public character. Few men have made a greater sacrifice of ambition to
a conscientious conviction than he did, when, rather than support a
measure which might lead to war, he abandoned the Conservative
Ministry in 1878. He was then the fully recognised successor of Lord
Beaconsfield, and if he had adopted a different course he would in a
short time have been, beyond all doubt, Prime Minister of England. On
the whole, however, the severance from old friends cost him, I
believe, far more than the sacrifice of his political prospects.
Whatever he may have been in his youth, he was certainly not in mature
life an ambitious man. With the great position he held in England the
world had little to offer him, and the self-knowledge which was not
the least of his many remarkable gifts showed him that party conflict
was not the sphere in which Nature intended him to move. With many of
the qualities of the highest statesmanship he wanted some necessary
ingredients of a great statesman. He wanted the power of appealing to
the imagination and moving the passions. He wanted more decision of
character, more power of initiative, more capacity of bearing lightly
the weight of a great responsibility. His belief that the House of
Lords must always ultimately yield to the House of Commons aggravated
a weakness of resolution which was deeply rooted in his nature. There
were moments when his inveterate moderation tended to exasperate, and
he was accused, not altogether without reason, of sometimes making
admirable speeches, pointing out in the clearest terms all the evils
and dangers of a measure, and then concluding by exhorting the House
of Lords to vote for it, introducing mitigating amendments in
Committee. The measures he treated in this way usually, as he had
predicted, became law, but this was not the attitude of a great
leader. During a considerable part of his career, like a very large
proportion of moderate men in England, he was in the embarrassing
position of agreeing substantially with the home policy of one party
and with the foreign policy of the other. After the death of Lord
Palmerston an element of passion was infused into public life which
was very uncongenial to his temperament, and English politics passed
into phases in which caution, character, judgment, and knowledge were
less prized than brilliant strokes that appealed to the popular
imagination, clever coalitions, a skilful barter of principles for
votes. In spheres governed by such methods Lord Derby was very useful,
but he was not likely to play a foremost part.
To few men who have taken a conspicuous part in active politics was
the excitement of such an existence so little necessary. Happy in his
domestic life and in a companionship and sympathy which were
all-sufficient to him, he was not less happy in the wide range of his
interests and duties. The administration of his vast estate would have
been more than sufficient to tax the energies of most men, and it
was, I believe, universally acknowledged that it was admirably
administered. In the everyday affairs of practical life he had no
indecision, and he judged swiftly with the clearest of judgments.
Nothing about him was more remarkable than the apparent ease and the
absence of all hurry and confusion with which he could deal with many
different forms of work. His study in its perfect neatness was more
like a lady's boudoir than the workshop of a very busy man. _Ohne
Hast, ohne Rast_, might have been his motto. He had much belief in the
future of English land, and was not, I think, at all exempt from the
great English landlord's foible of adding field to field. In the long
period of agricultural depression it was easy for a rich man to do so.
'In my experience,' he used to say, 'in nine cases out of ten it is
Naboth who comes to Ahab and begs him to buy his vineyard.' Certainly
no one had reason to complain, for there were few better or more
popular landlords than Lord Derby. In many long walks with him through
his property I was always struck with the evident pleasure with which
he was welcomed by his people, the fulness of knowledge and the
kindness of interest with which he inquired into the circumstances of
every tenant. It is characteristic of him that only two days before
his death he was giving instructions for building a hospital for the
sick poor of Knowsley. I have known few men in whom the desire to make
everyone about them happy was so strongly and so clearly marked. He
was fond of looking minutely into the circumstances of men of
different classes, and comparing their wants with their means, often
with somewhat whimsical results. There was a tradesman who made
regularly 5_l._ a week; who was accustomed every week to devote 2_l._
to his household expenses, to lay by 2_l._, and to employ the
remainder in getting drunk. He was, Lord Derby thought, the only man
he had ever known who satisfied all his wants with 40 per cent. of his
income, who always laid by 40 per cent., and who expended 20 per cent.
on his pleasures.
