the part have acted on the principle that no human life can be properly
understood without an exhaustive knowledge of its grandfathers and
grandmothers. They have resuscitated George III. and called Queen
Charlotte from her long home. With a less heroic insistence on the
historic method, I leave grandparents out of sight, and begin my gossip
with the Queen's uncles. Of George IV. it is less necessary that I
should speak, for has not his character been drawn by Thackeray in his
_Lectures on the Four Georges?_
"The dandy of sixty, who bows with a grace,
And has taste in wigs, collars, cuirasses, and lace;
Who to tricksters and fools leaves the State and its treasure,
And, while Britain's in tears, sails about at his pleasure,"
was styled, as we all know, "the First Gentleman in Europe." I forget if
I have previously narrated the following instance of gentlemanlike
conduct. If I have, it will bear repetition. The late Lord Charles
Russell (1807-1894), when a youth of eighteen, had just received a
commission in the Blues, and was commanded, with the rest of his
regiment, to a full-dress ball at Carlton House, where the King then
held his Court. Unluckily for his peace of mind, the young subaltern
dressed at his father's house, and, not being used to the splendid
paraphernalia of the Blues' uniform, he omitted to put on his
aiguillette. Arrived at Carlton House the company, before they could
enter the ball-room, had to advance in single file along a corridor in
which the old King, bewigged and bestarred, was seated on a sofa. When
the hapless youth who lacked the aiguillette approached the presence, he
heard a very high voice exclaim, "Who is this d--d fellow?" Retreat was
impossible, and there was nothing for it but to shuffle on and try to
pass the King without further rebuke. Not a bit of it. As he neared the
sofa the King exclaimed, "Good evening, sir. I suppose you are the
regimental doctor?" and the imperfectly-accoutred youth, covered with
confusion as with a cloak, fled blushing into the ball-room, and hid
himself from further observation. And yet the narrator of this painful
story always declared that George IV. could be very gracious when the
fancy took him; that he was uniformly kind to children; and that on
public occasions his manner was the perfection of kingly courtesy. His
gorgeous habits and profuse expenditure made him strangely popular. The
people, though they detested his conduct, thought him "every inch a
King." Lord Shaftesbury, noting in his diary for the 19th of May 1849
the attempt of Hamilton upon the Queen's life, writes:--"The profligate
George IV. passed through a life of selfishness and sin without a single
proved attempt to take it. This mild and virtuous young woman has four
times already been exposed to imminent peril."
The careers of the King's younger brothers and sisters would fill a
volume of "queer stories." Of the Duke of York Mr. Goldwin Smith
genially remarks that "the only meritorious action of his life was that
he once risked it in a duel." The Duke of Clarence--Burns's "Young royal
Tarry Breeks"--lived in disreputable seclusion till he ascended the
throne, and then was so excited by his elevation that people thought he
was going mad. The Duke of Cumberland was the object of a popular
detestation of which the grounds can be discovered in the _Annual
Register_ for 1810. The Duke of Sussex made two marriages in defiance of
the Royal Marriage Act, and took a political part as active on the
Liberal side as that of the Duke of Cumberland among the Tories. The
Duke of Cambridge is chiefly remembered by his grotesque habit
(recorded, by the way, in _Happy Thoughts_) of making loud responses of
his own invention to the service in church. "Let us pray," said the
clergyman: "By all means," said the Duke. The clergyman begins the
prayer for rain: the Duke exclaims, "No good as long as the wind is in
the east."
_Clergyman_: "'Zacchaeus stood forth and said, Behold, Lord, the half of
my goods I give to the poor.'"
_Duke_: "Too much, too much; don't mind tithes, but can't stand that."
To two of the Commandments, which I decline to discriminate, the Duke's
responses were--"Quite right, quite right, but very difficult
sometimes;'" and "No, no! It was my brother Ernest did that."
Those who care to pursue these curious byways of not very ancient
history are referred to the unfailing Greville; to Lady Anne Hamilton's
_Secret History of the Court of England;_ and to the _Recollections of a
Lady of Quality_, commonly ascribed to Lady Charlotte Bury. The closer
our acquaintance with the manners and habits of the last age, even in
what are called "the highest circles," the more wonderful will appear
the social transformation which dates from her Majesty's accession.
