The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke Volume I Part 23

APPENDIX

'The division of the party was a very singular one. The Whigs were divided; the Radicals were divided; the wild Irish were divided, for the wild Irish at this particular moment were receiving the Liberal whip, and were, accordingly, on the party lists. On the whole, out of 296 members who were at this moment receiving the Liberal whip, about 110 had p.r.o.nounced for Mr. Gladstone, and about 110 for Lord Hartington against Mr. Gladstone, the remainder, who included a majority of the Irish, having announced their intention of walking out, or having refused to take sides.... With Lord Hartington and against Mr. Gladstone were, of course, nearly all the Front Bench, even those who at first promised to support Mr. Gladstone having seen fit to change under pressure. One curious fact about my list is the large number of persons at first marked with a single line, as having promised Mr. Gladstone, and afterwards altered to crosses as having yielded under Front-Bench pressure. The Ba.s.ses were with Lord Hartington; Sir Thomas Bazley, leader of the middle-cla.s.s Lancas.h.i.+re Whigs, who at first had gone with Mr. Gladstone, had gone over to Lord Hartington. The Beaumonts were with Lord Hartington, as were the Bra.s.seys.

The two Brights, John and Jacob, who at first had been expected to support Mr. Gladstone, had finally decided, under peace influences, to support Lord Hartington, on the ground that his policy was less likely than that of Mr. Gladstone to bring about an armed intervention. Campbell-Bannerman was frankly with Lord Hartington from the first; and Lord Frederick and Lord Edward Cavendish went with their brother, although Lord Frederick Cavendish was one of Mr. Gladstone's dearest friends. Childers knew no doubts, but Joe Cowen's support of Hartington was more peculiar. Peace men, like Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who disapproved the Crimean War, were perhaps in their right place in supporting Lord Hartington's opposition to Mr. Gladstone's resolutions; but Cowen and his set, such as Norwood and Leatham, went with Lord Hartington chiefly, I think, on account of their bitter personal hatred for Mr. Gladstone. J. K. Cross, afterwards to be Under-Secretary of State for India, went with Hartington, against our expectation; but the joint weight of Devons.h.i.+re influence and the Brights was too much for Lancas.h.i.+re. Cowper Temple, de Grey (afterwards lady Ripon), and Grant Duff were with Lord Hartington, as was to be expected.

Ellice, and Evans of Derbys.h.i.+re, representative Whigs, separated themselves from such other ordinary Whigs as Leveson-Gower and Young, and went with Hartington. Fitzmaurice separated himself from Fawcett and me and Chamberlain and Courtney, and p.r.o.nounced, after some hesitation, for Hartington. W. E. Forster, the two Goldsmids, Goschen, Harcourt, and Hayter, were, of course, with Hartington, as was also Hersch.e.l.l. Sir Henry James could no more be expected to separate himself from Hartington than could Nigel Kingscote, Knatchbull-Hugessen, or Lord Kensington, the Second Whip.... Stansfeld supported Hartington, as did very naturally Sir N. de Rothschild (afterwards Lord Rothschild), the Marquis of Stafford, Lord Tavistock, and Mr. Roebuck (who, oddly enough, received our whip, though he never voted with us unless we went wrong). Trevelyan went with Hartington--a thing which had been less expected than the support of Hartington by Mr. Villiers, by Mr. Whitbread, and by Walter of the _Times_.... Mr. Biggar characteristically stated to various people that he should vote against Hartington, for Hartington, and not at all.... Mr.

b.u.t.t from the first declared that he should not compromise his party by taking part in the division.... Parnell, like b.u.t.t, from the first said that he should abstain.... P. J. Smyth, the orator of the Irish party, or who might perhaps rather be described as forming a party in himself, for he was not a Home Ruler, but a Repealer, also, after at first intending to support Mr. Gladstone, decided not to vote.'

CHAPTER XV

HOME POLITICS AND PERSONAL SURROUNDINGS

In a week spent in Paris at the end of 1876 Sir Charles stayed with Gambetta, and took occasion to bring about a meeting between him and Sir William and Lady Harcourt, who were also in Paris. With Sir William Harcourt was his son and inseparable companion Mr. Lewis Harcourt, who recalls a day when Sir Charles said to him: "Now, Loulou, I want you to come and have lunch with me by yourself; I'm not asking your father and mother to-day." He remembers his pride in going off to the Cafe Anglais, where they were met by a man with a big black beard. "This, Loulou, is Monsieur Gambetta." The two men talked, and the boy listened, as he was well used to do, for in those days he constantly "ran about beside his father like a little dog." After lunch they went for a drive, and still the men talked, and Gambetta pointed to the window from which he had proclaimed the Republic, and Dilke showed where he had lain for half a day while the French troops were besieging the French of Paris. The boy listened eagerly--to understand, years after, how the whole drive had been planned for his edification and delight.

