College (All Souls’) with their presence at luncheon, I remember
presenting to them three tumblers of the old ale that is brewed in the
College, and is supposed to be the best in the University, very
drinkable (süffig), but very strong. One year when several men from
Cambridge were passing their long vacation at Oxford (one of them was
Lightfoot, afterwards Bishop of Durham, another Augustus Vansittart),
they were made free of all the common-rooms at Oxford, and constituted
examiners of the beers brewed in the different Colleges. All Souls’ came
out at the head of the tripos, but there was to be a new examination in
the year following, and competitors were invited to send their essays to
F. M. M., Professor of Comparative Palaeontology, at All Souls’. I took
a tumbler of the old ale myself and drank to the health of “The three
Emperors.” The Crown Prince did not see what I meant, and asked again
and again, “But how so (Wie so)?” “The future German Emperor,” I said,
“the future Emperor of India (the Prince of Wales), and, in the very
distant future, the third Emperor of Germany.” The Crown Prince smiled,
but an expression of seriousness or displeasure passed over his face,
showing me that I touched a sensitive nerve. The Crown Prince was a
curious mixture. In his intercourse with his friends he liked to forget
that he was a Prince, he spoke most freely and unguardedly, and enjoyed
a good laugh about a good joke. He allowed his friends to do the same,
but suddenly, if any of his friends made a remark that did not quite
please him, he drew back, and it took him some time to recover himself.
He was a noble and loyal nature. He knew Bismarck, he knew his strong,
and he knew his very weak, and more than weak, points; but such was his
gratitude for what the old statesman had done for Prussia and Germany
that he never said an unkind word against him. I believe he would never
have parted with him, though he was quite aware of the danger of a
_major domus_ in the kingdom of Frederick the Great. History will have
much to say about those years, and will teach us once more the old
lesson—how small the great ones of the earth can be.
Once more I met the Prince at Venice, when he was enjoying himself with
the Crown Princess and some of his daughters. He was then incognito, and
he had the best cicerone in his learned and charming wife. They worked
hard together from morning till evening. At last the people of Venice
found out who he was, and crowded round him to that extent that he had
to take refuge in the royal palace. What struck me at the time was a
sadness and far greater reticence in the Prince. Still, at times, the
old joyous smile broke out, as if he had forgotten how serious life had
become to him.
Again some years passed. The accounts of the old Emperor’s health showed
that his end was drawing near, but at the same time began the
disquieting rumors about the Crown Prince’s health. The Prince sent for
me shortly after his arrival in London, where he had come for the
Queen’s Jubilee, 1887. He looked as grand as ever, and in his eyes there
was the same light and life and love, but his voice had become almost a
whisper. Nevertheless, he spoke hopefully, almost confidently, and went
through all the festivities like a hero. Who will ever forget him on
horseback in the white uniform of the Prussian Cuirassiers, in the midst
of the sons and sons-in-law of the Queen? I saw him once more at
Windsor, the day before he left for Germany. In the evening, after
dinner, he walked up to me and spoke to me for a long time. His voice
had regained its timbre, and I felt convinced like himself that the
downward course of his malady was over, and that the uphill work was now
to begin.
After he had spoken to me for nearly half an hour, one of his
aides-de-camp came up to him, and said: “Not another word, your Royal
Highness.” He shook my hand: I looked up to him full of hope; it was for
the last time. He himself, I believe, retained his hopefulness to the
very end. The Greeks said: “Those whom the gods love die young.” When
the Prince Consort died, and when the Emperor Frederick died, one felt
inclined to say: “Those whom all men love die young.” Five reigns have
thus passed before my eyes, those of Frederick William III., 17971840;
Frederick William IV., 1840–1861; Wilhelm I., 1861–1888; Frederick III.,
1888; Wilhelm II., 1888; and if there is one lesson which their history
teaches us, and which everybody should take to heart, it is that the
wonderful work which they have achieved is due to the hard work, the
determined purpose, and the persevering industry of these sovereigns. I
did not know much of the personal work of Frederick William III., but,
beginning with Frederick William IV. to the present Emperor, I have had
occasional glimpses of their private life, enough to show that none of
these men looked upon his place in life as a sinecure. In no case was
their throne an easy chair. Their bed was in very truth a bed of iron,
not a bed of roses. These sovereigns have been at work day and night;
they have shared not only in the triumphs, but in the privations and
sufferings of their army. I shall never forget, when I was at Ems in
1871, passing the house where the old Emperor resided; and there in the
first storey, behind a green curtain, one could clearly see him standing
at his desk, with a lamp by his side, reading and signing despatches,
while everybody else enjoyed the cool air of the evening, nay, long
after most people had gone to bed. The Emperor Frederick, before he was
Emperor, was unhappy about one thing only, that he had not work enough
to do, and if there is a sovereign indefatigable in the service of his
country it is surely the present King of Prussia, the German Emperor. I
must say no more, for I have made it a rule in these Recollections not
to say anything about living persons, least of all royalties. Besides,
through all my life I have tried to follow the rule that Ruskin lays
down for himself: “In every person who comes near you look for what is
good and strong; honour that; rejoice in it, and, as you can, try to
imitate it.”
