FOREIGN TRAVEL--ST. JOHN'S LODGE--MAYOR OF CARDIFF
1888-1891
Notwithstanding the increasing and incessant claims on his time and
attention of literature, business, and family duties, there were few,
if any, years in which Bute was not able to secure an interval of what
to him was real enjoyment, in foreign travel. Even from such
journeys--and they were not infrequent--as were undertaken purely for
reasons of health, he seldom failed to derive both pleasure and profit.
"I am ordered abroad at once," he wrote on one occasion, "to drink the
waters of Chales, in Savoy. They are, I believe, exceptionally nasty,
but you know how I like being abroad, and I am quite in spirits at the
prospect of the trip." He never travelled very far afield, his most
distant journeyings having been, perhaps, to Petersburg (in Lord
Rosebery's company) and to Teneriffe in 1891. The countries bordering
on the Mediterranean, France and Italy, Spain and Portugal, Palestine,
Egypt and Greece, were the scenes of most of his foreign sojournings;
and in them all he found sources of continual and inexhaustible
interest. He had travelled a good deal abroad with his mother in his
childhood, and often recalls in his diary these early visits:
{157}
_July_ 30, 1886. The very same rooms at the Belle Vue, Brussels, as we
had when I came here in childhood.... The house is full of Americans,
as like one another (to English eyes) as Chinese or negroes. It is
impossible to tell them apart.[1]
At Dresden also, a few months later, he records his vivid recollections
of an early visit to that capital. This was the year of his first
pilgrimage to the shrine of Wagner at Bayreuth (he attended the
festival there also in 1888 and 1891). Many of his letters to the
editor of the _Scottish Review_ are dated from foreign addresses; and
interspersed in these with business and literary details are numerous
picturesque notes on the customs and doings of the people among whom he
was living. The descriptions of the religious observances of the
inhabitants of Sorrento have a certain piquancy, when one remembers
that they were addressed to a minister of the Scottish Presbyterian
Church. Bute wrote on such matters _currente calamo_, and took for
granted--no doubt with reason--that his friend would be as much
interested in such matters as he was himself.
Rome,
_February_ 15, 1888.
We had a magnificent voyage, which made me feel immediately in a most
robust and lively condition. I find, however, that a calm in the Bay
of Biscay, such as we had, is considered ill-omened by the sailors; and
one of the passengers committed {158} suicide on the night before we
left Gibraltar. Curiously enough, the same thing happened in the same
circumstances on another occasion which I remember of a calm in the
same spot. We landed at Naples last Saturday. The lewdness, cruelty,
etc., of the Neapolitans seems as bad as usual; but some non-Neapolitan
clergy have lately been introduced, who say Mass very reverently, and
preach and pray in the vernacular. I hear they are beginning to do
much good. We arrived here yesterday, and are fasting to-day (Ash
Wednesday) in great discomfort. Rome is crowded. The Scotch
deputation (about 140 persons) is to be received by the Pope to-morrow
at 10.30 a.m.
Bute read the address to Pope Leo XIII. on behalf of the Scottish
pilgrimage, which had come to Rome to join with the rest of Christendom
in congratulating the venerable Pontiff on the celebration of his
sacerdotal jubilee. From Sorrento, where he afterwards spent several
weeks, he wrote to Dr. Metcalfe on Holy Saturday:
The people had their fill (I should hope) of services, and especially
of preaching, yesterday (Good Friday). They began with a procession
round the town at 4 a.m., which I did _not_ join, commemorative of the
procession to Calvary. The Liturgy began in the cathedral at 8, and
ended at 11. At 1 a man began preaching in the cathedral and went on
till 4.15--I wonder he could do it. The church was full, and all, even
small boys and girls, very attentive. He preached nine sermons, or
rather one enormous sermon in nine points, with short and very sweet
Italian anthems sung between each. Many of the congregation were
affected to tears. The service of _Tenebrae_ began at 5 and lasted an
hour and a half; then they began another procession through the
streets, this time in commemoration of Christ being {159} borne to the
grave. A spectator said to me quite cheerily that this procession was
going the round of seven churches; and that there would be a sermon in
each. At 9.30 p.m. I heard from our garden the town band (which
accompanied the procession) still playing in the distance sacred music
and funeral marches. The people are now buying at the confectioners'
small lambs made of the least indigestible sugar procurable, so that
they may "eat the lamb this night" without violating the Lenten law of
abstinence from flesh meat.