Since August, 1876, Gambetta had been talking of a visit, proposing, says Sir Charles, to "come to me in town, and probably bring Challemel-Lacour also to 76, Sloane Street." The visit was to be purely private and social; "he will receive no deputations, no addresses, and will visit no provincial towns."

'It was in 1876 that he sent to me a certain Gerard, who became French reader to the Empress Augusta of Germany, and it is supposed that the somewhat brilliant volume called _The Society of Berlin_, long afterwards published under the name of _Count Paul Vasili_ by Madame Adam (although not the later volumes of the same series, which were by Vandam), was from Gerard's pen. Gambetta, when he came to power as Prime Minister, appointed Gerard, who was then in the Legation at Was.h.i.+ngton, his private secretary, Georges Pallain being the second, and Joseph Reinach the third. But Pallain and Reinach, in fact, exercised the functions, because Gambetta fell before Gerard arrived.

Gerard is now (1909) an Amba.s.sador.'

Just before Dilke's visit to Gambetta in the spring of 1877 another indication of his popularity in France occurred. 'Gavard had come to me from the French Emba.s.sy to ask me whether I should like to go to Paris with Sir Louis Mallet to arrange a new French Treaty, as "his Government would like me."' The proposal fell through. As Sir Charles said, 'the Government could not well, I think, have sent two Liberals at the head of the Commission.' Mallet

'was a very experienced official, not, however, very successful at the Board of Trade, and greatly given to grumble and growl. He held the mildly reciprocitarian views in which he followed Mill and expanded Cobden's opinions, and was thought by us to be the author of the _Letters of a Disciple of Richard Cobden_, the circulation of which by the Cobden Club, at his own request, nearly destroyed that inst.i.tution. He afterwards left the Board of Trade for the India Office, where he became permanent Under-Secretary of State, on which occasion Grant Duff said, "Mallet will be happy now. He will have _two_ worlds to despair of;" for he generally began each sentence with the words, "I despair," uttered in a deep voice.'

On April 10th, 1877, just before the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War, which seemed as if it might involve all the Great Powers, is this entry of a dinner with the French Minister:

'Went to dine with Gavard, meeting his second and third secretaries, the Italian first secretary, the Dutch Minister (Baron de Bylandt), the Belgian Minister (Solvyns), and "The Viper" (alias Abraham Hayward, Q.C.). Cypher telegrams poured in all through dinner, and portended no good to the peace of Europe. It was, however, a pleasant dinner, in which Hayward and Solvyns had most of the talk to themselves, but made it good talk. Gavard was afterwards accused by the Republican party of having conspired against them, which for his friends seemed always to be a statement in the nature of a joke. I once asked Gambetta if he seriously believed that Gavard had conspired, at which Gambetta shook with laughter in his jovial way, but added that it was absolutely necessary to pretend he had, for other people had conspired in the Emba.s.sy, and the head man (in the absence of an Amba.s.sador) must be held responsible in such a case.'

Another diplomatist whom Sir Charles met in the same month was the Comte de Montgelas, first secretary to the Austrian Emba.s.sy:

'... A man who played a great part at this time, belonging to a Bavarian family which had furnished a distinguished politician to the Congress of Vienna. He went everywhere, knew everyone, was clever, showy, talkative; but after being one of the leading exponents of the Beaconsfield policy, he was suddenly dismissed by his Government, ...

and when, many years afterwards, I again saw him, he had become a servant of the British North Borneo Company. I believe he was too friendly to Bismarck to please Beust (then Austrian Amba.s.sador in London).'

He tells also the story of a 'King-maker':

'The Portuguese Minister in 1876 was the old Duc de Saldanha. This was the man who some years previously, at the age of eighty, being dissatisfied with the state of things in Lisbon, had taken the steamer from Southampton, and, though he was at the time Minister in London, landed at Lisbon, put himself at the head of the Guards, marched on the palace, locked up the King, turned out the Ministers, put in his friends, released the King, and returned by the next steamer to his legation.'

