VISITS TO ENGLAND
1892
My next visit to England was in the spring of 1892. The
winter before, I had a severe attack of iritis, which left my
eyes in a very demoralized condition. I did not find much
relief in this country, not, I suppose, because of want of
skill in our ophthalmic surgeons, but because of the impossibility
of getting any rest anywhere where I could be reached by telephone
or telegraph. To a person who can bear an ordinary voyage
there is no retreat like an ocean steamer. Telephone, telegraph,
daily paper; call or visit of friend, client, or constituent;
daily mail--sometimes itself, to a busy public man, enough
for a hard day's work--all these are forgotten. You spend
your ten days in an infinite quiet like that of Heaven. You
sit in your deck-chair with the soft sea breeze on your forehead,
as the mighty ocean cradle rocks you, and see the lace of
an exquisite beauty that no Tyrian weaver ever devised, breaking
over the blue or purple waves, with their tints that no Tyrian
dye ever matched. Ah! Marconi, Marconi, could not you let
us alone, and leave the tired brain of humanity one spot
where this "hodge-podge of business and trouble and care"
could not follow us and find us out?
On this journey I visited England, France and Switzerland.
It so happened that I had had a good deal to do with the appointment
of our Ministers to these three countries. Colonel John D.
Washburn, a very accomplished and delightful gentleman, now
dead, had been a pupil of mine as a law student. He lived
in Worcester and had been a very eminent member of the Massachusetts
Legislature. I think he would have been Governor of the State
and had a very brilliant career but for a delicacy of organization
which made him break down in health when under any severe
strain of responsibility, especially such as involved antagonism
and conflict. He was of a very friendly, gentle disposition,
and disliked to be attacked or to attack other men. I told
Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State when Mr. Harrison's Administration
came in, that I had but one favor to ask of it; that was,
that he should send Washburn as Minister to Switzerland. I
had two or three very pleasant days with him at Berne. But
he had sent his family away and was preparing to resign his
place. So I had not much opportunity of seeing Switzerland
under his guidance.
Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, then Minister to France, had also
been appointed on my very earnest recommendation. He was
a great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, a very able business
man, highly esteemed throughout the country. His guidance
was implicitly followed by many people in important business
transactions. He had had the charge of the financial affairs
of some large manufacturing corporations, and was understood
to have extricated the Northern Pacific Railroad out of some
serious difficulties, into which it fell again after he left
its control. He had been a Democrat. But he had seen the
importance of the protective policy to American interests,
as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high
protectionist, Thomas Jefferson. He had no sympathies with
any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and
set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms
of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly
of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without
the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world.
Soon after Mr. Harrison's Administration began, I received
a message about nine o'clock one evening, asking me to go
to the White House at once. I obeyed the summons. The President
said he desired, if I had no objection, to send in the name
of Dr. Loring of Massachusetts, as Minister to Portugal. I
told him that I had no objection whatever; that Dr. Loring
was an able man of agreeable manners, and had performed admirably
every public duty he had undertaken. I said that the Doctor
had felt a little disturbed, I thought, that I had refused
to call a meeting of the Massachusetts delegation to press
his name upon the President for a Cabinet office, to which
President Harrison replied, "I put my foot on that pretty
quick." Dr. Loring had been a great friend and supporter
of Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State. I conjectured, although
the President did not say so, that the choice of Dr. Loring
had been made at the Secretary's instance.
The President then said that he wanted to talk with me about
the English Mission, which had troubled him a good deal. He
mentioned the names of several prominent men in different
parts of the country, including Robert Lincoln and Mr. Jewett,
an eminent lawyer in Chicago, whose name was earnestly pressed
upon him by the Senators from Illinois. I said that I had
known Mr. Lincoln pretty well when he was in President Garfield's
and Mr. Arthur's Cabinet, and thought very highly of him.
He was a very modest man indeed, never pressing any claim
to public consideration or office, either on his own account
or as his father's son, and never seeking responsibility.