Though I did not see much of Prince Albert—I am thinking of the time
when he was still called Prince Albert, and not yet the Prince Consort—I
heard much about him, partly from Bunsen, who admired him greatly,
partly through one of his private secretaries, my old friend Dr. Karl
Meyer.[16] By this time the world knows not only the nobility of the
Prince’s character, but the strength of his intellect, his unceasing
industry, and his loyal devotion to his queen and country. But there was
a time when those who knew him felt indignant, nay, furious, at the
treatment which he received in England. It would be well if that page
could be torn out of the history of England, and as she who suffered
most has long forgiven, if not forgotten, who has a right to _renovare
dolores_? Apart from all personal considerations, it seemed a most
extraordinary hallucination to imagine that he who was the consort of
the Queen should exercise no influence on his wife. Human nature after
all is superior even to the English constitution. One can imagine a
political philosopher indulging in so Utopian a theory as a marriage
without influence, but that practical men, men of the world, men of
common sense, should have imagined such a possibility—that English
statesmen should have imagined that a wife, because she was a Queen,
would never be influenced by her husband, will hardly sound credible to
future historians. I remember only one analogous case. When Lord John
Russell was proposed as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, several members
of the Cabinet objected, fearing Lady Russell’s influence, and pointing
out the danger of Cabinet secrets oozing out through her indiscretion.
Lord Palmerston listened for a long time, and then turned to his
colleagues and said: “Well, I see one remedy only—one of us must always
sleep with them.” When he saw blank consternation on the faces of his
colleagues, “Well, well,” he said, “we shall take it by turns.” At a
time when it was fully believed that Prince Albert had been taken to the
Tower for high treason, no wonder that even a young German student who
spent his days in the Bodleian Library should have been attacked as a
spy. It was a passing madness, and the wonder is that it passed without
more serious consequences.
Prince Albert took a most lively interest in a scheme which I had
strongly advocated in _The Times_ and elsewhere, namely, that there
should be a school of Oriental languages in England, as in every other
country that has political and commercial relations with the East. I
pointed out that for years France had maintained its _École des Langues
Orientales vivantes_; that Austria had its Oriental School for the
diplomatic service and for the education of official interpreters; that,
long before the Afghan disaster, there was a professor teaching the
Afghan language in the University of St. Petersburg (and, I may add now,
that Prussia has a flourishing Oriental seminary in which even African
languages are taught by professors and native teachers); but no one
would listen to me except Prince Albert. The different offices, Foreign
Office, Horse Guards, Colonial Office, etc., declared that interpreters
could always be had, and that the best way to secure their fidelity was
to pay them well. That others might pay them better seemed never to have
entered their minds. Prince Albert saw clearly the disadvantage under
which England was labouring, nay, the danger that threatened her trade
and her general influence in the East. He spoke to Lord Granville, and
Lord Granville wrote to me to make further proposals. This I did; but
beyond that I decided I would not go, for such was the feeling at that
time, that the name of Prince Albert and my own, as that of a German
scholar, would have been sufficient to wreck the whole scheme. I
remember writing at the time to Prince Albert that we must wait till
“Her Majesty, Public Opinion, became more favourable.” In the meantime,
to speak of commercial interests only, how much has England lost by her
unwillingness to incur an expense which other countries have readily
incurred, which the people of England have a right to demand, and which
would not have amounted to anything like the cost of a single
man-of-war! The Prince of Wales took the same warm interest in the
foundation of an Oriental school in London, as may be seen from the
speech he delivered at the Royal Institution in 1890, when the scheme of
a school of Oriental languages was taken up by the Imperial Institute,
but even his persuasive eloquence has hitherto proved ineffectual to
realise a wish that was so near his father’s heart, and of such enormous
importance to English interests in the East.
