Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian
girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre--Two witty ladies--Two clever
girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian
English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--Practical jokes--Lord
Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--The shoe-less
legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Celyon's
spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in
Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and
Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--W.H. Smith--The
Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at Westminster--A
Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay.
The London of 1876 boasted an extraordinary constellation of lovely
women. First and foremost came the two peerless Moncreiffe sisters,
Georgiana Lady Dudley, and Helen Lady Forbes. Lady Dudley was then a
radiant apparition, and her sister, the most perfect example of
classical beauty I have ever seen, had features as clean-cut as those
of a cameo. Lady Forbes always wore her hair simply parted in the
middle, a thing that not one woman in a thousand can afford to do, and
glorious auburn hair it was, with a natural ripple in it. I have seldom
seen a head so perfectly placed on the shoulders as that of Lady
Forbes. The Dowager Lady Ormonde and the late Lady Ripon were then
still unmarried; the first, Lady Leila Grosvenor, with the face of a
Raphael Madonna, the other, Lady Gladys Herbert, a splendid, slender,
Juno-like young goddess. The rather cruelly named "professional
beauties" had just come into prominence, the three great rivals being
Mrs. Langtry, then fresh from Jersey, Mrs. Cornwallis West, and Mrs.
Wheeler. Unlike most people, I should myself have given the prize to
the second of these ladies. I do not think that any one now could
occupy the commanding position in London which Constance Duchess of
Westminster and the Duchess of Manchester (afterwards Duchess of
Devonshire) then held. In fact, with skirts to the knee, and an
unending expanse of stocking below them, it would be difficult to
assume the dignity with which these great ladies, in their flowing
Victorian draperies, swept into a room. The stately Dutchess of
Westminster, in spite of her massive outline, had still a fine
classical head, and the Duchess of Manchester was one of the handsomest
women in Europe. London society was so much smaller then, that it was a
sort of enlarged family party, and I, having six married sisters, found
myself with unnumbered hosts of relations and connections. I retain
delightful recollections of the mid-Victorian girl. These maidens, in
their airy clouds of white, pink, or green tulle, and their untouched
faces, had a deliciously fresh, flower-like look which is wholly
lacking in their sisters of to-day. A young girl's charm is her
freshness, and if she persists in coating her face with powder and
rouge that freshness vanishes, and one sees merely rows of vapid little
doll-like faces, all absolutely alike, and all equally artificial and
devoid of expression. These present skimpy draperies cause one to
reflect that Nature has not lavished broadcast the gift of good feet
and neat ankles; possibly some girls might lengthen their skirts if
they realised this truth.
In the "seventies" there was a wonderful galaxy of talent at the old
Gaiety Theatre, Nellie Farren, Kate Vaughan, Edward Terry, and Royce
forming a matchless quartette. Young men, of course, will always be
foolish, up to the end of time. Nellie Farren, Kate Vaughan and Emily
Duncan all had their "colours." Nellie Farren's were dark blue, light
blue, and white; Kate Vaughan's were pink and grey; Emily Duncan's
black and white; the leading hosiers "stocked" silk scarves of these
colours, and we foolish young men bought the colours of the lady we
especially admired, and sat in the stalls of the Gaiety flaunting the
scarves of our favourite round our necks. As I then thought, and still
think, that Nellie Farren was one of the daintiest and most graceful
little creatures ever seen on the stage, with a gaminerie all her own,
I, in common with many other youths, sat in the stalls of the Gaiety
wrapped in a blue-and-white scarf. Each lady showered smiles over the
footlights at her avowed admirers, whilst contemptuously ignoring those
who sported her rival's colours. One silly youth, to testify to his
admiration for Emily Duncan, actually had white kid gloves with black
fingers, specially manufactured for him. He was, we hope, repaid for
his outlay by extra smiles from his enchantress.