But I had noticed that when he had anything to say or anything
to do, he always said or did the wisest and best thing to be
said or done under the circumstances. I do not know how
much influence what I said had, but it seemed to gratify
President Harrison exceedingly, and he stated that he was
strongly inclined to appoint Mr. Lincoln.
I was told the next morning he sent for the two Illinois
Senators, and told them that he had made up his mind to nominate
Mr. Lincoln, and that one of them, Senator Farwell, was exceedingly
offended. He was also much disturbed by President Harrison's
attitude in regard to the appointment of the postmaster at
Chicago. The result was that when President Harrison's name
came up for another nomination, Mr. Farwell was opposed to
him, and when he was with difficulty nominated for reelection,
the State of Illinois voted for Cleveland. Senator Cullom,
though not liking very well to have his opinion disregarded,
was more discreet. He did not see fit to make the exercise
of the President's rightful and Constitutional prerogative
a reason for breaking off his friendly relations with the
Administration, with whose principles he was in full accord.
This is an instance of President Harrison's want of tact.
I have little doubt that if, before finally announcing his
intention, he had sent for the Illinois Senators--as Abraham
Lincoln would have done, or as President McKinley would have
done--gone over the whole ground with them, and told them
his reasons and desire, they would have cheerfully acquiesced
in the conclusion to which he had come, and their friendship
with him would have been strengthened and not weakened.
After saying what was to be said about the English Mission,
I said to President Harrison: "We have a gentleman in Massachusetts,
whom I think it is very desirable indeed to place in some
important public service; that is Thomas Jefferson Coolidge.
He is a great-grandson of Mr. Jefferson." I said to the President
the substance of what I have just stated above, about Mr.
Coolidge. I added that while Mr. Coolidge would be an excellent
person for the English Mission, which his uncle Mr. Stevenson
had held, yet, of course, I did not think, under the circumstances,
that it would be proper to make another important diplomatic
appointment from Massachusetts just then; but I hoped that
an opportunity might come later. President Harrison seemed
to be much impressed with the suggestion, and said that he
would bear it in mind.
When I went back to my room, it occurred to me that I had better
speak to Mr. Blaine about it. If he first heard of it from
the President he might think that I was trying to deal with
the President about matters in his Department over his head
and without consulting him. So I went round to the State
Department early the next morning, and told Mr. Blaine what
I had said to the President. I found that he knew all about
Mr. Coolidge. I inadvertently spoke of him as grandson of
Mr. Jefferson. Blaine immediately corrected me by saying,
"great-grandson." He seemed to like the plan very well.
Nothing came of the matter at that time. But later, when
the Pan-American Commission was appointed, the President,
of his own motion, appointed Mr. Coolidge as one of the American
representatives. Later, I happened to be one day at the White
House, and President Harrison told me that Whitelaw Reid had
announced his intention of resigning the French Mission before
long. I reminded him of our conversation about Mr. Coolidge,
and urged his name very strongly on him. He hesitated a good
deal. I got the approval of every New England Senator but
one to the proposal. The President still hesitated and seemed
inclined to appoint Mr. Andrew D. White. But he finally
yielded to the urgency for Mr. Coolidge. I should have been
sorry if anything I had done had resulted in depriving the
country of the service of Andrew D. White. I suppose him
to be one of the very best representatives we ever had abroad.
But an opportunity came soon after, to send him first to
Russia, and then to Germany, where he has represented what is
best in the character, ability, desire, interest and scholarship
of the American people.
So we had two first-rate representatives abroad instead of
one. Mr. Coolidge discharged his functions to the satisfaction
of the Administration, and to the universal approval of his
countrymen.
He received me when I visited Paris with a very cordial and
delightful hospitality. I had the pleasure of meeting at
his house at dinner M. Ribot, then Prime Minister of France
and afterward President of the French Republic, and several
others of the leading men in their public life. But I spoke
French very imperfectly indeed, and understood it much less,
when spoken by a Parisian. The conversation was, in general,
in French. So I got very little knowledge of them by being
in their society.
My visit in England gave me a good deal more to remember.