Thackeray spoke the words of truth and soberness when, after describing
the virtues and the limitations of George III., he said: "I think we
acknowledge in the inheritrix of his sceptre a wiser rule and a life as
honourable and pure; and I am sure that the future painter of our
manners will pay a willing allegiance to that good life, and be loyal to
the memory of that unsullied virtue."
For the earlier years of the Queen's reign Greville continues to be a
fairly safe guide, though his footing at the palace was by no means so
intimate as it had been in the roistering days of George IV. and William
IV. Of course, her Majesty's own volumes and Sir Theodore Martin's _Life
of the Prince Consort_ are of primary authority. Interesting glimpses
are to be caught in the first volume of Bishop Wilberforce's Life, ere
yet his tergiversation in the matter of Bishop Hampden had forfeited the
Royal favour; and the historian of the future will probably make great
use of the Letters of Sarah Lady Lyttelton--Governess, to the Queen's
children--which, being printed for private circulation, are unluckily
withheld from the present generation.
A pleasing instance of the ultra-German etiquette fomented by Prince
Albert was told me by an eye-witness of the scene. The Prime Minister
and his wife were dining at Buckingham Palace very shortly after they
had received an addition to their family. When the ladies retired to the
drawing-room after dinner, the Queen said most kindly to the Premier's
wife, "I know you are not very strong yet, Lady----; so I beg you will
sit down. And, when the Prince comes in, Lady D---- shall stand in front
of you." This device of screening a breach of etiquette by hiding it
behind the portly figure of a British Matron always struck me as
extremely droll.
Courtly etiquette, with the conditions out of which it springs and its
effect upon the character of those who are subjected to it, has, of
course, been a favourite theme of satirists time out of mind, and there
can scarcely be a more fruitful one. There are no heights to which it
does not rise, nor depths to which it does not sink. In the service for
the Queen's Accession the Christological psalms are boldly transferred
to the Sovereign by the calm substitution of "her" for "Him." A few
years back--I do not know if it is so now--I noticed that in the
prayer-books in St. George's Chapel at Windsor all the pronouns which
referred to the Holy Trinity were spelt with small letters, and those
which referred to the Queen with capitals. So much for the heights of
etiquette, and for its depths we will go to Thackeray's account of an
incident stated to have occurred on the birth of the Duke of Connaught:
"Lord John he next alights.
And who comes here in haste?
The Hero of a Hundred Fights,
The caudle for to taste.
"Then Mrs. Lily the nuss,
Towards them steps with joy;
Says the brave old Duke, 'Come tell to us.
Is it a gal or boy?'
"Says Mrs. L. to the Duke,
'Your Grace, it is a _Prince_'
And at that nurse's bold rebuke
He did both laugh and wince."
Such was the etiquette of the Royal nursery in 1850; but little Princes,
even though ushered into the world under such very impressive
circumstances, grow up into something not very unlike other little boys
when once they go to school. Of course, in former days young Princes
were educated at home by private tutors. This was the education of the
Queen's uncles and of her sons. A very different experience has been
permitted to her grandsons. The Prince of Wales's boys, as we all
remember, were middies; Princess Christian's sons were at Wellington;
Prince Arthur of Connaught is at Eton. There he is to be joined next
year by the little Duke of Albany, who is now at a private school in the
New Forest. He has among his schoolfellows his cousin Prince Alexander
of Battenberg, of whom a delightful story is current just now.[27] Like
many other little boys, he ran short of pocket money, and wrote an
ingenious letter to his august Grandmother asking for some slight
pecuniary assistance. He received in return a just rebuke, telling him
that little boys should keep within their limits, and that he must wait
till his allowance next became due. Shortly afterwards the undefeated
little Prince resumed the correspondence in something like the following
form: "My dear Grandmamma,--I am sure you will be glad to know that I
need not trouble you for any money just now, for I sold your last letter
to another boy here for 30s."