Traces of the witty early nineteenth century still lingered into the
"seventies," "eighties," and "nineties." Lady Constance Leslie, who is
still living, and the late Lady Cork were almost the last descendants
of the brilliant wits of Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook's days. The
hurry of modern life, and the tendency of the age to scratch the
surface of things only, are not favourable to the development of this
type of keen intellect, which was based on a thorough knowledge of the
English classics, and on such a high level of culture as modern
trouble-hating women could but seldom hope to attain. Time and time
again I have asked Lady Cork for the origin of some quotation. She
invariably gave it me at once, usually quoting some lines of the
context at the same time. When I complimented her on her wonderful
knowledge of English literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, she answered, "In my young days we studied the 'Belles
Lettres'; modern women only study 'Belle's Letters,'" an allusion to a
weekly summary of social events then appearing in the World under that
title, a chronicle voraciously devoured by thousands of women. When the
early prejudice against railways was alluded to by some one who
recalled the storms of protest that the conveyance of the Duke of
Sussex's body by train to Windsor for burial provoked, as being
derogatory to the dignity of a Royal Duke, it was Lady Cork who rapped
out, "I presume in those days, a novel apposition of the quick and the
dead." A certain peer was remarkable alike for his extreme parsimony
and his unusual plainness of face. His wife shared these
characteristics, both facial and temperamental, to the full, and yet
this childless, unprepossessing and eminently economical couple were
absolutely wrapped up in one another; after his death she only lingered
on for three months. Some one commenting on this, said, "They were
certainly the stingiest and probably the ugliest couple in England, yet
their devotion to each other was very beautiful. They could neither of
them bear to part with anything, not even with each other. After his
death she was like a watch that had lost its mainspring." "Surely,"
flashed Lady Constance Leslie, "more like a vessel which had lost her
auxiliary screw." The main characteristic of both Lady Cork and Lady
Constance Leslie's humour was its lightning speed. It is superfluous to
add, with these quick-witted ladies it was never necessary to EXPLAIN
anything, as it is to the majority of English people; they understood
before you had finished saying it.
Many years after, in the late "eighties," Lady Constance Leslie's two
elder daughters, now Mrs. Crawshay and Lady Hope, developed a singular
gift. They could improvise blank verse indefinitely, and with their
father, Sir John Leslie, they acted little mock Shakespearean dramas in
their ordinary clothes, and without any scenery or accessories. Every
word was impromptu, and yet the even flow of blank verse never ceased.
I always thought it a singularly clever performance, for Mrs. Crawshay
can only have been nineteen then, and her sister eighteen. Mrs.
Crawshay invariably played the heroine, Lady Hope the confidante, and
Sir John Leslie any male part requisite. No matter what the subject
given them might be, they would start in blank verse at once. Let us
suppose so unpromising a subject as the collection of railway tickets
outside a London terminus had been selected. Lady Hope, with pleading
eyes, and all the conventional gestures of sympathy of a stage
confidante, would at once start apostrophising her sister in some such
fashion as this:--
"Fair Semolina, dry those radiant orbs; Thy swain doth beg thee but a
token small Of that great love which thou dost bear to him. Prithee,
sweet mistress, take now heart of grace, At times we all credentials
have to show, Eftsoons at Willesden halts the panting train, Each
traveller knows inexorable fate Hath trapped him in her toils; loud
rings the tread Of brass-bound despot as he wends his way From door to
door, claiming with gesture rude His pound of flesh, or eke the
pasteboard slip, Punched with much care, all travel-worn and stained,
For which perchance ten ducats have been paid, Granting full access
from some distant spot. Then trembles he, who reckless loves to sip The
joys of travel free of all expense; Knowing the fate that will pursue
him, when To stern collector he hath naught to show."
To which her sister, Mrs. Crawshay, would reply, without one instant's
hesitation, somewhat after this style:--
"Sweet Tapioca, firm and faithful friend,
Thy words have kindled in my guilty breast
Pangs of remorse; to thee I will confess.
Craving a journey to the salt sea waves
Before this moon had waxed her full, I stood
Crouching, and feigning infant's stature small
Before the wicket, whence the precious slips
Are issued, and declared my years but ten.
Thus did I falsely pretext tender age,
And claimed but half the wonted price, and now
Bitter remorse my stricken conscience sears,
And hot tears flow at my duplicity."
The lines would probably have been more neatly worded than this, but
the flow of improvised blank verse from both sisters was inexhaustible.
The somewhat unusual names of Semolina and Tapioca had been adopted for
the heroine and confidante on account of their rhythmical advantages,
and a certain pleasant Shakespearean ring about them.
