IN February of this year, 1852, Lord Palmerston, aided by an incongruous
force of Peelites and Protectionists, turned Lord John Russell out of
office on his Militia Bill. Lord Derby, with Disraeli as Chancellor of
the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, came into power on a
cry for Protection.
Not long after my return to England, I was packed off to canvas the
borough of Cricklade. It was then a very extensive borough, including a
large agricultural district, as well as Swindon, the headquarters of the
Great Western Railway. For many years it had returned two Conservative
members, Messrs. Nield and Goddard. It was looked upon as an impregnable
Tory stronghold, and the fight was little better than a forlorn hope.
My headquarters were at Coleshill, Lord Radnor’s. The old lord had, in
his Parliamentary days, been a Radical; hence, my advanced opinions found
great favour in his eyes. My programme was—Free Trade, Vote by Ballot,
and Disestablishment. Two of these have become common-places (one
perhaps effete), and the third is nearer to accomplishment than it was
then.
My first acquaintance with a constituency, amongst whom I worked
enthusiastically for six weeks, was comic enough. My instructions were
to go to Swindon; there an agent, whom I had never seen, would join me.
A meeting of my supporters had been arranged by him, and I was to make my
maiden speech in the market-place.
My address, it should be stated—ultra-Radical, of course—was mainly
concocted for me by Mr. Cayley, an almost rabid Tory, and then member for
the North Riding of Yorkshire, but an old Parliamentary hand; and, in
consequence of my attachment to his son, at that time and until his
death, like a father to me.
When the train stopped at Swindon, there was a crowd of passengers, but
not a face that I knew; and it was not till all but one or two had left,
that a business-looking man came up and asked if I were the candidate for
Cricklade. He told me that a carriage was in attendance to take us up to
the town; and that a procession, headed by a band, was ready to accompany
us thither. The procession was formed mainly of the Great Western
boiler-makers and artisans. Their enthusiasm seemed slightly
disproportioned to the occasion; and the vigour of the brass, and
especially of the big drum, so filled my head with visions of Mr.
Pickwick and his friend the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, that by the time I
reached the market-place, I had forgotten every syllable of the speech
which I had carefully learnt by heart. Nor was it the band alone that
upset me; going up the hill the carriage was all but capsized by the
frightened horses and the breaking of the pole. The gallant
boiler-makers, however, at once removed the horses, and dragged the
carriage with cheers of defiance into the crowd awaiting us.
My agent had settled that I was to speak from a window of the hotel. The
only available one was an upper window, the lower sash of which could not
be persuaded to keep up without being held. The consequence was, just as
I was getting over the embarrassment of extemporary oration, down came
the sash and guillotined me. This put the crowd in the best of humours;
they roared with laughter, and after that we got on capitally together.
A still more inopportune accident happened to me later in the day, when
speaking at Shrivenham. A large yard enclosed by buildings was chosen
for the meeting. The difficulty was to elevate the speaker above the
heads of the assembly. In one corner of the yard was a water-butt. An
ingenious elector got a board, placed it on the top of the butt—which was
full of water—and persuaded me to make this my rostrum. Here, again, in
the midst of my harangue—perhaps I stamped to emphasize my horror of
small loaves and other Tory abominations—the board gave way; and I
narrowly escaped a ducking by leaping into the arms of a ‘supporter.’
The end of it all was that my agent at the last moment threw up the
sponge. The farmers formed a serried phalanx against Free Trade; it was
useless to incur the expense of a poll. Then came the bill. It was a
heavy one; for in addition to my London agent—a professional
electioneering functionary—were the local agents at towns like
Malmesbury, Wootton Bassett, Shrivenham, &c., &c. My eldest brother, who
was a soberer-minded politician than I, although very liberal to me in
other ways, declined to support my political opinions. I myself was
quite unable to pay the costs. Knowing this, Lord Radnor called me into
his study as I was leaving Coleshill, and expressed himself warmly with
respect to my labours; regretting the victory of the other side, he
declared that, as the question of Protection would be disposed of, one of
the two seats would be safe upon a future contest.
‘And who,’ asked the old gentleman, with a benevolent grin on his face,
‘who is going to pay your expenses?’
‘Goodness knows, sir,’ said I; ‘I hope they won’t come down upon me. I
haven’t a thousand pounds in the world, unless I tap my fortune.’
‘Well,’ said his Lordship, with a chuckle, ‘I haven’t paid my
subscription to Brooks’s yet, so I’ll hand it over to you,’ and he gave
me a cheque for £500.