As I think it right to abstain from recording my recollections of royal
persons still alive, I must say nothing of the stay of the young Prince
of Wales at Oxford; but, among the many things which I treasure in my
memory, I may at least produce one small treasure, a sixpence, which I
won from His Royal Highness at whist. I have always been a very bad
whist player, but good luck would have it that I won a sixpence at
Frewen Hall, the Prince’s residence at Oxford. The Prince maintained
that I had calculated my points wrongly, but not being a courtier, I
held my own, and actually appealed to General Bruce. When he decided in
my favour, the Prince graciously handed me my sixpence, which I have
kept ever since among my treasures. I may speak more fully of Prince
Leopold, the late Duke of Albany, a deeply interesting character of whom
much was expected, and in whom much has been lost. He was often a great
sufferer while at Oxford, but when he was well, no one was so well as he
was, no one looked more brilliant or more vigorous. His little dinner
parties were charming. His tutor, Mr. (now Sir) R. Collins, knew how to
collect his guests, and the Prince was the most excellent host. Whenever
I had some distinguished man staying with me, a note was sure to come
from the Prince, asking whether he might invite Emerson or Froude, or
whoever it might be, and I well remember his adding: “You may tell Mr.
Froude that I have read the whole of his ‘History.’” And so he had.
Being often confined to his bed he had read a great deal, and was read
to by his devoted tutor, Sir R. Collins. How many fond hopes centred in
that life, and how anxious many of the best men that Oxford has produced
were to inspire him with a love each of his own subject. Sanskrit, I
soon perceived, had no chance. But for a time astronomy was in the
ascendant, then history, then art. But there was always the danger to be
guarded against of the young student becoming too much absorbed in any
one subject, and losing that general sympathy with learning and art
which is so desirable in a Prince. The Prince had a quick eye for small
weaknesses, but his kindness was likewise extreme. I so well remember
sitting by him at dinner, and enjoying the most exquisite real
Johannisberger from the royal cellar. Prince Metternich used to send
every year some of the best of his _crue_ to the royalties represented
at the Congress of Vienna, having received Johannisberg from that
Congress. Prince Leopold knew how to appreciate the wines sent him from
the royal cellar. “They like port better at Oxford,” he said to me, “but
we shall keep to the _Rheinwein_.” It was really a quite exceptional
wine, the aroma of it being perceptible even at the dinner-table. I
quoted some of my father’s drinking songs, “Das Essen, nicht das
Trinken, bracht’ uns um’s Paradies,” etc. Many delightful evenings were
thus spent in the Prince’s drawing-room. I often played _à quatre mains_
with him, fearing only to touch and hurt his fingers, which was always
most painful to him. But to return to the Johannisberger. Long after the
Prince had settled at Boyton, I was staying with him, and at dinner he
said: “Now we must drink the health of the Princess of Wales; it is her
birthday. I have one bottle left of the Oxford Rheinwein. I kept it for
you. It has travelled about with me from place to place; but there will
be no more of it, it is the last bottle.”
Once more the Prince was most kind to me under most trying
circumstances. I was to dine at Windsor, and when I arrived my
portmanteau was lost. I telegraphed and telegraphed, and at last the
portmanteau was found at Oxford station, but there was no train to
arrive at Windsor before 8.30. Prince Leopold, who was staying at
Windsor, and to whom I went in my distress, took the matter in a most
serious spirit. I thought I might send an excuse to say that I had had
an accident and could not appear at table; but he said: “No, that is
impossible. If the Queen asks you to dinner, you must be there.” He then
sent all round the Castle to fit me out. Everybody seemed to have
contributed some article of clothing—coat, waistcoat, tie, shorts, shoes
and buckles. I looked a perfect guy, and I declared that I could not
possibly appear before the Queen in that attire. I was actually penning
a note when the 8.30 train arrived, and with it my luggage, which I tore
open, dressed in a few minutes, and appeared at dinner as if nothing had
happened.