I know another family who from long practice have acquired the habit of
addressing each other in flowing periods of Johnsonian English. They
never hesitate for an epithet, and manage to round off all their
sentences in Dr. Johnson's best manner. I was following the hounds on
foot one day, with the eldest daughter of this family, when, as we
struggled through a particularly sticky and heavy ploughed field, she
panted out, "Pray let us hasten to the summit of yonder commanding
eminence, whence we can with greater comfort to ourselves witness the
further progress of the chase," and all this without the tiniest
hesitation; a most enviable gift! A son of this family was once riding
in the same steeplechase as a nephew of mine. The youth had lost his
cap, and turning round in his saddle, he shouted to my nephew in the
middle of the race, between two fences, "You will perceive that I have
already sacrificed my cap, and laid it as a votive offering on the
altar of Diana." One would hardly have anticipated that a youthful
cavalry subaltern, in the middle of a steeplechase, would have been
able to lay his hands on such choice flowers of speech. Unfortunately,
owing to the time lost by these well-turned periods, both the speaker
and my nephew merely figured as "also ran."
In the "seventies" some of the curious tricks of pronunciation of the
eighteenth century still survived. My aunts, who had been born with, or
before the nineteenth century, invariably pronounced "yellow" as
"yaller." "Lilac" and "cucumber" became "laylock" and "cowcumber," and
a gold bracelet was referred to as a "goold brasslet." They always
spoke of "Proosia" and "Roosia," drank tea out of a "chaney" cup, and
the eldest of them was still "much obleeged" for any little service
rendered to her, played at "cyards," and took a stroll in the
"gyarden." My grandfather, who was born in 1766, insisted to the end of
his life on terming the capital of these islands "Lunnon," in
eighteenth-century fashion.
Possibly people were more cultured in those days, or, at all events,
more in the habit of using their brains. Imbecility, whether real or
simulated, had not come into fashion. My mother told me that in her
young days a very favourite amusement in country houses was to write
imitations or parodies of some well-known poet, and every one took part
in this. Nowadays no one would have read the originals, much less be
able to imitate them. My mother had a commonplace book into which she
had copied the cleverest of these skits, and Landseer illustrated it
charmingly in pen-and-ink for her.
Any one reading the novels of the commencement of the nineteenth
century must have noticed how wonderfully popular practical jokes,
often of the crudest nature, then were. A brutal practical joke always
seems to me to indicate a very rudimentary and undeveloped sense of
humour in its perpetrator. Some people with paleolithic intellects seem
to think it exquisitely humorous to see a man fall down and hurt
himself. A practical joke which hurts no one is another matter. All
those privileged to enjoy the friendship of the late Admiral Lord
Charles Beresford will always treasure the memory of that genial and
delightful personality. About thirty years ago an elderly gentleman
named Bankes-Stanhope seemed to imagine that he had some proprietary
rights in the Carlton Club. Mr. Bankes-Stanhope had his own chair,
lamp, and table there, and was exceedingly zealous in reminding members
of the various rules of the club. Smoking was strictly forbidden in the
hall of the Carlton at that time. I was standing in the hall one night
when Lord Charles came out of the writing-room, a big bundle of newly
written letters in his hand, and a large cigar in his mouth. He had
just received a shilling's-worth of stamps from the waiter, when old
Mr. Bankes-Stanhope, who habitually puffed and blew like Mr.
Jogglebury-Crowdey of "Sponge's Sporting Tour," noticed the forbidden
cigar through a glass door, and came puffing and blowing into the hall
in hot indignation. He reproved Lord Charles Beresford for his breach
of the club rules in, as I thought, quite unnecessarily severe tones.
The genial Admiral kept his temper, but detached one penny stamp from
his roll, licked it, and placed it on his forefinger. "My dear Mr.
Stanhope," he began, "it was a little oversight of mine. I was writing
in there, do you see?" (a friendly little tap on Mr. Bankes-Stanhope's
shirt-front, and on went a penny stamp), "and I moved in here, you see"
(another friendly tap, and on went a second stamp), "and forgot about
my cigar, you see" (a third tap, and a third stamp left adhering). The
breezy Admiral kept up this conversation, punctuated with little taps,
each one of which left its crimson trace on the old gentleman's white
shirt-front, until the whole shilling's-worth was placed in position.