Mr. Lincoln also received me with great cordiality. He gave
a dinner at which several of the leaders of the Liberal Party
were present; among them, Sir William Vernon Harcourt. I
had letters to Sir William Vernon Harcourt, and to Lord Rosebery,
and to Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England. Sir
William Vernon Harcourt and Lord Rosebery each called on me,
and spent an hour at my room. But Parliament was dissolved
just at that time, so the Liberal leaders had at once to begin
the campaign which resulted in Mr. Gladstone's victory. So
I had no opportunity to make an intimate acquaintance with
either of them. I owed to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes an introduction
to John Bellows, a Quaker, a most delightful gentleman, the
first authority in his time on the Roman antiquities of Great
Britain, a fine classical scholar and learned in old English
literature and in the languages from which came the roots
of our English tongue. I formed with him a close friendship
which ended only with his death, in 1902. A year before he
died he visited me in my home at Worcester, and received the
degree of Master of Arts from Harvard. Mr. Bellows is the
author of the wonderful French Dictionary.
I spent a few days with Lord Coleridge in Devon. His house
at Ottery St. Mary's is close to the spot where Samuel Taylor
Coleridge was born. I met there several of the race. I do
not know whether they were living in the neighborhood or happened
to be there on a visit.
I found in the church, close by, the tomb of John Sherman,
one of my own kindred, I have no doubt, of the race which
came from Colchester and Dedham in Essex, and Yaxley in Suffolk.
The Lord Chief Justice was much distressed lest he had done
wrong in complying with General Butler's invitation to visit
him at Lowell. He said that many of his American friends
had treated him coldly afterward, and that his friend Richard
Dana, whom he highly esteemed, had refused to call upon him
for that reason.
I told him he did absolutely right, in my opinion. I said
that General Butler was then Governor of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, and that an eminent person, holding a high
official character, from a foreign country, could not undertake
to question the personal character, or the title to be considered
gentlemen, of the men whom the American people put into their
high places.
Lord Coleridge said he received fifty guineas every morning
for his services in the Tichborne trial. "But," he added,
"my general practice in my profession was so much interrupted
by it that I could not have got along that year but for my
salary as Attorney-General."
He spoke with great pride of his cross-examination of the
Claimant. He said one of the papers had complained that
his cross-examination did no good to his case whatever. "But
I made him admit that he sent his photograph to some person,
as the photograph of Arthur Orton." He said the common people
in England still held to the belief that the Claimant was
the genuine Sir Roger Tichborne, and, by a curious contradiction,
this feeling was inspired largely by their sympathy with him
as a man of humble birth. I said, "Yes, I think that is true.
I heard somebody, a little while ago, say that they heard
two people talking in the cars, and one of them said to the
other, 'They wouldn't give him the estate, because he was
the son of a poor butcher.'" This very much amused the Lord
Chief Justice.
I asked him about the story I had heard and had verified
some time before, of the connection, in the person of Lady
Rolle, between two quite remote periods. Lady Rolle was
alive until 1887, maintaining her health so that she gave
dinner parties in that year, shortly before she died. She was
the widow of Mr. Rolle, afterward Lord Rolle, who made a
violent attack on Charles James Fox in 1783. He was then
thirty-two years old. From him the famous satire, the Rolliad,
took its name. When he went to pay his homage to Queen Victoria
at her Coronation in Westminster Abbey, he was quite feeble,
and rolled down the steps of the throne. The young Queen
showed her kindness of heart by jumping up and going to help
him in person. Some of the English told the foreigners present
at the ceremonial that that was part of the ceremony, and
that the Rolles held their lands on the tenure of going through
that performance at every coronation. Lady Rolle was married
to her husband in 1820. He was then sixty-nine, and she a
young girl of twenty years old. He was eighty or ninety years
old when he died, and she survived as his widow for many years.
Something came up on the subject of longevity which induced
me to refer to this story and ask Lord Coleridge if it were
true. We were then riding out together; "Yes," said he, "there,"
pointing to a dwelling-place in full sight, "is the house
where she lived."
His Lordship asked me about an American Judge with whom he
had some acquaintance. I told him that I thought his reputation
was rather that of a jurist than a Judge. "Oh, yes," said
he, "a jurist is a man who knows something about the law of
every country but his own."
