Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to
Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near
where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of
the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have
not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he
suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it
might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In
the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield
harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of
1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to
see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative
work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the
host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was
Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the
Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a
mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide
behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord
Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on
his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace
of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in
the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the
creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political
party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select
and beautiful entertaining.
Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time,
be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of
Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of
Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of
Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening
party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt
the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished
Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador.
Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from
the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by
the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and
contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.
Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party,
still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I
fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing
else, will always preserve it from oblivion.
I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their
imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the
innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not
dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period
which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long
stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On
the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square,
the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street,
Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace,
Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and
Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come
to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its
social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April
1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's
Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and
that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord
Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a
"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a
dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and
beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the
concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney
Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that
"the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and
Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of
wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space
before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but
he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South
Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparent
had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have
had to enlarge his mental borders.
Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I
first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The
"Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I
hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names.
The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing
dogs,"--the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes--can be imagined as
easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows;
friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would
scarcely call them interesting; and the companionship of a club or a
ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:--
"The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there,
The shining, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."
But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one
used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord
Beaconsfield,--past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his
black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his
face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which
still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.
Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round
toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like
a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved
through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which
had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady
Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord
Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,--a
noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind
gaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was dead
before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the
intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in
Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic
type.
Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary
friends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. His
appearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming as
a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as
Mr. Vavasour in _Tancred_, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite
variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country
gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and
acted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him he
was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth
had copied the decoration for his "Marriage à la mode." The site is now
occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt
the Piccadilly which he loved.
"There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend,
Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial
friend;
Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the
northern kilns,
He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky
Milnes."[27]
When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly
arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a
rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of
reddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. The
broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a
distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief
Justice of England,--Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuous
figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the
"Hortensius" of _Endymion_, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had
carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the
British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and
the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who
was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking
of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of
conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a
successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"
growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a
stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."
The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at
the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th
Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen
lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour,
weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great
possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do
something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly
youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.
Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about
those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and
shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be
struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it
is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the
walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth
coming to London to see." This description, though written some years
before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I
first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked
in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:
"But where is now the courtly troop
That once rode laughing by?
I miss the curls of Cantilupe,
The laugh of Lady Di."
Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man
of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had
married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came
to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective
melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked
Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than
Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?
Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine
horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such
agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the
triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the
lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching
if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a
photograph.
With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, the
period of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and Miss
Terry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate
"staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with that
wonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest comedy, and her
accomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously with
her own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, and
the Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and the
riotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil,
at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provoking
memories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there was
the long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must have
afforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a larger
number of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in the
public service.
As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from Lord
Beaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none ever
understood London so perfectly as he.
"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see a
single person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and it
shows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in this
wonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in which
we move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them."
Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they still
hold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. The
Opera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It had
ceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merely
fashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun.
Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramatic
counterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attracted
me was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of a
really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the
witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel;
to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the
Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness
by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly
be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in
a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a
fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to
tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony;
and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, can never be
forgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "Jockey
Trial," in 1888, the "Baccarat Case," in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar,"
of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the period
covered by this chapter.
My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be a
lawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightest
degree,--Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874
cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name and
connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar,
pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering
Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it
seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a
student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the
Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of
eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiences
of my favourite "Pen." The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfully
little in the lapse of forty years.
"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple provides in its Hall,
and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner of
soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers and
Students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in
messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of
mutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This is
boiled beef day, I believe, Sir,' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word,
Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term;
on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall.
'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular
swells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail, the Bishop of
Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you
know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess
with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here
to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. _They_ dine here,
Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some
grand dinner-party. You see their names in the _Morning Post_ at all the
fine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, I
dare say.' 'But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't
eat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn't
there?' 'How green you are,' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green!
They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle
to himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps.
That's why Corkoran got in with them.'"
Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they were
in mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox,
now K.C., and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall under
his learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completed
the erudite work which in those distant days he contemplated
undertaking,
"Tell a Lie and Stick to it:"
A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel.
But this is a digression.
Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought to
recall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield was
at the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though the
crowning triumph of 1880 was not far off, was so unpopular in Society
that I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, who
found it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisbury
had just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning to
play for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind of
awe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and Lord
Randolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club.
Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliant
Cockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing to
succeed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and Henry
James and Charles Russell had established their positions. In the
hierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled his
patients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religious
mysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet with
the Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may be
truly free." In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, the
most dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and a
really impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. The
Northern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled "The Archbishop of Society";
and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace and
culture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson,
afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointed
to St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a Dead
Sea of lethargy and formalism.
Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims at
commemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, which
commanded my attention when I began to know--otherwise than as a
schoolboy can know it--what London is, means, and contains. Five and
thirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceased
to exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, in
succeeding ages, have loved London and found it their natural
dwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsman
to applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign of
Charles II., but it is exactly mine.
"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true men
might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then
fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to the
Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and
so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no
kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is
a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you
be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain.
When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... in
the Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in the
others what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believe
but one, for but one of both says true you may be assured."
We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the same
tune as Squire Hicks.
"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have
been in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and science
within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all
the rest of the kingdom."
"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is
intellectual, London is the place."
"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to
which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements."
But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London,
was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London was
never dull, there at least he could keep the monster _Ennui_ at a
respectful distance." For him its heat was always tempered; even its
solitude was "delicious." In "the soft retirement of my _bocage de_
Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I am
just going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in _my_
gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper and
early bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, without
any regard to the world or to fashion."
So much for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; we now return to
the nineteenth and are listening to Sydney Smith. "I look forward
anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good society
in a crowded city." "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winter
it is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeeds
in another state of existence." "You may depend upon it, all lives lived
out of London are mistakes, more or less grievous--but mistakes." "I
shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures,
bad reasoning, and worse cookery."
Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly did
he know and love his London.
"It was a mild winter evening, a little fog still hanging about, but
vanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the muffin-bell was
heard at intervals; a genial sound that calls up visions of trim and
happy hearths. If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into the
country for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town for
the first note of the muffin-bell, existence, it is humbly presumed,
might be more enjoyable."
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Lord Beaconsfield, _Tancred_.
[22] Written in May, 1910.
[23] A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, "Billy Johnson," for
a florid journalist.
[24] Lord Beaconsfield, _Lothair_.
[25] See M. Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880.
[26] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
[27] Sir George Trevelyan, _The Ladies in Parliament_.
VIII
HOSPITALITY
"I never eat and I never drink," said the Cardinal. "I am sorry to
say I cannot. I like dinner-society very much. You see the world,
and you hear things which you do not hear otherwise."
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society,
and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and profession
permitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went to
Mrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important
acquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and his
visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorable
results.