The balance was obtained through Mr. Ellice from the patronage Secretary
to the Treasury. At the next election, as Lord Radnor predicted, Lord
Ashley, Lord Shaftesbury’s eldest son, won one of the two seats for the
Liberals with the greatest ease.
As Coleshill was an open house to me from that time as long as Lord
Radnor lived, I cannot take leave of the dear old man without an
affectionate word at parting. Creevey has an ill-natured fling at him,
as he has at everybody else, but a kinder-hearted and more perfect
gentleman would be difficult to meet with. His personality was a marked
one. He was a little man, with very plain features, a punch-like nose,
an extensive mouth, and hardly a hair on his head. But in spite of these
peculiarities, his face was pleasant to look at, for it was invariably
animated by a sweet smile, a touch of humour, and a decided air of
dignity. Born in 1779, he dressed after the orthodox Whig fashion of his
youth, in buff and blue, his long-tailed coat reaching almost to his
heels. His manner was a model of courtesy and simplicity. He used
antiquated expressions: called London ‘Lunnun,’ Rome ‘Room,’ a balcony a
‘balcöny’; he always spoke of the clergyman as the ‘pearson,’ and called
his daughter Lady Mary, ‘Meary.’ Instead of saying ‘this day week’ he
would say this day sen’nit’ (for sen’night).
The independence of his character was very noticeable. As an instance: A
party of twenty people, say, would be invited for a given day. Abundance
of carriages would be sent to meet the trains, so that all the guests
would arrive in ample time for dinner. It generally happened that some
of them, not knowing the habits of the house, or some duchess or great
lady who might assume that clocks were made for her and not she for
clocks, would not appear in the drawing-room till a quarter of an hour
after the dinner gong had sounded. If anyone did so, he or she would
find that everybody else had got through soup and fish. If no one but
Lady Mary had been down when dinner was announced, his Lordship would
have offered his arm to his daughter, and have taken his seat at the
table alone. After the first night, no one was ever late. In the
morning he read prayers to the household before breakfast with the same
precise punctuality.
Lady Mary Bouverie, his unmarried daughter, was the very best of
hostesses. The house under her management was the perfection of comfort.
She married an old and dear friend of mine, Sir James Wilde, afterwards
the Judge, Lord Penzance. I was his ‘best man.’
My ‘Ride over the Rocky Mountains’ was now published; and, as the field
was a new one, the writer was rewarded, for a few weeks, with invitations
to dinner, and the usual tickets for ‘drums’ and dances. To my
astonishment, or rather to my alarm, I received a letter from the
Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (Charles Fox, or perhaps Sir
George Simpson had, I think, proposed me—I never knew), to say that I had
been elected a member. Nothing was further from my ambition. The very
thought shrivelled me with a sense of ignorance and insignificance. I
pictured to myself an assembly of old fogies crammed with all the
‘ologies. I broke into a cold perspiration when I fancied myself called
upon to deliver a lecture on the comparative sea-bottomy of the Oceanic
globe, or give my theory of the simultaneous sighting by ‘little Billee’
of ‘Madagascar, and North, and South Amerikee.’ Honestly, I had not the
courage to accept; and, young Jackanapes as I was, left the Secretary’s
letter unanswered.
But a still greater honour—perhaps the greatest compliment I ever had
paid me—was to come. I had lodgings at this time in an old house, long
since pulled down, in York Street. One day, when I was practising the
fiddle, who should walk into my den but Rogers the poet! He had never
seen me in his life. He was in his ninetieth year, and he had climbed
the stairs to the first floor to ask me to one of his breakfast parties.
To say nothing of Rogers’ fame, his wealth, his position in society,
those who know what his cynicism and his worldliness were, will
understand what such an effort, physical and moral, must have cost him.
He always looked like a death’s head, but his ghastly pallor, after that
Alpine ascent, made me feel as if he had come—to stay.
These breakfasts were entertainments of no ordinary distinction. The
host himself was of greater interest than the most eminent of his guests.
All but he, were more or less one’s contemporaries: Rogers, if not quite
as dead as he looked, was ancient history. He was old enough to have
been the father of Byron, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Moore. He was
several years older than Scott, or Wordsworth, or Coleridge, and only
four years younger than Pitt. He had known all these men, and could, and
did, talk as no other could talk, of all of them. Amongst those whom I
met at these breakfasts were Cornewall Lewis, Delane, the Grotes,
Macaulay, Mrs. Norton, Monckton Milnes, William Harcourt (the only one
younger than myself), but just beginning to be known, and others of
scarcely less note.
