_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*]
[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of
Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann
Theodosia Vyner.]
The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, one
of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers
and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war
began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new
acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and
a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism,
it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed,
the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as
for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the
portraiture of the man
"Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not,
Plays in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won;
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Not thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast."
These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought
me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I
enjoyed from my first entrance into public life.
I know few careers in the political life of modern England more
interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant
with Wordsworth's eulogy:
"Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast."
The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered
public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty
nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including,
for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially
under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very
material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences
of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and
great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman
when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust
convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To
men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard
the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why
are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so
the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's
title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He
was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form
his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the
stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost
before his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his
line of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating
consistency.
He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage.
Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_
from Henrietta, Lady Ripon:
"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass,
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass."
Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was
the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends.
She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause,
and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform.
From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderich
made their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scattered
forces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, were
labouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "Christian
Socialists," recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48,
re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world
that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with
his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes
and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful
pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical
M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out
from the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to time
Carlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to
enterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams.
In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in London
and Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering works
at Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, and
Lord Goderich subscribed £500 to the maintenance of the strikers.
But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded
by young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord
Goderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord
Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series
of practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State
for India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council,
attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed
Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871
saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United
States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent
mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward
no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it
could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February,
1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish
Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty,
explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have always
been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme.
Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler."
In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retired
from the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he was
entertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion was
marked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It always
is satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monument
or a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, the
honours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has reminded
us that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stage
of development which is less esteemed in the market." The Eighty
Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they
were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a
Liberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth."
One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced
when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals
themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to
a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion,
and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause.
The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive
than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who,
in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and
environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor,
the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion
was far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a few
of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and waved
their salutations, may have added in the depths of their hearts
some aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth year, may
I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish,
and as beneficent."
Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spite
of lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of much
that once made life enjoyable, still
"Finds comfort in himself and in his cause,
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause."
V
"_FREDDY LEVESON_"
When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverent
to call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in
seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation,
is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the
subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart
and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of
place.
Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of Granville
Leveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with Henrietta
Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire.
The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination they
suggest a considerable and an important portion of our social and
political history.
I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is not
a political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is
born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a
Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the
privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated
its spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certain
opinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chapters
xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinions
and those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its substance
has been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed his first
Administration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed
of his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard Burke confirmed
the allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made
excellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle of the
Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselves
knew uncommonly well--that from John, Earl Gower, who died in 1754,
descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors,
Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the face of the earth. Truly
a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors,"
said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps
it is as unnecessary to say so as to say that I'm not King Pippin
in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)--I'm
not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!"
It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier part
of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes no
educational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyed
at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here the
best traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforced
by accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, an
aristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to ability
and culture. Genius held the key, and there was a _carrière ouverte
aux talents_.
Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born on
the 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiseless
tenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the
experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton,
he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been
seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering
was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized
as his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled to
the end.
It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in _Endymion_ that,
visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be induced
to call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I dined," she
said, "with those people once; but I confess that, when I thought
of those dear Granvilles, their _entrées_ stuck in my throat."
The "dear Granvilles" in question were the parents of the second
Lord Granville, whom we all remember as the most urbane of Foreign
Secretaries, and of Frederick Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granville
was a younger son of the first Marquess of Stafford and brother of
the second Marquess, who was made Duke of Sutherland. He was born
in 1773, entered Parliament at twenty-two, and "found himself a
diplomatist as well as a politician before he was thirty years of
age." In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg, where
he remained till 1807. In 1813 he was created Viscount Granville,
and in 1824 became Ambassador to the Court of France. "To the
indignation of the Legitimist party in France, he made a special
journey from Paris to London in order to vote for the Reform Bill
of 1832, and, to their astonishment, returned alive to glory in
having done so." For this and similar acts of virtue he was raised
to an earldom in 1833; he retired from diplomacy in 1841, and died
in 1846.
Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had rented
a place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that Freddy
Leveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwards
the British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places had
made permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he remembered
the Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and
imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter
Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at
the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux,
afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent
from Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called
the House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to
the peerage, many of them future peers, and among them several
dukes." Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of
Princes. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge
were staying with King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions
were chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his
nephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather
coarse ones." In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined
society at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation:
"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing
all dinner-time."
From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to
Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health,
and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one,
he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that
was the complete indifference to social distinctions.
"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the
late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his
name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis
of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount
and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at
any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted
of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!"
Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor
in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in
politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque,
whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may still
be read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his political
instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially
in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed
heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth.
In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother
wrote: "As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if
it was to last more than a week longer. His dancing _fait fureur_."
In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing
under Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyed
himself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of the
Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of
hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among his
contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly
depressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to
seek no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else's
rooms, or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rather
crazy, taking his solitary walks."
That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession;
and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not
surprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with
surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least
attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although--and
this makes it stranger still--they used to attend Newman's Sermons
at St. Mary's. They duly admired his unequalled style, but the
substance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like the
idle wind.
After taking a "Nobleman's Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an
instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's
position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers,
Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to
England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading
for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and
the choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who,
staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy,
and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as a
lawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor." As a first
step towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambers
of an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for his
fellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer.
Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading member
of the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke,
he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regard
to the total result of his legal training, he remarked, with
characteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law." When
living in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at
Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage
of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire,
a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a
son, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while
Lady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make
a second home of Holland House.
"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in
the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word
at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--to
Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's
exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms
and Luttrell's repartees."
Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford
Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G.
Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage
in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville
died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event
produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in
his own quaint words:
"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent
parent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although I
cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with
me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this
feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well
provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my
own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded."