As Royalty emerges from infancy and boyhood into the vulgar and
artificial atmosphere of the grown-up world, it is daily and hourly
exposed to such sycophancy that Royal persons acquire, quite
unconsciously, a habit of regarding every subject in heaven and earth in
its relation to themselves. An amusing instance of this occurred a few
years ago on an occasion when one of our most popular Princesses
expressed a gracious wish to present a very smart young gentleman to the
Queen. This young man had a remarkably good opinion of himself; was the
eldest son of a peer, and a Member of Parliament; and it happened that
he was also related to a lady who belonged to one of the Royal
Households. So the Princess led the young exquisite to the august
presence, and then sweetly said, "I present Mr. ----, who is"--not Lord
Blank's eldest son or Member for Loamshire, but--"nephew to dear Aunt
Cambridge's lady." My young friend told me that he had never till that
moment realized how completely he lacked a position of his own in the
universe of created being.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] June 20-27, 1897.
[27] All this is now ancient history. 1903.
XXIII.
LORD BEACONSFIELD.
Archbishop Tait wrote on the 11th of February 1877: "Attended this week
the opening of Parliament, the Queen being present, and wearing for the
first time, some one says, her crown as Empress of India. Lord
Beaconsfield was on her left side, holding aloft the Sword of State. At
five the House again was crammed to see him take his seat; and Slingsby
Bethell, equal to the occasion, read aloud the writ in very distinct
tones. All seemed to be founded on the model, 'What shall be done to the
man whom the king delighteth to honour?'"
_Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu près d'elle_. For the last
month[28] our thoughts have been fixed upon the Queen to the exclusion
of all else; but now the regal splendours of the Jubilee have faded. The
majestic theme is, in fact, exhausted; and we turn, by a natural
transition, from the Royal Rose to its subservient primrose; from the
wisest of Sovereigns to the wiliest of Premiers; from the character,
habits, and life of the Queen to the personality of that extraordinary
child of Israel who, though he was not the Rose, lived uncommonly near
it; and who, more than any other Minister before or since his day,
contrived to identify himself in the public view with the Crown itself.
There is nothing invidious in this use of a racial term. It was one of
Lord Beaconsfield's finest qualities that he laboured all through his
life to make his race glorious and admired. To a Jewish boy--a friend of
my own--who was presented to him in his old age he said: "You and I
belong to a race which knows how to do everything but fail."
Is Lord Beaconsfield's biography ever to be given to the world? Not in
our time, at any rate, if we may judge by the signs. Perhaps Lord Rowton
finds it more convenient to live on the vague but splendid anticipations
of future success than on the admitted and definite failure of a too
cautious book. Perhaps he finds his personal dignity enhanced by those
mysterious flittings to Windsor and Osborne, where he is understood to
be comparing manuscripts and revising proofs with an Illustrious
Personage. But there is the less occasion to lament Lord Rowton's
tardiness, because we already possess Mr. Froude's admirable monograph
on Lord Beaconsfield in the series of _The Queen's Prime Ministers_, and
an extremely clear-sighted account of his relations with the Crown in
Mr. Reginald Brett's _Yoke of Empire_.
My present purpose is not controversial. I do not intend to estimate the
soundness of Lord Beaconsfield's opinions or the permanent value of his
political work. It is enough to recall what the last German
Ambassador--Count Münster--told me, and what, in a curtailed form, has
been so often quoted. Prince Bismarck said, "I think nothing of their
Lord Salisbury. He is only a lath painted to look like iron. But that
old Jew means business." This is merely a parenthesis. I am at present
concerned only with Lord Beaconsfield's personal traits. When I first
encountered him he was already an old man. He had left far behind those
wonderful days of the black velvet dress-coat lined with white satin,
the "gorgeous gold flowers on a splendidly embroidered waistcoat," the
jewelled rings worn outside the white gloves, the evening cane of ivory
inlaid with gold and adorned with a tassel of black silk. "We were none
of us fools," said one of his most brilliant contemporaries, "and each
man talked his best; but we all agreed that the cleverest fellow in the
party was the young Jew in the green velvet trousers." Considerably in
the background, too, were the grotesque performances of his rural life,
when, making up for the character of a country gentleman, he "rode an
Arabian mare for thirty miles across country without stopping," attended
Quarter Sessions in drab breeches and gaiters, and wandered about the
lanes round Hughenden pecking up primroses with a spud.