Lord Coleridge had a good reputation as a story-teller. It
was pleasant to get an auditor who seemed to like to hear
the stories which have got rather too commonplace to be worth
telling over here. He had a great admiration for President
Lincoln, and was eager to hear anything anybody had to tell
of him. I told him the famous story of Lincoln's reply to
the man who had left with him his poem to read, when he gave
it back. "If anybody likes that sort of thing, it's just
the sort of thing they'd like." I overheard his Lordship,
as he circulated about the room, a little while afterward,
repeating the story to various listeners.
He thought Matthew Arnold the greatest living Englishman.
He spoke with great respect of Carlyle. He said: "Emerson
was an imitator of Carlyle, and got his thoughts from him."
I could not stand that. It seemed to me that he had probably
never read a page of Emerson in his life, and had got his
notion from some writer for a magazine, before either of these
great men was well known. I took the liberty of saying, with
some emphasis, "Emerson was a far profounder and saner intellect
than Carlyle." To which he said, "Why, what do you say?"
I repeated what I had said, and he received the statement
with great politeness, but, of course, without assent.
During this summer I paid a visit to Moyle's Court, near
Southampton, formerly owned by Lady Alice Lisle, whose daughter
married Leonard Hoar, President of Harvard College. Leonard
Hoar was the brother of my ancestor, John Hoar of Concord,
and the son of Charles Hoar, Sheriff of Gloucester. There
is a statement in an old account of some Puritan worthies
that I have seen, to the effect that John Hoar and Leonard
married sisters. If that be true, John Hoar's wife, Alice,
was a daughter and namesake of Lady Alice Lisle. Although
I should like to believe it, I am afraid that the claim cannot
be made good. Lady Alice Lisle was a lady of large wealth
and good lineage. Her husband was John Lord Lisle, who was
Lord Justice under Cromwell, and one of the Judges in the
trial of Charles I. He drew the indictment and sentence of
the King, and sat next to Bradshaw at the trial, and directed
and prompted him in difficult matters. He was murdered one
Sunday morning on his way to church when in exile at Lausanne,
Switzerland, on the Lake of Geneva, by three ruffians, said
to be sent for that purpose by Queen Henrietta. Lady Alice
Lisle was a victim of the brutality of Jeffries. After Monmouth's
rebellion and defeat, she gave shelter and food to two fugitives
from Monmouth's army. The report of her trial is in Howell.
There was no proof that she knew that they were fugitives
from Monmouth's army, although she supposed one of them was
a Dissenting minister. There had been no conviction of the
principals, which the English law required before an accessory
after the fact could be found guilty. She suggested this
point at the trial, but it was overruled by Jeffries. He
conducted the case with infinite brutality. She was a kindly
old lady, of more than seventy years. She slept during part
of the trial, probably being fatigued by the journey, in which
she had been carried on horseback from Moyle's Court to Winchester,
and the sleepless nights which would naturally have followed.
She was sentenced to be burned at the stake. But the sentence
was commuted to beheading, at the intercession of the gentry
of the neighborhood. She had disapproved of the execution
of the King; said she had always prayed for him, and had a
son in the King's army. Macaulay's account of the story is
familiar to all readers of English history.
I was received at the old house with great kindness by Mrs.
Fane, wife of the present proprietor. It is a beautiful
old house with carved oak partitions, with a dining room
rising to the roof. Lady Lisle's chamber and the place where
the two fugitives were concealed are still shown. Mrs. Fane
had gathered some local traditions which are not found in
print. One old lady, who had been well known to persons now
living, had received some of them from her grandmother, who
was cotemporary with Lady Alice.
The lady was very popular with her tenants in the neighborhood.
The messenger who came from Winchester to arrest her took
her on horseback behind him, according to the custom of the
time. The horse cast a shoe. The messenger was for pressing
on without regard to the suffering of the animal. She insisted
that he should stop and have the horse shod. The man roughly
refused. She said: "I have made no outcry, on my own account.