Here too is gossip from Berlin:

'On June 15th, 1877, I breakfasted with Goschen to meet Lord Odo Russell, who was most amusing. He told us that, Bismarck being ill, the Chancellor's temper was so bad as to make him "impossible for his family, his subordinates, and even his Sovereign." He said that Bismarck hates the Empress Augusta with so deadly a hatred as to have lately said to him: "I am not Foreign Secretary. My master's Foreign Secretary is the Empress, whose Foreign Secretary is the French Amba.s.sador, whose Foreign Secretary is the General of the Jesuits."...

'At this time General Grant came to London, and, as I had known him at Was.h.i.+ngton and he had liked me there, I had to go about a good deal to meet him at his wish, and he also dined with me on June 10th, when I invited him to choose his own party. He knew, however, so few men in London that I had to suggest men to him, and asked him whether he would like to meet b.u.t.t as the leader of the Irish party. He said he should, but was very silent all through dinner and until he had begun the second of two big cigars. Then, as usual with him, he began to thaw under the influence of tobacco, and whispered to me--when b.u.t.t was talking very pleasantly under the influence of something besides tobacco, and with his enormous, perfectly round face a.s.suming, as it always did after dinner, the appearance of the harvest moon--"Is he a Papist?" to which I replied "No"; whereupon Grant became friendly to him. General Grant's chief weakness, unless that position be a.s.signed to his cigars, was his detestation of the Roman Catholics.'

Many political personages are sketched in pa.s.sing reference. Here is Roebuck, who in his fierce prime had been known as 'Tear 'em':

'The famous orator and Radical of past days was now a little, shrivelled-up old man, but he was still able to play a great part in the House of Commons, although entirely decayed in mind. His vinegary hatred of Mr. Gladstone, and of the Liberal party generally, uttered from the Liberal side in a piercing treble, was destined to be cheered to the echo for a short time from the Tory benches, and Roebuck, later than this, saw himself made a Privy Councillor by Lord Beaconsfield.'

In January, 1877, is this reference to a force of the future:

'Randolph Churchill and Drummond Wolff to dinner; amusing in the style of Robert Macaire and his man.'

Among more disciplined sections of the Tory party Sir Charles had many friends. One of them, a social figure of great charm and distinction, was Lord Barrington,

'who used, when Mr. Disraeli was leader of the House of Commons, to keep for him the notes which have to be kept by the Prime Minister for the Queen.... Barrington showed me his one night; it began: "Lord Barrington presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to inform your Majesty that..." The Queen in no way showed her favouritism to Mr. Disraeli more than in excusing him from the performance of this tiresome duty, which, however, had the one advantage of giving Mr. Gladstone in his administration something quiet to do during exciting divisions such as those on Bradlaugh....

'Lady Waldegrave pressed me to go to Strawberry Hill on a particular Sat.u.r.day in the month--the only one, I think, on which, as a fact, I did not go--to meet the Prince of Wales, but as she playfully took me to task at the same time for not attending levees, I connected the two things, and thought she had been asked to speak to me, and declined. I told her that I had left off going to levees in 1865, before I left Cambridge, for no reason except that they bored me; and that if I were suddenly to go, people would think that I had changed my views, and wished it to be known that I had changed them, for they thought that my not going was connected with my opinions, which, however, it was not.'

There is a note early in this year:

'I was engaged at this moment on an attempt to form a circle of friends who would be superior, from the existence with them of a standpoint, to the mere ordinary political world, and I began doing my best to meet frequently those whom I most liked--John Morley, Dillwyn, Leonard Courtney, and Fitzmaurice, prominently among the politicians; and Burton (Director of the National Gallery), Minto, and Joseph Knight, prominently among the artists and men of letters. All these were men with something n.o.ble in their natures, or something delicate and beautiful, full of sterling qualities.'

Minto was the well-known man of letters. Joseph Knight, for many years dramatic critic of the Athenaeum, and, later, editor of _Notes and Queries_, was perhaps the best known and most beloved of Bohemians, a pillar of the Garrick Club, and one of the men to whose tongue came ceaselessly apt and unexpected quotations from Shakespeare. He had the same pa.s.sion as old Mr. Dilke for acc.u.mulating books, and like him, too, was a living catalogue to his own library, or libraries, for he acc.u.mulated and sold two in his lifetime.

Another man of letters needs no introduction:

'A wreck of gla.s.ses attests the presence of Swinburne. He compared himself to Dante; repeatedly named himself with Sh.e.l.ley and Dante, to the exclusion of all other poets; a.s.sured me that he was a great man only because he had been properly flogged at Eton, the last time for reading _The Scarlet Letter_ when he should have been reading Greek; confessed to never having read Helvetius, though he talked of Diderot and Rousseau, and finally informed me that two gla.s.ses of green Chartreuse were a perfect antidote to one of yellow, or two of yellow to one of green. It was immediately after this that Theodore Watts- Dunton took charge of him and reduced him to absolute respectability.'