When I first saw Mr. Disraeli, as he then was, all these follies were
matters of ancient history. They had played their part, and were
discarded. He was dressed much like other gentlemen of the 'Sixties--in
a black frock coat, gray or drab trousers, a waistcoat cut rather low,
and a black cravat which went once round the neck and was tied in a
loose bow. In the country his costume was a little more adventurous. A
black velveteen jacket, a white waistcoat, a Tyrolese hat, lent
picturesque incident and variety to his appearance. But the brilliant
colours were reserved for public occasions. I never saw him look better
than in his peer's robes of scarlet and ermine when he took his seat in
the House of Lords, or more amazing than when, tightly buttoned up in
the Privy Councillor's uniform of blue and gold, he stood in the
"general circle" at the Drawing-room or Levée. In his second
Administration he looked extraordinarily old. His form was shrunk, and
his face of a death-like pallor. Ever since an illness in early manhood
he had always dyed his hair, and the contrast between the artificial
blackness and the natural paleness was extremely startling. The one sign
of vitality which his appearance presented was the brilliancy of his
dark eyes, which still flashed with penetrating lustre.
The immense powers of conversation of which we read so much in his
early days, when he "talked like a racehorse approaching the winning
post," and held the whole company spellbound by his tropical eloquence,
had utterly vanished. He seemed, as he was, habitually oppressed by
illness or discomfort. He sat for hours together in moody silence. When
he opened his lips it was to pay an elaborate (and sometimes misplaced)
compliment to a lady, or to utter an epigrammatic judgment on men or
books, which recalled the conversational triumphs of his prime. Skill in
phrase-making was perhaps the literary gift which he most admired. In a
conversation with Mr. Matthew Arnold shortly before his death he said,
with a touch of pathos, "You are a fortunate man. The young men read
you; they no longer read me. And you have invented phrases which every
one quotes--such as 'Philistinism' and 'Sweetness and Light.'" It was a
characteristic compliment, for he dearly loved a good phrase. From the
necessities of his position as a fighting politician, his own best
performances in that line were sarcasms; and indeed sarcasm was the gift
in which from first to last, in public and in private, in writing and in
speaking, he peculiarly excelled. To recall the instances would be to
rewrite his political novels and to transcribe those attacks on Sir
Robert Peel which made his fame and fortune.
It was my good fortune when quite a boy to be present at the debates in
the House of Commons on the Tory Reform Bill of 1867. Never were Mr.
Disraeli's gifts of sarcasm, satire, and ridicule so richly displayed,
and never did they find so responsive a subject as Mr. Gladstone. As
schoolboys say, "he rose freely." The Bill was read a second time
without a division, but in Committee the fun waxed fast and furious, and
was marked by the liveliest encounters between the Leader of the House
and the Leader of the Opposition. At the conclusion of one of these
passages of arms Mr. Disraeli gravely congratulated himself on having
such a substantial piece of furniture as the table of the House between
himself and his energetic opponent. In May 1867 Lord Houghton writes
thus: "I met Gladstone at breakfast. He seems quite awed with the
diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, is gradually driving all
ideas of political honour out of the House, and accustoming it to the
most revolting cynicism." Was it cynicism, or some related but more
agreeable quality, which suggested Mr. Disraeli's reply to the wealthy
manufacturer, newly arrived in the House of Commons, who complimented
him on his novels? "I can't say I've read them myself. Novels are not in
my line. But my daughters tell me they are uncommonly good." "Ah," said
the Leader of the House, in his deepest note, "this, indeed, is fame."
The mention of novels reminds me of a story which I heard twenty years
ago; when Mr. Mallock produced his first book--the admirable _New
Republic_. A lady who was his constant friend and benefactress begged
Lord Beaconsfield to read the book and say something civil about it. The
Prime Minister replied with a groan, "Ask me anything, dear lady, except
this. I am an old man. Do not make me read your young friend's
romances." "Oh, but he would be a great accession to the Tory party, and
a civil word from you would secure him for ever." "Oh--well, then, give
me a pen and a sheet of paper," and sitting down in the lady's
drawing-room, he wrote: "Dear Mrs.----,--I am sorry that I cannot dine
with you, but I am going down to Hughenden for a week. Would that my
solitude could be peopled by the bright creations of Mr. Mallock's
fancy!" "Will that do for your young friend?" Surely, as an appreciation
of a book which one has not read, this is absolutely perfect.