His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering
it affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for on
succeeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be an
unsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the
[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of
professional activity. He was singularly happy in private life,
for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some
delightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was his
sister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet,
Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville;
and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton,
of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters of
her novel _Ellen Middleton_, she had drawn "the line which is so
apt to be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw,
between _naïveté_ and vulgarity." Myself a devoted adherent of
Sir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of Julia
Mannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which would
have caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle." Happiest of all was
Freddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; but
their married life lasted only five years, and left behind it a
memory too tender to bear translation to the printed page.
Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life--at
least until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. That
unsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, and
those who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "Poodle
Byng," who carried down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenth
century, declared that nothing could be duller than Devonshire
House in his youth. "It was a great honour to go there, but I was
bored to death. The Duchess was usually stitching in one corner of
the room, and Charles Fox snoring in another." Under the splendid
but arbitrary rule of the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored.
Everyone who entered his saloons was well-born or beautiful or
clever or famous, and many of the guests combined all four
characteristics. When Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon
III., first came to live in London, his uncle Jerome asked the
Duke of Devonshire to invite his _mauvais sujet_ of a nephew to
Devonshire House, "so that he might for once be seen in decent
society"; and the Prince, repaid the Duke by trying to borrow five
thousand pounds to finance his descent on Boulogne. But the Duke,
though magnificent, was business-like, and the Prince was sent
empty away.
The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career was
curiously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications of
cousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintances
and associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist and
his more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Brougham
and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote
and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and
Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone."
For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper the
humorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, the
queen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canning
and Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refuge
in England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois;
the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson,
and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave,
who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of the
social ladder to a place not very far from the top.
Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, where
dwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poets
and men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray and
Motley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect and
Hudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Mario
and Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame
Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola
Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will
convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member
of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence
and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection
by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life.
And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life
(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old age, he
enjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity.
It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with the
idea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthy
desire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him to
embark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in the
summer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle the
Duke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued;
he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for a
technical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent,
this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the
"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimate
influence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address at
the opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord John
Russell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was the
shyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am glad
you are going to second the Address. You will know what to say.
Good-morning."
At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "Poor
Freddy," writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointed
by his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo."
All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeying
contest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, this
time by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends--Lord
Robartes and Lady Molesworth--and he retained the seat by his own
merits till Bodmin ceased to be a borough. Twice during his
Parliamentary career Mr. Gladstone offered him important office,
and he declined it for a most characteristic reason--"I feared it
would be thought a job." The gaps in his Parliamentary life were
occupied by travelling. As a young man he had been a great deal
on the Continent, and he had made what was then the adventurous
tour of Spain. The winter of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in
1856 he accompanied his brother Lord Granville (to whom he had
been "précis-writer" at the Foreign Office) on his Special Mission
to St. Petersburg for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter in
his life was fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, and
his mind was stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode,
and Todleben. "Freddy," wrote his brother, "is supposed to have
distinguished himself greatly by his presence of mind when the
Grande Duchesse Hélène got deep into politics with him."
A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate with
infinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin in
the strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except that
Lord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson grew a
beard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 Lord
Granville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, according
to the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education Office.
In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, was
despatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universities
of the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient for
his needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requesting
an increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and before
he could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famous
restaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner of
the day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his official
chief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner.
Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the official
point of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increased
allowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explained
that it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself for
his habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and kindly
courtesy with which his official chief received the _apologia_. His
delight was abated when he subsequently found that he had been making
his confession, not to Lord Granville, but to Mr. Leveson-Gower.
Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, Freddy
Leveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly,
and with prolonged pleasure." "Did this," he used to ask, "portend
that I should grow up a philosopher or a _gourmand_? I certainly
did not become the former, and I hope not the latter." I am inclined
to think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of the
body has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, and
he who feeds his fellow-men supremely well is in the most creditable
sense of the word a _gourmand_. Freddy Leveson's dinners were justly
famous, and, though he modestly observed that "hospitality is praised
more than it deserves," no one who enjoyed the labours of Monsieur
Beguinot ever thought that they could be overpraised. The scene of
these delights was a house in South Audley Street, which, though
actually small, was so designed as to seem like a large house in
miniature; and in 1870 the genial host acquired a delicious home
on the Surrey hills, which commands a view right across Sussex to
the South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its name, and "There's no place
like Home-bury" became the grateful watchword of a numerous and
admiring society.
People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous by
every social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightful
hospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. and Mrs.
Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses of
Freddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet,
Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudices
against the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's most
enthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove," and in that
sumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. and
Mrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formed
their affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, and
more than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and one
at least of those visits was memorable. On the 19th of July, 1873,
Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary:
"Off at 4.25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spot
and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester,[*] when
the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad
fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad:
'It's all over.' In an instant the thread of that precious life
was snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief."
[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce.]
And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, a
word of personal description must be added. He was of middle height,
with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he was
short-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objects
which he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later years
was a marked infirmity--he had no others--tended to intensify the
stooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. His
features were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish,
as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother.
His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; for
his half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was soft
and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that
peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued."
His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equally
remote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would be
impertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever heard
him express were directed against rudeness, violence, indifference
to other people's feelings, and breaches of social decorum. If
by such offences as these it was easy to displease him, it was
no less easy to obtain his forgiveness, for he was as amiable as
he was refined. In old age he wrote, with reference to the wish
which some people express for sudden death: "It is a feeling I
cannot understand, as I myself shall feel anxious before I die
to take an affectionate leave of those I love." His desire was
granted, and there my story ends. I have never known a kinder heart;
I could not imagine a more perfect gentleman.