Fortunately the Queen, who had been paying a visit, came in very late.
Whether she had heard of my misfortunes I do not know. But I was very
much impressed when I saw how, with all the devotion that the Prince
felt for his mother, there was this feeling of respect, nay, almost of
awe, that made it seem impossible for him to tell his own mother that I
was prevented by an accident from obeying her command and appearing at
dinner.
Oxford is an excellent place for seeing illustrious visitors from all
parts of the world. It is the cynosure of all Americans, and it is
strange to see how many travellers know all about the beauties of
Oxford, and seem often to be quite unaware of the similar, nay, in
some respects greater, beauties of Cambridge. There is only one
drawback. Most travellers come to Oxford during the Long Vacation, and
during the Long Vacation most professors naturally go away. In that
way I have missed seeing some people whose acquaintance I should have
highly valued. I thus lost the pleasure of showing the late Emperor of
Brazil the historical sights of Oxford, being absent when he passed
through. He saw everything in a marvellously short time, but then he
was up sight-seeing at five in the morning. However, I made his
acquaintance afterwards in Switzerland. We were staying at an
out-of-the-way place at Gimmelwald, and one day about five in the
morning there was a loud knock at my bedroom door. The whole wooden
cottage trembled. When I got up to see what was the matter, I saw my
friend Mr. Ralston, standing breathless on the staircase and saying,
“The Emperor of Brazil wants to see you. He is staying at Interlaken,
and has persuaded the Empress to stay another day to see you. But you
must get up at once and take a carriage and drive to Interlaken.” I
did so, and was with the Emperor and Empress soon after breakfast. The
Empress and the gentlemen-in-waiting were not in the best of humours
on account of this unexpected delay in their journey. We had a long
and undisturbed talk in a private room. I was sorry the Emperor would
speak French, though, having been at school in Switzerland, he spoke
German quite as well. He was full of questions about Sanskrit
literature and the Vedic religion. I was amazed at his knowledge, for
he had actually begun to study Sanskrit, and was fully aware of all
the difficulties that had to be met before we could hope to gain an
insight into the heart of the ancient religion of the Vedic Rishis. He
had a young German with him who acted as his tutor in Sanskrit, and
likewise in Hebrew. It was very pleasant to be examined by a man who
really knew what questions to ask, and who was bent on finding out by
himself what the “Rig Veda,” the most ancient of all the books in the
world, really contained. Like many others he seemed to expect too
much, and I had to tell him he must not be disappointed, and that,
though the Veda was certainly the oldest book in the proper sense of
that word, which had been preserved to us in an almost miraculous
manner, still it bore already traces of a long growth, nay, even of a
long decay of religious thought. If the Vedic poets were different
from what we expected them to be, it was our fault, not theirs. They
showed us what the world was like in the second millennium B.C., and
if we thought that there was in that millennium much that sounds
childish and absurd to us, it was well that we should know that fact,
and talk no longer of the mysterious or esoteric wisdom of the East.
Like most students, the Emperor wished to know the exact date of the
Veda, and I did not find it easy to explain to him that where we have
no contemporaneous history we cannot expect an exact chronology. If
some scholars placed the Veda 5000 or 10,000 B.C., we should find it
difficult to refute them, but we should gain nothing, it would be like
one of the distant dates in Egyptian and Babylonian chronology, a mere
point _in vacuo_. He was surprised when I confessed to him that even
the low date of about 1200 B.C., which I had fixed upon, seemed to me
too high rather than too low, and that I should feel it a relief if
anybody could establish a lower date for at least some of the Vedic
hymns. I think the Emperor saw that in spite of this inevitable
uncertainty, the “Rig Veda” would always maintain its unique position
in the history of religion, nay, of literature, being without an equal
anywhere, and allowing us an insight into the growth of thought, such
as we find in no other literature. Whatever the antecedents of the
Vedic religion may have been, however rudely its original features may
have been effaced even before the beginning of the Brâhmana period, we
can still see here and there in the Veda some germ ideas, some
thoughts requiring no antecedents, and in that sense primitive, more
primitive even than the thoughts of Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh,
whatever their merely chronological antiquity may have been. I do not
know how it happened—that from discussing the ancient names of metals
and the relative value of gold and silver, as fixed, we do not know
how, in Egypt, Babylon, and afterwards in Greece, in Italy, and the
rest of the civilised world at about 1 to 15—our conversation drifted
away into financial questions. Here I must have been betrayed into
uttering some financial heresy, possibly savouring of bimetallism, for
I well remember the Emperor becoming rather impatient and saying: “I
know all about that, and have studied the question for many years. Let
us return to the Veda.”