Mr. Bankes-Stanhope was too irate to notice these little manoeuvres; he
maintained his hectoring tone, and never glanced down at his
shirt-front. Finally Lord Charles left, and the old gentleman, still
puffing and blowing with wrath, struggled into his overcoat, and went
off to an official party at Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's, where his
appearance with twelve red penny stamps adhering to his shirt-front
must have created some little astonishment.
In the '86 Parliament there was a certain Member, sitting on the
Conservative side, who had the objectionable habit of removing his
boots (spring-sided ones, too!) in the House, and of sitting in a pair
of very dubious-coloured grey woollen socks, apparently much in want of
the laundress's attentions. Many Members strongly objected to this
practice, but the delinquent persisted in it, in spite of protests. One
night a brother of mine, knowing that there would shortly be a
Division, succeeded in purloining the offending boots by covering them
with his "Order paper," and got them safely out of the House. He hid
them behind some books in the Division Lobby, and soon after the
Division was called. The House emptied, but the discalced legislator
retained his seat. "A Division having been called, the honourable
Member will now withdraw," ordered Mr. Speaker Peel, most awe-inspiring
of men. "Mr. Speaker, I have lost my boots," protested the shoeless
one. "The honourable Member will at once withdraw," ordered the Speaker
for the second time, in his sternest tones; so down the floor of the
House came the unfortunate man--hop, hop, hop, like the "little hare"
in Shock-headed Peter. The iron ventilating gratings were apparently
uncomfortable to shoeless feet, so he went hopping and limping through
the Division Lobby, affording ample glimpses of his deplorably
discoloured woollen footwear. Later in the evening an attendant handed
him a paper parcel containing his boots, the attendant having, of
course, no idea where the parcel had come from. This incident
effectually cured the offender of his unpleasant habit. The accusation
of neglecting his laundress may have been an unfounded one. In my early
youth I was given a book to read about a tiresome little girl named
Ellen Montgomery, who apparently divided her time between reading her
pocket-Bible and indulging in paroxysms of tears. The only incident in
the book I remember is that this lachrymose child had an aunt, a Miss
Fortune, who objected on principle to clean stockings. She accordingly
dyed all Ellen's stockings dirt-colour, to save the washing. It would
be charitable to assume that this particular Member of Parliament had
an aunt with the same economical instincts.
I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire was to avoid
disappointment to others, and to prevent the reality falling short of
the expectation. One was in India. Barrackpore, the Viceroy of India's
official country house, is justly celebrated for its beautiful gardens.
In these gardens every description of tropical tree, shrub and flower
grows luxuriantly. In a far-off corner there is a splendid group of
fan-bananas, otherwise known as the "Traveller's Palm." Owing to the
habit of growth of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on
its broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the
grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has
fashioned just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest
weather, these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield
nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for
the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down to
Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly whether there were any
Travellers' Trees either in the park or the gardens there, as he had
heard of them, but had never yet seen one. We assured him that in the
cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket of Travellers'
Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy's son and myself that it would be a
pity should the globe-trotting M.P.'s expectations not be realised,
after the long spell of drought we had had. So the two of us went off
and carefully filled up the natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas
with fresh spring-water till they were brimful. Suddenly we had a
simultaneous inspiration, and returning to the house we fetched two
bottles of light claret, which we poured carefully into the natural
cisterns of two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon we
conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers' Trees, handed him a
glass, and made him gash the stem of one of them with his pen knife.
Thanks to our preparation, it gushed water like one of the Trafalgar
Square fountains, and the touring legislator was able to satisfy
himself that it was good drinking-water. He had previously been making
some inquiries about so-called "Palm-wine," which is merely the
fermented juice of the toddy-palm. We told him that some Travellers'
Palms produced this wine, and with a slight exercise of ingenuity we
induced him to tap one of the trees we had doctored with claret.
Naturally, a crimson liquid spouted into his glass in response to the
thrust of his pen-knife, and after tasting it two or three times, he
reluctantly admitted that its flavour was not unlike that of red wine.
It ought to have been, considering that we had poured an entire bottle
of good sound claret into that tree. The ex-M.P. possibly reflects now
on the difficulties with which any attempts to introduce "Pussyfoot"
legislation into India would be confronted in a land where some trees
produce red wine spontaneously.