Outside his property Lord Derby had strong county interests. With
perhaps the exception of Birmingham there is no part of England where
a distinctive local patriotism is so intensely developed as in
Lancashire, and Lord Derby in tastes and character was pre-eminently a
Lancashire man, very proud of the greatness, and deeply concerned in
the interests, of his county. In all the vicissitudes of his career,
Liverpool, I believe, never wavered in its attachment to him. He
contributed to the many charitable and philanthropic works with which
he was concerned not only much money, but also--what in so rich a man
was far more meritorious--an extraordinary amount of time and patient
supervision. Among the many offices he accepted, was president of the
Literary Fund for dispensing charity to needy authors, and on the
committee of that charity I had, during many years, ample opportunity
of observing how far he was from treating a presidential position as a
sinecure. The regularity of his attendance, the constant attention he
paid to every detail of the charity; the infinite pains which he would
bestow upon obscure cases of distress, marked him out as a model
president, and many of those whom our rules did not allow us to help
were assisted by his bounty. He contributed with a large but
discriminating generosity to many causes that were conspicuous in the
eyes of the world, but his special bias was towards unostentatious
and unobserved benevolence, and crowds of obscure men in obscure
positions were assisted by him.
Those who did not know him, and those who had come in merely casual
contact with him, sometimes formed a false impression of his
character. He had a great deal of natural shyness. He had very little
of the gift of small talk. On occasions of mere show and in
uncongenial atmospheres he was apt to be awkward and embarrassed, and
when walking by himself he was extremely absent and quite capable of
brushing against his oldest friend with a complete unconsciousness of
his presence. These traits sometimes gave rise to natural
misinterpretations, which a fuller knowledge always dispelled. No one
who knew Lord Derby could fail to feel that his nature was one of the
most genuine and transparent simplicity, singularly free from all
tinge of arrogance, superciliousness, and acrimony. His personal
tastes were exceedingly simple, and there was not a particle of
ostentation in his character. He delighted in a quiet country life and
had a strong sense of natural beauty. In his youth he had been an
ardent mountaineer, and in later life he had few greater pleasures
than to watch the growth of his plantations. He calculated that he had
planted in his lifetime about two million of trees.
He was among the best-read men I have ever known. His private library
was one of the finest in England, and he took a keen interest in it. A
love of sumptuous, large-paper editions was indeed one of the very few
luxuries in which from mere personal taste he greatly indulged. Like
all men of literary tastes he had his limitations. German was a closed
book to him. Theology and metaphysics were conspicuous by their
absence. He was certainly not drawn to the mystical, the
unintelligible, or the morbid, either in imaginative or speculative
literature, and although he was a great lover and great buyer of
water-colour pictures, I do not think he had much real sense or
knowledge of art. But he had read very extensively and with great
profit and discrimination in many widely different fields, and his
memory was unusually retentive. He was an excellent literary critic,
and if clear thought and accurate knowledge were what he most valued,
it would be a complete mistake to suppose that he was insensible to
the poetic and imaginative side of literature. He could repeat long
passages from 'Childe Harold,' and I can well remember the delight
which he took in the picturesque narrative of Mr. Froude, and in the
fiery verses of Sir Alfred Lyall.
He was one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine
unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and
sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never
intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and
until the last years of his life usually went out with his guests. 'I
rather like shooting,' he once said to me, 'it prevents the necessity
of general conversation.' Among kindred spirits, however, his own
conversation was eminently attractive. His wide knowledge both of
books and men, his vast range of political anecdote, his experience of
so many statesmen and offices and departments of life, made it
singularly instructive. He was a very shrewd, and at the same time a
very kind, judge of character; and he had a power, which is certainly
not common, of fully appreciating merits that are allied with great
and manifest defects. He had much quaint, dry humour, and a great
happiness of expression; and one always felt that his opinions were
genuinely thought out--that they were voices and not echoes. His
private conversation had the quality that I have noticed in his
public speeches, of grasping at once the essential elements of a
question and disencumbering it from accessories and details. It is one
of the qualities that add most to the charm of conversation, and, with
the exception of Lord Russell, I do not think I have met with anyone
who possessed it to a greater degree than Lord Derby. He delighted in
long walks with one or two friends, and he might be seen to great
advantage in some small dining-clubs which play a larger part than is
generally recognised in the best English social life of our time. He
had been a member of Grillion's for thirty-seven years, but the
society to which he was most attached was, I think, 'The Club' which
was founded by Johnson and Reynolds. During the nineteen years of
which I can speak from personal experience, he was an almost constant
attendant, and certainly no other member enjoyed a greater popularity
in it, or contributed more largely to its charm.
He hated cant of all kinds, and had a great distrust of ostentatious
professions of lofty motives. He disliked, I think greatly, the habit
of dragging sacred names into party speeches, and attributing every
party manoeuvre to a solemn sense of duty. Language of this kind
will never be found in his speeches, but I have known few men who were
governed through life more steadily though more unobtrusively by a
sense of duty. He always tried to look facts in the face, and to
promote in the many spheres which he could influence the real
happiness of men. There have been statesmen among his contemporaries
of greater power and of more brilliant achievement. There has been, I
believe, no statesman of sounder judgment and more disinterested
patriotism; there have been very few whose departure has left a void
in so many spheres.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] See, on this subject, Cook's _Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal
War_, pp. 260-265.
[44] See Westlake's _L'Angleterre et les Républiques Boers_, pp. 30-31.
[45] See the table of revenue and expenditure in Fitzpatrick's
_Transvaal from Within_, p. 71.
[46] Inaugural address at Edinburgh University.
HENRY REEVE, C.B., F.S.A., D.C.L.
Although it has never been the custom of the 'Edinburgh Review' to
withdraw the veil of anonymity from its writers and its
administration, it would be mere affectation to suffer it to appear
before the public without some allusion to the great editor whom we
have just lost,[47] and who for forty years has watched with
indefatigable care over its pages.
The career of Mr. Henry Reeve is perhaps the most striking
illustration in our time of how little in English life influence is
measured by notoriety. To the outer world his name was but little
known. He is remembered as the translator of Tocqueville, as the
editor of the 'Greville Memoirs,' as the author of a not quite
forgotten book on Royal and Republican France, showing much knowledge
of French literature and politics; as the holder during fifty years of
the respectable, but not very prominent, post of Registrar of the
Privy Council. To those who have a more intimate knowledge of the
political and literary life of England, it is well known that during
nearly the whole of his long life he was a powerful and living force
in English literature; that few men of his time have filled a larger
place in some of the most select circles of English social life; and
that he exercised during many years a political influence such as
rarely falls to the lot of any Englishman outside Parliament, or even
outside the Cabinet.
He was born at Norwich in 1813, and brought up in a highly cultivated,
and even brilliant, literary circle. His father, Dr. Reeve, was one of
the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review.' The Austins, the
Opies, the Taylors, and the Aldersons were closely related to him, and
he is said to have been indebted to his gifted aunt, Sarah Austin, for
his appointment in the Privy Council. The family income was not large,
and a great part of Mr. Reeve's education took place on the Continent,
chiefly at Geneva and Munich. He went with excellent introductions,
and the years he spent abroad were abundantly fruitful. He learned
German so well that he was at one time a contributor to a German
periodical. He was one of the rare Englishmen who spoke French almost
like a Frenchman, and at a very early age he formed friendships with
several eminent French writers. His translation of the 'Democracy in
America,' by Tocqueville, which appeared in 1835, strengthened his
hold on French society. Two years later he obtained the appointment in
the Privy Council, which he held until 1887. It was in this office
that he became the colleague and fast friend of Charles Greville, who
on his death-bed entrusted him with the publication of his 'Memoirs.'
Mr. Reeve had now obtained an assured income and a steady occupation,
but it was far from satisfying his desire for work. He became a
contributor, and very soon a leading contributor, to the 'Times,'
while his close and confidential intercourse with Mr. Delane gave him
a considerable voice in its management. The penny newspaper was still
unborn, and the 'Times' at this period was the undisputed monarch of
the Press, and exercised an influence over public opinion, both in
England and on the Continent, such as no existing paper can be said
to possess. It is, we believe, no exaggeration to say that for the
space of fifteen years nearly every article that appeared in its
columns on foreign politics was written by Mr. Reeve, and the period
during which he wrote for it included the year 1848, when foreign
politics had the most transcendent importance.
The great political influence which he at this time exercised
naturally drew him into close connection with many of the chief
statesmen of his time. With Lord Clarendon especially his friendship
was close and confidential, and he received from that statesman almost
weekly letters during his viceroyalty in Ireland and during others of
the more critical periods of his career. In France, Mr. Reeve's
connections were scarcely less numerous than in England. Guizot,
Thiers, Cousin, Tocqueville, Villemain, Circourt--in fact, nearly all
the leading figures in French literature and politics during the reign
of Louis Philippe were among his friends or correspondents. He was at
all times singularly international in his sympathies and friendships,
and he appears to have been more than once made the channel of
confidential communications between English and French statesmen.
It was a task for which he was eminently suited. The qualities which
most impressed all who came into close communication with him were the
strength, swiftness, and soundness of his judgment, and his unfailing
tact and discretion in dealing with delicate questions. He was
eminently a man of the world, and had quite as much knowledge of men
as of books. Probably few men of his time have been so frequently and
so variously consulted. He always spoke with confidence and authority,
and his clear, keen-cut, decisive sentences, a certain stateliness of
manner which did not so much claim as assume ascendancy, and a
somewhat elaborate formality of courtesy which was very efficacious in
repelling intruders, sometimes concealed from strangers the softer
side of his character. But those who knew him well soon learnt to
recognise the genuine kindliness of his nature, his remarkable skill
in avoiding friction, and the rare steadiness of his friendships.