During the breakfast itself, Rogers, though seated at table in an
armchair, took no part either in the repast or in the conversation; he
seemed to sleep until the meal was over. His servant would then place a
cup of coffee before him, and, like a Laputian flapper, touch him gently
on the shoulder. He would at once begin to talk, while others listened.
The first time I witnessed this curious resurrection, I whispered
something to my neighbour, at which he laughed. The old man’s eye was
too sharp for us.
‘You are laughing at me,’ said he; ‘I dare say you young gentlemen think
me an old fellow; but there are younger than I who are older. You should
see Tommy Moore. I asked him to breakfast, but he’s too weak—weak here,
sir,’ and he tapped his forehead. ‘I’m not that.’ (This was the year
that Moore died.) He certainly was not; but his whole discourse was of
the past. It was as though he would not condescend to discuss events or
men of the day. What were either to the days and men that he had
known—French revolutions, battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, a Nelson and
a Buonaparte, a Pitt, a Burke, a Fox, a Johnson, a Gibbon, a Sheridan,
and all the men of letters and all the poets of a century gone by? Even
Macaulay had for once to hold his tongue; and could only smile
impatiently at what perhaps he thought an old man’s astonishing
garrulity. But if a young and pretty woman talked to him, it was not his
great age that he vaunted, nor yet the ‘pleasures of memory’—one envied
the adroitness of his flattery, and the gracefulness of his repartee.
My friend George Cayley had a couple of dingy little rooms between
Parliament Street and the river. Much of my time was spent there with
him. One night after dinner, quite late, we were building castles amidst
tobacco clouds, when, following a ‘May I come in?’ Tennyson made his
appearance. This was the first time I had ever met him. We gave him the
only armchair in the room; and pulling out his dudeen and placing afoot
on each side of the hob of the old-fashioned little grate, he made
himself comfortable before he said another word. He then began to talk
of pipes and tobacco. And never, I should say, did this important topic
afford so much ingenious conversation before. We discussed the relative
merits of all the tobaccos in the world—of moist tobacco and dry tobacco,
of old tobacco and new tobacco, of clay pipes and wooden pipes and
meerschaum pipes. What was the best way to colour them, the advantages
of colouring them, the beauty of the ‘culotte,’ the coolness it gave to
the smoke, &c. We listened to the venerable sage—he was then forty-three
and we only five or six and twenty—as we should have listened to a Homer
or an Aristotle, and he thoroughly enjoyed our appreciation of his jokes.
Some of them would have startled such of his admirers who knew him only
by his poems; for his stories were anything but poetical—rather humorous
one might say, on the whole. Here’s one of them: he had called last week
on the Duchess of Sutherland at Stafford House. Her two daughters were
with her, the Duchess of Argyll and the beautiful Lady Constance
Grosvenor, afterwards Duchess of Westminster. They happened to be in the
garden. After strolling about for a while, the Mama Duchess begged him
to recite some of his poetry. He chose ‘Come into the garden,
Maud’—always a favourite of the poet’s, and, as may be supposed, many
were the fervid exclamations of ‘How beautiful!’ When they came into the
house, a princely groom of the chambers caught his eye and his ear, and,
pointing to his own throat, courteously whispered: ‘Your dress is not
quite as you would wish it, sir.’
‘I had come out without a necktie; and there I was, spouting my lines to
the three Graces, as _décolleté_ as a strutting turkey cock.’
The only other allusion to poetry or literature that night was a story I
told him of a Mr. Thomas Wrightson, a Yorkshire banker, and a fanatical
Swedenborgian. Tommy Wrightson, who was one of the most amiable and
benevolent of men, spent his life in making a manuscript transcript of
Swedenborg’s works. His writing was a marvel of calligraphic art; he
himself, a curiosity. Swedenborg was for him an avatar; but if he had
doubted of Tennyson’s ultimate apotheosis, I think he would have elected
to seek him in ‘the other place.’ Anyhow, Mr. Wrightson avowed to me
that he repeated ‘Locksley Hall’ every morning of his life before
breakfast. This I told Tennyson. His answer was a grunt; and in a voice
from his boots, ‘Ugh! enough to make a dog sick!’ I did my utmost to
console him with the assurance that, to the best of my belief, Mr.
Wrightson had once fallen through a skylight.
As illustrating the characters of the admired and his admirer, it may be
related that the latter, wishing for the poet’s sign-manual, wrote and
asked him for it. He addressed Tennyson, whom he had never seen, as ‘My
dear Alfred.’ The reply, which he showed to me, was addressed ‘My dear
Tom.’