On another occasion I was going by sea from Calcutta to Ceylon. On
board the steamer there were a number of Americans, principally ladies,
connected, I think, with some missionary undertaking. When we got
within about a hundred miles of Ceylon, these American ladies all began
repeating to each other the verse of the well-known hymn:
"What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,"
over and over again, until I loathed Bishop Heber for having written
the lines. They even asked the captain how far out to sea the spicy
breezes would be perceptible. I suddenly got an idea, and, going below,
I obtained from the steward half a dozen nutmegs and a handful of
cinnamon. I grated the nutmegs and pounded the cinnamon up, and then,
with one hand full of each, I went on deck, and walked slowly up and
down in front of the American tourists. Soon I heard an ecstatic cry,
"My dear, I distinctly smelt spice then!" Another turn, and another
jubilant exclamation: "It's quite true about the spicy breezes. I got a
delicious whiff just then. Who would have thought that they would have
carried so far out to sea?" A sceptical elderly gentleman was summoned
from below, and he, after a while, was reluctantly forced to avow that
he, too, had noticed the spicy fragrance. No wonder! when I had about a
quarter of a pound of grated nutmeg in one hand, and as much pounded
cinnamon in the other. Now these people will go on declaring to the end
of their lives that they smelt the spicy odours of Ceylon a full
hundred miles out at sea, just as the travelling M.P. will assert that
a tree in India produces a very good imitation of red wine. It is a
nice point determining how far one is morally responsible oneself for
the unconscious falsehoods into which these people have been betrayed.
I should like to have had the advice of Mrs. Fairchild, of the
Fairchild Family upon this delicate question. I feel convinced that
that estimable lady, with her inexhaustible repertory of supplications,
would instantly have recited by heart "a prayer against the temptation
to lead others into uttering untruths unconsciously," which would have
met the situation adequately, for not once in the book, when appealed
to, did she fail to produce a lengthy and elaborately worded petition,
adapted to the most unexpected emergencies, and I feel confident that
her moral armoury would have included a prayer against tendencies to
"leg-pulling."
To return to the London of the "seventies" and "eighties" after this
brief journey to the East, nothing is more noticeable than the way
public interest in Parliamentary proceedings has vanished. When I was a
boy, all five of the great London dailies, The Times, Morning Post,
Standard, Daily Telegraph, and Daily News, published the fullest
reports of Parliamentary news, and the big provincial dailies followed
their example. Every one then seemed to follow the proceedings of
Parliament with the utmost interest; even at Harrow the elder boys read
the Parliamentary news and discussed it, and I have heard keen-witted
Lancashire artisans eagerly debating the previous night's Parliamentary
encounters. Now the most popular newspapers give the scantiest and
baldest summaries of proceedings in the House of Commons. It is an
editor's business to know the tastes of his readers; if Parliamentary
reports are reduced to a minimum, it must be because they no longer
interest the public. This, again, is quite intelligible. When I first
entered Parliament in 1885 (to which Parliament, by the way, all four
Hamilton brothers had been elected), there were commanding
personalities and great orators in the House: Mr. Gladstone, John
Bright, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Hartington, Henry James and Randolph
Churchill. When any of these rose to speak, the House filled at once,
they were listened to with eager attention, and every word they uttered
would be read by hundreds of thousands of people next day. Nowadays
proceedings in Parliament seem to be limited to a very occasional solo
from the one star-performer, the rest of the time being occupied by
uninteresting interludes by his understudies, all of which may serve to
explain the decline in public interest. At the time of the Peace of
Paris in 1856, on the termination of the Crimean War, there were in the
House of Commons such outstanding figures as Gladstone, Disraeli, Lord
John Russell, John Bright, and Palmerston; the statesman had not yet
dwindled into the lawyer-politician.
I only heard Mr. Gladstone speak in his old age, when his voice had
acquired a slight roughness which detracted, I thought, from his
wonderful gift of oratory. Mr. Gladstone, too, had certain
peculiarities of pronunciation; he always spoke of "constitootional"
and of "noos." John Bright was a most impressive speaker; he obtained
his effects by the simplest means, for he seldom used long words;
indeed he was supposed to limit himself to words of Saxon origin, with
all their condensed vigour. Is not Newman's hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light,"
considered to be a model of English, as it is composed almost entirely
of monosyllables, and, with six exceptions, of words of Saxon origin?