[Sidenote: 1888, Easter at Sorrento]
A long letter addressed to the same correspondent on Easter Monday
seems worth reproducing almost in its entirety. It affords testimony,
more convincing than any words of a biographer could be, of Bute's
extraordinary interest in the religious services of his Church, and of
the vivid and even moving eloquence which inspired his pen when
describing the worship and the devotion of the simple Campanian folk
among whom he was temporarily sojourning:
The people go on hearing sermons. There were at least two delivered in
the Cathedral on Sunday, at 7 and 10 a.m. These preachments have their
peculiar features, besides their length. They seem very often to
conclude with an _extempore_ prayer. I call it _extempore_, although
it is of course prepared beforehand, and, in the works at any rate of
St. Alfonso Liguori, these prayers are printed along with the sermons
to which they belong; but no MS. is used. When the prayer begins the
people generally kneel down, and sometimes the preacher asks them to
join with him, in which case he prays very slowly, and they repeat
after him. One day I went into the large Church of the Saviour at
Meta. There was barely standing-room. A man was preaching against
{160} blasphemous swearing. After a time he dictated to the
congregation a sort of pledge never to commit this sin again, and many
of them repeated it after him. He then, after the manner of old
precentors I have heard of in the Highlands, when the people could not
read, sang an hymn line by line, the people singing every line after
him. After this he knelt down in the pulpit and offered a long and
vehement _extempore_ prayer; and when this was over he rose and began
on the same subject again. I then left.
[Sidenote: 1888, Church services at Sorrento]
On the Feast of St. Benedict there were special services in the
Benedictine convent church here. Before Benediction, the Archbishop
officiating, the whole congregation sang the _Te Deum_ together by
heart, in Latin. Then the Archbishop began to preach, from the
altar--a series of puns on the name of Benedict (_Benedetto_,
"Blessed"), very well done. He spoke of the blessedness of the
servants of God, here and hereafter, and in reference, no doubt, to the
nuns behind their grating as well as to the women in the church, made
allusion to the special blessedness of the women who serve God. This
was followed by a long _extempore_ prayer, the people (who had stood
while he preached) sinking on their knees. He besought a blessing on
himself and his flock, naming the different classes of his people in
turn with great simplicity and fervour. The final supplication that
all--not one being missing from the flock--might at last be brought
together in the glory of heaven, was very moving. Then he gave the
Sacramental benediction.
The use of the vernacular seems to be very considerable. At the
parochial Mass on Sundays, besides the sermon, and Italian prayers
before Mass begins, at certain moments the whole congregation repeat
Italian prayers together. The similarity of their language to Latin
robs the latter of much of its terror. Many of the commoner Latin
hymns, etc., they seem all to know by heart quite familiarly. {161} I
have spoken of the _Te Deum_. On Saturday they all sang the Litany,
repeating every clause after the precentors. On Thursday, while the
Sacrament for next day's Communion was being carried to the Chapel of
Repose, the whole congregation sang on their knees the hymn of Thomas
Aquinas upon the Last Supper; and the sublimity of the words, the
spectacle of the kneeling multitude, and the solemnity of the
procession moving through the church, made a very impressive whole.
The clergy here are all extremely clean and respectable-looking, and
very decorous and reverential, both out of church and in. And this
remark applies also to the whole of the Divinity students, and the
whole choir and staff of the Cathedral. The music--even when poor--is
very grave and solemn; the services are conducted (and evidently
prepared) with the utmost care, and a certain effect of subdued
splendour is produced--with the air of being produced incidentally and
unintentionally--by the real costliness and richness, combined with
scrupulous cleanliness and neatness, of every object and garment
employed, in their several degrees.