But everybody here loves me. If you do not stop, I shall
cry out. You will never get away with me alive." The fellow
was frightened and consented to stop at a smithy. When the
smith had finished his work, Lady Lisle said: "I will be back
this way in two or three days, and I will pay you." To this
the messenger said: "Yes, you will be back this way in two
or three days, but without your head."
The headless body was brought back from Winchester after the
trial. The next day, when the household were at dinner, a
man came to the outside and thrust into the dining room window
a basket, containing her head. This was said to be for "greater
indignity."
Lady Lisle had known Hicks, one of the persons whom she relieved,
before. When the court was sitting for the trial of Charles
I., she went up to London to expostulate with her husband.
She arrived at his lodgings just as he was setting out in
a procession, with some state, for Westminster Hall, where
the trial was held. As she approached to speak to him, he
did not recognize her in the soiled dress in which she had
travelled, and motioned her away rather roughly. It was said
that she was overcome by the press in the crowd and fell to
the ground. Hicks, who was a Dissenting minister, raised
her up and took her to his own lodging near by in the Strand.
She said to him that she could not recompense him there, but
if he would come to Hampshire, or to the Isle of Wight, where
she had property, she would be glad to repay him.
Saturday, October 22, 1892, with Mrs. Hoar and her sister,
Mrs. Rice, I went from Southampton to Ringwood, about twenty
miles, and thence drove to Ellingham Church, about two miles
and a half. The church is a small but very beautiful structure
of stone, with a small wooden belfry. The tomb of Lady Alice
Lisle is a heavy, flat slab of gray stone, raised about two
or three feet from the ground, bearing the following inscription:
Here lies Dame Alicia Lisle
and her daughter Ann Harfeld
who dyed the 17th of Feb. 1703-4
Alicia Lisle dyed the
second of Sept. 1685.
It is close to the wall of the church, on the right of the
porch. In the church is seen the old Lisle pew of carved
oak, now the pew of the Earl of Normanton. Opposite the
pew is the pulpit, also of carved black oak, apparently ancient.
The church contains a tablet to the memory of the former owner
of Moyle's Court, who died in 1622.
Moyle's Court is about a mile and a half from Ellingham Church.
The drive is along a beautiful lane shaded by trees whose
branches meet from the two sides, through a beautiful and
fertile country, adorned by herds of fine cattle. Moyle's
Court is a large two-story building, consisting of two square
wings connected by the main building. The wings project from
the main building in front, but the whole forms a continuous
line in the rear. As you approach it, you pass numerous
heavy, brick outbuildings, including several farmhouses, one
of which is quite large, and apparently of great antiquity.
We were received by Mrs. Fane with the greatest courtesy.
She said that the landed estate connected with Moyle's Court
is very large, now or recently yielding the Earl of Normanton
seven thousand pounds a year.
The present occupant of Moyle's Court, Frederick Fane, Esq.,
came there about twenty-one years before. The house was then
much dilapidated, but he has restored it in a style in keeping
with the ancient architecture. The principal room is a dining
hall, rising from the ground some twenty-five feet in height,
with a gallery at one end, on a level with the second story.
The walls of this room are of beautiful, carved oak, the front
of the gallery being ancient, and as it existed in the time
of Lady Alice Lisle. The staircase, also of fine, carved
oak, is of equal antiquity. The carved oak in the passages
and some of the other rooms has been restored by Mr. Fane
from material found in the attic. There is also a curious
old kitchen, with a large fireplace, with a closet in the
chimney where it is said one of the persons succored by Lady
Alice Lisle was found hidden. In the cellar is a curiously
carved head on a stone beam, which seemed as if it might formerly
have supported a mantel-piece or shelf. It is said that this
portion of the cellar was once a chapel.
Some of the chambers have been named by Mr. Fane from persons
connected with the tragedy--Dame Alicia, Monmouth, Nelthrop,
Hicks, Tryphena--these names being inscribed on the doors.
The room is shown where Lady Lisle is said to have been seized.