John Bright's speaking had the same quality as Cardinal Newman's hymn.
In spite of his eloquence, John Bright's prophecies were invariably
falsified by subsequent events. I have never heard any one speak with
such facility as Joseph Chamberlain. His utterance was so singularly
clear that, though he habitually spoke in a very low voice, every
syllable penetrated to all parts of the House. When Chamberlain was
really in a dangerous mood, his voice became ominously bland, and his
manner quieter than ever. Then was the time for his enemies to tremble.
I heard him once roll out and demolish a poor facile-tongued
professional spouter so completely and remorsely that the unfortunate
man never dared to open his mouth in the House of Commons again. I
think that any old Member of Parliament will agree with me when I place
David Plunkett, afterwards Lorth Rathmore, who represented for many
years Trinity College, Dublin, in the very front rank as an orator.
Plunkett was an indolent man, and spoke very rarely indeed. When really
roused, and on a subject which he had genuinely at heart, he could rise
to heights of splendid eloquence. Plunkett had a slight impediment in
his speech; when wound up, this impediment, so far from detracting
from, added to the effect he produced. I heard Mr. Gladstone's last
speech in Parliament, on March 1, 1894. It was frankly a great
disappointment. I sat then on the Opposition side, but we Unionists had
all assembled to cheer the old man who was to make his farewell speech
to the Assembly in which he had sat for sixty years, and of which he
had been so dominating and so unique a personality, although we were
bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this
difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House,
as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish
and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause
from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on
March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent
revelations, we know now that his failing eyesight was but a pretext.
Lord Spencer, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had framed his Naval
Estimates, and declared that the shipbuilding programme outlined in
those Estimates was absolutely necessary for the national safety. Mr.
Gladstone, supported by some of his colleagues, refused to sanction
these Estimates. Some long-headed Members of the Cabinet saw clearly
that if Lord Spencer insisted on his Estimates, in the then temper of
the country, the Liberal party would go to certain defeat. Accordingly,
Mr. Gladstone was induced to resign, as the easiest way out of the
difficulty. I do not gather, though, that those of his colleagues who,
with him, disapproved of the Naval Estimates, thought it their duty to
follow their chief into retirement.
I am amused on seeing on contents bills of news-papers, as a rare item
of news, "All-night sitting of Commons."
In the 1886 Parliament practically every night was an all-night
sitting. Under the old rules of Procedure, as the Session advanced, we
were kept up night after night till 5 a.m. Some Members, notably the
late Henry Labouchere, took a sort of impish delight in keeping the
House sitting late. Many Front-Bench men had their lives shortened by
the strain these late hours imposed on them, notably Edward Stanhope
and Mr. W. H. Smith. Mr. W. H. Smith occupied a very extraordinary
position. This plain-faced man, who could hardly string two words
together, was regarded by all his friends with deep respect, almost
with affection. My brother George has told me that, were there any
disputes in the Cabinet of which he was a member, the invariable advice
of the older men was to "go and take Smith's advice about it." Men
carried their private, domestic, and even financial troubles to this
wise counsellor, confident that the advice given would be sound. Mr.
Smith had none of the more ornamental qualities, but his fund of common
sense was inexhaustible, he never spared himself in his friends'
service, and his high sense of honour and strength of character earned
him the genuine regard of all those who really knew him. He was a very
fine specimen of the unassuming, honourable, high-minded English
gentleman.
In the 1886 Parliament, Mr. Akers-Douglas, now Lord Chilston, was Chief
Conservative Whip and he was singularly fortunate in his Assistant
Whips. Sir William Walrond, now Lord Waleran, Sir Herbert Maxwell, and
the late Sidney Herbert, afterwards fourteenth Earl of Pembroke, formed
a wonderful trio, for Nature had bestowed on each of them a singularly
engaging personality. The strain put on Members of the Opposition was
very severe; our constant attendance was demanded, and we spent
practically our whole lives in the precincts of the House. However much
we longed for a little relaxation and a little change, it was really
impossible to resist the blandishments of the Assistant Whips. They
made it a sort of personal appeal, and a test of personal friendship to
themselves, so grudgingly the contemplated visit to the theatre was
abandoned, and we resigned ourselves to six more hours inside the
over-familiar building.