The admirably conducted services in the Cathedral have had a damaging
effect on the Anglican chapel, some of the congregation of which have
been assiduously attending them, to the not unnatural annoyance of the
clergyman in charge, whose own domestic circle is not unaffected by the
contagion. The erratic sheep, when summoned to private interviews of
remonstrance, meet their pastor with questions as to what possible
grounds Bishop Sandford of Gibraltar can have for pretending to possess
and exercise Episcopal authority in the diocese of Sorrento.
I hope these details may interest you.
It may be said that practically every one of Bute's journeyings to
foreign lands either partook {162} more or less of the nature of a
pilgrimage, or else was made in search of health. Pre-eminent among
the first class were his frequent visits to the Holy Land, of which
some account has already been given. Except for occasional references
in his letters, we have little about these from his own pen. "My
latest pilgrimage to the Holy Places," he writes on one occasion, "has
been extraordinarily blessed to me." It is of interest in this
connection to cite some passages inserted in the fly-leaf of a copy of
Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," presented by Bute to a friend. They
are not in his own handwriting--except the Latin quotation (from St.
Luke xii. 34) at the end--nor is there any evidence as to their
authorship; but their sentiment is undoubtedly one which would strongly
appeal to him:
The attractions of Rome and Jerusalem are not comparable, and should
not be compared. The interest of Rome is of course by far the more
varied. Not all who journey thither go to venerate the Tombs of the
Apostles. There are those to whom the Palace of the Caesars appeals
more than do basilicas built by Popes, who regard the Colosseum rather
as the monument of emperors than as the palaestra of martyrs, to whom
the Mamertine prison speaks of Catiline rather than of St. Peter.[2]
People throng {163} to Rome not only to pray, but to study art,
antiquities, and music, to enjoy the most cosmopolitan society in
Europe, sometimes to hunt foxes on the Campagna. Jerusalem, on the
other hand, is a city of faith, and (roughly speaking) all who visit it
do so as pilgrims. _Illuc enim ascenderunt tribus, tribus Domini_.
Rome has a thousand charms--Jerusalem one, but that one transcendent.
Its sacred soil has been trodden by the feet of God made man, and it is
the Holy City as no other city can ever be. _Ubi enim thesaurus vesler
est, ibi cor vestrum erit_.[3]
The last words, written by Bute himself at the foot of the manuscript
just quoted, are of particular interest, referring, as they doubtless
do, to his long-cherished resolve that his heart, after his death,
should mingle with the sacred dust of the Mount of Olives.
[Sidenote: At Ober-Ammergau]
The visits to the Ober-Ammergau Passion-play, which Bute made in 1871,
in company with Bishop Clifford and two Oxford friends, again in 1880
with his wife, and also in 1890, were undertaken, too, in the pilgrim
spirit. "We start for Ober-Ammergau on Monday," he wrote on September
11, 1880, "and are both hoping to reap spiritual good from our stay
there." A letter to his old friend at Oxford on his return home gives
some interesting impressions:
The new theatre looks like a railway station, and the stage
arrangements are considerably more elaborate than they were nine years
ago. The crowd, too, was infinitely greater, but its behaviour was on
the whole decent, except for some attempts to applaud (emanating, I
fear, from our countrymen), {164} which were extremely distressing.
The play itself was not less impressive than I remember it; and I was
pleased with the simplicity and piety of the people, who seem unspoilt
by the leap within recent years of their retired village into fame. I
ventured to express, through a German-speaking friend, my satisfaction
on this point to one of the most respected inhabitants of the place
(one of the principal actors); and his reply (of which my friend gave
me a translation) pleased me very much. "God be thanked," he said,
"that is true; but it would not be so if we accepted the many offers
made to us to give representations of the Passion-play in various
cities of Europe. Also it is well for our people that the play is
given but once in ten years; for in the intervals we lead our
accustomed quiet life in this valley, and a new generation of children
has time to grow up in the old traditions of the place."[4]
Bute refers later, in letters written from Bayreuth, to what he calls
the "outrage" of applause from the audience during the performance of
_Parsifal_, in terms which indicates how strongly he felt the religious
appeal of the Wagnerian drama:
Bayreuth,
_July_ 23, 1888.