Sir Charles tells stories of a remarkable political and literary personage.

'Lord Houghton's anecdotes were rendered good by the remarkable people that he had known.... He once about this time said to me: "I have known everyone in the present century that was worth knowing." With a little doubt in my mind, I murmured, "Napoleon Bonaparte?" "I was taken to Elba when I was a boy," said Houghton instantly. I thought his recollections of the first Emperor apocryphal. There was, however, a chance that the father--who was in Italy--did take the child to Elba.'

Another story, of which Lord Houghton was not the narrator, but the subject, came to Sir Charles during a party at Lady Pollock's, and concerned the dinner which had preceded the party.

'It had been at seven o'clock in honour of Tennyson, who would not dine at any other hour, and Tennyson sat on one side of the hostess, and Lord Houghton on the other; and the latter was cross at being made to dine at 7, preferring to dine at 8.30, and sup, after dinner, at 11. The conversation turned on a poem which had been written by Tennyson in his youth, and Tennyson observed "I have not even a copy myself--no one has it." To which Lord Houghton answered: "I have one.

I have copies of all the rubbish you ever wrote."--A pause.--"When you are dead I mean to publish them all. It will make my fortune and destroy your reputation." After this Tennyson was heard to murmur, "Beast!" It must have been a real pleasure to him to find himself survive his brother poet.

'On the same evening I heard a story (probably a well-known one, but certainly good) of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon's body; how the Government of the day wrote to the Duke to tell him they had agreed to let the French transport the corpse from St. Helena, the Duke being in Opposition at the time; how the answer ran: "F.-M. the Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to H.M.'s Ministers. If they wish to know F.-M. the Duke of Wellington's opinion as on a matter of public policy, he must decline to give one. If, however, they wish only to consult him as a private individual, F.-M. the Duke of Wellington has no hesitation in saying that he does not care one twopenny d.a.m.n what becomes of the ashes of Napoleon Buonaparte."'

Sir Charles had always many friends among artists, and his weekly visit to the National Gallery was rarely intermitted by him even when in office. To the end of his life he maintained the habit of going there whenever he could make time, and always inspecting each new purchase. He kept in touch, too, regularly with the art of his own day, and records his sight of the first exhibition in the still unfinished Grosvenor Gallery. The exhibition did not please him as a whole, though he admired not only Burne-Jones's "Days of Creation," but a picture called "Pa.s.sing Days,"

also allegorical, the work of Burne-Jones's disciple, Mr. Strudwick. His taste in art was always personal; Velasquez, the painters' painter, made no appeal to him. He wors.h.i.+pped Perugino and Bellini, rating "The Doge"

among the masterpieces of the world; while Raphael had for him degenerated from his master's (Perugino's) perfection into mere expressionless beauty.

His appreciations were made with great force and originality, and an old Academician who had accompanied him round galleries once said to the second Lady Dilke (herself a most authoritative judge of painting): "It is always interesting to see what a man like that will admire."

Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Charles's frequent guest at 76, Sloane Street, was usually his companion in picture-seeing. It is also recorded that in the spring of this year Dilke took his friend, 'at an unearthly hour for one of his lazy habits,' to see the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race.

In the matter of music his preferences were no less emphatic, as witness this entry:

'On May 29th I dined with a sister of Edward Levy Lawson, married to a German who was Rubinstein's great friend; and not only Rubinstein, but Joachim, played to the guests. Mrs. Bourke, a sister-in-law of Lord Mayo, was always asked everywhere in London where Joachim was meant to play, inasmuch as she was his favourite accompanist among amateurs.

The modesty of the great man led him after dinner, once when I was dining with the Mitfords, when he knew that his time had come, to turn to Mrs. Bourke, who was famous only as s.h.i.+ning in his reflected light, and say: "Mrs. Bourke, won't you play us something, and I will just come in with my fiddle?" Rubinstein's playing I never liked. To me he seemed only the most violent of all the piano-bangers of the world; but he was literally wors.h.i.+pped by his admirers, and was grand to look at--as fine as Beethoven must have been.'

Early in March of this year occurred the death of George Odger. The working cla.s.s of London decided to show their great respect by giving him such a funeral ceremony as is rare in England, and Sir Charles walked bareheaded through the streets with the great procession that accompanied the body from the house in High Street, St. Giles's, all the long miles to Brompton Cemetery.

A shrewd observer of Parliaments wrote of Sir Charles at this time: