551856 2I3 ' A warlike speech by Lord John, a few weeks ago, checked, but did not extinguish, these rumours. Yes- terday, Milner Gibson formally asked Lord John if there was any foundation for them. Lord John replied that there was ; that when the Austrian propositions were communicated to him, he believed that they afforded a basis for a fair peace that he believed so now. That he regretted their rejection, but continued a member of the Cabinet because he agreed with his colleagues on all other points, and did not think it right to endanger the Government by leaving them. To which Disraeli answered that, far as the practice of open questions had extended, he never before heard of a Cabinet in which peace or war had been left open. ' I met to-day the Duke of Argyll. '"You must have been astonished," he said, "at Lord John's speech yesterday ; but you could not have been more so than we were. 1 1 revealed to us, for the was to renounce all official protectorate over the Sultan's subjects, of whatever religion. In the latter half of November, 1854, the Czar, in consequence of Prussian advice, offered to accept these four points as the basis of peace. The offer induced the allies to define their meaning more exactly. In particular, they declared that the revision of the Treaty of 1841, under the third point, involved the termination of Russian preponderance in the Black Sea. This declaration did not induce Russia to recede from the negotiation. On the contrary, though the meaning of the allies was distinctly pointed out in a memorandum prepared by Baron Bourqueney, the French Minister at Vienna, and handed to Prince Gortchakoff, the formal offer to treat was renewed. . . . Lord John was instructed to get Baron Bourqueney's memorandum embodied in a protocol, and signed by all the Plenipotentiaries. This preliminary object secure, Lord John was instructed to take the four points in their natural order.' (From Walpole's ' Life of Lord Russell,' vol. ii., pp. 248, 249.) 2i 4 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE first time, that we had the honour of possessing among us the head of the peace party." ' ' Sunday, July 8. I breakfasted with Hayter. ' He thinks the event of yesterday a very grave one. " Lord John," he said, "cannot remain in the Cabinet. He may tell us that now that this chance of peace has been thrown away, he is as eager in the prosecution of the war as any of his colleagues can be ; but the public will not believe him, and even those who do will dis- trust his firmness. Nor can the Cabinet ever feel safe with such a colleague, who never tells them what he is going to do, and from rashness, or from carelessness, or from ignorance, is always springing mines under them. I have seen much of prime ministers, and I never had to do with anyone with whom it was so satisfactory to act as with Palmers ton, or so unsatis- factory as Lord John. Palmerston is frank, and open, and confiding, listens to everything, considers every- thing, tells you his whole plans, and keeps to them. Lord John was always reserved and suspicious, even with me, his own Secretary of the Treasury ; never explained fully what he wanted or what he intended, and never adhered to what he did propose. His long Parliamentary experience has given him great dexterity in getting out of scrapes, and his great knowledge of Parliamentary history enables him always to cite a precedent, but as a statesman he seems to deteriorate every session." ' After leaving Hayter, I walked for some time with Lord Monteagle. 1 " Did his colleagues," he said, " know what Johnny intended to say ?" JOURNAL IN 18551856 215 ' " Certainly not," I answered. ' " Then," he replied, " I can compare him only to the machine which we are finding in the Baltic, and to which we give the appropriate name of ' infernal.' " 1 As I was walking home, I met George Lewis. He turned back with me, and we walked for about an hour in the Park. ' " Lord John's speech," he said to me, " is incom- prehensible.* As far as I, as a member of the Cabinet, know, the Austrian propositions were never rejected by us, for they never were practically offered to us. Lord John had nothing in writing. But he related to us conversations with Drouyn de Lhuys, Buol, and the Emperor Francis, in which a scheme for maintaining an equilibrium in the Black Sea without requiring Russia to limit her forces there, was shadowed out. He believed this scheme to be the invention of Drouyn de Lhuys, who, having always promised to Louis Napoleon Austrian co-operation, was unwilling to give it up. Lord John therefore thought that the assent of France might be reckoned on ; he believed that Aus- tria would join us, if Russia rejected these terms, and he believed, therefore, that Russia, under that pressure, would accept them. And I own that, assuming his premises, I thought that our acceptance of these terms offered a reasonable ground of peace. Russia has had such a lesson that she will not make another attack on Turkey during our time, and before she does she may fall to pieces, or Turkey may fall to pieces, or America may be the greatest political power in the world, and may impose peace on everybody ; in short, we shall * See page '2 1 2. 216 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE have different dangers and different means of avoiding them. ' " But while we were discussing the question, it fell through. It first appeared that Louis Napoleon would not accept the Austrian propositions ; we next ascer- tained that Austria would not enforce them, and lastly, that Russia, knowing this, would reject them. While we were manipulating the matter, it disappeared under our hands. What Lord John meant by saying that the Austrian propositions were refused by us, and ought to have been accepted, I cannot conceive. The question of accepting or rejecting them was never put to us." ' " Will Lord John," I said, " resign ?" ' " I do not see how he can," answered Lewis. "He cannot venture to risk breaking up another Govern- ment." ' " Has Palmerston," I said, " become stronger or weaker since I have been out of England ?" '"He has shown," said Lewis, "great diligence and great skill in all respects but one. He has made enemies. The peace party the Cobden and Bright school are bitterly hostile to him ; that, perhaps, he could not avoid. But so are the ultra-war party, Roe- buck and Layard, and so are the Peelites. Out of four sections of the Liberal Party, three detest him." 1 1 dined at Holland House. I mentioned Lewis' version. ' " It is true," said Lord Holland, "that the Austrian propositions never came practically before the whole Cabinet. But they did come before the interior Cabinet, consisting of Lansdowne, Clarendon, and Palmerston, and were rejected by it. Lewis is also mistaken in JOURNAL IN 18551856 217 thinking that they fell through in consequence of their rejection by Louis Napoleon. Louis Napoleon wished to accept them, and his rejection was obtained through a threat by Palmerston to resign if Louis Napoleon persisted." : 4 Monday, July 9. I breakfasted with Edward Ellice. Ellice does not venture to prophesy, except that Lord John cannot remain, and yet does not see how he can resign. If he goes, several others belonging to the peace party must go too. On the whole, he thinks a Palmerston- Derby administration a probable solution. ' I afterwards called on Lord Aberdeen. ' " Lord John's colleagues," he said, " must have been astonished by his speech. I was not, for I knew what he intended to say." 4 " Do you believe," I said, " that the Austrian pro- positions were approved by Louis Napoleon ?" 4 " I know," he answered, " that they were. When we that is, Clarendon, Lansdowne, and Palmerston heard this, we wrote to ask him if his approbation was founded on his inability to continue the war, or on his belief that the propositions really secured the inde- pendence of Turkey. 4 "' In the former case,' we said, 4 we shall accept, too, for we shall not carry on the war alone, but we must tell the whole story. In the latter case, we wish the question to be fully discussed, as our opinions differ from yours.' 4 4< He consulted Vaillant,* who told him that, in the * In 1 86 1 Lord Cowley gave Mr. Senior a description of what took place in Paris : il 13. While Drouyn de Lhuys,' said Lord Cowley, 'was in 2 i8 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE present state of feeling in the army, a success was necessary to him, and therefore he resolved, at all Vienna, I saw Louis Napoleon every day. He was at that time anxious for peace. ' " I do not know," he said, " what is thought of the English Generals, but ours seem to me to know little of European war, and this double command is fatal. Why cannot the English take the command of the united fleet, and we of the united army ? Let their contingent to the army be one-fifth, and let us supply one-fifth of the naval force." ' " I see," I answered, " only one difficulty. The General who commands the English contingent and all under him will obey implicitly every order of the French Commander-in-Chief. But not a captain of a French gunboat will obey the English Admiral." 1 It was, I think, on a Sunday that I heard that Drouyn de Lhuys and Lord John had arranged a peace, and the Emperor sent for me on Tuesday. He was walking and smoking in the garden, and he asked me to walk up and down and talk the matter over. ' " I think," he said, " that it is a good arrangement. What think you ?" ' "Well," I said, " it does not appear to me that the Russian pre- ponderance in the Black Sea will be materially affected." ' " Not," he replied, " by our having now a right to keep an equal force there ?" " She is to keep Sebastopol," I answered. " Her fleet will be at home, and will always be there. France and England will be tired of keeping large fleets, far from all their resources, in a dangerous sea. In a year or two Russia will be as much mistress of the Black Sea and as dangerous to Constantinople as she was when we went to war in 1854." * " I will talk the matter over again with Drouyn de Lhuys," he answered. ' I said, from a sudden impulse which I am not sure I was right in following : ' " Would there be any objection to my being present ?" * He looked a little surprised, and then said, " Certainly not," and he appointed an hour for the next day. ' When I arrived, Vaillant was in the antechamber, and Drouyn de Lhuys with the Emperor. JOURNAL IN 18551856 219 hazards, to reject the propositions. He sent for Cowley and Drouyn de Lhuys, and, I believe, for Vaillant, and made Drouyn de Lhuys explain to him fully the whole matter. When Drouyn de Lhuys had finished, Louis Napoleon said that he had been de- ceived, that Drouyn de Lhuys' first version of the Austrian propositions differed materially from his present one, and that he wondered that, being such as they really were, they should have been thought '"The game is up," I thought; "Drouyn de Lhuys has gained the Emperor's ear." ' We were soon introduced. The Emperor begged Drouyn de Lhuys to explain the grounds of his arrangement. 1 Drouyn de Lhuys did so at considerable length. I think that he talked for half an hour. The Emperor seemed to go along with him, and when he had finished, said to me : ' " Are you not satisfied ?" "'My only answer," I said, "is to beg your Majesty to ask Marshal Vaillant whether he thinks that this arrangement will really effect the purpose of the war the putting an end to the preponder- ance of Russia in the Black Sea and the Bosphorus." * The Emperor turned to Vaillant. 1 " I am not a politician," said Vaillant, " but I know the feelings of the army. I am sure that if, after having spent months in the siege of Sebastopol, we return unsuccessful, the army will not be satisfied." ' The Emperor then turned to Drouyn de Lhuys and said : ' "Write to Vienna to break off the negotiation." ' The next time that I saw the Emperor he showed me letters of Drouyn de Lhuys, written on the very evening of the conference, tendering his resignation ; an answer by himself, begging him to reconsider his determination ; and a reply from Drouyn de Lhuys, somewhat dry, repeating his resignation.' 1 Then you and Vaillant,' said Mr. Senior, ' were the real causes of the continuance of the war ?' 'All turned,' replied Lord Cowley, 'upon Vaillant's presence. Louis Napoleon was pleased with the peace, and would have adhered to it if Vaillant had not frightened him.' (See ' Conversations with Distinguished Persons.' Hurst and Blackett, 1880. 220 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE worthy of consideration. Whereupon Drouyn de Lhuys resigned. ' " It is a frightful thing," continued Lord Aberdeen, " to think that we are fighting, not for a practical object, but for a succes. A sticces was probably as necessary to Alexander as it is to Louis Napoleon. In this case we seem to have become entangled in a mortal duel. Each party is resolved to triumph over the other, and for that purpose each must make up its mind to fight until it succeeds, or is too exhausted to continue." ' Lady William Russell called on us, and told us that she dined with Lord John on Saturday, and that he was in the highest spirits. Wednesday ', July u. I breakfasted with Van de Weyer, and met Edward Ellice and Remusat. I walked home with Remusat, and told him Lord Aberdeen's story. ' " I doubt," he said, " whether Vaillant acted the part that is ascribed to him. Like almost all the ministers of Napoleon, he is opposed to the war. I think it probable that he supported the Austrian pro- positions. But I believe the rest of the story to be true. It is certain that Louis Napoleon was at first favourable to them, that he changed his mind, that the conference between him and Cowley and Drouyn de Lhuys took place, and that it occasioned Drouyn de Lhuys' resignation. I believe, too, that his motive is the desire to wipe off the stain with which our arms have been tarnished by our ill-success before Sebastopol. Your feelings are probably the same. If the Russians feel so too, where is this to end?" 1 JOURNAL IN 1855 !8 5 6 221 'Friday, July 13. I breakfasted with Lord Lans- downe, and met Remusat, Van de Weyer, M. Barren, Sir David Dundas, and one or two others. ' We were too numerous for much political con- versation. c " You will find," said Dundas to me as we were going, " that Lord John's speech yesterday has set everything right. He has shown that his speech of last week was misunderstood." ' Great admiration was expressed for the despatches of Lord Clarendon, contained in the papers just pub- lished relating to the Austrian propositions. Everyone Van de Weyer, the homme du metier among the rest praised their moral as well as their intellectual excellence, their frankness and courage, as well as their skill. ( Saturday, July 14. Lord John resigned on Wed- nesday, though, in consequence of the Queen's accept- ance of the resignation not having been obtained till yesterday morning, it was not known until the evening. ' I rode in the Park with Delane, the editor of the Times. ' " Do you know," he asked, " how Lord John's resignation was obtained ?" 1 " No," I said, " it did not seem a difficult matter." '"It was made so," said Delane, "by the absurd civility of his colleagues. He told them on Wednesday that he felt that, after what had passed, his presence would be a source of weakness, and that he ought to leave them. They turned complimentary, begged him to think better of it, and said that they had no doubt that they could pull him thrpugh, etc. 222 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ' " To their dismay he replied that if they thought so, he was willing to stay. The next day, however, they were relieved by their subordinates. Several persons holding offices out of the Cabinet represented to Lord John that if he remained they could not vote against Bulwer's motion of censure. This was, of course, irresistible, and he resigned." ' I dined with Bernal Osborne, and met Sir Charles Wood,* now again First Lord of the Admiralty. ' We talked of Lord John's speech of the 6th. ' " If it surprised the public," he said, " who did not know what he intended to say, it surprised infinitely more his colleagues, who thought that they did know : you heard merely what you did not expect. We heard the reverse of what we had a right to expect." ' We talked of the superiority of our naval over our military officers. ' " I attribute it," said Wood, " in a great measure to our practice of paying off a ship every three or four years. There are many objections to this. It some- times disperses a crew which has served together and has formed an esprit de corps. But it enables us to select in every rank the best men for employment, by enabling us to keep unemployed all others. If a regiment is ill-officered, there is generally no help for it. You cannot remove a colonel or a major, or even an ensign, without at least a court of inquiry, and clear delinquency. In the navy, when a ship has been paid off, no officer has a claim to more than his half- pay. He is removed simply by not being employed. We have reports which make us acquainted with the * Afterwards Lord Halifax. JOURNAL IN 18551856 223 character moral and intellectual of every man in the service, and it is our duty, when a ship is commis- sioned, to place in her the best men that are disposable. * " If there were in the army no regimental rank or precedence ; if the seniority of every officer depended merely on the date of his commission ; if every regi- ment were recast every three or four years, and every officer were selected for his merit, or, at least, with reference to his merit, the system in the army would be what the system in the navy is" ' Wood complained of the labour thrown on the Government by requiring them to be legislators as well as administrators. ' " When I was first in Parliament," he said, ' twenty- seven years ago, the functions of the Government were chiefly executive. Changes in our laws were proposed by independent members and carried, not as party questions, by the combined action of both sides of the House. Now, when an independent member brings forward a subject, it is not to propose himself a measure, but to call to it the attention of the Government. All the House joins in declaring that the present state of the law is abominable, and in requiring the Government to provide a remedy. As soon as the Government has obeyed, and proposed one, they all oppose it. Our defeats as legislators, which is not our business, damage us as administrators, which is our business, and, of course, they are much more frequent. In administra- tion there are seldom more than one, or at most two, alternatives. We had only to accept or to refuse the Austrian propositions. We had at least an even chance of being right. But in legislation there may 224 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE be twenty or thirty alternatives. The chances are against the precise plan on which the Ministry has staked its credit beating the whole field." 'Sunday, July 15. I took a long ride with Lord Lansdowne. 4 " Well," he said, " what do you think of the events of the week ?" '"I think," I said, "that you are relieved of a colleague with whom you never could feel safe." ' " It is remarkable," he answered, " that Lord John's prudence seems to diminish as his age advances. Every year one can less tell on one day what he intends to do the next. Perhaps we were wrong in exposing him to a diplomatic contest to which he was unaccustomed, and against such trained antagonists. I warned him, before he went, against the atmosphere of Vienna. He obviously was not only over-reached, but for a time perverted by the arts of Drouyn de Lhuys, Buol, and the Emperor Francis. But in justice to him I must say that, from the time that it was ascertained that the Austrian propositions would be rejected by France, no one urged more earnestly the vigorous prosecution of the war. His war speech was perfectly sincere." " ' But when," I said, "was Louis Napoleon's rejec- tion ascertained ? I am told that he was at first favourable, and rejected only in obedience to our remonstrances." '"That is not true," said Lord Lansdowne. "He rejected the Austrian propositions before he knew, at least from us, how we intended to deal with them. As they were not submitted to the Conference in writing, JOURNAL IN 18551856 225 it was easy to misrepresent them, and I believe that Drouyn de Lhuys, who was most anxious to illustrate his mission by a peace, actually did misrepresent them. But the effect on Louis Napoleon's mind was dispelled in twenty-four hours." '"Do we know this," I asked, "from any official communications ?" ' " No," he answered, " we know it merely through the channels to which we generally trust for informa- tion." ' " I am told," I said, "that his eyes were opened by Vaillant." '"That is true," said Lord Lansdowne, "and the story of the meeting at which Vaillant, Drouyn de Lhuys, and Lord Cowley were present is true ; but it is not true that that was a farce. Louis Napoleon acted in the whole matter ably and frankly. He was at first deceived by Drouyn de Lhuys' misrepresenta- tion, but the instant that he understood clearly the nature of what was proposed, he denounced its mis- chievous absurdity, and is as eager as ever in the prosecution of the war. In fact," he added, "the deliberations of the Cabinet with respect to the Austrian propositions were not deliberations as to the desirableness of their being accepted or rejected, but as to the conduct which we ought to pursue in the event of their being accepted by Louis Napoleon, and before we had come to any decision, we were relieved by hearing that he had rejected them." ' In the course of our ride we called at Lord John's door, and Lord Lansdowne left a letter. ' " I have written to him," he said, "to say that, if 15 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE he wishes to give me any further explanations, I am quite ready to hear them." ' These few words seemed to me to mean or to imply much. v We talked of Gladstone. ' " It is wonderful," he said, " how imagination, and invention, and courage, and knowledge, and diligence all the qualities that seem to make an orator, and even a statesman may be neutralized by the want of a sound, over-ruling judgment. Gladstone's faculties are like an army without a general, or a jury without a judge. They are always at variance. Sometimes one gets the better, sometimes another, and the feeling that rules for the time carries him away. ' " I am astonished when I reflect how little is the practical loss which we feel in the absence from our councils of two or three of the acutest and brightest intellects in England. Want of judgment, or, as it is often called, ' crotchetyness,' rendered them all fre- quently useless, and sometimes mischievous." ' Tuesday, July 17. Van de Weyer, Minghetti, Barron, the Remusats and Milnes breakfasted with us. ' " The history," said Van de Weyer, " of the Vienna negotiations is this : ' " Our negotiators were resolved to obtain the co- operation of Austria. Austria was resolved not to give it. Therefore, as we advanced towards what we supposed to be the terms on which she would join us, she receded, and as she receded we advanced. First, we were to take the Crimea from Russia. Austria objected to our requiring a cession of territory. Then JOURNAL IN 18551856 227 Sebastopol was to be destroyed ; Austria would not support such a requisition. Then the Black Sea was to be made neutral ; Austria refused her support. ' Then the Russian fleet was to be limited ; Austria did not think fifteen sailing-ships too many, and would not fight about numbers. At last Austria proposes the system of counterpoise, which the allies had already refused. And when there seems to be a danger of your Government accepting it, she admits that she would not go to war if Russia should reject it." '"You have fitted a key," I said, "to the Austrian policy ; can you give us one to Lord John's ?" ' " I think," he answered, " that I can. I believe that he never can get rid of the illusion that he is Prime Minister, if not in the present tense, at least in the paulo-post future. At the Conference he turned himself from an agent into a principal, wished to propose, and afterwards approved, terms, not only unauthorized by his instructions, but absolutely opposed to them, and required to be heard in support of them." ' We returned to the question whether the rejection of the Austrian propositions began with England or with France. I repeated Lord Lansdowne's statement that Louis Napoleon's indecision did not last twenty- four hours, that it never was officially known to us, and that it was the knowledge that he had already refused which put an end to our discussions. 1 Remusat said that his information came from Thouvenel. That Thouvenel informed him that Louis Napoleon remained favourable to the pro- positions until he knew that we disapproved them in short, that he followed us, not we him. 152 228 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ' " Perhaps," I said, " he knew, unofficially, that the English Cabinet, or at least the great majority of the Cabinet, disapproved the propositions, and, foreseeing that he would probably have to refuse them, thought it advisable to be the first to do so." ' This was admitted to be a plausible solution.' ' Sunday, July 22. I had a long walk with George Lewis ; we talked over Lord John, Graham, and Glad- stone. ' Lewis, who has lived much with Lord John for many years, and is indeed connected with him by marriage, to a certain degree takes the same view of his character as Van de Weyer. He, too, thinks that Lord John cannot submit to a secondary part. ' " When he went to Vienna, he went as a diplomatic agent, virtute officii, under control ; but on his road he was overtaken by a despatch begging him to enter the Cabinet. This raised, or rather restored, his sense of importance, which had been a little impaired by his expulsion from the Aberdeen Cabinet and his failure in constructing another one. He thought that, in his double capacity of Plenipotentiary and Cabinet Minister, he should be in some measure master of the negotiations. He found that he was not. He found that all that he did was exposed to the criticism and required the con- firmation of Palmerston and Clarendon, and he winced under the infliction of telegraphic messages as much as Pelissier. He saw that if he obeyed his instructions he should probably return unsuccessful, and he resolved, or was persuaded, in concert with Drouyn de Lhuys, to strike out a path for himself en dehors of his instructions. When he came home and found that his ' conduct ' JOURNAL IN 18551856 229 was disapproved, he became angry and dissatisfied, and said in his speech more than he intended. * " I think," he continued, " Graham an abler man, but more selfish. He does not, like Lord John, act from impulse, but from calculation. He has separated from this Government because he thinks it short-lived ; he believes that it will be succeeded by the Derbyites, and that they will be short-lived, too, and that then a new combination would follow, in which he might be the important element. His object, therefore, is to turn out the present Government as quickly as possible. As to Gladstone," he added, " I believe him to be honest. He was originally opposed to the war ; but he was carried away by the influence of the majority in the Cabinet, an influence which it is very difficult to resist. Now that he has escaped from that influence his old feelings return. He does not choose to admit, even to himself, that he was wrong in consenting to the war ; but his old feeling of dislike to it recurs and increases. His whole soul is intent on discovering the means of getting out of it. This was his state of mind when the Vienna proposals arrived. He naturally caught at them : he is furious at their rejection. That rejection deprives him of an opportunity of atoning for the war by taking part in the peace. And the result is, that his declamations against the continuance of the war contain by implication, and sometimes indeed directly, regrets that it was ever undertaken. This the public cannot understand. Perhaps in all our history it never was so warlike. The stupid, violent peace party, who live in a little clique, and know nothing of what is going on, have -goaded it into 23 o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE madness by their silly Russianism. They have been the most effectual inflamers of our natural pugnacity. They cannot believe that Gladstone was honest when he supported the war as a Cabinet Minister, and is honest now when he condemns it, being out of office. They ascribe to faction, or ambition, or vanity, conduct which I believe to be the result of a conscientious, scrupulous, ingenuous, undecided mind, always looking to each side of a question, and magnifying the objec- tions which belong to almost every course of action." '"Do you know anything more," I said, "of the secret history of the rejection of the Austrian pro- posals ?" ' " I am inclined to think," he answered, " that they were substantially rejected by Palmerston that is, that if he had chosen, they would have been accepted. 1 am inclined to think that Napoleon was hesitating when he heard from Walewski that Palmerston dis- approved of them, and that he then endeavoured to take the initiative in their rejection."' The news of the fall of Sebastopol reached England on September 10, 1855, but the Treaty of Peace was not signed until March 30, 1856. In the following September Mr. Senior visited Lord Aberdeen. Lord Palmerston continued to be Prime Minister until 1858. ' BUCHANNESS, ABERDEENSHIRE, ' Monday t September 8, 1856. ' I have been spending some days at Haddo, with Lord Aberdeen. There are several persons in the house, and the conversation has been general, and contained little capable of being recorded. JOURNAL IN 18551856 231 ' To-day Lord Aberdeen drove me over to his villa, perched here on a promontory of red granite, forming the extreme eastern point of Scotland, twenty miles from Haddo. We talked of Pitt, who was Lord Aberdeen's guardian, and, indeed, brought him up. Lord Aberdeen described his manner as charming. 41 Nothing," he said, "could be more easy or playful." ' " Wilberforce," I said, "whom I knew quite at the end of his life, denied that Pitt possessed the know- ledge that was attributed to him. We none of us," he said, " knew much. We were thrown too early into public life." ' " I do not think," said Lord Aberdeen, " that Pitt saw very much of Wilberforce during his later years. He complained that Wilberforce had conscientious scruples whenever popularity was to be gained by deserting him, and supported him only when that support was unnecessary." '"You describe Pitt," I said, "as playful, yet there is no playfulness in his speeches." ' " No," said Lord Aberdeen. " Sarcasm and irony are their nearest approach to levity. If he had spoken now, he would have somewhat softened and lowered their lofty and dictatorial tone. The present House would scarcely have tolerated him, when, after the altercation which produced his duel with Tierney, he replied to the Speaker's address : ' The House waits for an explanation from the Right Honourable Gentle- man ' ' The House will have to wait very long.' The pride, I may almost say, the arrogance, of his manner, was, perhaps, partly an unconscious imitation of his father, the most insolent speaker who ever ruled a 232 deliberative assembly ; but his astonishing early success, and his prestige, as the son of our greatest orator and our most triumphant Minister, naturally produced his proud tone and excused it." ' " Was he a bold man ?" I asked. ' " Eminently so," answered Lord Aberdeen, " physi- cally and morally. He had one great advantage over Peel. He was sanguine. Peel was brave. He feared no personal danger, and he was ready to meet any moral danger, as he showed on two memorable occa- sions, but he was not hopeful. His imagination was ever fiavnq KaKatv. He was easily alarmed and dis- couraged, and always estimated his chances at their worst." '"His great defect," I said, "seemed to me to be his shortsightedness. It is difficult to suppose that when he denounced Catholic Emancipation in 1828 he foresaw that he should have to introduce it in 1829 ; or that when in 1842 he refused to accept an eight- shilling duty on corn, he thought it possible that in 1846 he should have to propose a nominal one." ' " It may be difficult," answered Lord Aberdeen, "but I do believe it. I believe that in 1828, and long before 1828, he foresaw that Catholic Emancipation must be granted, and he said to me, after making his Protectionist speech in 1842, that it was the last time that he would speak against Free Trade." '"You are defending," I said, "his intelligence at the expense of his honesty." '"A Prime Minister," replied Lord Aberdeen, "is not a free agent. To break up a Government, to renounce all the good that you hoped to do and leave JOURNAL IN 18551856 233 imperfect all the good that you have done, to hand over power to persons whose objects or whose measures you disapprove, even merely to alienate and politically to injure your friends, is no slight matter. ' " All this, however, Peel was willing to do as soon as it appeared to him to be absolutely necessary. His fault was not that he refused to make the sacrifice, but that he delayed it to the last moment. '"His conduct in 1846 was very noble. With the exception of Graham and myself, his whole Cabinet was against him. Lyndhurst, Goulburn, and Stanley were almost violent in their resistance. Still more opposed to him, if it was possible, was the Duke of Wellington. To break up the Cabinet was an act of great courage. To resume office when Lord John had failed in constructing one, was still more courageous. He said to the Queen : ' I am ready to kiss hands as your Minister to-night. I believe that I can collect a Ministry which will last long enough to carry Free Trade, and I am ready to make the attempt.' When he said this there were only two men on whom he could rely. One of the first who joined him was Wellington. ' The Queen's Government,' he said, ' must be carried on. We have done all that we could do for the landed interest. Now we must do all that we can for the Queen.' " 4 " I have often heard it remarked," I said, "among others by King Leopold, that Peel ought to have treated his party with more consideration ; that he ought to have softened their fall ; that he ought to have tried gradually to bring them over, instead of 234 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ordering them arbitrarily to vote white when he had always before ordered them to vote black." 1 "So have I," said Lord Aberdeen. " Brougham wrote to me a letter in that sense which I gave to Peel to answer, and he did answer it, fully. The answer will probably be published by Cardwell. In fact, it would have been impossible. The landlords were too prejudiced to listen to any arguments, even if they could have understood them. The only thing to be done was to beat the friends of the Government by the votes of the Opposition. ' " Peel," he continued, " though he opposed Reform, was easily reconciled to it. His sympathies were not aristocratic. He opposed it principally because he thought it uncalled for. For years there had scarcely been a petition in its favour. He watched anxiously public opinion. He read every letter that he received. He often showed to me letters from obscure and, indeed, unknown people, and begged me to think them over. And he believed the educated majority to be opposed to reform at least, on the scale on which Lord Grey proposed it. Grey was an unsafe leader. He had not much knowledge, and was constantly misled by his prejudices and his passions. He was very inferior in everything, except in person and manner and oratorical delivery, to his son." ' " Could we have got," I said, " Poor Law reform from an unreformed House ?" 4 " Certainly not," he answered. " Or municipal reform ?" ' " No." ' " Or Free Trade ?" JOURNAL IN 18551856 235 ' " Still less than any of them." ' " Then," I said, " Parliamentary reform, though it may have been uncalled for, was necessary." ' At dinner we talked of the Queen. ' " She is an excellent person of business," said Lord Aberdeen. " Though she reads all the diplomatic papers, she never keeps them for more than twelve hours. George IV. and William IV. used to read them, or, at least, to ask for them, but we could never get them back. At last we had everything copied that we sent to either of them. With the Queen this is unnecessary. She has the more merit as she does not like business, or, indeed, the gene of royalty. She has often said to me that the Salic law was an admirable institution, the only wise law of Royal inheritance, and that she wished that it prevailed in England." ' " I suppose/' I said, "that she reads little except papers on business ?" 1 " Scarcely anything," he answered. " The Prince reads everything. His knowledge is as remarkable as his intelligence." ' " I send to him," I said, " my journals. Do you suppose that he reads them ?" ' " Every word of them," answered Lord Aberdeen. " He has often talked to me of them." ' " On what footing at the Palace is Palmerston now ?" I asked. ' "On a very good one," he answered, "as far as I know." ' " Has the Prince," I asked, " paid much attention to theological questions ?" - ' " A good deal," he answered. " His opinions are 236 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE German. They would shock most of our English divines. He used at one time to talk on such matters with the Bishop of Oxford, but there was a discrepancy so great that the discussion was not profitable, or even agreeable." 'A Member of the House of Commons, A. B., arrived yesterday evening. * We took this morning a long walk before break- fast. * We talked of the House of Commons. ' " My most intimate friends there," he said, " are Gladstone and Palmer." ' " They are supposed," I said, " to be Puseyites. Now, what is a Puseyite ?" '"A Puseyite," he answered, "is one who believes that those who belong to a Church ought to accept implicitly all her doctrines." ' " But belief," I said, " is involuntary. One has no more power over one's belief than over the colour of one's hair. I think that, on the whole, the doctrines of the Church of England contain the most sensible view of the Christian religion, and therefore I belong to that Church. But I dissent from many of her doctrines." * " In that case," said A. B., " Gladstone would say that you ought to quit her Communion." "Then," I said, "he would split up the Church into thousands of sects, for the subject is so vast, the pro- positions are so numerous, and the evidence is so extensive and so different in value, that scarcely any two men certainly not any two millions of men JOURNAL IN 18551856 237 would agree as to the details of their faith, though they might as to its outlines." '"Perhaps not," he answered, "if they gave full scope to the spirit of doubt and inquiry ; but in a Puseyite that spirit is checked by reverence for the authority of the Church. He feels towards the Church, and towards the authorized expounders of her doc- trines as I feel towards a lawyer or a physician. I may think the advice of the one or of the other strange, and may not be able to find any authority for it by looking myself into legal books or into medical ones, but I consider the fact that Counsellor C. or Dr. D. has said that it is so, to be evidence that it is so. It may not be conclusive evidence, but it satisfies me. I know that they are more likely to be right than I am. '"Gladstone's great fault," he added, "is the want of keeping in his mind. He seems incapable of estimating the relative force of arguments. He does not see that, though there may be valid objections to a measure, those objections perhaps ought to be dis- regarded." ' Lord Aberdeen had now joined us. '"I agree," he said, "with A. B. that Gladstone does not weigh well against one another different arguments, each of which has a real foundation. But he is unrivalled in his power of proving that a specious argument has no real foundation. On the Succession Bill the whole Cabinet was against him. He delivered to us much the same speech which he made to the House of Commons. At its close we were all con- vinced. At this instant his whole soul is in Arch- 238 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE deacon Denison's case. He tells me that he cannot sleep for it, and writes to me volumes on volumes." ' "Which," I said, "does he object to, the major or the minor premise ? The proposition that the Thirty- nine Articles are the sole canon of orthodoxy, or that Archdeacon Denison's opinions are opposed to the Thirty-nine Articles ?" '"To both," answered Lord Aberdeen. " He thinks that Denison ought to have been allowed to show that his doctrine, whether in accordance or not with the Articles, is in accordance with Scripture. And he thinks that the decision ought to have been in his case, as it was in Gorham's, that the Articles are comprehen- sive, that they admit Denison's view of the Eucharist as well as that of his opponents. I agree with him as to the latter proposition, but not as to the former." * We talked of the kings under whom he had served. '"George the Third," he said, "was never quite sane. His cleverness was rather the cunning of a lunatic than the wisdom of a statesman. But he had great courage, moral as well as physical. George the Fourth had no courage, but he had talents and some knowledge, though rendered almost useless by his sensuality, selfishness, and indolence. He hated most of his Ministers ; always called Eldon ' Old Bags ' and Liverpool ' Maecenas/ and would have got rid of them both if he had been able. ' " Liverpool," he added, " has not had justice done to him. He carried on and finished triumphantly the greatest war in which we have ever been engaged. He kept together for seventeen years a Cabinet in JOURNAL IN 18551856 239 which almost everybody was trying to undermine everybody else, and that always without the assistance of the Regent, often against his intrigues. He was thoroughly honest, even in debate. Lord Holland, a great sophist himself, used to say that Liverpool was the only fair arguer whom he had ever heard." ' " You have disposed," I said, " of George the Third and George the Fourth. What do you say of William ?" ' " He was a Squire Western," answered Lord Aberdeen, "good-natured, rash and ignorant. He, too, had the courage of his family. In 1830, when the Government were afraid to let him dine with the Lord Mayor, he wished to go, and I believe that he might have gone, but we would not accept the respon- sibility." ' After breakfast we drove about a couple of miles to the Bullers of Buchan. Dr. Johnson, with his con- ciseness of words, though not of syllables, has described it as "a rock perpendicularly tubulated." The sea has broken in and excavated an arch at one end, through which it pours into the centre and forms a deep black lake, surrounded by precipices of granite, red where they are not green, or yellow with lichens. The sea was calm ; in a storm the dash of the waves against the bold rocky promontories of this iron-bound coast, and their rush and reflux through the arch, must be grand. ' It reminded me of similar scenery on the coast of Pembrokeshire and on that of Clare.' ' Wednesday, September 10. 4 Bright, the Quaker member for Manchester, the acknowledged leader of the Peace Party, and, if that 240 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE party have a leader, the leader of the Radicals, joined us this morning. He is a short, thick man, about forty-four or forty-five, with a flushed face and a bright, rather uneasy eye. For more than a year he has been suffering under determination of blood to the head. He is forbidden to speak in public, to employ his brains actively, and even to read anything beyond a newspaper. He has not entered the House of Com- mons since August, 1855. He attempted to do so in February last, but as soon as he was in the lobby the noise and lights and bustle made him giddy. He would have fallen if he had not been supported, and he took refuge in the library. His muscular strength is unimpaired. He can walk and fish all day, and is advised to live in the open air. Hopes of perfect recovery are held out to him, but as yet there is little improvement. ' He talks with great ease and fluency, and as far as I have observed, with no reserve. ' We rode and drove in a large party to Formartine, an old castle, formerly a seat of the Gordons, over- looking an extensive and finely wooded glen. * Lord Aberdeen, Bright, and I, wandered for a couple of hours along the steep sides of the glen and on the banks of the mountain-stream which intersects them. ' We talked of the French alliance. '"What I fear," said Lord Aberdeen, "from the alliance is, that it is too powerful, and that its power, like all power that is not controlled, will be abused. In Italian matters, however, I think that I see symp- toms that Louis Napoleon is rather wiser than we JOURNAL IN 18551856 241 are. He seems to be throwing cold water on our interference in the internal affairs of Naples. But in Greece the French are behaving as ill as we could do. Never was anything more monstrous than the French Admiral's refusing to acknowledge the Governor of the Piraeus appointed by the King." '"Do you suppose," I said, "that we approve of that ?" ' " I have no doubt," answered Lord Aberdeen, 41 that we do. Palmerston was so worried by the French for his Pacifico* outrage that he is delighted to see them bullying the Greeks in their turn. If the occupation of the Piraeus be not joint, it is con- certed." ' ' Thursday, September 1 1 . Lord Aberdeen, Bright, Lord Haddo, and I, stood and sat after breakfast on the southern terrace, basking in the autumnal sun. ' We talked of Maynooth. ' " I never," said Bright, "have voted against May- nooth, but in the next Session, or, at all events, in the next Parliament, I think that I shall. I tried to per- suade the Roman Catholic members to join me in voting against the Regium Donum.f They refused. "We cannot,' they said, 'vote against the Regium Donum while we keep Maynooth.' 'Well,' I said, 'if your paltry ^26,000 a year is such a fetter on you, I will try to relieve you from it.' ' ' " Have you," I said, " any other objection to May- * A mob, headed by the son of a Greek Minister, plundered Don Pacifico, a Gibraltar Jew. King Otho refused even an inquiry into the matter. Palmerston blockaded the Piraeus to extort an in- demnity. t Gift to the Presbyterians. 16 242 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE nooth ? Does it do any harm beyond that of con- trolling in some degree the Irish members ?" ' " Yes," he said, " it takes ^"26,000 a year from the pockets of the people for purposes in which they do not sympathize." ' " Do not we wish/' I asked, " the Irish priests to be educated ?" '" They have their seminary in Dublin," he answered, " and one near Birmingham, which can educate all that are wanted for Ireland and England. Many of those who are educated at Maynooth are intended for the Colonies. The English ought not to be taxed in so large a sum for such a purpose. The Colonies are now rich enough to educate their own priests. You may be sure that the days of Maynooth are numbered. All the anti-Catholics and all the voluntaries will vote against it from principle, and all the Tories from spite." ' " I fear," said Lord Aberdeen, "that Mr. Bright is a true prophet. At the next election the hustings will be infested by anti-Maynooth pledges. If we lose Maynooth, we lose the Regium Donum. If the Catholics and the Presbyterians combine against us, as they did in 1798, we may have civil war." ' "What was the result," I asked, "of the Commis- sion of Inquiry on Maynooth ?" ' " The result," said Lord Aberdeen, " was that the only fault which the Commissioners found was that Maynooth does not teach Protestantism." ' " The reports of Commissioners," said Bright, " are generally humbugs, and so are those of com- mittees. The Commissioners and the committees are packed." JOURNAL IN 18551856 243 ' " It is a pity then," said Lord Haddo, " that we spend .400,000 a year in printing Parliamentary papers, if even the best of them (which the reports are) appear to be valueless." ' " We do not spend," said Bright, " more than .250,000 a year on our printing, and though the reports are of little value, the evidence is often import- ant. Besides, if the money were not spent so, the Government would waste it in some worse way." ' " And yet," I said to Lord Haddo, as we were separating, "he objects to our spending ^26,000 a year on the education of the Catholic clergy for Ireland, England, and the Colonies." ' At dinner we talked of the House of Commons. 1 " I could give," said Bright, "good advice to a new member advice that would have been very useful to me. One part of it is, never to speak for at least the first year. Another is, to speak at first for only five minutes at a time. Another is, to be modest as re- spects yourself, but broad in your conclusions, and simple, perhaps trite, in your arguments. ' " The House hates to be lectured and it also hates subtilty, and long trains of reasoning and nice distinc- tions and qualifications. It cannot understand them, at least, it will not take the trouble to understand them. It is always in a fidget partly, I have no doubt, in consequence of the physical discomfort. You breathe hot, dry air ; you are chilled by draughts ; you cannot lie or sit or stand without inconvenience. The House of Lords is comfortable, and so was our last House, which was the old House of Lords, but our present House was built in order to annoy us. There was a 1 6 2 244 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE wish in high quarters to shorten our sittings by making them as uncomfortable as possible. Perhaps there was a wish to punish and tease us and they have done it effectually." ' Bright was forced to leave us in the middle of dinner, but we found him apparently well in the draw- ing-room. We talked of the " Residence in Luck- now." ' " I do not believe a word that is in it," said Bright. " The book was written to order. ' "Writing for the Government," he added, "is now the best road to office. A barrister consulted me the other day as to buying a newspaper. ' I shall lose money by it,' he said, 'but I shall get a place.' Fon- blanque has ,1,500 a year for having abused the Radicals in the Examiner. Wilson has ,2,000 a year for having abused them in the Economist. Greg has 1,200 a year for having performed similar services in the Edinburgh. The Morning Chronicle made East- hope a baronet. Perhaps it is as well that it should be so. When a man can write, it shows that he has at least something in him, though it may not be much. At all events, he is likely to be better than a Minister's nominee. I believe that if you were to take the first ten men that you could catch in the Strand, they would be a much better set than any Cabinet that I have seen." ' " As respects our diplomatists," said Lord Aberdeen, " I am not sure that I do not agree with you." '"You would like, then," I said to Bright, "to revert to the old Greek mode of choosing your Government by lot from the mass of the people. JOURNAL IN 18551856 245 Aristotle considers a Government that is elected an aristocracy. He confines the term democracy to one that is caught by chance." ' " It must be a very unlucky chance," said Bright, " that would catch for you so bad a Minister as the Duke of Wellington. He cared nothing for the people. He thought only of the King or the Queen, and the House of Lords. And he did nothing but harm to both." '"You must admit, at least," I said, "that he was useful to the Lords under Lord Melbourne, by pre- venting them from rushing into collision with the Commons." 1 " I fear," said Lord Aberdeen, " that if troublesome times should recur, we shall feel the want of his moderating hand." ' "Those times," I said, "are, I hope, distant." 4 " I hope that they are near," said Bright. ' Friday, September 12. Bright has given up dining at table. When we dine he has tea and toast in his room. After dinner Lord Aberdeen, Bright, and I sat by the fire and talked about the war. 4 " I have no doubt," said Bright, " that it might have been avoided. We ought to have forced Turkey to accept the Austrian Note, instead of exciting her to reject it." ' " Don't call it," said Lord Aberdeen, " the Austrian Note. It was prepared in France, sent to England for revisal, slightly altered by us, and sent on to Vienna, to be thence forwarded to St. Petersburg." ' " Was Louis Napoleon," I said, " desirous of peace ? The general opinion here is that he wished for war." 246 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE '" That opinion," said Lord Aberdeen, "is founded naturally enough on the good which the war has done to him. But at that time he wished for peace. So did Austria, and so also did Russia." ' "And so," I said, "did we." ' " Some of us," answered Lord Aberdeen. 1 " I am not compelled," said Bright, " to the re- serves of office. I can say what Lord Aberdeen cannot. The man who made the war was Lord Stratford. It was he who suggested to the Turks an interpretation of the Note irritating to their pride. It was he who persuaded them to alter it, knowing that Nicholas had accepted it only on the condition that Turkey should accept it without alteration. He him- self drew the Turkish declaration of war. ' " I walked up and down the lobby of the House with Molesworth for an hour discussing with him whether he ought not to resign unless Lord Stratford were recalled. He repeated over and over that there could be no peace while that man was our Ambassador." '" Every Minister," said Lord Aberdeen, "has felt and said that in his turn. The fatal error was in sending him. The mischief had been done. It could not be cured by recalling him." ' " But could the war have been avoided," I asked, " for more than a short time ? Was not Russia re- solved to do what we were resolved that she should not do?" '"I do not believe," said Lord Aberdeen, "that Russia was resolved to do anything or was attempting to do anything which we were forced to prevent by war. JOURNAL IN 18551856 247 I do not believe that Nicholas had the least intention to take a strip of Turkish territory. He intended to frighten the Turks, to punish them, perhaps, for having yielded to Lavalette, by making them endure MenschikofFs insolence, but he intended nothing more. All that we had to do was to stand by, as we did in 1828 and 1829, and let the two barbarians settle their own affairs. Nothing mischievous or even dangerous to us could have come out of it. As for what are called Sir Hamilton Seymour's revelations, Nicholas, who was very free spoken, had been holding that language for years. He had said as much to every English Ambassador. Though he kept repeating that the man was very ill, he had no intention of poisoning him or robbing him." ' Bright now went from us to the tea-table. '"Is what Bright said of Lord Stratford true?'' I asked Lord Aberdeen. 4 " Perfectly true," he answered. " I hear, however, that for the present, at least, Lord Stratford can no longer bully or intrigue to any purpose ; that the French party, which during all the alliance he has been bitterly opposing, are now triumphant, and that he is a cipher." ' " Now," I said, "that the war is over, that it has been successful, and that we have reduced Russia to a state in which she is no longer to be feared, is the war still to be regretted ? Were not such results worth the expense ?" ' " No," answered Lord Aberdeen. " The war, successful as I admit it to have been, is a great calamity. It has broken up a friendship of three 248 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE hundred years. It has substituted the French alliance for the Russian. It has given us a fickle, treacherous friend instead of a firm one a friend whose interests are opposed to ours, for one with whom we have no real cause of quarrel. It has made France the arbiter of Europe. Louis Napoleon cannot stand still ; his coronation may occupy the people for some time, the Bourse for another. But military glory and political supremacy are the real passions of France. He must do something to gratify them, and he can do nothing that we shall like. Savoy will probably be his first object. The French covet that still more than they do Belgium. Even Guizot could not talk of the loss of Savoy with patience. It was the only part of the treaties of 1815 to which he could not submit." ' " Savoy," I said, " is in the hands of the priests. When I was at Turin, in 1846, the favourite scheme of the Liberal party was to get Lombardy through the assistance of France, and to buy that assistance by the cession of Savoy. But the priests were opposed to it. They are ultramontane, and the Government of Louis Philippe was anti-papal. The Republic was still more so. But now that Turin is anti-papal and that France is ultramontane, they are said to be desirous to be transferred from Piedmont to France." ' " Some such arrangement as that," said Lord Aberdeen, " is not improbable. Louis Napoleon's passion at present is to get the Pope to his coronation. This is the key to his Italian policy. He may bluster about Naples, but I doubt his proceeding to extremities against a friend of the Pope at least, until the Pope has crowned him, or has refused to do so. As soon JOURNAL IN 18551856 249 as that matter has been disposed of one way or another, it does not much signify which, the Pope had better be on his guard." ' "On what terms," I said, " are Russia and Austria ?" ' " On those," he answered, " of the bitterest hatred. ' ' " Is that good," I asked, " for us ?" '"No," he answered. " The Duke's policy was to unite Russia, Prussia, and Austria. They are our protection against France. France is far stronger and far more dangerous than all of them put together." '"What are the relations between Austria and Prussia?" I asked. 1 " Great intimacy," he answered, " between the sovereigns ; great dislike between the people. '"I cannot conceive," he added, "anything more mad than the desire for another year's war. We were assisting our future enemy to crush our future ally. Yet many people wished for it. Uappttit vient en mangeant, particularly when men are eating their fellow-creatures. The Queen entered into the war with horror. She very soon got to like it very much." ' Bright came back from the tea-table. He had overheard, I fancy, the last two or three words. '"The Queen," he said, "had better take care. She is flattering the army. We shall not stand that. I hear that we are fortifying Malta and Gibraltar. They ought to be given up." ' " Malta," said Lord Aberdeen, " we cannot do without, but I wish that we were well rid of Gibraltar." ' This called up Lord Aberdeen's brother, Admiral Gordon, who was reading at the tea-table. 2 5 o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 1 " If you had seen," he said, " the Gut of Gibraltar as I have seen it, absolutely swarming with privateers, you would wish to keep Gibraltar. Without it our trade might be almost excluded from the Mediter- ranean." 1 " It is not a practical question," said Lord Aber- deen, " for no Minister could surrender it ; but we pay heavily in peace for its services in war." 'Saturday, September 13. We talked at breakfast of Lord George Bentinck. ' " He was the most ignorant man," said Lord Aber- deen, " that ever led a party, and perhaps the most prejudiced. He was always convinced that those who differed from him were rogues. His experience, indeed, had been chiefly in the dishonest world." ' " Lord John Fitzroy," said Bright, " told me that he had known Lord George intimately from a boy, and that he never forgave. When first the abandonment of Protection by Peel was rumoured in 1845, he wrote to Lord John Fitzroy a letter in which he threatened vengeance against every member of that Cabinet if they sold, as he called it, the party. And he kept his word. And yet, as he told me, he saved by Free Trade in oats ,1,500 a year. He maintained, too, the Game Laws, though he never shot. He was every inch an aristocrat." ' After breakfast I took a long walk with Lord Aberdeen. ' We talked of wars to preserve the balance of power. 1 " I do not go so far as Bright," said Lord Aberdeen, "and deny that such wars can be justifiable, or, what JOURNAL IN 18551856 251 is the same thing, can be necessary. It was necessary to resist Charles V., Louis XIV., and Napoleon. ' " If Nicholas had had the aggressive intentions which were ascribed to him, it would have been neces- sary to restrain him. But, as I have said before, I do not believe that he had any such intentions ; I do not believe that he wished to do more than to consolidate, perhaps to increase, his influence, and it is not held that the amount of mere influence which one nation exercises over another is a ground for war." ' " Was not," I said, " his occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia a ground for war ?" ' " Certainly," he answered ; " that was an overt act. But our summoning him to evacuate those provinces within one month added enormously to the importance of his occupation of them. It was not to be expected that a great Sovereign, forced to consult the feelings of a semi-barbarous, and therefore proud and irritable, people, could submit to such a dictation. I opposed it in the Cabinet, but was out-voted. It was virtually a declaration of war, for it made it a point of honour with him that he should keep the provinces, and with us that he should quit them. But it satisfied the English public, who thought that the month's delay was an attempt at peace." ' " What," I asked, " were the Olmutz negotiations ?" ' " They are little known," he answered, " in this country. They were our last chance of peace. ' " The Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia met at Olmutz soon after the failure of what has been called the ' Vienna Note.'* They were * See p. 212. 252 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE all anxious for peace. With considerable difficulty the two other Sovereigns persuaded Nicholas to accept the Note, with the Turkish alterations. But the Turks, acting, I have no doubt, under the advice of Lord Stratford, now retracted, and we, again against my opinion, following out, whenever it suited the war party, the theory of Turkish independence, refused to compel them to adhere to their own proposal. We were thus guilty of what was very like a breach of faith to Russia. England and France, speaking for the whole coalition, offered to her certain terms. She accepted them. Turkey required them to be modified. Russia at first rejected, but afterwards accepted, the modification. It was sharp practice to say, ' It is now too late. If you had accepted the Turkish modifica- tion in time, we would have held her to it, but she has taken advantage of your first refusal, and shaken her- self free.' " ' " Do you foresee," I asked, " any immediate danger to our alliance ?" ' " I do not," he answered. " At present it is obviously Louis Napoleon's interest to be faithful to us, especially as we allow him to have his own way. But, of course, as soon as it is his interest or, rather, as soon as he thinks that it is his interest to break with us, he will do so. We must recollect, too, that the war, while it has strengthened him, has also strengthened another power in France the army. He despises, as I well know, Canrobert and Pelissier, yet you see how he is courting them. ' " No prospect of advantage would have tempted Charles X. or Louis Philippe to attack us. A very JOURNAL IN 18551856 253 slight balance of advantage would decide him to do so. He is, in fact, our only formidable enemy, for I suppose no one is wild enough to fear an invasion from Russia. One consequence of our fear of him is that we must keep up a larger army and a larger fleet than we have been accustomed to, and this will be dangerous as well as expensive. Half the proverbs that are quoted as wisdom are folly, and there is none more foolish than ' Si vis pacem bellum para.' The Greek one f\Kei TOV avSpa criS^pos is the true one. It is almost impossible to have a large military force without being tempted to use it. We are not, perhaps, ambitious of territory, but we are of influence. An English Minister must please the newspapers, and the newspapers are always bawling for interference. They are bullies, and they make the Government bully. If we had not been armed to the teeth, we should not have run into these follies in Naples and Greece." ' " The necessity of keeping up a large military force seems to me," I said, "to be the peculiar evil which the prevalence of despotism on the Continent inflicts on us. Despots are the only persons to whom war, or the preparation for war, costs nothing. Their incomes, as respects their personal wants, are un- bounded. If they like to amuse themselves with large armies and fleets they can force their subjects to waste on them all beyond a bare subsistence, and we cannot in prudence remain comparatively unarmed. A despot 254 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE with military propensities is like a rich man who devotes his whole surplus income to going to law with his neighbours. If, instead of having a good house and dogs and horses, he feeds an army of attorneys, they are forced to do so too." ' " Our peace party," said Lord Aberdeen, " by its violence has almost thrown discredit on peacefulness. Bright is a curious example of the meeting of extremes. He cannot tolerate war, but has a penchant towards assassination." ' " I shall try," I said, " to extract from him his political creed. I have no doubt that it will be found to be much more moderate than might be inferred from the anarchical paradoxes with which he amuses himself." '" Perhaps," said Lord Aberdeen, "he may think that he is here among a set of aristocrats, and that he ought to hoist his reddest Radical flag, and not only nail it to the staff, but keep waving it before our eyes. ' " I am not sure that he is wrong when he expects troublous times more troublesome than any we have witnessed. Now, that is to say, since the Reform Bill, we are really trying the experiment of a mixed form of government. ' " Under the Tudors and Stuarts our Government was essentially a monarchy ; under the Georges it was an aristocracy. The great families had it all their own way. The Reform, while it has weakened the aristocratic element, has strengthened the monarchic one, and has almost created the democratic one. The Constitution now really contains all the three elements. JOURNAL IN 18551856 255 The monarchic, of course, is the weakest, but still its force is considerable : it can give a casting vote ; it did give one on the Reform Bill. I often think of Cicero's aphorism, that if a Government formed of the three elements could be established, it would not be desirable." ' " I do not see," I said, " any signs of revolution, meaning by revolution a change in the depositories of power, effected by force." ' " Nor do I," answered Lord Aberdeen ; " but what has happened may happen again. The Queen is eminently popular, and so perhaps is the Crown ; but we may have a George the Fourth or a King Ernest. I fear that the House of Commons is losing not only popularity but respect. We seem to me to be on an inclined plane. Up to the present time the infusion of democracy has done good not unmixed, but still good to an extent far exceeding its evil. But the tendency of that element is always to grow. Will the next Reform Bill be an improvement ? Will the one after that? Now that the practice of bidding for popularity by Reform Bills has been introduced, it will scarcely be abandoned. You will always have a statesman tempted by so short a cut to power. The days of aristocratic preponderance appear to be numbered, and I regret it." ' " Our social aristocracy," I said, "seems to me to be of a kind that never existed before. It does not depend, like that of the Continent, on birth ; it does not depend, like that of America, on wealth : it is an aristocracy of manners." '"Are not manners," said Lord Aberdeen, "too 256 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE conventional to be the foundation of an aristo- ~\y> cracy r ' " I do not mean," I said, "conventional manners, but the social habits which really conduce to the comfort and pleasure of society." ' "Even those," said Lord Aberdeen, "are to some extent conventional. We dislike certain expressions and certain acts which in themselves are indifferent. In general, I like the Americans; but I find they offend many people by things in which I see no harm." ' " That must arise," I said, " from association. We consider those things as indicative of other habits or other feelings, which are substantially offensive. We refuse to live with a person tainted by the latter. This excludes the nouveaux riches in the first generation : in the second they are on a par with everybody." 'Sunday, September 14. We went to the kirk. Though the day was wet it was quite full. The minister prayed for better weather. ' I said to Lord Haddo that the unwritten prayers distracted me, that I was unable to join in them, as I was always guessing what might be coming, and con- sidering how far I approved of what was passed. ' " Our minister," he answered, " though a very good man, is not a very intelligent one. Prayers might easily be written better than he can invent. But your objec- tion that you are always guessing what may be coming is not felt by his accustomed audience. The ministers vary their prayers much ; they learn them by heart, and so does the congregation, and when you like the ministers, you get in time to prefer the forms of the JOURNAL IN 18551856 257 kirk to those of the Episcopal Church. You cannot account now for the Free Kirk agitation. In the Episcopal Church it is of comparatively little im- portance to the higher classes what their clergyman may be. They can almost always read at home better sermons than they can hear, and no one can spoil the prayers of the English liturgy. They allow him to be appointed by family interest, or by political connection, or even by purchase. But a Presbyterian is dependent on his minister, not only for the sermon, but for what is ten times more important to all classes, and is the only important thing to the educated classes, the prayers. It is impossible to join in the prayers of a fool or of a rogue. If we disapprove of our minister intellectually or morally, we can scarcely attend with any profit to the services of the kirk. The question of patronage was, therefore, a vital one. I do not wonder at the eagerness with which it was grasped at, or at the sacrifices made to retain it." ' At luncheon we talked of Walter Scott. ' " I was present," said Lord Aberdeen, " when a man asked him, somewhat bluntly, which of the Waverley novels he preferred. After a moment's silence he answered, ' Old Mortality.' He sometimes carried his attempts at mystery a little too far. I once said something which he thought implied that I assumed him to be the author of the novels. ' I give you my word of honour,' he said, ' that I know no more about their authorship than you do.' The mystery became very mischievous as soon as he wrote history. If he had announced in his own name his intention to write the life of Napoleon, information of all kinds, 17 258 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE much of which is now lost, would have poured in upon him. No one could offer facts or documents to an anonymous historian." ' In the afternoon I took a long walk with Bright. ' " You have told us," I said, " many of your opinions and of your wishes, and I am sure that in your mind they are parts of a system, that there is some leading theory which they all follow, some seminal idea from which they all spring." ' " Of course," he said, " I have not been a public man for so many years and escaped having a theory and a system. I do not expect it to please you, but if you think that it will amuse you, you shall have it." ' " As far as pure theory goes, I am a Republican, and so, I suppose, are you. No one if he had a Constitution to construct would trust the management of public affairs to one man, or to any set of men, not selected and controlled by the people. But we are an old country and a prosperous one, and I should be very sorry to endanger our present advantages by any great or any sudden changes." ' " I suppose," I said, " that you would elect your House of Commons by ballot, and universal suffrage given in electoral districts?" " By ballot," he answered, "certainly ; but I am not for carving the country into parallelograms of space, or even of numbers. Space, indeed, is not an element which I acknowledge. I should take something like a mean of numbers and wealth. Generally they go together, and are accompanied by intelligence. I don't object to universal suffrage, but I am not anxious for it. I object to the ^10 suffrage, because JOURNAL IN 18551856 259 it excludes, indeed was meant to exclude, the working classes. I should be satisfied with household suffrage. It is the old system ; it is the parochial system, and it does not exclude any class." ' " The great advantage," I said, " of universal suffrage is that when you have it you have got to the bottom. One source of discontent and agitation is dried up. Household suffrage lets in the uneducated classes, and does not compensate for that inconvenience by excluding no one." ' " It excludes no class" he answered. ' " Not the lodgers ?" I replied. ' " No," he said, "for no one need be a lodger." ' " Not the unmarried men ?" I asked. ' " Those who are unmarried at twenty-one," he answered, "are too few to be important, and they are the worst part of our population. However, if you wish for universal suffrage, you may have it." '"How long," I asked, "are your Parliaments to last?" ' " For two years," he answered, " or even for three. And I would not allow them to be dissolved. Subjec- tion to dissolution destroys the independence of the House." ' " Would you keep the House of Lords ?" ' " Yes, with such a House of Commons the peers would behave themselves. They would not reject the Jew Bill session after session. Of course I would have no bishops among them." ' " Would you keep the Crown ?" ' " Yes, but I would take from it the army and put it under the House of Commons ; that is to say, put it, 17 2 260 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE like the navy, in the hands of a Parliamentary Board. The military patronage gives some fifty members, not to the Government, but to the Crown. The influence of a Minister over the House may often be useful ; that of the Crown is almost always mischievous. There cannot be a worse party than the King's friends. ' " Then I would deprive the Crown of the power of making treaties. A Minister ought not to be able to entangle us without our knowledge in an alliance or a guarantee which may produce a war fifty years hence. All our diplomacy should be above-board. Every diplomatic note, sent or received, should be published within two weeks in the Times. Three-fourths of our foreign envoys should be recalled. Most of them are positively mischievous. I had rather that they should receive their salaries for staying at home than for intriguing against the Liberals abroad." ' " How would you deal with the Church?" I asked. *"I would separate it," he answered, "from the State. The endowments which it received from the State are public property, and should revert to the State. If individuals choose to endow it they may, as they may endow the Methodist Church, or the Roman Catholic Church. The only sensible system is the voluntary system. It supports all the Dissenting Churches ; it supports all the American Churches. The Church of England, whatever be its faults, is not so bad as to be incapable of voluntary support. We should then only have as much of it as was wanted." ' " What would you do about education ?" I asked. ' " I would not," he answered, " compel the parents JOURNAL IN 18551856 261 to send their children to school, but I would compel them to pay for good schools, and the children would find their way to them. I would require parishes to raise rates for establishing and keeping up schools, and I would take care that there should be good masters, well paid. Then I would abolish primogeniture." '"You do not mean," I said, "to fetter wills or settlements ?" ' " Not further," he answered, " than by prohibiting any entail beyond a life and a reversion in fee. All ownerships beyond life ownerships should be absolute." '"Your abolition of primogeniture, then," I said, "is to take effect only in the absence of a will or a settlement ?" ' " Exactly so." ' " Then it would not produce much effect. Few men die intestate, certainly not those who wish to make eldest sons." ' " You are mistaken," he replied. " Many of the middle classes buy land, and forget or dislike to make a will. It costs money ; it forces you to explain your private affairs to an attorney. Many persons have a superstitious dread of doing so. I have known hundreds of cases in which primogeniture has worked cruel injustice, and has defeated the wishes of the intestate." 4 "Then," I said, "by all means get rid of it, for it does no good to compensate for the harm." ' "The last reform," he added, "that occurs to me is in taxation. I would impose a heavy income-tax on all realized property. William the Third's four shillings in the pound land-tax was the best act of his 262 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE reign. I would prohibit loans : all the supplies should be raised within the year. Under such a system you would not have much war." ' Monday, September 15. I walked with Lord Aberdeen, and reported to him Bright's political con- fession of faith. '"As I expected it to be," said Lord Aberdeen; "it is much less wild than his ordinary talk. I am not sure that fifty years hence something resembling his system may not be adopted. I agree with you that if power is to be given to the uneducated majority, universal suffrage is preferable to household suffrage. I believe that in ordinary times universal suffrage would give you a respectable House of Commons perhaps a better than we have now. But from time to time some delusion blinds and excites the masses ; instead of confining themselves to the only duty which they can be conceived capable of performing the selection of rulers they attempt to rule. And then there is no saying what mischief they may do, or what good they may prevent. They would have prevented Catholic emancipation ; they would now destroy May- nooth. I even believe that if England were polled it would be found Protectionist. But household suffrage is in this respect as bad as universal suffrage. The householders are a perpendicular section of the whole, and much the largest at bottom. ' " His ecclesiastical changes," continued Lord Aber- deen, " would give us a clergy with more influence over the lower orders, but scarcely any over the higher classes. And, perhaps, if their influence over the lower orders were always usefully exerted, this might JOURNAL IN 18551856 263 be a gain. But they would be forced to preach ad crumenam. Our Scotch clergy, though endowed, are more on a par with their flocks than the English, and have more influence over them ; but I doubt whether the Scotch are a more moral people than the English. They have much more of the appearance of religion, are much fonder of long prayers and long sermons, and Sabbatarianism ; but I have no reason to think that they are better people. ' " No one in England," he added, "is in so false a position as a bishop. He is a peer, he is a great man, he lives with great people, he has to head every subscription, he has to attend Parliament, he has to travel over his diocese, he has to entertain his clergy, he has to provide for his family ; and for all this he has between four and five thousand a year, and only for his life an income which is thought small, even if arising from inheritable property, for a temporal peer who is not subject to half the claims which press on a bishop. Comparing their wants with their incomes, I believe that the bishops are the poorest people in England." ' In the evening we talked of the Factory Acts. I found, as I expected, Bright furious against them. ' " Why are we mill-owners," he said, " to be selected as the subjects of interference ? Why is a Scotchman to be sent to see how I work my people, while the farmer, and the carpenter, and the builder, and the tailor is left to the ordinary responsibilities of law and public opinion ? Are we worse educated than they are? Are our people less intelligent, more ready to submit to oppression, or more easy to manage ? It 264 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE was proposed the other day to force us to spend millions in boxing off our machinery. We have in our mills about 1,000 workpeople. In fifteen years we have had five accidents. We have three carters. In the same space of time two of them have been killed. I have no doubt that in agricultural employ- ments accidents are a hundred times more frequent in proportion to the numbers employed, than those which occur in factories. But we are unpopular, we are envied, we are supposed to be rich, we are Radicals, and Whigs and Tories combine to gain popularity by calumniating us and robbing us. I have advised my partners, if this machinery Bill passes, to set the example of turning the key on the doors of our mills, and to throw on the legislators the responsibility of feeding the millions whom they will not allow us to employ with a profit." ' Tuesday, September 16. I walked with Lord Aberdeen for about an hour before breakfast. ' We talked of Moles worth. ' " Several of my friends," he said, " thought that a coalition Cabinet ought to contain a Radical member. I did not expect much from Molesworth, though I did not object to him. But he was a failure. Until the war he was a mere cipher. When the war had broken out, and was popular, he became outrageously warlike. ' " With all his faults," continued Lord Aberdeen, " and they are many and great, Lord John is one of our best public men. He has great merits as well as great defects. He has boldness, decision, knowledge both of principles and of details, and liberal and com- JOURNAL IN 18551856 265 prehensive views and sympathies. His worst moral fault is rashness. His worst intellectual fault is pre- cipitation. Only a week before his unhappy Durham letter, he wrote to the Bishop of London to say that the Papal aggression was an absurdity to be only laughed at." ' " I was in Italy," I said, "at the time of the Papal aggression. When I returned, one of the first persons that I saw was Lord Clarendon. I alluded with regret to the Durham letter and to the Episcopal Titles Bill. ' " ' It is very well,' said Lord Clarendon, ' to laugh now at Papal aggression, but if you had been here at the time, you would have seen that such was the state of public opinion that we had to choose only between either taking the matter seriously, talking big, and doing ourselves the little that was really possible, or going out and letting it be done by Stanley.' " ' " I think Clarendon utterly wrong," he answered* "In the first place, I do not think that there was excitement enough to endanger the Government if it had remained quiet ; but secondly, the excitement, such as it was, was mainly caused by the Durham letter. * " When the Prime Minister told the Protestants of the three kingdoms that they were injured, insulted, and endangered, they naturally believed him. They would have believed him if he had told them, what, in fact, was true, that the Bull was a matter in which they had no concern, that it merely put the relations between Rome and our Catholic fellow-subjects on a more con- venient footing, and diminished instead of increasing the Pope's power of interference in England. 266 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE 1 " Lord John's great fault," continued Lord Aber- deen, " is that he cannot resign himself to the post for which he is really fit that of the head of a depart- ment. He always thinks that he ought to be the head of the Ministry. This feeling, inflamed as it is by his domestic flatterers, makes him restless, dissatisfied, and negligent. He does not give his soul to his duties as a subordinate, and is always ready to show up his colleagues if he is thwarted, or finds them trouble- some. When he breaks up a Ministry, he thinks that he is dethroning a usurper." ' At breakfast we talked of Thiers' last volumes. 4 " They are not fair to the Duke of Wellington," said Lord Aberdeen, " but they are less unfavourable than I expected. The Duke was not a man whom Thiers could understand." ' " In conversation," I said, " he usually puts him in the first rank of the second rates below Caesar, Hannibal, Alexander, or Napoleon, but on a par with Turenne or Conde." 4 " That was his civility," said Lord Aberdeen, " and in a Frenchman's civility there is always some insolence." ' I left Haddo House that evening. [ 267 I CHAPTER X. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND. IN 1857 Mr. Senior was put on the Royal Commission for Education. Most of his colleagues were already our friends ; it drew us nearer to them, and also brought several valuable additions to our circle. At its head was the Duke of Newcastle. He was exceedingly attractive ; his beautiful manners and graceful, dignified bearing made him like a prince in a fairy tale. He asked us to spend the Christmas of 1 860-6 1 with him at Clumber. It was a frightfully severe winter, and the large house, uninhabited except by the host and our two selves, seemed cold and dreary. Neither wife nor child was there, and outside a dismal expanse of snow. I was not, however, in the least bored, for there was a melancholy romance about it all which moved my imagination. In a few days Sir Edward and Lady and Miss Head arrived, and the speaker, Lord Ossington. They were all very agree- able, but the weird charm was broken, and the atmosphere became more prosaic. The Rev. William Rogers (' Hang theology Rogers,' as he was called) was another friend whom we owed to the Education Commission. He was delightful com- 268 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE pany, very original, unconventional, and full of fun. His noble, disinterested efforts at civilizing the East End were just beginning to be recognized, and I have always thought that they deserved a higher reward than a City living. I remember the pleasure it gave us to go over the enormous schools of St. Thomas, on which he spent time, talents, and money. The children were remarkably intelligent, and read aloud especially well, much better than the majority of boys, and even men, brought up in our great public schools. He was on excellent terms with his parishioners of all sorts. I used laughingly to tell him that he was hand-in-glove with all the thieves in London, and when a favourite little King Charles* of mine was stolen, I applied to him to recover my pet. He replied : ' May i. ' . . . I have put your case into the hands of the most skilful of detectives, whose special vocation it is to look up dogs, and if Fan has not been placed in a situation to garnish a turkey (the season is in your favour), my friend will find her out. ' I passed your house the other day at the time when I knew the kettle boiled, panting for sweet converse and a cup of bohea. Conceive my dismay at finding the shutters closed. I tore the last lock from my bald head, and rushed into a neighbouring greengrocer's for a bottle of penny gingerbeer. I need hardly say that it neither cheered nor inebriated me. I have been wretched ever since, till your letter infused some hope into me. I hope I may be instrumental in restoring * She had the honour of being immortalized by George Frederick Watts. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 269 Fan to your arms ; it will be the proudest moment of my life.' Dog lovers will be glad to hear that Mr. Rogers' efforts were successful. Fan came back, but she had been so ill-treated that she had lost an eye. Some years afterwards, when he was Rector of Bishopsgate, Mr. Rogers gave grand balls to his parishioners, to one of which, when I had young people about me, I had the honour of being invited. Nothing could be better done or more amusing. These balls took place in a large, vaulted school- room. At one end was a dais. At 9.30 the folding doors at the other end were thrown open, and a pro- cession advanced. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress (the former in official dress) led the way, followed by our host in his wheeled chair (for he was lame, the result of an accident). The band struck up, and the grandees took their places on the dais. The dancing then went on merrily, much better organized than in an ordinary ball-room, for there were Masters of the Ceremonies, who took care that there should be no jostling and crowding. Some of the girls, especially the Jewesses, were extremely pretty. Another member of the Commission, of which Fitz- james Stephen was secretary, was Dean Lake. He and Mr. Brookfield and Mr. Rogers constantly dined at our house. Much business, we were told, was transacted by them after we ladies had retired, but during dinner there was more fun and laughter than anything else. Another very interesting acquaint- ance that we made during the Commission was Miss 270 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Carpenter, whose life was entirely devoted to reclaiming outcasts, and educating the children of the poor. My father was so busy in London that he sent me to look at her Ragged Schools, and I spent two interesting days with her in the Red House, Bristol, where we were waited on by two obliging little thieves. It was here that I made acquaintance with my dear friend Miss Cobbe, whose voluntary exile from London I never cease to deplore. At that time she was living with Miss Carpenter, and helping in her work. What struck me in the schools was the freshness of the atmosphere, which, considering the class of children, proved that the unpleasant closeness one feels in visiting ordinary schools is not inevitable. These two ladies, in whose work Miss Elliot, the Dean's daughter, was closely associated, lead very useful active lives. Their keen sense of humour must have been a great support to them, for their spirits were not subdued by the trying scenes around them. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brookfield belonged to a group of my father's friends considerably younger than he was, who naturally survived him, although few of them attained to real old age. The most widely known was Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton). No party was complete without him, and if by any chance his friends forgot to send him an invitation, he relied on his universal popularity, and presented himself without one, for which Sydney Smith dubbed him the ' cool of the evening.' No one, except Mrs. Grote, ever ventured to snub him. His imaginative humorous talk and hearty laugh are still fresh in the memory of all who knew him. He had LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 271 the good fortune to marry the sister of the late, and mother of the present, Lord Crewe, and at her brother's and her husband's houses in town and country she made a delightful hostess. People of all sorts met at Lord Hough ton's ; you were sure to see there the most recent lion and the newest beauty. He was great at breakfast-parties. I remember on one occasion, when none but potent and reverend seigniors, such as Whately and Lansdowne and Macaulay were present, his breaking out with, ' Any man who lives beyond thirty-six may be sure that he is nothing very particular,' and the burst of laughter which followed. He was most amusing at Frystone, his house in the country. We met there on one occasion Lord and Lady Mount-Temple, Miss Davenport Bromley, Chad- wick, Miss Carpenter, Mrs. Jameson, and some smart people whose names I cannot remember, and last, not least, Mr. Brookfield, who read Shakespeare to us in the evening. Lord Houghton was an excellent host, overlooking nobody, but he was a despot. He arranged all that we were to do all day, with whom to walk, drive, etc., and it was a great comfort to let one's free will and responsibility go to sleep. I think a party in Cornwall Gardens was the very last he ever dined at before he went abroad and shortly afterwards died. It was to meet the Due de Broglie, and the two discussed English society and French poetry to our great edifica- tion and amusement. One of our oldest and longest friendships was with Henry Reeve, C.B., the Editor of the Edinburgh Review and the ' Greville Memoirs.' We knew him for at least fifty years, during which he was a most 272 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE kind and agreeable friend to us all. He shared my father's social and cosmopolitan tastes, and we lived in much the same circle at home and abroad. He belonged to the same political school, preserved the same old Liberal traditions, believed in political economy, and did not approve of much State inter- ference or Socialism of any sort. Herman Merivale, Assistant-Secretary at the Colonial Office, and afterwards for India, was another true and constant friend, helpful and genial, a charming com- panion, full of information and ability, and absolutely without pretension. He was entirely without vanity, for which reason I think he was hardly appreciated at his full value. His volume of ' Historical Essays ' did not meet with the popularity which such a charming book deserved. To this, however, he was completely indifferent. His manner, indeed, generally gave the impression of calm indifference, but beneath was a most tender heart. He never recovered the tragical death of his daughter Mrs. Trench, and the Indian Famine disturbed the peace of his last days. After my marriage, in 1865, we had the good fortune to find the Merivales in the next house to the one we took in Cornwall Gardens. They were the most delightful neighbours imaginable. Mrs. Merivale, although chained to her seat by rheumatism, was full of life and fun. Her friends flocked round her, and one heard more news in her drawing-room of an after- noon than anywhere else. She did not long survive her husband, and we paid the penalty for having had such exceptional neighbours in the blank they left behind. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 273 Herman Meri vale's brother, the historian, and Dean of Ely, was another link between us, for he had been my husband's tutor at Cambridge. We found him a very agreeable addition to our circle whenever he came to London. One of Herman Merivale's intimate college friends was Cardinal Manning. He never would dine out or come to any sort of party, but he occasionally came to the Merivales' in the evening, and they were so kind as to invite my husband and me to look in also, which we never failed to do, as we were very glad of the opportunity of meeting His Eminence, who looked like a mediaeval saint. Another of our best friends was the Rev. William Brookfield. He was one of the most brilliant talkers I ever came across. His stories were irresistible, and his mimicry, never ill-natured or exaggerated, brought whomsoever he pleased before his hearers, not only in manner, but in the flavour of their mind and conversa- tion. No one since Sydney Smith ever made us laugh so much, and yet we felt that there was a serious side, almost a dark background, to all this merriment. He was tall, dark, and strikingly handsome ; a very fine preacher, and an admirable reader. He was so kind as to read a play of Shakespeare's once in every year to a chosen audience in our house. It was far better than seeing Hamlet on the stage, for there was no imperfection to mar the beauty of the whole. To my mind his reading was superior to Mr. Brandram's : he had a beautiful deep-toned voice and no tricks ; he did not use falsetto in the female parts. Another friend whom we were fortunate enough to 18 274 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE preserve for many years was George Stovin Venables, the eminent Parliamentary barrister. His friendship for my father descended to us, and I never can forget his constant kindness. Happily for us, his life was extended beyond the limit grudgingly allotted to us by the Psalmist, and yet he seemed full of power when he was taken away. His conversation was very remark- able, his memory was prodigious ; for a long period he contributed the yearly ' Summary of Events ' to the Times, and he used to dictate column after column without a note. He was full of wit and dry, somewhat caustic, humour, and did not always spare his inter- locutors, but his severity was only skin deep, and he was the kindest of friends and the most hospitable of hosts. To children, even babies, and to young people, he was indulgence itself, and they were never in the least afraid of him. Another of this little band of Cambridge men* was my dear old friend Sir Edward Bunbury. He and Lord Houghton belonged to the Cambridge A. D. C. (acting club), and he amused us very much one day by describing how they performed in ' Romeo and Juliet.' He was a great talker, very good-natured, interesting and entertaining, and also very learned, though not in * Almost all these men were members of the Apostles' Club, to which Tennyson, Trench, and the most distinguished undergraduates of their day, belonged. I wish we had known more of Tennyson. My father greatly admired his poems, especially ' Queen Guinevere.' I can only remember distinctly meeting him four times. Once he came in and talked very agreeably when I was sitting to Watts ; again at the Brookfields', when he read ' Boadicea ' and 'The Northern Farmer ' ; another time at a party given by his daughter-in-law ; and once more when I went with Mme. Mohl to call on him in the Albert Mansions. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 275 the least pedantic, and a very agreeable member of society. I look back with great enjoyment to the two visits we paid to him after he inherited Barton. The house was full of fine pictures and rare books. I was especially interested in the more serious drawings of his ancestor, the celebrated caricaturist ; they showed a deep feeling for beauty and pastoral scenes, very like Morland's pictures. Another Apostle was the late James Spedding, who devoted his life to editing Bacon. He was one of the most amiable of men, and a great favourite with us all. He would talk on the most interesting psychological thesis undisturbed in a room full of noise and com- pany. It was quite restful to see his bald head reach- ing, like a snowy mountain- top, above the madding crowd, and to sit in a corner with him listening to his calm discourse. There are some people who seem to diffuse happi- ness. Sometimes this fairy gift of manner extends to a whole family, as in the case of the Villiers and Arnolds. Dr. Arnold was a friend of my father's, but I never saw him ; we all, however, were intimate with the younger generation. No one ever possessed the charm of manner in higher perfection than Matthew Arnold ; he was ' sweetness and light ' personified. He never forgot an old friend, and nowhere was he so charming as in the bosom of his family. He pre- served his youth, his buoyant spirits, and good looks to the last, and when one considers the sad endings to so many valuable lives, even those nearest and dearest to him can hardly grudge him the painless death, with powers unimpaired, which was his portion in this world. 1 8 2 276 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE I first met Kinglake at one of the Milmans' pleasant parties at Westminster. It was soon after the appear- ance of ' Eothen/ and I knew him intimately to the very end of his life. There are still many left who person- ally remember him, but for the last few years his failing health, ending in painful illness borne with extraordinary patience and fortitude, made him an exile from society. No one was more witty, in a very quiet way ; he had a keen sense of humour hidden under a very gentle, shy manner, and a slow way of speaking. He was exceedingly courteous to women, and very generous to all who needed his help. It was a great pleasure to pay him long visits, as I did when he could no longer come to see me, in his house at Richmond, and at last in his charming rooms overlooking Kensington Gardens, in the Bayswater Road. His mind never gave way, although after his serious illness he had some difficulty in speaking. He was pale, small, and delicate in appearance, and probably for that very reason appreciated physical strength and beauty above other gifts. He would have given any- thing to be a successful soldier. He had the Eloquence du billet in a supreme degree ; he could not write the shortest note of refusal or acceptance without wording it in such a manner as made one feel stroked the right way, and consequently risen in one's own estimation. All our circle had a great liking and respect for Richard Doyle ; we admired his conscientious refusal to draw any more for Punch after that paper spoke evil of the Pope. He was full of gentle fun, and his tact was never at fault. If a guest was either shy or LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 277 stupid or fastidious, all went right if Dicky Doyle sat beside her. He was happily spared to us for many years, and to the end of his life we constantly saw him. He would ask us frequently to come to see his sketches and pictures, full of delicate and humorous fancies. I remember telling him the story of the ' Fifty Red Nightcaps,' which he afterwards amusingly illustrated. There was no more welcome guest at Hyde Park Gate than Sir James Lacaita. He was in prison when we were at Naples, but he soon came to London, where he was a great favourite, and married a Scotch lady. He was particularly fond of joining our four o'clock tea-table, and his exuberant boyish gaiety was very refreshing in our foggy island. His fellow- prisoner, Poerio, also came to us in London. He was very gentle and quiet, and never breathed a word against the iniquitous Government under which he had suffered so much. I think he only visited London once, but Lacaita was happily a permanent institution. He spoke English perfectly, with a slight accent which gave additional value to every word he said. Another naturalized foreigner who added much to our cheerfulness was Count Strelecki. I think he first became well-known by his exertions in Skib- bereen, in the year of the Irish famine. He was most entertaining. I once returned from Yorkshire in the same railway-carriage with him, and the journey seemed all too short, he told such lovely stories and made me laugh so heartily. One was of a lady alone in the train with a man whom she feared was mad, and her terror reached its height when he took out a knife 278 and brandished it. She was relieved when he plunged his hand into another pocket and pulled out an orange. Another story he was fond of telling was of an old bachelor in the Albany, paralyzed, and lying in bed in charge of a nurse who, before his eyes, packed up all his valuables and prepared to run off with them ; but first she said, leaning over the bed : ' My dear, I must go ; but before we part I will give you one kiss.' His way of telling these stories, his inimitable drollery, and funny English, and animated gestures, gave effect to what at second-hand may not appear amusing. He had beautifully white, thick hair, and once said to Mrs. Grote, who was very fond of young people : ' Mrs. Grote, I hear you are given over to de boys, but powder will come in, and de white hairs will have a chance.' William Rathbone Greg, the author of the ' Creed of Christendom,' ' Enigmas of Life,' etc., was among the men who long survived my father, and whose friendship was greatly valued by him and afterwards by ourselves. He was eminently companionable and sympathetic. In later days there were few pleasanter things than to leave the heat and noise of London in the season and drive out to visit him and Mrs. Greg at Wimbledon, and find them sitting under the large tree on their lawn undisturbed by the busy world, yet interested in all that was going on. It was at the Lewis', at Harp ton, that we first met Sir Charles Newton, then just come back from Mytilene, and thoroughly enjoying his return to LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 279 civilization. He, and afterwards his accomplished wife, became great friends of ours. My father and Lady Newton took a great fancy to each other, and she made a very striking sketch of him in his last illness. She did not long survive him. The remem- brance of their friendship drew Sir Charles and our- selves nearer together, and there was no more constant and welcome guest in Cornwall Gardens. I remember especially a small luncheon-party, where there were only Newton and Lowell besides our own party, and how agreeable it was. There was an even greater sympathetic charm about Lowell, whose conversation, in no way depending upon persons or passing events, resembled in this respect that of Dean Stanley. Lowell had a great friend in London, Mrs. Smalley, and early on every Thursday afternoon he was to be found in her drawing-room. I often made one of a small circle collected there, listening to Lowell's delightful talk, too soon, alas ! to cease for ever. My father fully made up his mind to visit the United States in 1859: his passage was taken, and I was to have gone with him ; but while he was at Kettering- ham (Sir John Boileau's), where a large party was assembled to meet Guizot, he was attacked by a violent fit of sciatica which forced him to relinquish his trip across the Atlantic, and rush down to Malvern to be treated. He was cured almost at once by the douche. We had a lively time at Malvern. Watts was there, and we met for the first time our charming and excellent friends the De Mussys. The Doctor was 2 8o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE in attendance on Queen Marie Amelie. Mme. Mohl, who brought sunshine wherever she went, also came. My father soon was able to start on some visits in Scotland and Ireland. On the morning that he and my mother left we had all our friends to breakfast, and sat quite quietly talking until our servant Chivers, who lived with us twenty years, and was known to all who frequented Hyde Park Gate, put his head in at the door and said, ' The omnibus is ready '; whereupon the family departed without more ado, to Mme. Mohl's intense amusement. Chivers was one of the cleverest men I ever knew. Besides his ordinary duties, which he per- formed admirably, he wrote for my father, was a capital courier, and organized all the material parts of our society. He married our cook, and became Gunter's right-hand man ; but he never thought any family comparable to ours, and, contrary to the old saying, my father was certainly a hero to his valet-de- ckambre. One cannot help regretting the loss of an American journal. Almost all the Americans of distinction came to Hyde Park Gate. My earliest remembrance is of Daniel Webster. I have opposite to me at the present moment a small Parian bust of himself, which he gave to us when he left. He had a magnificent head and a powerful, rather stern, countenance. His wife was a very striking person, beautiful and dignified. We always knew the American Minister for the time being, and saw a great deal of him and his family. Prescott, Dana, Palfrey, the two Sumners, Mottley, Wheaton, Forbes, Winthrop, Seward, Bancroft, were LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 281 among our frequent guests whenever they were on this side of the Atlantic, and with some of them my father kept up a correspondence. Of all the distinguished people with whom it has been my good fortune to be thrown, there was not one in whose views, objects, and opinions I sympathized so entirely as with Arthur Stanley. He was too young to have been, as so many of my father's friends, such as Whately, Hampden, and others were, a frequent inmate in our old home, and I had not therefore the privilege of the daily intercourse which, more than any amount of meeting at parties, enables one to know a man's real character. But in Stanley there were no mysteries or contradictions. The most striking thing about him at first sight was his perfect simplicity and naturalness. The latter is a rare quality, for without any conscious vanity or affectation, there are few people who can absolutely divest themselves of shyness and gne in their intercourse with others. He never seemed to think of himself at all ; he was absorbed in the subject of which he was speaking and at the same time interested in the person he was speaking to. Almost everybody interested him, and he drew some- thing worth having from people without any pretension to intellectual eminence ; for conscious of his sympathy and appreciation, they gave him of their best, and became, if not brilliant talkers, at any rate ready listeners. His conversation was not, as Mme. Mohl used to say of many Londoners, a dilution of the Times of the day ; you could not assign a date to it, for it was on matters of constant interest, not often on politics or persons. I heard him, however, say, in 1880, ' If 282 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Gladstone gets in for Midlothian, England will have an absolute dictator.' The Stanleys and ourselves had a common subject of interest in Jenny Lind, whose principal friends in England were the Grotes, Whatelys, and Stanleys. There was an amusing paragraph mixing them up together in a French newspaper which stated that ' Mile. Lind was going to marry the nephew of Mr. Grote, Archbishop of Norwich.' It was a sad dis- appointment to the great singer when she found that her friend's son had absolutely no ear for music. When one reads Stanley's vivid descriptions of scenery, it is difficult to believe that he was also colour-blind. He told me that what people call red looked to him just the same as slate-colour, and for him the palest cheek was the most beautiful. He was equally without taste or smell. He made up for all these deficiencies of sense by the warmth of his ima- gination and his heart. He cared little for art, his chief interest was in all sorts and conditions of life, and in all kinds of people. I once made to him the com- monplace remark that the lives of kings and princes must be very dull. 1 Oh no,' he said, ' their position is so interesting, both to themselves and others.' It was this constant endeavour to understand other lives, added to his vivid imagination, that made him delight in history and travelling, and topography, which united the other two. Fiction was to him almost as real as history, and I remember his travelling, with Lady Augusta, all the way to Dunstable to visit the scene of Miss Edgworth's story, ' The Basketmakers.' LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 283 Great was the joy of all his London friends when Stanley was appointed Dean of Westminster. He told us that when his predecessor hung the Order of the Bath round his neck, Archbishop Trench com- plained that it would not fit. ' You see, you are so narrow, Stanley,' he said. ' Well, really,' rejoined the new Dean, ' I have always been accused of being too broad." Henceforth we saw him often. He was very kind in coming to see my father during his last illness, and when, after 1864, our old home was broken up, for it had lost its chief, we had another bond of union in our friendship with Julius and Mary Mohl. Ever since the early fifties, Mme. Mohl had been in the habit of enlivening us with her presence for a few days in every year ; it was at her house in Paris that we first met Lady Augusta Bruce, long before the perfect marriage which Mme. Mohl was very proud of having helped to promote. Stanley was as fortunate in his domestic relations as in the position he occupied. His parents, especially his mother, fostered the remarkable moral and intel- lectual nature which was further developed by his great master, Arnold. His sisters were devoted to him, and when his mother died, it was to make way for the crowning happiness of his life. I asked his only surviving sister last year if she remembered (he was much older) anything that had not already been said of his early youth. She replied : 1 1 principally recollect the delightful walks I used to take with him in early days. He would go out in all weathers. It was a necessity to him to have two 284 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE hours' exercise every day, and whether it was pouring a deluge or blowing a hurricane out he must go, and I with him, because he could not walk without a com- panion. On starting on these excursions he used to say, "Now, which shall it be? An historical walk, or a geographical, or an arithmetical walk ?" One of these three it always was. Some epoch in modern or ancient history was set, as it were, on the table and dissected, or else the geography of some particular country ; and now and then, though not often, arith- metic, the multiplication table and addition, never beyond these regions, and many a pause ensued after " 5 times 7 " or " 8 times 4." They were to me hours of the deepest enchantment.' To those who did not know him, this description may savour of priggishness, but Stanley's perfect simplicity and indifference to effect prevented his ever giving this impression. No place, no position in the world, would have suited him so well as the Deanery of Westminster, and the Canonry of Canterbury led up to it, and no one who has once enjoyed, as I did frequently, the privilege of going round the Abbey with him will ever forget it. He would turn to me and say, ' Now 1 know you want to see the wax figures ' those gruesome relics of a past age which used to be carried at the funerals of Royal and distinguished people, and he also never failed to point out the skin of the malefactor who tried to steal the pyx, still clinging to the door of the closet in which it was kept. On one occasion I met there the black King Bonney and his suite. All manner of fine and learned folks, as well as artizans of all kinds, joined these parties, and always some children, Lady Augusta often carry- ing a little one round on her shoulder. She, as well as the Dean, was passionately fond of children, and mine, as well as others, were always invited to the window- gardening parties and to tea afterwards at the Deanery. Once I believe it was the last time that Lord Shaftes- bury was equal to the effort we heard him speak and deliver the prizes. No hostess ever did the honours with more grace than did Lady Augusta at the Deanery to gentle and simple. It was the grace of exquisite tact, combined with real kindness of heart. Mme. Mohl wrote to her in 1870 : ' I had rather be with you than at the Royal board, and it is but honest to confess it. I just tell you what I feel about the Abbey ; but it's no wonder when queens throng to it to meet the learned.' It was in this year that Mme. Mohl spent the greater part of the winter with us in Cornwall Gardens in consequence of the Franco-German war. Among the first to cheer her in her exile were the Dean and Lady Augusta, and besides frequently coming over in the afternoon, they often dined with us to meet one or two other intimate friends. M. Mohl, who was staying with Lady William Russell and Mme. Schwabe, always made one at these little dinners. On one occasion the Stanleys brought Pere Hyacinthe, for whom the Dean had a great regard. It was no passion for notoriety that induced him to seek the acquaintance of conspicuous people. It was a real interest, a wish to find points of agree- ment in those whose opinions seemed most dis- 286 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE similar, and also his strong feeling that conduct, not opinion, is the great test of character. I heard him once say to someone who objected to the Commination Service, that it did people good to be reminded once a year that it was of far more im- portance to obey the laws of God than to hold certain opinions. Although absolutely without self-assertion, he never flinched from expressing his own opinions. He demanded from others the tolerance which he exercised towards them. One evening, in the midst of fiery meetings in Convocation, in which Stanley came into collision with the High Church party, there was a large party at the Deanery, and I happened to say something about Archdeacon Denison, on which the Dean laughingly brought him up and introduced him to me. They were evidently on excellent terms, and chaffed each other with the utmost good humour. There was one interesting function at which we used always to meet the Dean and Lady Augusta a dinner which was given every year by Mrs. Bayne, a cousin of Thackeray's, and a very clever lady,* to celebrate her great friend Bishop Thirlwall's birthday. The Bishop was, of course, always there. It was on February 9, and there were nine guests, and nine dishes, and nine sorts of wine, and most agreeable company. On one of these occasions, when there was some talk about the doings in Queen Anne's day, the Dean whispered to his next neighbour, with a look at his wife, ' There is our Mrs. Masham.' Lady Augusta seemed the personification of health * It is a great pity that Mrs. Bayne's ' Memorials of the Thackeray Family,' printed for private circulation, are not given to the world. LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 287 and strength. Besides her enormous social and philanthropic labours, she took long walks with her husband in the afternoons. One constantly came upon them trudging along tete-a-tte ever so far from home. Still more often were they cheering the sick and poor in the slums of Westminster ; and Lady Augusta's powers of organization were put to the test by the various meetings and ceremonies in the Abbey. I remember the immense pains she took in getting up the ' Passions-musik.' The Dean had no taste for details, and no care for comfort. He took no heed of what he ate or drank, or wherewithal he was clothed. His wife had to look after him as if he had been a child. His idea of relaxation in the autumn was chiefly travelling. He liked being on the spot where any soul-stirring event had happened or was happening, and Lady Augusta never let him go alone. She seemed, like him, indefatigable. But the continuous strain proved in the end too much for her. The long journey to Russia in 1874, the fetes in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh's marriage, when she represented the Queen, and the following London season, during which she was in constant attendance on the Duchess, fatigued her extremely, and in the autumn the Stanleys' so-called holiday was spent in visiting old chateaux and cathedrals in France. When they reached Mme. Mohl's hospitable apartment on their way back, Lady Augusta suddenly broke down, and it was many weeks before she could be moved. She never walked again. I saw her two or three times during the painful illness which ensued, and was struck by the spiritual 288 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE beauty of her face. Her large black eyes seemed more lustrous than ever, contrasted with the snowy whiteness of her hair. I was one of the many friends present at her funeral, and I shall never forget the deep grief stamped on her husband's countenance as, leading one of her little nephews in each hand, he followed her coffin to its resting-place in Henry VI I. 's Chapel. For Stanley the glory of life had departed ; he never entirely recovered from the blow, but he did not give way to selfish absorption in the past. He gathered up the fragments of life, he worked harder than ever, and still enjoyed the society of his old friends. He often came to dine with us, and I remember his telling the ghost story of ' Ticonderoga ' (published afterwards in Macmillans Magazine] at our table with thrilling effect. On another occasion we were expecting Mrs. Craven, and we waited for nearly an hour and no Mrs. Craven appeared, but the usual chill did not fall on the company, for Stanley's brilliant and easy talk made us all forget that we were hungry and weary. In justice to that charming and distinguished lady, I must add that when she arrived she told us that she had been driven all about the town by a stupid cabman. In April, 1880, he met at our house Renan, and the two got on capitally, in spite of the difference of language. But the Dean's French, although un- idiomatic and ill-pronounced, was very fluent, and that is all that matters. His handwriting was curiously illegible. On one occasion a letter he wrote to the Archbishop of Dublin LATER FRIENDS IN ENGLAND 289 was sent to Bath ; and on another, when he was engaged to dine with the Rector of St. Martin's in the Fields, they waited and waited no Dean of West- minster. At length they went in to dinner, and the evening passed without any sign of life from him, nor did any excuse arrive next day. His host, feeling alarmed lest any evil should have befallen him, wrote to him to inquire the reason of his absence. Back came a letter of the deepest apology, to say that, having set down his engagement in his memorandum- book, he looked at it on the appointed day, but no power under the sun could enable him to decipher his own writing, and he found it impossible to make out either the name or the address of his intended host, so that he could neither fulfil his engagement nor even send an excuse. In the year 1880 we took a house for the summer at Canterbury, and I asked the Dean for some introduc- tions. He gave me his visiting-card, with the names of the residents in the precincts scribbled on it on one side, and on the other, ' Pray show every attention to Mrs. Simpson, Nassau Senior's daughter.' We won- dered to whom we should send it, so we went to the service in the Cathedral and looked at all the canons as they marched out. Canon Robertson especially took our fancy, and we left the card at his house with one of our own. The next day he came up the hill to call on us. ' You have no idea,' he said, ' what a bomb you threw into the precincts ! We could not decipher the writing. 1 All the Dean's friends were very kind to us, and we enjoyed their society exceedingly. We went over the 19 290 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Cathedral with almost every one of them. Mrs. Rawlinson was also an excellent guide. We used to have lawn-tennis in our garden every Wednesday, and these distinguished ecclesiastics did not despise sharing in the game. Canon Rawlinson was especially keen at it. In the following June Canon Robertson dined with us, and Stanley came to meet him, and was as delight- ful as ever. A few weeks later I saw him for the last time. It was at one of the Westminster flower-shows. He had been talking to Sir George Baden-Powell, and after his companion left him I noticed that the Dean was standing alone in the middle of the gravel-walk, apparently in a dream, and with the same look of deep grief in his face that struck me when he followed his wife to the grave. A fortnight later he was laid beside her. CHAPTER XI. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS. AFTER 1857, when he visited Constantinople and Greece, my father's days of distant travelling were over ; but he continued to visit France once or twice a year. A younger generation had grown up in 1 860 ; many who before the Empire would have been poli- ticians had turned to literature as the only career open to them. They used to find great relief in expressing their opinions of the coup d'ttat and its consequences to my father, to be duly recorded, as they knew, in his journals ;* consequently he never would be introduced to the Emperor, and although we were once asked to a ball at the Tuileries he refused to go there. My mother and I were mean enough to sneak in under the wing of Prosper Mrimee, the Empress' secre- tary. It was a splendid sight. The Emperor looked like a sick parrot he seemed cold and bored ; but the Empress was graceful and charming. We slipped out without being presented, glad to have seen the sight ; * 'Journals in France and Italy,' published in 1871; 'Conversa- tions and Correspondence with Tocqueville/ 1872; 'Conversations with Thiers, Guizot, etc.,' in 1878 ; ' Conversations with Distinguished Persons,' in 1880. 19 2 292 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE but it was not a bit more beautiful than a ball at Buckingham Palace. Prosper Merimee was one of the few Imperialists we knew ; it was not so much political feeling as friend- ship for the Empress, whom he had known from a child, which attached him to the Court. He affected the flegme Britannique, in which he was assisted by his appearance. Tall, rather gaunt, studiously quiet in voice and manner, stately and good-looking, he was much more like an Englishman than a Frenchman. But there the resemblance ended ; the turn of his mind, his cynical esprit, were essentially French. He had, however, a way of saying the most startling, caustic things in his calm, gentle voice that reminded us of Kinglake : it was only after a moment's re- flection that it occurred to his hearers how pointed and amusing his paradoxes were. Some people never found it out at all, and wondered why Merimee was considered so entertaining. In his youth he had been a great lady-killer. Mme. Mohl used to relate how he appeared one day with his arm in a sling, and she found out that he had been fighting a duel with an infuriated husband, who had discovered a letter from Merimee to his wife, and who, as Merim6e said, ' n'aimait pas ma prose/ Tocqueville used to tell us how handsome he had been in youth, ' with flaxen hair curling to his shoulders.' He had a genius for friendship as well as for love- making, as the numerous letters, published since his death, to his female friends attest. In his latter days he was obliged to spend the winter at Cannes, where two old English ladies used to trot after him, carrying his LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 293 stool and sketching materials. He was a beautiful artist, and copied in oil-miniatures the fine pictures in almost all the European galleries. When we were in Paris, we used to go to drink tkd jaune, which was sent to him from Russia, in his rooms in the Rue de Lille, and he was more charming than ever in his character as host, showing us all sorts of interesting and beautiful things, and introducing us to his wonder- ful cat, his great companion. We never met anyone there but the Mohls. He would also take us to St. Germains and Versailles, and was an excellent showman. He pointed out to us the curious changes of fashion in beauty as shown in the galleries of Versailles, where the portraits are grouped according to date. In the reign of Louis XIV. the women's faces were round, and they lengthened gradually during the next two reigns, until later on a long chin was considered attractive. Another of our friends was Victor Cousin, who was deeply in love with the ladies of the seventeenth century, especially Mme. de Longueville. He used to come and talk to us of them by the hour, to my great delight, for I was already fairly well read in the memoirs of those times. I like them best in the original form, but they are admirably boiled down in Cousin's books. He was a brilliant talker, very ex- citable ; no British calm was there. He was intensely French, and in 1862 came over to England only to see Poussin's pictures. We went with him to the Dulwich Gallery for that purpose, and he did not care to look at any of the other masterpieces. He was tall and bulky and very pale, and looked much older than 294 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE he really was, as is generally the case with learned Frenchmen, the consequence of their despising air and exercise. Michel Chevalier had been a friend of my father's ever since we first went to Carlsbad, in 1840. He was a very agreeable man, and we saw a great deal of him, both in London and Paris. I remember meeting him one day at his brother's, Auguste Chevalier ;* Mignet, Cousin, Prevost Paradol, Prosper Merimee were also there, and I was looking forward to a rich conversational treat. But, alas ! these accomplished talkers chose ' Chateau d'Yquem ' for their subject, and no other was mentioned throughout dinner. Mignet was delightful, extremely handsome ; his blue eyes retained their fire to the last ; he had not the extreme excitability of Cousin or the ftegme of Me>imee. He never seemed to listen to a word one said, yet one felt one's vanity satisfied, for he took so much pains to please the person he selected to listen to him. In Mme. Mohl's last days he was one of her most constant friends and visitors. One evening he was holding forth in praise of Henri IV., with his usual absorption in his subject. At last Mme. Mohl got quite tired and tapped his shoulder, exclaiming, ' Assez, mon cher, vous prechez une convertie.' In those days Prevost Paradol was just rising into fame ; he was still quite young, and very handsome and agreeable. He looked like a hero of romance. His was, indeed, a tragical and romantic story. Like most of the literary men of that period, he was a stanch Orleanist until 1870, when he believed in * Secretary to Louis Napoleon until the coup d'etat. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 295 Louis Napoleon's promise of ' crowning the edifice ' by establishing a Liberal Government under Ollivier, from whom Prevost Paradol accepted the post of French Minister at Washington. Bitterly disappointed by the course of events, and filled with regret at having forsaken his colours and forming part of a Government which he felt had betrayed his country, he committed suicide not long after he reached his post. Jules Simon was one of my father's intimate friends. The state of the poor was a subject of absorbing interest to them both, and when we were in Paris he used to take my father to see artizans and other republicans, which gave an interesting variety to the Journals.* Years afterwards, in 1877, when Jules Simon was Minister of the Interior, he asked my daughter and me to visit him at the ' Ministere,' as he was too much overwhelmed with work to go out. His cares did not sit lightly upon him, although he gave us a very long audience, and talked most agreeably in his low, sweet voice. When we rose up to go, he thanked us for our kindness in visiting ' le malheureux qui habite ce cabinet.' A very interesting, kind, and constant friend to us all was Adolphe Comte de Circourt. He was not a bigoted Orleanist, and in Louis Napoleon's early days was French Ambassador at Berlin, but he retired after the coup cTttat. He was full of the most accurate and varied information. Tocqueville said of him : ' Circourt is my dictionary ; when I want to know * Published in 1880 ; but, as M. Simon was alive at that time, he appears under the initials ' D. E. F.' 296 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE what has been done or said on any occasion I go to Circourt. He draws out one of the drawers in his capacious head, and finds there all I want, arranged and ticketed. One of the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and his affec- tions are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man of whom that can be said ?' M. de Circourt spoke English, Russian, and German with perfect ease. I could only judge of his English, which was extremely fluent and perfectly intelligible. He never stopped for a word, but his idioms were sometimes very droll. One afternoon he came in and said : 1 I was to-day at an artist's of my friends. A negress was sitting to him, and I tasted her conversation and her moral for the space of two hours, and found them quite equal to those of a white.' He said once to Matthew Arnold, of some friend, that 'he was very unconventional, but never walked out of the conveniences.' He began public life as secretary to Prince Polignac. The revolution of 1830 destroyed his prospects, and he retired to Geneva, where he met and married Mile, de Klustyn, the distinguished Russian lady whose salon was one of the last and best in Paris. It was extremely amusing, and we frequented it assiduously. People of all coun- tries and varieties and opinions were to be found there, for although both she and her husband were Legitimists, as a foreigner she had not the strong enmity against LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 297 the Usurper felt by the Orleanist and Conservative parties. Her hours of reception were : Mondays ... ... ... 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays 9 to 12 Wednesdays 4 to 6 Thursdays 2 to 6 Fridays 4 to 6 Saturdays 4 to 6 On Tuesday evenings her rooms were crowded. My father once complained of the impossibility of ap- proaching her. ' There is a little narrow path between the chairs,' she replied, ' through which the habitues of my salon can generally manage to reach me ; but the day before yesterday it was difficult to thread, and it lasted so till two in the morning.' It is curious that of the ladies I saw most in Paris scarcely one was really French. Mme. de Circourt was a Muscovite ; Mme. Faucher was Polish ; Mme. de Tocqueville, Mme. Mohl, Mme. de Peyronnet, Mme. de Bury, Mme. de Lamartine, and Mme. du Quaire were English. Of the really French there was none more charming than Mme. Anisson du Perron, and long after the days of which I am writing my daughter and I dined with her in Paris when she was ninety-three. She died only a short time ago. Paris is the Paradise of old ladies. There is (or was in my day) no need to dress smartly and go to parties in order to see people, and the older a woman grows the more her children and friends surround her. The day we dined with Mme. Anisson her son and daughter-in-law took all trouble off her hands, and in the evening other children and grandchildren and 298 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE intimate friends flocked in, some to show their dresses on the way to a ball, others after the play to finish their evening and to tell the old lady all that they were doing. As I have said before, friendships are stronger abroad than at home. The Circourts had an intimate friend, M. de B., who was devoted to them both ; his weakness was that he was always thinking about his health. When Mme. de Circourt died, in conse- quence of setting herself on fire, and after years of suffering borne with great courage and patience, M. de B. was in despair. Mme. du Quaire went to con- dole with him, but after a paroxysm of grief he brightened up and exclaimed, ' Mais, savez vous, que toutes ces emotions la m'ont fait du bien.' He devoted himself for the rest of his life to M. de Circourt, who in turn, towards the end of his days, found a devoted friend in the young, beautiful, and gifted Duchess Colonna. She was a Swiss lady by birth Mile. d'Affre and had known him from her earliest years. Mme. de Circourt was a brilliant talker, but her con- versation was somewhat artificial. There was no for- mality in her receptions ; this was not the case in some purely French houses, where the ladies were often ar- ranged in two opposite lines on each side of the fireplace with the hostess at the top, like the passengers in a rail- way carriage, or an avenue of sphinxes. The hostess left her place and bustled down the room to meet each new-comer, and when she wished to treat her with especial honour was wont to put her between herself and the fire, so that no conversation was possible. The men wandered outside the avenue, and in and out of the rooms, like souls in purgatory, apparently without LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 299 object. This was always the ar-ingement in the offi- cial receptions, and nothing could be duller than they were. On the other hand, there was no crowd, and every woman had a seat, but only one who had the toupet of Mme. Mohl ever ventured to break the rule in other people's houses, and collect round her a little circle of her own. There were, of course, some exceptions ; at Duvergier de Hauranne's one might sit where one pleased, and talk to whomsoever one liked, and at Mme. Duchatel's I did not wish to move, for on the Fridays in Lent she had the most delicious music : some of the artists from the Conservatoire used to come to play in one of the rooms, where we all sat quiet, without a word being spoken. There were other rooms where people might talk as much as they liked without disturbing the melomaniacs. I enjoyed no parties so much in Paris as the little dinners. The dining-room in a French apartment is generally so small not much bigger than the oval table that only a few people can dine in it, which is an advantage when you have guests with the powers of conversation possessed by French people, and powers of listening also. There is nothing so pleasant as a sympathetic listener except a brilliant talker ; but a small party, where two or three conversations in a low tone are going on at once and across, is distracting in the extreme. The French have tact enough to see this. We did not give dinners ourselves in Paris, as we lived in a hotel, but we had constant breakfast parties, when it was even more easy to promote general conversation. 300 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Tocqueville said, in one of his conversations, ' Le grand talent pour le silence, or, in other words, the power of listening, is a great conversational virtue.' I do not believe that it was said ironically or epi- grammatically. The man who bestowed that praise knew how rare a merit silence is. 1 We had two pleasant breakfasts,' my father replied, ' a fortnight ago. You were leader of the band at one, and Guizot at the other, and the rest left the stage free to the great actors. A great talker, Montalem- bert, is to breakfast with us. Whom shall I ask to meet him ?' 4 Not me,' replied Tocqueville, ' unless you will accept me as part of the chorus. I will not take a premier r61e in a piece in which he is to act. I like his society that is, I like to sit silent and hear him talk, and I admire his talents ; and we have the strong bond of common hatred, though perhaps we hate on different or even opposite grounds, and I do not wish for a dispute with him, of which, if I say anything, I shall be in danger. If we differed on only one subject instead of differing, as we do, on all but one, he would pick out that single subject to attack me on. I am not sure that even as host you will be safe. He is more acute in detecting points of opposition than most men are in finding subjects of agreement. He avoids meeting you on friendly or even on neutral ground. He chooses to have a combat en champ clos. Take care,' he added, ' not to have too many sommitts. They watch one another, are conscious that they are watched, and a coldness creeps over the table.' I have quoted the above because I cannot speak in LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 301 any but general terms of Montalembert's remarkable conversation. I found it delightful to listen to him, and his frank, cordial manner, pleasant voice, and beautiful English, added much to the charm. Some dear old friends of the Seniors, the Miss Nihells, Irish ladies, lived for many years in Paris. I was particularly fond of the younger, Miss Alice, with whom (they were ardent Roman Catholics) I used to go about to the churches to hear all the great preachers. Even when no celebrated ecclesiastic occupied the pulpit I never heard a dull sermon. In the Roman Catholic Church the priest is not supposed, as with us, to unite all the talents and virtues, to be a constant, welcome, and discriminating visitor of the poor as well as a fine preacher, and nowadays to be an excellent musician and possess a good voice. There are regular preaching Orders, as everyone knows, in the Papal Church, who go about and preach for a certain period, such as Lent, or Easter. One day the Pere Gratry was announced to preach at St. Clotilde. We went to hear him, and I was much disappointed when a quite young man appeared in his stead in the pulpit. But the first few sentences in the preacher's musical voice dispelled my regret. It was an excellent sermon on the Christian virtues of sweetness, gentle- ness, forbearance, etc., as shown in the life of Queen Clotilde, who converted her husband to Christianity. The manner was as attractive as the matter. ' Who is he?' I whispered, and Miss Nihell replied, 'The Abbe Perreyve.' I had heard Tocqueville, whose great friend he was, speak of him, and was very glad when my companion offered to take me to see him. 302 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE He lived in a little back street near the church, in a most miserable lodging, smelling of drains. It needed all the charming qualities of the Abbe Perreyve to make our visit endurable. I never saw him again, for he died quite early no wonder, considering his delicate frame and unhealthy conditions of life. Another time Alice Nihell took me to the Sacre Cceur. The nuns occupy the Hotel Biron, once the palace of Mme. de la Valliere, and the walls and ceilings and doors were still (in the early sixties) adorned with charming little groups of nymphs and Cupids. The lofty rooms, looking so pure and clean, with their waxed floors and little white beds, and the large playground, spoke well for the healthiness of the establishment ; as to the teaching, opinions differed. After going over the house we were shown into the parlour, where we were joined by the Superior, Mme. Davidoff, celebrated for her power of converting. Mr. Augustus Hare tells her romantic story,* and does full justice to her charm of manner and extra- ordinary eloquence. It was wasted upon me, for when I told her that I considered the Church of England, to which I belonged, the best Church in the world, but that I did not believe in any visible infal- lible Church, she gave me up. Once again I went to see her with Louisa Lady Ashburton, but we were both proof against her arguments. The only great Roman Catholic service that ever satisfied me as religious without being theatrical was the Good Friday service at Notre Dame. The cathedral looked grand in the thin light of evening ; * In the ' Story of my Life,' vol. ii., p. 63. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 303 a few wax tapers here and there made it appear of vast extent. The whole body of the church was filled with men. In the chancel were the priests and choristers, singing the ' Miserere,' unaccompanied by the organ ; the alternate verses were chanted by the bass voices of the congregation. All was grand and serious. With the exception of this service, our own cathedral service is far more impressive ; to my Protestant feelings it seems more real. We used to enjoy very much our visits to French country houses. In those days (I know nothing of France since 1887) the French did not use their country houses, as so many do in England, for the purposes of society. They collected round them their children and grandchildren, did not wear fine clothes, and lived a simple country life. Our visit to the Guizots in 1860 I have already described.* From Valricher we visited the Kergorlays, in their splendid old chateau, Canisy, between Coutances and St. L6. It came into the family through a Mile, de Faudoas, who married a Count Kergorlay just before the great Revolution. They went off for a honeymoon in 1789, and were not able to return until 1802. Meanwhile M. de Faudoas and his unmarried daughter remained in the Castle. They were popular, took no part in politics, and were long unmolested. In a letter to a young friend she had the imprudence to say, ' Ma chienne vient de mettre au monde quatre petits citoyens.' The letter was opened at the Paris Post Office, she and her father were accused of ' incivisme,' * See p. 71. 304 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE carried to Paris, and guillotined. Her portrait, that of a merry, pretty girl of eighteen with a bright, gay expression, hung on the wall of the drawing-room. The most modern part of the castle belongs to the beginning of the sixteenth century, the oldest to the eleventh. The east front is 650 feet long, the south about 300. In 1860 it stood much in need of repair ; but it can never look so striking as in its picturesque decay, the walls covered with ivy and lichen, which was all to be destroyed when the work of restoration began. The heroine of ' Northanger Abbey ' would have delighted in it in our day. My father and I were lodged in enormous rooms, scantily furnished, and looking out on the lake. It made me think of Loch- leven, and fancy myself an unwilling prisoner. The windows did not fasten, and there were wide spaces under the doors through which, when night came, the wind howled and bats flew in, seeking the warmth and light of our fires, for it was a wet summer, and we were glad when our old servant Chivers came in with logs of wood to light them. But here the romance ended. We were most cordially received by host and hostess, and enjoyed our visit very much, driving to the many interesting spots Mont St. Michel, Cou- tances, St. L6 in the neighbourhood. One night the notables came to dinner. They were not amusing, for their discourse turned almost entirely on local subjects. I was ashamed of my father, who took up a book. We came in for the Ember Days, and were supposed to fast, but never did I see such luxurious dinners. One would die of dyspepsia if one fasted every day. Our LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 305 hosts were strict Catholics and Legitimists, although in a weak moment M. de Kergorlay, who was an hereditary ' Pair de France,' accepted a seat in the Senate of the Empire, for which he was much blamed by his Royalist friends. From Canisy we went to the Corcelles at Beau Fosse, near Chartres. On the way we visited the Cathedral, admired the painted windows, and wondered at the miraculous black Virgin. M. de Corcelle was a great friend of ours. We used to see him almost every day in Paris, and he was one of the survivors of the old set who were so kind to me in after years. He and I used to take a fiacre and start, guide-book in hand, to visit all the old purlieus and places of historical interest in Paris the site of the ' Marais,' where all the best society of the Ancien Regime collected in the Hotel Rambouillet, and so much wit sparkled and good sense was talked as atoned for the affectation immortalised by Moliere ; the Hotel Carnavalet, the abode of Mme. de SeVign, which, fortunately, has been preserved as a museum ; and, most picturesque of all, the Place Royale, an old brick square planted with trees from the window of one of its palaces Mme. de Longueville is said to have looked out calmly on the duel between her two lovers ; the Val de Grace, where Louise de la Fayette sought refuge from her royal lover, and Anne of Austria retired to rest from her numberless intrigues and to devise new ones, while Mme. de Chevreuse rode to and fro in the habit of a dashing cavalier ; or, to speak of times nearer to our own, the pillars on the site of the Bastille, the conciergerie, and the wide 20 306 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE street of the Faubourg St. Antoine, along which rattled the horrible tumbrils which dragged so many hundred victims to the guillotine. M. de Corcelle shared the opinions of Tocqueville until 1848 ; afterwards his ardent Catholicism drew him nearer to Montalembert. He was twice Ambas- sador to the Vatican, in 1849 for some years, and again after 1870. Pius IX. was his intimate friend, and tried to persuade him to remain in Rome as his own Minister. The busts and pictures of the beautiful old Pope smiled down upon us from the walls of the chateau, and likewise from those of the Corcelles' apart- ment in the Rue de Bourgogne. Mme. de Corcelle was a grand-daughter of Lafayette. As at Val Richer and Canisy, there were no visitors except ourselves and their daughter and son-in-law M. and Mme. de Chambrun. After dinner on the day of our arrival, I said casually how much I should like to see the baby, whereupon M. de Chambrun left the room and shortly reappeared with the little creature, bound to a piece of wood (emmaillottt, as it is called in France) in his arms. The practice is very con- venient for the nurses, and the baby did not seem to mind it. The Marquis de Chambrun had afterwards a strange career. He lost money, and emigrated with his family to America, where, although when I knew him in Paris he could not speak English, he went to the Bar and succeeded as an advocate. He died a few years ago, whereupon his wife and daughter came back to Paris to cheer the declining years of her parents, M. and Mme. de Corcelle, now, alas ! LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 307 also gone to join the majority. Mile, de Chambrun (the baby) married M. de Brazza, the famous African traveller. M. de Tocqueville was a great friend of both families, and was very proud of having promoted the marriage of the Chambruns. Young men in France do not resent the interference of older persons in their matri- monial affairs, and there is much to be said in favour of the Continental plan. For instance, a girl is in a much more dignified position than she often is in England, where she may be accused of trying to 'catch a husband,' and a mother of 'manoeuvring' if she wishes to obtain a suitable marriage for her daughter. But there is something in the foreign plan which strikes us as curious, even if we acknowledge its advantages. One day that M. de Corcelle was calling on me in Paris I observed that he seemed restless, and kept on looking at the clock. I asked him the reason, and he replied that he had a rendezvous with his niece, that they were going to the Jardin des Plantes, and before the lions' cage they were to see a gentleman who proposed to marry her. They had never met, and she was to look at him and decide if she would like him to pay his addresses to her. After this, she might draw back, but the suitor might not. A man cannot flirt with a girl through a whole season and go off and forget her at the end. The young people have not much opportunity of knowing each other even after they are engaged, for they must never be left alone for an instant. I remember once when we were in Paris Mme. Mohl was very much put out by her charming neighbour on the next floor, Mme. d'Abbadie, who 20 2 3 o8 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE could not bestow as much time as usual on her old friend because she was mounting guard over a pair of ' amoureux.' The girl was her niece, and was staying with her, and she was obliged to be present whenever the ' Monsieur ' came to call. ' Les amoureux ' were a perfect pest, for Mme. d'Abbadie would jump up in the middle of a sentence if she heard the bell, leaving the conversation at the most interesting point. From Beau Fosse we went to Duvergier de Hau- ranne's at Hery, near Bourges, in the heart of the Berri, a country which has been celebrated and idealized by Georges Sand. Here we found a brilliant circle. Perhaps the most remarkable member was General Changarnier, distinguished in the Spanish War of 1823, afterwards (1847) in Algeria, where he was General-in-Chief until he returned to Paris to put down the insurgents in 1848. He supported Louis Napoleon until the coup d'ttat, when the Emperor sent him to Vincennes. After his release he was exiled to Malines, and had not long returned when we met him at Hery.* He was tall and distinguished in appearance, a de- voted squire of dames and extremely well dressed. Odillon Barrot was another well-known guest. He took an active part in promoting the Revolution of July, 1830; but Louis Philippe was not sufficiently * In 1870 Changarnier again put his sword at the disposal of the Emperor. He was shut up in Metz with Bazaine, and endeavoured to obtain a free passage for the army to Algeria. It was refused, and Changarnier was taken prisoner. After the peace he returned to France, was elected Member of the Assembly, gave his constant support to Thiers, and helped him with advice regarding the organi- zation of the army. He died in 1877. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 309 Liberal for him. He became a member of the ' Gauche,' and joined Thiers against Guizot. For a few hours he was Prime Minister in 1848, and received the port- folio of Justice. He was tall, strong, and rosy, and looked more like a substantial farmer than a poli- tician. His manner was frank and genial, and he was a delightful converser. Lanjuinais, son of the well- known member of the Convention and President of the Chamber in 1815, and M. and Mme. Target, M. Duvergier's daughter and son-in-law, the young men of the house and their friends, completed the circle. Our host was not less distinguished than his guests. Ever since 1824, when he edited the Globe in con- junction with Guizot and Remusat, he was a warm supporter of the Liberal party. He forsook Guizot for Thiers in 1840, when the former encouraged the reactionary policy of Louis Philippe, and he was the chief promoter of the political banquets which had a great share in overturning the throne. After the Revolution he was elected member of the Constituent Assembly, and afterwards of the Corps Legislatif until the coup cfJtat, when he was imprisoned with the other victims of tyranny until January 9, 1852. From that time he gave up politics, and devoted himself to his ' Histoire Parlementaire de la France,' an excellent and valuable book. The men of the party collected in M. Duvergier's study for conversation an hour or two before the eleven o'clock breakfast. In the afternoon I used to join the walking party in the Park, which was situated on the banks of the Loire, large and well-wooded. I remember one walk especially, during which Chan- 3 io MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE gamier gave us an account of his share in the events of 1849 to 1851.* M. Forgues, a writer in the Revue des deux Mondes, and M. Chambol, editor of the Siecle, joined the house- party on September 2 1 , and some of the neighbours came to dinner. Among them M. and Mme. Benoist d'Azy (she was the handsomest Frenchwoman I have ever seen), and the Marquis de Vogue, a large pro- prietor and iron-master in the Berri. He had at different times taken an active part in politics, but after the coup d'ttat retired to his estates.! M. Duvergier's principal farmer, M. Vaillant, dined at the chateau. He was a man of large capital and intelligence. His rent amounted to ^800 a year, and he employed a capital of ^6,000. We visited his farm, and as at Tocqueville, when we went to see M. Roussel, were struck by the poorness and sloven- liness of his dwelling. There were beds in the sitting- room, and his wife was not much superior in manners and appearance to a peasant. On our way back to Paris we visited the magnificent cathedral of Bourges and the interesting house of Jacques Cceur ; in 1860 it was used as a Hotel de Ville. Although September was nearly over, there were a great many of our friends in Paris, and we passed the time very pleasantly with Mme. Mohl, Prosper Merime, Cousin, Lomenie, General Fenelon, Marshal Randon, the Minister of War, and others. M. de * Published in 'Conversations during the Second Empire,' by Hurst and Blackett, in 1880. My father lent his journal to Kinglake, who, with my father's full consent, borrowed largely from it. t He emerged again after the siege of Paris, in 1871. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 311 Lomenie was a brilliant talker, full of fun and good stories. He was the author of the ' Memoirs of Beaumarchais,' a frequent contributor to the Revue des deux Mondes, Professor of Literature in the College de France, and an Academician. He was, perhaps, even more mercurial than Ampere, whom we had the pleasure of meeting again in the splendid castle of Stors, built by Mansard for the Prince de Conti, and tenanted by M. and Mme. Chevreux. We found there also the Leon Says and the Abb Gratry, a great preacher and liberal ecclesiastic, and passed a most agreeable day. Two other days we spent at Amblain- villiers, a villa near Paris, belonging to Drouyn de Lhuys, one of our most agreeable friends, devoted to English literature and speaking perfect English. We were much amused when we arrived and rang the bell to see the men-servants sitting round a table in the vestibule playing at cards. They just left their cards to open the door and announce us, and then returned to their game quite openly, it was a thing of course. The Circourts likewise had their villa (Les Bruyeres), where we visited them, in the forest of La Celle, halfway between Versailles and St. Germains. Their house was close to the chateau of La Celle, formerly the residence of Mme. de Pompadour, and on a neighbouring hill was the chateau of Mme. de Beauregard,* another royal favourite, with the National flag flying over it, to the great scandal of the neigh- bours. Mme. Cornu, to whom Mme. Mohl had introduced us in [858, was likewise in Paris at this time. She * Mrs. Howard, mistress, until his marriage, of Louis Napoleon. 3 i2 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE was the foster-sister of Louis Napoleon, had been brought up with him, and they were greatly attached to each other. She was an uncommonly clever woman, and she wrote for him a great part of his book on artillery practice, when he was a prisoner at Ham, and continued to see him daily when he returned to Paris until the coup d'&tat in 1852. She was taken by surprise when that occurred, and broke with him entirely. He was deeply grieved, and sent the Grand Duchess Stephanie to persuade her to relent. 'Tell him,' replied Mme. Cornu, 'that the gipsy's prophecy that he would rise to the highest eminence of power and fame, and would be killed by a bullet, will come true.' The Grand Duchess delivered the message. ' Nothing is more probable,' he replied. We saw Mme. Cornu frequently whenever we were in Paris, and her conversations with my father form some of the most curious pages in his journals.* No one knew Louis Napoleon so well as she did, and she talked of him without reserve. She said that he was a man of strong passions kept under severe control ; that imagination was his predominant faculty, and that he lived chiefly in the future, and had no moral sense whatever. He never forgot a benefit, or an injury, or an early friend. He never ceased to make advances to reconciliation with Mme. Cornu, wrote to her constantly, consulted her about his 'Vie de Cesar,' and sent her messages on the 'Jour de Tan.' We thought we discerned a tendency towards forgiveness * ' Conversations with Thiers, Guizot, etc.,' vol. ii. ; ' Conversations with Distinguished Persons under the Empire,' vols. i. and ii., passim. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 313 on her side, and when we went to Paris in April, 1863, my father told her so. ' At last you are right/ she replied. ' On the 5th of last month he wrote to me to say that for twelve years I had refused to see him, and that perhaps I should persist, but that he could not bear the thought that he might die before I had embraced his child ; that the next day his boy would be seven years old ; that Mme. Walewska would call on me at i.o on that day, and that he could not avoid indulging a hope that I would allow her to take me to the Tuileries. I could not refuse. ' The next day she came and took me thither. As we entered his cabinet the door was closed, and I found myself in the presence of the Emperor and Empress. She was the nearest, and took me by the hand. He stood still for an instant, then ran forward, took me by the arm, threw himself on my neck and kissed me. I kissed him, and we all of us, including the Empress and Mme. Walewska, began to weep. 1 " Mechanic femme," exclaimed the Emperor, "voila douze ans que tu me tiens rigueur." 1 Then there was silence, which the Emperor broke by saying : ' " Je crois que nous ferions mieux de nous asseoir." 1 He stood with his back to the fire, the Empress and I sitting on each side, and Mme. Walewska standing behind the Empress. Then the child was sent for. I took him in my arms and kissed him ; he looked astonished. The Emperor took him between his knees and told him to repeat one of his fables. 3M MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE ( " I have forgotten the beginnings," he said. ' " Then give us the ends," said his father. ' " I have forgotten them, too." 1 " Then let us hear the middle." 1 " Papa," replied the child, " ou commence un milieu ?" ' " Your Majesty will find it difficult to answer that question," I said.' Since then she saw the Emperor and the Empress almost every day. Mme. Cornu was short, broad, and curiously like the Buonapartes in appearance. At Mme. Mohl's we often used to meet the great Russian novelist, Ivan Tourguenieff, and more often were tantalized by seeing his empty chair, for he was the most casual of men. He had some distant relations of the same name who lived in Paris, whom we knew very well. This elder Tourguenieff was an honourable and upright, and also a very rich man, the owner of 600 serfs. He was high in political office at the time of the Emperor Alexander's death, was falsely accused of being cognisant of the conspiracy which broke out immediately afterwards, and condemned to death. Fortunately, he was travelling at the time. His property was given to his brother, who carried over the proceeds on his own person, and gave them to the rightful owner. Years afterwards he took an active part in the emancipation of the serfs and set free all his own. In 1870 he and his family, as well as Ivan Tourguenieff, took refuge in London during the Franco-German War, and we saw them often. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 315 A lecture was given one day in the Egyptian Hall by Mr. Ralston on Russia. The hall was crowded. The lecturer suddenly exclaimed, ' If you wish to see the man who conduced most to the emancipation of the serfs, turn round, he is amongst you !' The whole audience rose to do honour to the elder Tourguenieff, who was deeply affected. Ivan was colossal and strikingly handsome, with long white hair. He was charming in manner and conversation, and a great acquisition to London society, for in 1870, as formerly in 1848, we profited greatly by the misfortunes of our neighbours across the channel. M. and Mme. Viardot Garcia received every Saturday, and Tourguenieff frequently stayed with them. Dr. and Mme. de Mussy were also most hospitable. Many of the distinguished exiles were our friends already, and we had a link with others in Mme. Mohl, who spent the greater part of the winter with us. Indeed, we owed many of our most agreeable friends in Paris to her. She used to ask us, when we arrived, whom we would like to meet, and in the spring of 1862 my father and I exclaimed, ' Renan !' We had been much interested in the ' Livre de Job* and the ' Cantique des Cantiques.' She promised to bring us together, and on the following day we re- ceived this note : ' I have planned a small breakfast for you to meet Renan. His father-in-law* is just dead, and you know propriety would forbid his going out to dinner, but breakfast with you two and young Trevelyanf would * Henri Scheffer. t The present Sir George Trevelyan. 316 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE go down. I'll say you're going away soon too soon, alas ! Does this suit you ?' We accepted joyfully. Renan's appearance was against him. He was fat, his arms and legs were particularly short, his face very pale, and the ultra-suavity of the Seminariste still clung to him. But one forgot all these disadvantages when he began to speak. His conversation on this and sub- sequent occasions was recorded by my father,* but although the substance is preserved it was impossible, especially in another language, to give the grace of form which distinguished every sentence that fell from his lips. One never felt afraid of him, he never seemed bored or cross, nor did he discourage anyone who approached him. He was entirely without airs, and often did not even lead the conversation ; he was willing to talk on any subject suggested by his hearers. I remember being one of a circle who gathered round him at a great ball given by Lon Say at the Ministere des Finances, and he discoursed to us on St. Paul. I think it was Mignet who started the subject. Renan's urbanity was not entirely the consequence of his bringing up, it was the result of a naturally sweet and kind disposition. We saw him frequently after our first introduction, both at our hotel and at Mme. Mohl's. To her, when she was old and ailing, to the very end of her life, he was a most kind, useful, and constant friend, and he was one of the remarkable group of men who followed her to the grave. * ' Conversations with Distinguished Persons,' published by Hurst and Blackett in 1880. LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 317 With his horror of giving offence he must have been greatly distressed by a scene I witnessed one evening in 1863, at her house. Cousin, Guizot, Prevost Paradol, and Mignet had been dining there to meet Mme. Ristori, and after dinner they were sitting round the fire talking of the drama. As usual, there was very little light in the room, and Renan entered un- announced and stood with his back to the fire. He could not have seen the great actress, who was seated in the chimney-corner, with Cousin next to her. Sud- denly, apropos of some remark of Cousin's, Renan exclaimed : ' C'est cette Italienne, cette comedienne qui joue sur le boulevard, qui degrade 1'art !' A deep silence ensued, broken at last by the con- tralto tones of Ristori : ' Ce n'est pas moi, monsieur, qui degrade 1'art,' and she proceeded to administer a sharp rebuke, after which she swept majestically into the next room, where Mme. Mohl was making tea and talking to my father. No doubt if our kind hostess had been present she would have averted the . calamity. As it was, she came in in consternation. What could have offended Ristori, who had left the house ? We explained, and Cousin cried out to Renan, ' Et moi qui vous Ian9ait des coups de pied. . . .' After 1863 my visits to Paris were interrupted. With the exception of a fortnight I spent with Mme. Mohl after the war, I did not go there again till 1877, when both M. and Mme. Renan gave me the kindest welcome. So kind, indeed, were all my father's old friends on that occasion, that I continued to visit the gay city every alternate year until 1887. 3 i8 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Kenan's only visit to London (with the exception of some days spent there when he was a very young man and long before I knew him, for the purpose of ex- amining some manuscripts in the British Museum) was in 1880. He came over to deliver the Hibbert Lectures, and he met with an enthusiastic reception. Punctuality was not his strong point, and on one occasion he arrived late at St. George's Hall. The officials opposed his entrance on the plea that the hall was already full to overflowing. ' But the lecture cannot begin without me,' he replied laughingly. He and Mme. Renan dined with us one day, and delighted all our guests. The party consisted of Dean Stanley, Miss Cobbe, Mr. and Mrs. William Greg, James Fergusson, Professor Henry Smith, Mr. Marcet, and Mr. and Mrs. Haweis. A few more friends came in the evening. Renan sat on a sofa and made him- self as agreeable as possible to all who wished to be introduced to him. It was the first time that he had been present at an English evening party, and he was much amused by our standing up to talk, and our incessant wandering to and fro. ' They all stood up like trees,' he said afterwards. He and Mme. Renan paid us two long afternoon visits, and although no company was present he was as brilliant as if he had been addressing the most distinguished audience. I was anxious to know something about the Protestant preachers in the Cevennes after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and he gave us an interesting disqui- sition on the subject. My last recollection of him was on my last visit to Paris in 1886. He received at the College de France LATER FRIENDS IN PARIS 319 one afternoon and one evening in every week, and my daughter and I were constant guests. He used to sit in his armchair, talking as no one else could talk, giving an equally kind welcome to all -comers, sur- rounded by his family, whom he loved intensely, and by whom he was adored in return. He was most fortunate in his domestic relations. His clever and attractive wife was the niece of Ary Scheffer. I refrain from saying more about her, for it was always her wish and her habit to efface herself before the husband to whom she was a true helpmeet, and whose loss she never ceased to mourn. She did not long survive him. [ 320 ] CHAPTER XII. LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE. MY father's house, with only one story above the drawing-room, and standing in a shady garden, had all the appearance of a house in the country, and, like a country house, was almost always full of ' staying com- pany.' The Whatelys, Hampdens, Hawtreys, Austins, Count Arrivabene, the Jeunes, Peyronnets and Hughes, and many other friends, English and foreign, were frequently with us, as well as the families on both sides. My mother, therefore, had all the duties of a chatelaine added to the toil and turmoil of a large London circle, for, besides our grave dinner and break- fast parties there were dances, large and small, and musical parties for us young people. It was no wonder that, soon after I came out, she gave up evening enter- tainments, except operas and concerts, and parties at home. As hostess she contributed greatly to the pleasantness of our house ; she had the art of putting people at their ease ; she was unaffectedly glad to see them, and by enjoying herself promoted their enjoy- ment. If the lady of the house is cold and dismal, so becomes the party it is like a yellow fog ; but my LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 321 mother's high spirits and cordial welcome had the effect of sunshine. Our house was never so gay as during the Great Exhibition of 1862. My father was one of the jurors, and he used to bring some of his colleagues every day to our late breakfast. We kept almost open house. Nearly all the most distinguished of our foreign friends came to London, for international exhibitions had not yet lost their novelty. The Jeunes, the Whatelys, the Peyronnets, and Mme. Mohl came to stay with us. We had people to dine continually, and on Fridays received upwards of one hundred people in the evening. These were very polyglot assemblies. I find an entry in my mother's pocket-book of a dinner of twelve, of whom seven were foreigners. French was, of course, the language generally spoken ; but once even French failed, when our delightful Eastern friend Hekekyan Bey brought his wife to dine with us quietly. This was a very great favour, and to please us she wore the costume of her country, black satin vest and trousers not at all becoming to a stout elderly lady : it was enough to cure one for ever of a fancy for what is now called ' rational dress.' She was very amiable-looking, but she spoke no European language, so it was difficult to get on with her. Most fortunately Sir Adrian Dingli, Chief Justice of Malta, was with us, and could talk to her in Arabic. Her husband spoke perfect English. He was tall and handsome (like a northern Italian), and very agree- able. My father recorded many of his conversations 21 322 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE in his ' Journals in Egypt,'* sometimes under his real name, at others as Bedross Effendi. Both he and his wife were Christians and Armenians. Our Irish trip in the autumn of 1862 suited us remarkably well. We travelled upwards of two hundred miles on outside cars. First, to the north, to visit the Heygates and Macnaghtens, close to the Giant's Cause- way ; then all round by the wild west, through West- port, Enniskillen, and Sligo, to Captain Houston's, at Dhulough, on Killary Harbour, in which a Spanish galleon is said to be sunk ; passing through the won- derful country over which the volcanic peak of Croagh- Patrick towers ; then through Gal way to Mount Tren- chard, Lord Monteagle's place on the Shannon, close to the scene of the murder of the Colleen Bawn. Lord Monteagle told the sad story to us most graphically on the spot. It was his duty, as magistrate, to capture the murderer. I had always longed to see Killarney, for even our Swiss courier, Stury, used to go into ecstasies about its beauty, and to declare that if only it were blue it would be the most beautiful lake in the world. After leaving Mount Trenchard we spent two delightful days on the lake and its surroundings in glorious weather. We had intended making a tour round by Kenmare and Glengariff, but on the third day pouring rain came on, which, in Ireland, after a spell of fine weather, never knows how to stop. So we turned back pusil- lanimously, and went to Birr Castle, where we were always sure of a welcome and of very interesting * Published in 1882. LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 323 society. Lord and Lady Rosse were among our kindest friends. Like most distinguished scientific men, he was perfectly simple, full of information, and of curious stories about the people and things he had seen. Lady Rosse shared in all his pursuits, to which she added photography. The Castle is very ancient ; portions are earlier than any record, but the main building belongs to the time of Elizabeth. It has sustained several sieges. During the Commonwealth it was defended by Lord Rosse's ancestor, Sir Laurence Parsons, and one of the towers retains the marks of cannon-shot. It has large out- houses, in which the processes for manufacturing the celebrated telescopes are carried on, so there was plenty to see even in the rain. When the moon was not too full, and the skies not too clouded, we used to watch the heavens after dinner, looking into, not through, the gigantic telescopes. On the i Qth we went down to Cardtown to visit Mr. Stuart Trench, Lord Larisdowne's agent, and the author of the amusing ' Realities of Irish Life.' He told us all sorts of good stories, but I was not allowed to put them into my father's ' Ireland ' when I pub- lished his journals in 1868, as the ' Realities' were on the point of coming out. He permitted me to retain the more serious conversations. On the 23rd we returned to Birr, where we stayed till we went to Dublin to visit my uncle, Edward Senior, and the Whatelys. My father was particularly well this winter, and able to dine out a great deal. He was not one of those men who vote going to see their friends a bore. He 21 2 324 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE liked to find them at home, and to pay them long visits, not visits of ceremony. He gave up large evening parties, but several times a week found us at Lady William Russell's. We had one curious visitor, Mr. Home, the medium. He was a great friend of my aunt, Mrs. Henry Senior, and was kind enough to give us three stances. We also met him at other places. The first of these stances was by far the most remarkable, and was very puzzling, since we knew that he had never been in our house before ; also, he was in even- ing dress, and had no means of concealing parapher- nalia of any kind. Our dining-room opened into the library, where we all assembled before dinner, conse- quently Mr. Home had no opportunity for tampering with the furniture in the drawing-room. After dinner we went upstairs, and I sat on a sofa in one corner of the room, knitting, until I was called to join the party round the large heavy table we had moved in from the next room. I then put my work down on a gipsy table by the side of the sofa. Mr. Home was talking to Mme. du Quaire at the farthest corner of the room. W T hen we had been seated about ten minutes we heard knocks in the ceiling, the walls, and all around us ; a cold wind played on our hands, and the room, the table, and our chairs began to shake with a tremulous motion resembling that of the deck of a screw steamer. This motion continued uninterruptedly during the stance. There was quite the usual amount of light, and a lamp stood in the middle of the table round which we sat. The motion became so violent that, in spite of Mr. Home's protestations that no mischief LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 325 would happen, my father lifted it off and set it on the piano close by. The table tilted up, and from side to side, and then moved horizontally towards the window, pushing before it those who sat on that side. Five knocks were given under the table, and I was told to read the alphabet. A single knock marked the letter to be written