On Sunday the illiterate part of the audience insisted on applauding
Acts II. and III. of _Parsifal_, in spite of all the protests of the
cultured hearers; and the effect was most distressing and shocking.
The {165} allusions to the Eucharist are of such a nature that it was
almost as unseemly as it would be to clap a church choir during the
Communion Service; and putting aside the gross irreverence and
unseemliness of such conduct, it is an outrage and fraud on the public,
who are at these moments wrapped in religious thought, and whom it is
brutal and shameful to disturb by a revolting noise.
In his diary for 1891, Bute notes that he had written a letter to Frau
Wagner, begging her to take steps to prevent any applause during the
representation of _Parsifal_; but it is not recorded if this appeal had
the desired effect.
[Sidenote: Incognito in Sicily]
The travels on the Continent were carried out without any sort of
ostentation; and Bute found it even expedient occasionally to preserve
his incognito when abroad. Thus he wrote on one occasion to one of his
oldest friends:
_Ascension Day_, 1882.
Aci Reale, Sicily.
The outside of your letter gave me, I confess, less pleasure than any I
have ever had from you. You know the state of Sicily, and the way
brigands have with people whom they believe to have money.
Consequently, when ordered here by the doctors I was urged both in
Naples and Messina to drop my title absolutely; and I am known here
only as "B. Crichton Stuart." You may thus imagine the discontent with
which I saw "The Marquess of Bute" staring me in the face out of the
letter-rack in the hall.
Pray be most careful both to address me only as B.C.S., and also to
keep your knowledge of my whereabouts most strictly to yourself. I
need not point out the great annoyance and possible danger to which you
might otherwise expose me.
I have been very ailing for more than a year. {166} Sometimes I feel
as though the horizon of life were closing in, and wish I could recall
the rest of the verse beginning:
When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay....[5]
But the warmth and sunshine here are helping me. I propose, when my
"cure" is over (for good or evil), to go to Greece, and look for
quarters in Athens where I may spend the winter with my wife and child.
I prefer this place to Italy, at least to Naples, whose people on the
whole impress me as the off-scourings of humanity. The great
difference between Sicily and Italy strikes me very much: it is,
perhaps, due to the fact that Sicily belongs (I believe), both
geographically and geologically, to Africa.
From Egypt, where he spent one spring, being ordered a spell of dry
desert air by the doctors, he wrote characteristically to a friend (a
Benedictine monk), then resident in a remote corner of Brazil:
Helouan, Egypt.
I deserve your reproaches for not writing before. But really one has a
feeling (I know _I_ have) that writing to a distant address is,
literally and physically, an heavier undertaking than writing to a near
one. Query: If some philosophers are right in thinking that space, as
well as time, is purely subjective, may not this have something to do
with it?
One or two notes from his diary in Egypt are interesting:
"_March_ 7. Amin Nassif brought a "professed {167} sorcerer to see me"
(a later note adds, "I believe him to be a pure impostor").
"_March_ 15. Tried the ascent of the great Pyramid, but collapsed from
giddiness half-way. Margaret [his daughter, then aged sixteen] had no
difficulty."[6]
"_April_ 6. Monophysite Copts do not now reserve the B. Sacrament
(although they formerly did so), because the species was once eaten by
a snake, which was then eaten by a priest, who died in consequence!"
"_April_ 24 (Alexandria). At the Greek Catholic church the new French
Consul was received with extraordinary honour by three priests, vested
respectively in red, white, and blue! There was no sermon, but a
speech in which the benefits conferred by France on Syria and Egypt
were highly praised."
[Sidenote: 1891, Trip to Teneriffe]
Another journey which may be mentioned here was his trip to Teneriffe
in the spring of 1891. His health at this time was far from robust,
and was indeed causing some anxiety to his friends; but he was
determined as usual to gain from his visit intellectual profit as well
as (if possible) some benefit to his health. He wrote to H. D.
Grissell on March 16, 1891:
Orotava, Teneriffe.
I date to you from this eccentric place, whither I have come to try and
patch myself together by a stay of a few weeks. Of course these
islands are utterly unknown to me, and the vegetation in particular is
at first sight quite startlingly novel. The air is delicious, but I
feel the want of sun, and there is much cold wind. As Piazzi Smyth
speaks much of the clouds here, I suspect that this stupendous {168}
mountain (of which we rarely see the top, and only in early morning or
late evening) has much to do with it.
The outcome of Bute's sojourn in the Canary Islands was a remarkable
paper, "On the Ancient Language of the Inhabitants of Teneriffe," which
he read at the meeting that summer of the British Association at
Cardiff, and afterwards published in the _Scottish Review_. Like most
of his writings on such recondite subjects, it was more or less
"caviare to the general"; but it aroused considerable attention among
philologists, who recognised it as a genuine and valuable contribution
to linguistic science. Professor Sayce wrote to him from Queen's
College, Oxford:
_October_ 17, 1891.
Many thanks for your kindness in sending me your monograph on the
extinct language of Teneriffe. I wish that all linguistic
investigations had been conducted with similar care and caution; we
should have had fewer difficulties to contend with in the study of
linguistic science. You have shown us exactly what are the materials
on which we can base our opinion on the ancient language of Teneriffe,
and how far those materials can be trusted. For this reason your paper
seems to me to be of very real value.
It seems right to refer in this place to another and later tribute paid
by another and equally distinguished man of science, who in his
estimate of Bute's remarkable attainments makes special allusion to the
article we are now considering. Sir William Huggins, who was very
intimate with him in the later years of his life, wrote as follows:
The Marquess of Bute was one of those, the deeper side of whose mind
and character could be duly {169} appreciated only by those who had the
privilege of his friendship. A man of great natural gifts, he was
highly cultured on many sides; and the extent and the variety of his
information on a vast variety of subjects was really remarkable. No
scientist[7] could discuss a scientific matter with him without being
struck by the clear-sighted way in which he saw into the heart of the
matter, and the fairness and patience with which he would weigh and
consider it from various points of view. These qualities were well
shown in the very interesting and valuable paper on "The Ancient
Language of the Natives of Teneriffe" contributed by him to the British
Association when it met at Cardiff.... Lord Bute's sensitive nature
revolted from the killing of any living thing. But he was keenly
interested in natural history, and had a knowledge of many creatures
and of their habits as intimate and searching as that of the most
scientific sportsman.
[Sidenote: Home in Regent's Park]
The reference in the last paragraph recalls the fact that when (in
1888) Lord Bute first acquired a London domicile, purchasing the
twenty-seven years' lease of St. John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, he was
particularly interested in finding himself in close proximity to both
the Zoological and the Botanic Gardens. A priest who was often his
guest there used to say that he could walk on the terrace, with its
matchless view of garden and park and forest trees, and recite his
Office in perfect quietness, with the tumult of London reduced to a
distant hum, and the silence only occasionally broken by the roar of
wild beasts in the "Zoo" not far away. Bute was {170} a fellow of both
societies, and often strolled in one or other of the gardens with his
guests or members of his family of a Sunday afternoon, talking freely
with the custodians of animals and plants, and not infrequently
astonishing them with the variety of his knowledge. One of his guests
was looking, in the Botanic Gardens, at a remarkable and
recently-acquired collection of dwarf Japanese trees, and observed that
Lord Bute would be interested in seeing them. "Yes," was the reply,
"his lordship knows a lot about plants. But then, he knows a lot about
most things, don't he, sir?"[8]
[Sidenote: 1888, Hospitalities in London]
That Bute did know "a lot about most things" was undoubtedly true; and
what used often to strike those who were intimate with him was the
singular _orderliness_ of his knowledge. "His memory was prodigious,"
writes one who often consulted him on points of history, "and he seemed
to me to keep everything which he had ever learned or read stored away,
so to speak, in watertight compartments of his brain, ready for instant
use when called for." But he never paraded his knowledge of history or
anything else, and one of his most engaging characteristics was the
extreme respect and, indeed, deference which he paid to acknowledged
masters of any branch of learning or science. He welcomed the
opportunity which his occasional periods of residence in London
afforded him of offering hospitality to such. "My experience of men of
intellectual eminence," he once said, "has been that they are not only
interesting, {171} but as a rule extremely agreeable." Among those who
from time to time were his guests at St. John's Lodge were men of such
varied distinction as Lord Halsbury, Lord Rosebery, Mr. W. H. Mallock,
Sir Ernest A. W. Budge, F.S.A., Cardinal Vaughan, Sir William Huggins,
Mr. Walter Birch, Mr. Westlake, Sir William Crookes, Mr. F. W. H.
Myers, etc. Later on, after the presentation of his only daughter, his
charming house in Regent's Park (which, as well as its spacious
gardens, he did much to improve and adorn) became the centre of much
agreeable hospitality of a more general kind. Bute himself was pleased
to think that the entertainments given there in the beautiful
ball-room--lit from garlands of Venetian glass, and opening on to the
illuminated grounds--were popular and appreciated by society. "I
really think," he wrote, "that people enjoy making up parties to come
to us on these occasions. Regent's Park is a _terra incognita_ to a
great many Londoners; and there is perhaps a certain piquancy about a
place which almost simulates to be a country house and is yet only a
shilling cab-fare from Piccadilly Circus."
In 1888, the same year in which he acquired his London residence, Bute
paid his first visit to Falkland, his new possession in Fife--his
first, that is, as owner of the estate and keeper of the ancient
palace; for (as he notes in his diary) he had visited it as a boy of
thirteen, nearly thirty years previously, in the company of Lady
Elizabeth Moore, and had been there before more than once with his
mother. The firstfruits of his new connection with the place was a
carefully-written paper on "David Duke of Rothesay," the hapless heir
of Robert III., said to have been starved to death in Falkland Palace
in March, {172} 1402.[9] Of this article the friendly critic already
quoted[10] appreciatively writes:
Lord Bute's qualities as a historian appear conspicuously in the
lecture on David Duke of Rothesay, where the scanty material available
about this unfortunate prince is treated in a truly scientific spirit.
The zeal for truth shown in it is only equalled by his noble desire,
even at the eleventh hour, to do justice to the poor lad so cruelly
murdered by his contemporaries and misrepresented by posterity.
A rumour had been widely current, in the year of Queen Victoria's
golden jubilee, that Bute was to be created "Jubilee" Duke of
Glamorgan. It is permissible to question whether his patriotism would
have allowed him to consent to the merging of his historic Scottish
title in a brand-new one derived from a Welsh county; but his only
written reference to the matter appears in a letter to a friend who had
sent him a newspaper-cutting on the subject:
I cannot believe that there is anything in the report to which you have
called my attention. Were it so, I imagine that I should have heard of
it before now through some other channel than the Society columns of a
halfpenny newspaper.
In the spring of 1890 the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Glamorganshire,
then vacant, was offered to him {173} by the Prime Minister (Lord
Salisbury), but he did not see his way to accept it. A single line in
his diary records the fact; but there is a brief further mention of it
in a letter written at the time:
I have little or no acquaintance with the county, or with "them that
dwell therein" beyond the limits of Cardiff and of my own property.
For this and other more personal reasons, I have--in, I hope, a not
unbecoming letter--begged leave to decline the honour.
[Sidenote: 1890, Mayor of Cardiff]
With another offer made to him a little later in the same year Bute
found himself able to comply, much to the satisfaction of all
concerned. This was a requisition that he should allow himself to be
nominated as Mayor of Cardiff for 1890-91. It is a point of
considerable interest, and one certainly illustrative of the strong
sense of duty which always animated him, that the first peer to hold
the highest municipal office in any English or Welsh borough for
several generations--certainly since the Reform Bill--should have been
one whom his natural love of retirement, and aversion from public
display, might have prompted to refuse any office of the kind. Once
elected, he attended with sedulous care to such duties as devolved on
him in virtue of his office; and early in 1891 he wrote to his old
friend Miss Skene, giving a cheerful account of his stewardship. The
last part of this letter, in which some of his deeper feelings are
touchingly disclosed, would have appealed with very special force to
his correspondent, one of the chief works of whose life at Oxford was
the rescue of girls and women; and for that reason a portion of her
reply is appended:
{174}
Cardiff,
_January_ 23, 1891.