One great source of his influence was the just belief in his complete
independence and disinterestedness. For a very able man his ambition
was singularly moderate. As he once said, he had made it his object
throughout life only to aim at things which were well within his
power. He had very little respect for the judgment of the multitude,
and he cared nothing for notoriety and not much for dignities. A
moderate competence, congenial work, a sphere of wide and genuine
influence, a close and intimate friendship with a large proportion of
the guiding spirits of his time, were the things he really valued, and
all these he fully attained. He had great conversational powers, which
never degenerated into monologue, a singularly equable, happy, and
sanguine temperament, and a keen delight in cultivated society. These
characteristics showed conspicuously in two small and very select
dining-clubs which have included most of the distinguished English
statesmen and men of letters of the century. He became a member of the
Literary Society in 1857 and of Dr. Johnson's Club in 1861, and it is
a remarkable evidence of the appreciation of his social tact that both
bodies speedily selected him as their treasurer. He held that position
in 'The Club' from 1868 till within a year of his death, when failing
health and absence from London obliged him to relinquish it. The
French Institute elected him 'Correspondant' in 1863 and Associated
Member in 1888, in which latter dignity he succeeded Sir Henry Maine.
In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree
of D.C.L.
It was in 1855, on the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, that he
assumed the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' which he retained
till the day of his death. Both on the political and the literary side
he was in full harmony with its traditions. His rare and minute
knowledge of recent English and foreign political history; his vast
fund of political anecdote; his personal acquaintance with so many of
the chief actors on the political scene, both in England and France,
gave a great weight and authority to his judgments, and his mind was
essentially of the Whig cast. He was a genuine Liberal of the school
of Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon, and Cornewall Lewis. It was a sober
and tolerant Liberalism, rooted in the traditions of the past, and
deeply attached to the historical elements in the Constitution. The
dislike and distrust with which he had always viewed the progress of
democracy deepened with age, and it was his firm conviction that it
could never become the permanent basis of good government. Like most
men of his type of thought and character, he was strongly repelled by
the later career of Mr. Gladstone, and the Home Rule policy at last
severed him definitely from the bulk of the Liberal party. From this
time the present Duke of Devonshire was the leader of his party.
His literary judgments had much analogy to his political ones. His
leanings were all towards the old standards of thought and style. He
had been formed in the school of Macaulay and Milman, and of the great
French writers under Louis Philippe. Sober thought, clear reasoning,
solid scholarship, a transparent, vivid, and restrained style were the
literary qualities he most appreciated. He was a great purist,
inexorably hostile to a new word. In philosophy he was a devoted
disciple of Kant, and his decided orthodoxy in religious belief
affected many of his judgments. He could not appreciate Carlyle; he
looked with much distrust on Darwinism and the philosophy of Herbert
Spencer and he had very little patience with some of the moral and
intellectual extravagances of modern literature. But, according to his
own standards and in the wide range of his own subjects, his literary
judgment was eminently sound, and he was quick and generous in
recognising rising eminence. In at least one case the first
considerable recognition of a prominent historian was an article in
the 'Edinburgh Review' from his pen.
He had a strong sense of the responsibility of an editor, and
especially of the editor of a Review of unsigned articles. No article
appeared which he did not carefully consider. His powerful
individuality was deeply stamped upon the Review, and he carefully
maintained its unity and consistency of sentiments. It was one of the
chief occupations and pleasures of his closing days, and the very last
letter he dictated referred to it.
Time, as might be expected, had greatly thinned the circle of his
friends. Of the France which he knew so well scarcely anything
remained, but his old friend and senior Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire
visited him at Christ Church, and he kept up to the end a warm
friendship with the Duc d'Aumale. He spent his eightieth birthday at
Chantilly, and until the very last year of his life he was never
absent when the Duke dined at 'The Club.' In Lord Derby he lost the
statesman with whom in his later years he was most closely connected
by private friendship and political sympathy, while the death of Lady
Stanley of Alderley deprived him of an attached and lifelong friend.
Growing infirmities prevented him in his latter days from mixing much
in general society in London, but his life was brightened by all that
loving companionship could give; his mental powers were unfaded, and
he could still enjoy the society of younger friends. He looked forward
to the end with a perfect and a most characteristic calm, without fear
and without regret. It was the placid close of a long, dignified, and
useful life.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] Mr. Reeve died October 21, 1895.--ED.
HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.