The old tombstone over the grave of Leonard Hoar and his wife,
at the Quincy burial-ground, in Massachusetts, is almost an
exact copy of that over Lady Alice Lisle, at Ellerton near
Moyle's Court. They were doubtless selected by the same taste.
Mrs. Leonard Hoar, whose maiden name was Bridget Lisle, was
connected quite intimately with three of the great tragedies
in the history of English liberty. Her father, as has been
said, was murdered at Lausanne. Her mother was murdered under
the form of the mock judgment of Jeffries, at Winchester.
Her niece married Lord Henry Russell, son of the Duke of Bedford,
and brother of Lord William Russell, the story of whose tragic
death is familiar to every one who reads the noble history
of the struggle between liberty and tyranny which ended with
the Revolution of 1688.
Bridget Hoar married again after the death of her husband,
President Hoar. Her second husband was a Mr. Usher, who
seems to have been insane. She lived with him very unhappily,
then separated from him and went back to England, staying
there until he died. She then came back to Boston and died,
May 25, 1723. At her own request she was buried at the side
of her first husband. A great concourse of the clergy and
the principal citizens, including the Governor, attended her
funeral.
It was my good fortune to be instrumental, after this visit,
in correcting an evil which had caused great annoyance to
our representatives abroad for a good many years.
The Americans have never maintained their representatives
abroad with a dignity becoming a great power like the United
States. The American Minister is compelled by our rules to
wear a dress which exposes him to be mistaken for a waiter
at any festive gathering. Distinctions of rank are well established
in the diplomatic customs of civilized nations. It is well
understood that whether a representative of a county shall
be an Ambassador, a Minister Plenipotentiary, a Minister Resident,
or a Charge' d'affaires, depends on the sense of its rank
among the nations of the world of the country that sends him.
For many years all argument was lost on Congress. The United
States representative must not adopt the customs as to dress
of the effete monarchies of the old world. To send an Ambassador
instead of a Minister was to show a most undemocratic deference
to titles, abhorrent to every good republican. There had
been several attempts to make a change in this matter, always
unsuccessful, until I went abroad in 1892.
When I was in London in that year, I saw a great deal of
Mr. Lincoln. He told me how vexatious he found his position.
When the Minister for Foreign Affairs received the diplomatic
representatives of other countries at the Foreign Office,
Ambassadors were treated as belonging to one rank, or class,
and the Ministers as to a lower one. The members of each
class were received in the order of their seniority. We change
our Ministers with every Administration. So the Minister
of the United States is likely to be among the juniors. He
might have to wait all day, while the representatives of insignificant
little States were received one after another. If, before
the day ended, his turn came, some Ambassador would arrive,
who would get there, perhaps, five minutes before it was time
for Mr. Lincoln to go in, he had precedence at once. So the
representative of the most powerful country on earth might
have to lose the whole day, only to repeat the same experience
on the next.
An arrangement was made which partly cured the trouble by
the Minister for Foreign Affairs receiving Mr. Lincoln, on
special application, informally, at his residence, on some
other day. But that was frequently very inconvenient. And,
besides, it was not always desirable to make a special application
for an audience, which would indicate to the English Government
that we attached great importance to the request he might
have to make, so that conditions of importance would be likely
be attached to it by them. It was quite desirable, sometimes,
to mention a subject incidentally and by the way, rather than
to make it matter of a special appointment.
When I got to Paris, I found Mr. Coolidge complaining of the
same difficulty. I told our two Ministers that when I got
home I would try to devise a remedy. Accordingly I proposed
and moved as an amendment to the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation
Bill, the following clause:
"Whenever the President shall be advised that any foreign
government is represented, or is about to be represented in
the United States, by an Ambassador, Envoy Extraordinary,
Minister Plenipotentiary, Minister Resident, Special Envoy,
or Charge' d'affairs, he is authorized, in his discretion,
to direct that the representatives of the United States to
such government shall bear the same designation. This provision
shall in no wise affect the duties, powers, or salary of such
representative."
This had the hearty approval of Senators Allison and Hale,
the leading members of the Committee on Appropriations, and
was reported favorably by that Committee.