MY DEAR MISS SKENE,
This gorgeous paper[11] is that which the town of Cardiff supplies for
the use of its mayors. As I have had nothing to do personally with
originating it, I may freely say that I think it very pretty. And the
arms of the town are certainly interesting historically, as a memorial
of the De Clares, Lords of Glamorgan, of whom the last male
representative fell at Bannockburn in 1314.
I get on pretty well with my civic government here. My official
confidants are nearly all Radical Dissenters, but we manage in quite a
friendly way. They only elected me as a kind of figure-head; and
although they are good enough to be glad whenever I take part in
details, I am willing to leave these in the hands of people with more
experience than myself, as far as I properly and conscientiously can do
so.
I have, however, felt it to be my duty (owing to some terrible facts)
to insist upon the enforcement of the laws for the protection of little
girls; and here I find unanimous and hearty support from quite a
majority of the officials, who differ from one another as widely as
possible upon every religious, political, and social question. I
learned yesterday of a certain lot of children whom I have been
honoured to be the instrument of getting out of a bad house of the
worst kind. This will cheer me on my death-bed--or beyond, for I shall
have forgotten, but Another will not.
Sincerely yours,
BUTE.
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{175}
[Illustration: FACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE MARQUESS OF BUTE TO MISS SKENE]
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{176}
Miss Skene replied a few days later:
I cannot tell you what immense pleasure it gave me to receive your kind
letter, and I think you were indeed most good, in the midst of all your
work, to write to me yourself.... I am most deeply interested in what
you have been able to do for the rescue of the poor little victims of
evil-doers. I wish with all my heart that the mayors of other towns
would take the same view of their duty in these matters; but alas! this
is not always the case.... I am sure it will always be a happiness to
yourself to feel that you have saved the poor children of whom you
speak. These things are not forgotten in heaven.
Ever your faithful old friend,
FELICIA SKENE.
[Illustration: _The Marquess of Bute, Mayor of Cardiff, 1890-1891_]
Bute gave his mayoral banquet in the Drill Hall at Cardiff on February
4, 1891, wearing the beautiful chain which he had had specially
designed and made for the chief magistrate of the borough. Some alarm
was caused, in the middle of the dinner, by the sudden breaking out of
fire in the decorations of the roof; but no one was injured, and
(largely owing to Bute's own coolness) there was no panic of any kind.
In one of his letters he makes this curious comment on the mishap:
I should have been prepared for the misadventure, for I was suffering
at the time under an evil direction of [Symbol: Mercury], who was just
then in [Symbol: Mars] with [Symbol: Uranus], so that I was almost
bound to anticipate some untoward happening.[12]
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On his return from Teneriffe, Bute spent several months at Cardiff,
where, as already mentioned, he entertained the Royal Association at
their meeting there, and read his paper on the ancient language of the
islanders. He attended the corporation-meetings regularly between
April and November, and was able to note in his diary in the latter
month that his year of municipal office had been a success. He was
particularly gratified by a letter from the Duke of Norfolk, himself
the mayor-elect for Sheffield, asking his advice on various points
connected with the office--"advice," added the Duke, "which your most
successful tenure of the mayoralty of Cardiff renders you so admirably
qualified to give." Bute showed this letter to a friend, remarking in
his quiet way: "The local press has spoken very kindly of my conduct as
mayor, but I value this letter more than any number of newspaper
articles."
Bute went up from Cardiff in May to attend the Royal Academy dinner, as
he did on several subsequent occasions. It was of a later one of these
entertainments that he noted: "The Academy was bad, and the dinner the
dullest I have been at, only redeemed by Rosebery's very witty speech,
which was, however, obviously the result of long toil. The Lord
Chancellor's [Halsbury] seemed much more spontaneous." Bute does not
seem to have spoken at any of these functions, as he did occasionally
at the dinners of the Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
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Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff records in his diary the impression made on
Sir Alexander Grant, at one of these dinners, by Bute's oration.