down, and when the knocks ceased the letters formed this sentence addressed to me : ' Mary, your grandmother watches over you, though she never saw you.' My mother and I saw a hand appear above the table, which was immediately withdrawn. The little gipsy table by the sofa on which I had been sitting, and which I know no one else had approached, waddled on its three legs (without castors) up to the big table and stopped with a bang between Mr. Home and my mother ; it was put back, but ran up again in about a quarter of an hour. My brother exclaimed, ' The devil must be in it !' on which this sentence was rapped out : ' God is too near for the devil to harm you.' My father willed the table to be heavy, and could not move it ; he then willed it to be light, and he could lift it with one finger. At length, ' We can do no more ; good-night, God bless you !' was rapped out. The room ceased to rock, the knocks left the table, went into the walls, and gradually died out farther and farther off in the high road. We were present at several other stances in our own and our friends' houses. There was always plenty of light, never a cloth on the table, and we were allowed to look under it as often as we pleased. Sometimes, after rocking backwards and forwards, the table would rise straight up about two feet from the ground, and 326 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE then drop down with a bang. The dinner-bell would pass under the table, ringing without our touching it, and other quite inexplicable though absolutely trivial noises and messages were given. But the first stance was the most striking. From all I saw and heard, then and since, the manifestations make no progress. The spirits in another world are far more foolish and childish than they were on earth, and never in any of their communications rise above the mind of the medium. But it is quite impossible to account for them. My aunt, Mrs. Henry Senior, was a woman of great frankness and scrupulous veracity. In August, 1866, I was staying with her quite alone in her cottage, Glassdrummond, County Down, Ireland. My husband was in England, and no one was in the house except her servants and my baby and nurse. In the evening she asked me to sit at a table with her. The table rocked, tilted, and ran, and rapped out the following message, ' We will tell you the future,' and soon after, ' Love one another. Good -night.' Nothing more trite could have been invented, but how were the raps made ? Certainly not by me nor by my aunt. We should both have invented something more in- teresting. To return to earlier days. In the spring of 1863 we went to Paris, where we lived in a perfect whirl dined out every evening and saw people all day long ; and such interesting people that one's mind was always on the full stretch. The only quiet time was before our eleven o'clock breakfast, when I read through Howson and Conybeare's ' St. Paul,' by way of a LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 327 sedative. But my father had not even this period of rest, for he used to have private interviews with busy statesmen early in the morning, and those conversa- tions which I found it quite enough to listen to he used mentally to record, and afterwards to put down on paper. It was too much, at the age of seventy-two, and I have always dated his failure in health from that time. We returned home in the midst of the London season, and were as sociable as ever. It was intensely hot in June and July, and for the first time in our recollection my father did not seem up to the mark. My brother was staying with us, and he said to me that often on entering the library he found my father sitting in his armchair doing nothing, which, as he was never given to dreaming, made us uneasy. In the autumn he and I paid some visits in Scotland, and when we were at Sir Edward Cole- brooke's, he fainted away when out walking with Sir Archibald Alison. He seemed quite well next day, and went on to Edinburgh. I met him a few days afterwards at Kingston, Lord and Lady Helper's. There were always pleasant people staying there ; on this occasion Mr. and Mrs. Grote and Sir John Romilly. Lady Helper was an ideal hostess, beauti- ful and gracious ; she put everybody into a good humour. We paid another very agreeable visit to Lord and Lady Grey at their delightful place, Howick. It has the great charm of a private bit of sea at the end of the woods surrounding the house. Nothing is so romantic as the sea or so prosaic as a watering-place ; it is a real privilege when you can have the- former 328 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE without the latter. One day I walked with Miss Copley to Dunstanborough Castle, celebrated by Turner in the ' Liber Studiorum.' He has by no means exaggerated its grandeur. From Howick we went on to the Speaker's, at Ossington. He and Lady Charlotte Denison were always extremely kind to us, and when in London I used to enjoy very much the place she offered to me in her box at the House of Commons. There were many pleasant guests at Ossington ; the one who most struck me was the very interesting and remarkable young philanthropist Edward Denison, whose career was so soon to be cut short. My father's principal subjects of interest were the same as his, and I used to like to see them walking arm-in-arm for hours together in the grounds, engaged in earnest conversation. I was not at all happy about my father's health ; he seemed to have passed suddenly from youth to age in the last few months. His failure was still more apparent in the winter, when we paid a visit to the Ashburtons at the Grange. Our host likewise was in declining health. It was a melancholy year for my father. He lost in it successively Lord Lansdowne, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Archbishop Whately all his most intimate friends. ' Life,' which, as he said a short time before, ' was so delightful that he wished for nothing better than a hundred more years of it,' was gradually losing its attractions, and although he was never irritable, his cheerful spirits fell. We watched him with great care and anxiety LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 329 throughout the winter, His friends and relations flocked around him, and my brother and sister-in-law took up their abode with us. He had always, as the eldest of the family, been the providence of his brothers and sisters, and the only two who remained, with the widow of Colonel Senior, devoted themselves to him. He could not read much, and we read to him in turns all day long, unless he was well enough to see the numerous visitors who kindly called. Dean Stanley was frequently with him, and Lord Grey was another constant visitor. His interest in political life never flagged, although he felt that his share in it was over. He was skilfully and assiduously treated by Dr. de Mussy, who since 1858, when we met at Malvern, had become one of our most intimate friends. He called in consultation Sir Henry Holland and Sir Thomas Watson, and everything was tried that art or science could suggest. The Newtons were often with us, and it was at this time that Mrs. Newton made the very striking sketch of my father to which I have before alluded. The recent death of the great novelist Thackeray had made us even more intimate with his daughters, drawn together as we were by the great sorrow which had fallen upon them, and the similar grief which was impending over us. We had always lived a great deal in our garden. The spring of 1864 was unusually warm and fine ; my father rallied a little, and sat out on the lawn all day long. There was no visitor he liked to see better than Miss Thackeray, and she wrote the following touching account of those last days in the Cornhill for August : 33 o MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE Mr. Senior had been ill for some time, and was scarcely able to go beyond his garden ; but every day, besides the members of his own family, some of his friends and acquaintance would come and see him and sit with him, talking of the topics of the day. The last time the writer saw him, Mr. Senior was, as usual, sitting out on his lawn, shaded from the sun- shine by the trees which he had himself planted when he laid out the garden and built the house in which he was to live for so many years. A rug was wrapped round his knees, a table with papers stood beside him, and one or two of his friends were coming across the grass. It was not much to see, and yet we remember the pleasant impression which came to us as we witnessed the little scene : sunshine, early summer green, the distant hum of sounds, the gathering of friends, the host seated in his chair, and welcoming each of the new-comers with kindly courtesy. As we enter it is to leave the haste and the noise and the dusty glare of the world without, and to come into a green and tranquil garden, where a man, after long years of labour, is peacefully resting and enjoying his last spring days. ***** ' His disposition was singularly sweet and placid ; there was constant kindness, great sweetness of temper, and although great reserve and little expres- sion of feeling, there was a deep and unfailing affection and fidelity towards those whom he loved best. Pain- ful subjects, unavoidable misfortunes, he would never allow to be dwelt on. He has often said, even quite lately, that he would gladly live a hundred years longer, LAST YEARS OF A HAPPY LIFE 331 and that life was to him a constant happiness and interest and occupation. ' " Till many years over thy head return, So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature." ' The shady garden is now built over, and the dear old house, the scene of so much social enjoyment, has ceased to exist. Few are left who can remember it in its glory, and even they are fast disappearing, so soon the fashion of this world passes away and we are gone. INDEX ABERDEEN, Earl of, 160, 217, 230, 245, 250, 262, 266 Ampere, 57, 63 Argyll, Duke of, 213 Arnold, Matthew, 275 Arrivabene, Count, 33 Austin, Charles, 188 Austin, Mrs., 116 Babbage, Charles, 113 Balbi, Marchesa, 43 Bayne, Mrs., 286 Beaumont, Mme. de, 67 Bell, Lady, 121 Bentinck, Lord George, 250 Bowyer, Henry, 166 Bremer, Frederica, 79 Bright, John, 239, 246, 258, 263 Brookfield, Rev. W., 273 Bunbury, Sir E., 274 Campbell, Sir Colin, 104 Canisy, Chateau, 303 Carlyle, T., 129 Carpenter, Miss, 270 Cavour, Camille, 40 Chambrun, M. de, 306 Changarnier, General, 308 Chan trey, Lady, 115 Chateaubriand, 64 Chevalier, Michel, 294 Chevreux, Mme., 65 Circourt, Comte de, 295 Clarendon, Lord, 265 Clive, Mrs. Archer, 128 Cobbe, Miss, 270 Colebrooke, Sir E., 172 Corcelle, M. de, 305 Cornu, Mme., 311 Cousin, Victor, 293 Cowley, Lord, 217 D' Azeglio, Massimo, 156 Delane, 221 Derby, Earl of, 205 D'Orsay, Count, 2 Doyle, Richard, 277 Duff Gordon, Lady, 7 Du Quaire, Mme., 53 Duvergier, M., 309 Eastlake, Sir Charles, 113 Edgworth, Maria, 29 Edwardes, Sir Herbert, 7 Ellice, Edward, 134, 148, 204, 217 Elliot, Frederic, 157, 162 Faucher, Leon, 52 Fleming, Mr., 115 Ford, Sir Richard, 131 Gaesbeck, 33 Garcia, Manuel, 91 Gaskell, Mrs., 120 Gibbs, Frederick, 6 Gladstone, W. E., 236 Goldschmidt, Otto, 91 Gordon, Admiral, 249 Gore House, 2 INDEX 333 Greg, W. R., 278 Grote, Mrs., 73, 199 Guizot, 66 Haddo, Lord, 256 Hampden, Dr., 127 Harris, Claudius, 87 Hayter, Mr., 154, 224 Hay ward, Abraham, 114 Hekekyan Bey, 321 Herbet, M., 171 Holland, Lord, 216 Home, Mr., 324 Houghton, Lord, 270 Hughes, Jeanie, 94 Jeune, Dr., 169 Kent House, 104 Kinglake, A. W., 105, 276 Lacaita, Sir J., 277 Lamartine, 54 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 115 Lansdowne, Lord, 26, 129, 150, 176, 192, 224 Lawrence, Sir T., 4 Layard, Sir A. H., 169 Lewin, Miss Jessie, 86 Lewis, Sir Frankland, 140 Lewis, Sir G. C, 132, 141, 215, 228 Lind, Jenny, 86 Lowell, J. R., 279 MacNiel, Sir J., 190 Malthus, 9 Manning, Cardinal, 273 Marcet, Mrs., 78 Marochetti, 155 Merimee, Prosper, 292 Merivale, Herman, 272 Mierjejewski, Countess, 35 Mignet, 294 Mill, J. S., 8 Milman, Dean, 125 Milnes, Monckton, 270 Mohl, Mme., 18, 65, 120 Monteagle, Lord, 177, 214 Murchison, Sir R., 45 Napoleon, Louis, 312 Newcastle, Duke of, 151, 266 Newton, Sir Charles, 278 Nihell, Miss, 301 Noel, Robert, 37 Overstone, Lord, 189 Paley, Mr., 129 Pallavicini, Marchesa, 43 Palmerston, Lord, 133 Paradol, PreVost, 294 Peel, Sir R., 232 Perreyve, Abbe, 301 Peyronnet, Mme. de, 119 Phillips, Henry, 181 Pitt, William, 231 Plessis, Mile., 51 Procter, Mrs., 85, 121 Quetelet, 33 Rachel, 51 Raglan, Lord, 173, 183, 190 Re*camier, Mme., 64 Reeve, Henry, 271 Re"musat, 220, 227 Renan, Ernest, 315 Ristori, Mme., 317 Rogers, Rev. W., 267 Rogers, Samuel, no Rosse, Lord, 180, 323 Routh, Dr., 137 Russell, Lady William, 118 Russell, Lord John, 147, 158, 165, 207, 212, 228 St. Leonards, Lord, 21 Say, Horace, 50 Scott, Sir Walter, 257 Senior, Nassau William, 3, n, 20, 28, 52, 138, 330 Simon, Jules, 295 Smith, Sydney, 19 Sontag, Mile., 93 Spedding, James, 275 Stanley, Dean, 281 334 INDEX Stansfeld, Mr. J., 97 Stephen, Sir James, 6, 8 Stirling, Sir Anthony, 104 Stratford, Lord, 246 Strelecki, Count, 189, 277 Sumner, George, 50 Sutherland, Duchess of, 135 Taylor, Tom, 29 Thackeray, W. M., 105 Thiers, M., 266 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 54, 149, 183, 300 Tourgudnieff, Ivan, 314 Trench, Archbishop, 283 Van de Weyer, 198, 226 Venables, G. S., 274 Victoria, Princess, 3 Villiers, Charles, 104 Wellington, Duke of, 102 Whately, Archbishop, 12 White, Blanco, 10 Wildenfels, Count, 38 Wilkie, Sir D., 4 Witt, Mme. de, 71 Wolowski, 53 Wood, Sir Charles, 222 Zwickau, 39 THE END. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GU1LDFORD. December, 1897. MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S New Books & Announcements. LONDON: 37 BEDFORD STREET. NEW YORK : 70 FIFTH AVENUE. Telegraphic Addresses : ' Scholarly, London ' ; ' Scholarly, New York.' Dedicated by Special Permission to Her Majesty the Queen. OLD ENGLISH GLASSES. n (Jccounf of * Edited by the RT. HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., M.P. TWO NEW VOLUMES. REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. By the HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. With a Coloured Frontispiece and the original Illustrations by JOHN LEECH, and several Coloured Plates and other Illustrations by G. R. JALLAND. Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 153. Also a Large- Paper Edition, limited to 200 copies, two guineas net. These reminiscences, by one well known among sportsmen of his day, consist of an interesting medley of records of the chase, observations on men and manners of the time, notes on natural history, and experiences in shooting and fishing. The author was a bit of a character, and his peculiarities are faithfully reflected in his pages. As a master of hounds he forms a curious link with a bygone state of things, when his father hunted the whole country between Bristol and Kensington Gardens. THE ART OF DEER-STALKING. By WILLIAM SCROPE. With Frontispiece by EDWIN LANDSEER, and 9 Photogravure Plates of the original Illustrations. Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 155. Also a Large-Paper Edition, limited to 200 copies, two guineas net. The author of this book, which has long been in the first rank of literature of the forest, was an example of the best kind of sportsman. A highly cultivated scholar and a painter far more accomplished than most amateurs, Scrope had a keen eye for a great deal more than the mere pursuit of game. He filled his notebook with traditions and anecdotes collected among stalkers and gillies in an age before compulsory education had driven old-world lore out of their heads, and wove them into his treatise on deer-stalking with great taste and literary skill. io Mr. Edward Arnold's Gbe Sportsman's Xibran?. Edited by the RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., M.P. A Re-issue, in handsome volumes, of certain rare and entertaining books on sport, carefully selected by the Editor, and illustrated by the best sporting | artists of the day, and with reproductions of old plates. Library Edition, 155. a Volume. Large Paper Edition (limited to 200 copies), 2 guineas a volume. The EARL OF COVENTRY writes : 'I think the idea of a "Sportsman's Library" an excellent one. So many now follow various sports that a library of the old books brought out again will be very attractive.' Sir RALPH PAYNE-GALLWEY, Bart., writes : 'Just the class of work to be popular, whether in the shelves or lying on the smoking-room table. A pleasure to read, see, and handle. ' VOLUME I. THE LIFE OF A FOX, AND THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN. By THOMAS SMITH, Master of the Hambledon and Pytchley Hounds. With Illustrations by the Author, and Coloured Plates by G. H. JALLAND. ' It will be a classic of fox-hunting till the end of time.' Yorkshire Post. VOLUME II. A SPORTING TOUR THROUGH THE NORTHERN PARTS OF ENGLAND AND GREAT PART OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. By COLONEL T. THORNTON, of Thornville Royal, in Yorkshire. With the Original Illustrations by GARRARD, and other Illustrations and Coloured Plates by G. E. LODGE. ' Sportsmen of all descriptions will gladly welcome the sumptuous new edition issued by Mr. Edward Arnold of Colonel T. Thornton's "Sporting Tour," which has long been a scarce book.' Daily News. VOLUME III. THE SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND. By a COSMOPOLITE. With Coloured Plates and Black and White Drawings by P. CHENEVIX TRENCH, and reproductions of the Original Illustrations drawn by R. ALLEN and engraved by W. WESTALL, A.R.A. ' The book is one to be read and enjoyed.' Saturday Review. New Books and Announcements. n Dolumes of Sport, travel anfc Hfcventure, RECENTL Y PUBLISHED. WILD NORWAY : With Chapters on the Swedish Highlands, Jutland, and Spitsbergen. By ABEL CHAPMAN, Author of ' Wild Spain,' etc. With seventeen full-page Illustrations and numerous smaller ones by the Author and CHARLES WHYMPER. Demy 8vo., i6s. ' There is not a chapter in this book which would not be missed.' Spectator. A very good, very accurate, and deeply interesting book of wild life and natural history.' Illus- trated Sporting and Dramatic News. ' Will be read with keen interest by the angler, the hunter of wild game, and the student of bird life. ' Scotsman. ' It will be found not only an invaluable but a delightful companion by the sportsman, the angler, and the ornithologist.' Times. THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. The First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Rudolf and Lamu. A Narrative of Scientific Exploration and Sporting Adventures. By A. DONALDSON SMITH, M.D., F.R.G.S. With nearly thi/ty full-page Plates and numerous smaller Illustrations by A. D. McCORMiCK, CHARLES WHYMPER, etc., and detailed Maps of the countries traversed. Super royal 8vo., One Guinea net. 1 Will be of the greatest interest to sportsman, traveller, and man of science.' Pall Mall Gazette. ' Since the publication of Stanley's " Across the Dark Continent," there has been no work of African travel equal, in scientific importance and thrilling interest, to Dr. Donaldson Smith's book. As a book of exciting sport, apart from its geographical and ethnological usefulness, it deserves to stand alongside the best experiences of the toughest Anglo-Indian shikaris.' Daily Telegraph. 'While to the large class of people interested in African exploration this boo_k is indispensable, sportsmen will find in its pages a wealth of exciting incidents rarely equalled in similar works.' St. Janus f Gazette. ON VELDT AND FARM : In Cape Colony, Bechuanaland, Natal, and the Transvaal. By FRANCES McNAB. With Map. Crown 8vo., 300 pages, 35. 6d. 1 Well worth the study of those interested in the agricultural and general development of South Africa.' Saturday Review. ' A delightful book, and we can confidently recommend it as far more worth reading than many a work of infinitely greater pretensions. The whole work is full of interest, and is, moreover, written in a style that compels the attention of the reader.' Globe. ' Abounds in interesting and useful information.' Daily News. 12 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA, 1891-1894. An Account of the Survey for the Uganda Railway, and the various , Campaigns in the British Protectorate during the last few years. By Major J. R. MACDONALD, R.E. Illustrated from Sketches and Photographs by the Author ar.d numerous Plans and a Map. Demy 8vo., i6s. ' No country in the world has had greater need of an impartial historian than Uganda, and, strange to say, though the bitter feelings engendered by the struggles of the past ten years have not had time to cool, one has been found among the actors in these stormy scenes Major Macdonald. . . . No one who leads this exciting book of adventure can regret that we are spending .3,000,000 on the railway. Major Macdonald wiites with considerable literary and historical skill, and his sketches and maps are all excellent.' Pall Mall Gazette. ' The illustrations from photographs and sketches are better than any we have seen of this part of the Dark Continent, and the maps are distinctly good.' Daily Chronicle. MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS. Leaves from a Field Naturalist's Note-book. By the Right Hen. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P. Crown 8vo., with four Photogravure Illustrations, 6s. ' It is a very long time since we have read so pleasant a hook as this.' Daily Chronicle. ' Most agreeably and freshly written.' Field. ' Few books will fill the idle moments of a country-loving man more pleasantly.' British Review. ' The easy style, the graphic descriptions of bird-life, and of the ways of beasts and fishes, the c'.ever sketches of sport, the happy introductions of plant-lore and of fragments of myth and legend, will ensure a warm welcome for this delightful volume.' Daily News. FISH TAILS AND SOME TRUE ONES. By BRADNOCK HALL, Author of ' Rough Mischance.' With an original Etching by the Author, and twelve full-page Illustrations by T. H. McLACHLAN. Crown 8vo., 6s. ' This is one of the best books of angling reminiscences I have ever come across.' Fishing Gazette. ' A pleasant companion for an angler's holiday.' Glasgow Herald. ' Witty, in the best taste, and abounding w_ith sympathetic interest to the angler. . . . The illus- trations are exceedingly good. . . . The stories are capital, every oi.e.' Field. Books of Travel, Sport, and Adventitre. 13 IDolumes of Gravel, Sport, anfc Jlbventure. Bacon THE CITY OF BLOOD. (See page 3 .) Balfour TWELVE HUNDRED MILES IN A WAGGON. A Nar- rative of a Journey in Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Chartered Company's Territories. By ALICE BLANCHE BALFOUR. With nearly forty original Illustrations from Sketches by the Author, and a Map. Demy 8vo., cloth, i6s. Beynon-WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL. By Lieutenant W. G. L. BEYNON, D.S.O., 3rd Goorkha Rifles, Staff Officer to Colonel Kelly with the Relief Force. With Maps, Plans, and Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 73. 6d. Bottome A SUNSHINE TRIP: Glimpses of the Orient. Extracts from Letters written by MARGARET BOTTOME. With Portrait, elegantly bound, 45. 6d. Bull THE CRUISE OF THE ' ANTARCTIC.' To the South Polar Regions. By H. J. BULL, a member of the Expedition. With frontispiece by W. L. WVLLIE, A.R.A., and numerous full-page illustrations by W. G. BURN-MURDOCH. Demy 8vo., 155. Chapman WILD NORWAY. (See page -LI.) Colvile THE LAND OF THE NILE SPRINGS. By Colonel Sir HENRY COLVILE, K.C.M.G..C.B., recently British Commissioner in Uganda. With Photogravure Frontispiece, 16 full-pnge Illustrations and 2 Maps. Demy 8vo., i6s. Custance- RIDING RECOLLECTIONS AND TURF STORIES. By HENRY CUSTANCE, three limes winner of the Derby. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2S. 6d. Freshfield THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. By DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD, lately President of the Alpine Club and Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. With Contributions by H. W. HOLDER, J. G. COCKIN, H. WOOLLEY, M. DE DECHY, and Prof. BONNEY, D.Sc., F.R.S. Illustrated by 3 Panoramas, 74 full-page Photogravures, about 140 Illustrations in the text, chiefly from Photographs by VITTORIO SELLA, and 4 Original Maps, including the first authentic map of the Caucasus specially prepared from unpublished sources by Mr. FRESHFIELD. In two volumes, large 410., 600 pp., Three Guineas net. Gordon PERSIA REVISITED. With Remarks on H.I.M. Mozufler- ed-Din Shah, and the Present Situation in Persia (1896). By General Sir T. E. GORDON, K.C.I.E., C.B., C.S.I. Formerly Military Attache" and Oriental Secretary to the British Legation at Teheran, Author of ' The Roof of the World,' etc. Demy 8vo. , with full-page illustrations, los. 6d. Hall- FISH TAILS AND SOME TRUE ONES. (Seepage 12.) Hole A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester, Author of 'The Memories of Dean Hole,' ' A Book about Roses, 1 etc. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo., i6s. Hole A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By 'OXONIAN' (the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE). 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