When Lord Beaconsfield was driven from office by the General Election of
1880, one of his supporters in the House of Commons begged a great
favour--"May I bring my boy to see you, and will you give him some word
of counsel which he may treasure all his life as the utterance of the
greatest Englishman who ever lived?" Lord Beaconsfield groaned, but
consented. On the appointed day the proud father presented himself with
his young hopeful in Lord Beaconsfield's presence. "My dear young
friend," said the statesman, "your good papa has asked me to give you a
word of counsel which may serve you all your life. Never ask who wrote
the Letters of Junius, or on which side of Whitehall Charles I. was
beheaded; for if you do you will be considered a bore--and that is
something too dreadful for you at your tender age to understand." For
these last two stories I by no means vouch. They belong to the flotsam
and jetsam of ephemeral gossip. But the following, which I regard as
eminently characteristic, I had from Lord Randolph Churchill.
Towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Premiership a younger
politician asked the Premier to dinner. It was a domestic event of the
first importance, and no pains were spared to make the entertainment a
success. When the ladies retired, the host came and sat where the
hostess had been, next to his distinguished guest. "Will you have some
more claret, Lord Beaconsfield?" "No, thank you, my dear fellow. It is
admirable wine--true Falernian--but I have already exceeded my
prescribed quantity, and the gout holds me in its horrid clutch." When
the party had broken up, the host and hostess were talking it over. "I
think the chief enjoyed himself," said the host, "and I know he liked
his claret." "Claret!" exclaimed the hostess; "why, he drank
brandy-and-water all dinner-time."
I said in an earlier paragraph that Lord Beaconsfield's flattery was
sometimes misplaced. An instance recurs to my recollection. He was
staying in a country house where the whole party was Conservative with
the exception of one rather plain, elderly lady, who belonged to a great
Whig family. The Tory leader was holding forth on politics to an
admiring circle when the Whig lady came into the room. Pausing in his
conversation, Lord Beaconsfield exclaimed, in his most histrionic
manner, "But hush! We must not continue these Tory heresies until those
pretty little ears have been covered up with those pretty little
hands"--a strange remark under any circumstances, and stranger still if,
as his friends believed, it was honestly intended as an acceptable
compliment.
Mr. Brett, who shows a curious sympathy with the personal character of
Lord Beaconsfield, acquits him of the charge of flattery, and quotes his
own description of his method: "I never contradict; I never deny; but I
sometimes forget." On the other hand, it has always been asserted by
those who had the best opportunities of personal observation that Lord
Beaconsfield succeeded in converting the dislike with which he had once
been regarded in the highest quarters into admiration and even
affection, by his elaborate and studied acquiescence in every claim,
social or political, of Royalty, and by his unflagging perseverance in
the art of flattery. He was a courtier, not by descent or breeding, but
by genius. What could be more skilful than the inclusion of _Leaves from
the Journal of our Life in the Highlands_ with _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_
in the phrase "We authors"?--than his grave declaration, "Your Majesty
is the head of the literary profession"?--than his announcement at the
dinner-table at Windsor, with reference to some disputed point of regal
genealogy, "We are in the presence of probably the only Person in Europe
who could tell us"? In the last year of his life he said to Mr. Matthew
Arnold, in a strange burst of confidence which showed how completely he
realized that his fall from power was final, "You have heard me accused
of being a flatterer. It is true. I am a flatterer. I have found it
useful. Every one likes flattery: and when you come to Royalty you
should lay it on with a trowel." In this business Lord Beaconsfield
excelled. Once, sitting at dinner by the Princess of Wales, he was
trying to cut a hard dinner-roll. The knife slipped and cut his finger,
which the Princess, with her natural grace, instantly wrapped up in her
handkerchief. The old gentleman gave a dramatic groan, and exclaimed,
"When I asked for bread they gave me a stone; but I had a Princess to
bind my wounds."