I met Sir A. Grant, who was full of the speech which Lord Bute
delivered the other night at the Scottish Academy dinner, in which he
said that "Athens and Assisi had spoilt him for everything else."[13]
[1] Froude makes the same remark ("Oceana," Chap. XIV.) about the
Chinamen on board the steamer by which he travelled from Australia to
New Zealand. "I suppose," he adds, "that to Chinamen the separate
personalities are as easily recognised as ours. To me they seemed only
what Schopenhauer says that all individual existences are--'accidental
illustrations of a single idea under the conditions of space and time.'"
[2] A friend of J. H. Newman, referring to some papers contributed by
him, under the title of "Home Thoughts Abroad," to the _British
Magazine_, after his memorable tour in Italy and Sicily in 1833, says:
"These papers were the first to turn people's thoughts from the
classical antiquities and fine arts of Rome to its Christian
associations. It was a new idea to me when I read the papers, and, I
really think, to everybody else. Now (1885) any one would say it never
was otherwise; the fact was, however, that no one then thought of Rome
in connection with St. Peter and Paul, much less St. Leo and St.
Gregory, or of sumptuous worship as anything but a kind of theatrical
sight." This paper was reprinted in 1872, in the volume called
"Discussions and Arguments," under the new title of "How to Accomplish
it."
[3] "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
[4] The original German text (of which Bute's letter contained a copy)
ran as follows: "Got sei Dank, das ist wahr; aber es waere nicht so,
wenn wir die vielen Anerbieten, das Passionspiel in verschiedenen
Stadten Europas aufzufuehren, annehmen wuerden. Es ist auch gut fuer
unsere Bevoelkerung, dass das Spiel nur alle zehn Jahre gegeben wird,
denn in der Zwischenzeit fuehren wir unser gewohntes und ruhiges Leben
in diesen Tale, und ein neues Geschlecht von Kindern hat Zeit
heranzuwachsen in den alten Ueberlieferungen unseres Ortes."
[5] Bute was only in his thirty-fifth year when he wrote these words.
[6] He had made the ascent of the Pyramids before--in 1865, when in his
eighteenth year, and again in 1879.
[7] The eminent astronomer was, of course, himself a man of science
rather than a man of letters, and as such must be pardoned the use of
the uncouth word "scientist," which disfigures his otherwise eloquent
tribute to his friend.
[8] Bute was interested in the longevity of parrots, and had many talks
on the subject with the intelligent parrot-keeper at the Zoological
Gardens. "The parrot they had longest," he notes, "lived with them
fifty-four years; but they do not know how old it was when they got it."
[9] This article, published in the _Scottish Review_ in April, 1892,
was in substance a reproduction of a lecture given by Bute in January,
1872, to the Associated Societies of Edinburgh University, of which he
was honorary president.
[10] Sir William Huggins.
[11] Emblazoned with the scarlet and gold arms of Cardiff--or three
chevronels gules. Since 1906 this charming and historic coat-armorial
has unfortunately given place to one described by a respected citizen
of Cardiff as "an abomination"--a shield bespattered with red dragons
and leeks, and other Welsh emblems, and surmounted by three ostrich
feathers. The last-named assumption is particularly indefensible, the
ostrich plume being, of course, the badge of the King's son and heir,
and not of the Prince of Wales as such.
[12] Bute's interest in astrology has been already noted (_ante_, p.
135), and is also referred to in Mr. Myers' obituary notice (_post_,
Appendix V.). He was not, of course, unaware that the _practice_ of
astrology had been forbidden to the Christians of the early Church, and
condemned by a sixteenth-century Pope. But he also had the authority
of St. Thomas for believing, if he desired to do so, that the heavenly
bodies do influence the bodies of men, and so indirectly their passions
and their conduct. This is a matter of science, not of theology, which
forbids, not the study of the science, but the belief, once so widely
current, that the astrologer can predict with certainty the course of
events and man's future actions.
[13] _Notes from a Diary_ (1873-1881), vol. ii. p. 101.
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