Senator Vest was absent when the matter came up, and it passed
without opposition. Mr. Vest announced, the next day, that
he had intended to oppose it. I am afraid if he had, he would
have succeeded in defeating it.
When it went to the House, the Committee on Appropriations
consented to retain the amendment, and it was favored by Mr.
Hitt of Illinois, who had, himself, represented the country
abroad and knew all about such matters. There was a little
opposition in the House. But it was quieted without great
difficulty. Vice-President Morton, who had, himself, represented
the country at Paris, went personally to the House and used
his great influence in favor of the proposition. Mr. Blount
of Georgia, a very influential Democrat, threatened to make
a strong opposition. But the gentlemen who favored it said
to him: "Now you are going out of the House, but your countrymen
will not long let you stay in retirement. You will be summoned
to important public service somewhere. It is quite likely
that your political friends will call you to one of these
important diplomatic places, where you will be in danger of
suffering the inconvenience yourself, if the present system
continue." Mr. Blount was pacified. And the measure which
I think would have been beaten by a pugnacious opposition
in either House of Congress, got through.
Among the most impressive recollections of my life is the
funeral of Tennyson in Westminster Abbey. I got a seat at
the request of the American Minister by the favor of Archdeacon
Farrar, who had charge of the arrangements. It was a most
impressive scene. I had a seat near the grave, which was
in the Poets' Corner, of which the pavement had been opened.
The wonderful music; the stately procession which followed
the coffin through the historic West entrance, in the most
venerable building in the world, to lay the poet to sleep
his last sleep with England's illustrious dead of more than
a thousand years,
In those precincts where the mighty rest,
With rows of statesmen and with walks of Kings,
to which
Ne'er since their foundation came a nobler guest,
was unspeakably touching and impressive. The solemn burial
service was conducted by the aged Dean, doomed, not long after,
to follow the beloved poet to his own final resting-place
near by.
The choir sang two anthems, both by Tennyson--"Crossing the
Bar" and "Silent Voices"--the music of the latter by Lady
Tennyson.
The grave lay next to Robert Browning's, hard by the monument
to Chaucer. I looked into it and saw the oaken coffin with
the coronet on the lid.
The pall-bearers were the Duke of Argyle, Lord Dufferin,
Lord Selbourne, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Jowett, Mr. Lecky, Mr.
Froude, Lord Salisbury, Dr. Butler, Head of Trinity, Cambridge,
Sir James Paget, Lord Kelvin and the United States Minister.
The place of Mr. Lincoln, who had gone home on leave of absence,
was taken by Mr. Henry White.
After depositing the body, the bearers passed the seat where
I sat, one by one, pressing through between two rows of seats,
so that their garments touched mine as they went by.
The day was cloudy and mournful, blending an unusual gloom
with the dim religious light of the Abbey. But just as the
body was let down into the earth, the sun came out for a moment
from the clouds, cheering and lightening up the nave and aisles
and transepts of the mighty building. As the light struck
the faces of the statues and the busts, it seemed for a moment
that the countenances changed and stirred with a momentary
life, as if to give a welcome to the guest who had come to
break upon their long repose. Of course it was but an idle
imagination, begot, perhaps, of the profound excitement which
such a scene, to the like of which I was so utterly unaccustomed,
made upon me. But as I think of it now, I can hardly resist
the belief that it was real.
It was my good fortune during this journey to become the
purchaser of Wordsworth's Bible. It was presented to him
by Frederick William Taber, the famous writer of hymns. While
it is absolutely clean, it bears the mark of much use. It
was undoubtedly the Bible of Wordsworth's old age. On my
next visit to England I told John Morley about it. He said,
if it had been known, I never should have been allowed to
take it out of England. It bears the following inscription
in Taber's handwriting:
William Wordsworth
From Frederick Wm Taber,
In affectionate acknowledgment of his many kindnesses,
and of the pleasure and advantage of his friendship.
Ambleside. New Year's Eve. 1842. A. D.
Be stedfast in thy Covenant, and be _conversant_
therein, and wax old in thy work.
Ecclesiasticus XI. 20.