Sir William Hart-Dyke had been Chief Conservative Whip in the 1868-1873
Parliament. He married in May 1870, in the middle of the session at a
very critical political period. He most unselfishly consented to forego
his honeymoon, or to postpone it, and there were rumours that on the
very evening of his wedding-day, his sense of duty had been so strong
that he had appeared in the House of Commons to "tell" in an important
Division. When Disraeli was asked if this were true, he shook his head,
and said, "I hardly think so. Hart-Dyke was married that day. Hart-Dyke
is a gentleman; he would never kiss AND 'tell.'" As a pendant to this,
there was another Sir William, a baronet whose name I will suppress.
With execrable taste, he was fond of boasting by name of his amatory
successes. He was always known as "William Tell."
In 1886 the long hours in the House of Commons hung very heavily on our
hands, once the always voluminous daily correspondence of an M.P. had
been disposed of. My youngest brother and I, both then well under
thirty, used to hire tricycles from the dining-room attendants, and
have races up and down the long river terrace, much to the interest of
passers-by on Westminster Bridge. We projected, to pass the time, a
"Soulful Song-Cycle," which was frankly to be an attempt at pulling the
public's leg. Our Song-Cycle never matured, though I did write the
first one of the series, an imaginative effort entitled "In Listless
Frenzy." It was, and was intended to be, utter nonsense, devoid alike
of grammar and meaning. I quoted my "Listless Frenzy" one night to an
"intense" and gushing lady, as an example of the pitiable rubbish
decadent minor poets were then turning out. It began--
"Crimson wreaths of passionless flowers
Down in the golden glen;
Silvery sheen of autumnal showers;
When, my beloved one, when?"
She assured me that the fault lay in myself, not in the lines; that I
was of too material a temperament to appreciate the subtle beauty of
so-and-so's work. I forget to whom I had attributed the verses, but I
felt quite depressed at reflecting that I was too material to
understand the lines I had myself written.
My brother was a great admirer of the Ingoldsby Legends, and could
himself handle Richard Barham's fascinating metre very effectively. He
was meditating "A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay," dealing with leading
personalities in the then House of Commons. The idea came to nothing,
as an "Ingoldsby Legend" must, from its very essence, be cast in a
narrative form, and the subject did not lend itself to narrative.
Although it has nothing to do with the subject in hand, I must quote
some lines from "The Raid of Carlisle," another "Pseudo-Ingoldsbean
Lay" of my brother's, to show how easily he could use Barham's metre,
with its ear-tickling double rhyme, and how thoroughly he had
assimilated the spirit of the Ingoldsby Legends. The extracts are from
an account of an incident which occurred in 1596 when Lord Scroop was
Warden of the Western or English Marches on behalf of Elizabeth, while
Buccleuch, on the Scottish side, was Warden of the Middle Marches on
behalf of James VI.
"Now, I'd better explain, while I'm still in the vein,
That towards the close of Elizabeth's reign,
Though the 'thistle and rose' were no longer at blows,
They'd a way of disturbing each other's repose.
A mode of proceeding most clearly exceeding
The rules of decorum, and palpably needing
Some clear understanding between the two nations,
By which to adjust their unhappy relations.
With this object in view, it occurred to Buccleuch
That a great deal of mutual good would accrue
If they settled that he and Lord Scroop's nominee
Should meet once a year, and between them agree
To arbitrate all controversial cases
And grant an award on an equable basis.
A brilliant idea that promised to be a
Corrective, if not a complete panacea--
For it really appears that for several years,
These fines of 'poll'd Angus' and Galloway steers
Did greatly conduce, during seasons of truce,
To abating traditional forms of abuse,
And to giving the roues of Border society
Some little sense of domestic propriety.
So finding himself, so to speak, up a tree,
And unable to think of a neat repartee,
He wisely concluded (as Brian Boru did,
On seeing his 'illigant counthry' denuded
Of cattle and grain that were swept from the plain
By the barbarous hand of the pillaging Dane)
To bandy no words with a dominant foe,
But to wait for a chance of returning the blow,
And then let him have it in more suo."
These extracts make me regret that the leading personalities in the
Parliament of 1886 were not commemorated in the same pleasant, jingling
metre.