After a very pleasant luncheon we parted, and soon after the Emperor
lost his crown, as some would have it, because he had given too much
thought and time to his studies instead of keeping in touch with the
leaders of the different parties around his throne. However that may be,
Brazil has not been long before regretting her learned Emperor. I heard
afterwards that to the very end of his reign, and even when in exile,
the Emperor kept his tutor and carried on his studies in Sanskrit and
Hebrew. When at Stockholm in 1889, attending the International Oriental
Congress, under the auspices of the King of Sweden, I received a letter
from the Emperor of Brazil giving an account of his Sanskrit studies. I
showed the letter to the King of Sweden, Oscar II., himself a man
extremely well informed on Eastern literature, and full of the warmest
sympathy for Oriental scholars and scholarship. He read the letter and
sighed. “I have no leisure for Sanskrit,” he said. “The happy Emperor of
Brazil has but one people to govern, I have two.”
I might go on for a long time with my royal recollections, but it is, of
course, impossible to do so when living persons are concerned. Most of
the royal persons with whom I was brought into contact were eminent
among their peers, but were I to say what I think of them, I should at
once be called ugly names—courtier, flatterer, etc. Such things cannot
be helped, and the only excuse I could, perhaps, plead as a
_circonstance atténuante_ would be the reverence I imbibed with my
mother’s milk for my own Duke and my own Duchess of Anhalt-Dessau.
There is only one more sovereign about whom I may say a few words, the
late Queen of Holland, highly gifted as she was, and most charming in
society. She frequently came to England; according to the newspapers, as
a friend and advocate of the Emperor Napoleon. She was far too wise,
however, to attempt to play such a part at the English court. But that
she was much admired and won the hearts of many people in London is
certainly true. She came to lunch with Stanley at the Deanery. She had
asked him to invite a number of literary men—Tennyson, Monckton Milnes
(Lord Houghton), Huxley, and several more. We were waiting and waiting,
but Tennyson did not appear. Stanley suggested that we should not wait
any longer, but the Queen refused to sit down before the great poet’s
arrival. At last it was suggested that Tennyson might be mooning about
in the Cloisters, and so he was. He was caught, and was placed next to
the Queen. The Queen knew wonderfully how to hide her Crown, and put
everybody at their ease. She took the conversation into her own hands,
and kept the ball rolling during the whole luncheon. But she got nothing
out of Tennyson. He was evidently in low spirits, and, sitting next to
him, I could hear how to every question the Queen addressed to him he
answered, “Yes, Ma’am,” “No, Ma’am,” and at last, by a great effort,
“Ma’am, there is a good deal to be said on both sides of the question.”
He then turned to me and said in a whisper, but a loud whisper: “I wish
they had put some of you talking fellows next to Regina.”
While I am finishing these “Recollections of Royalties,” and sending the
proof sheets to press, the last echoes of the greatest triumph that has
ever been granted to royalty, which has ever been celebrated by royalty,
are vanishing from our ears. May those royal recollections never vanish
from our memories! We need not, nay, we cannot exaggerate their
importance. Magnificent as the pageant has been of the Diamond Jubilee
of the Queen of England, what was invisible in it was far greater than
what was so brilliantly visible in the royal procession passing through
the crowded streets of London. Has there ever been an empire like the
British, not excluding the Babylonian, the Persian, the Macedonian, or
the Roman empires? Sixty years of one reign is not a mere numerical
expression; no, it means permanent vitality, unbroken continuity,
sustained strength and vigour, such as, I believe, have never been
witnessed in any reign during the whole history of the world.