Part 12

But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord Beaconsfield,--past seventy, though nobody knows how much; with his black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.

Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,--a noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind gaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was dead before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic type.

Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary friends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. His appearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming as a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as Mr. Vavasour in Tancred, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and acted each part with equal zest and assiduity. When I first knew him he was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth had copied the decoration for his "Marriage a la mode." The site is now occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt the Piccadilly which he loved.

"There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend, Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial friend; Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cluster round the northern kilns, He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the gods call Dicky Milnes."

When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of reddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. The broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief Justice of England,--Sir Alexander Cockburn, one of the most conspicuous figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the "Hortensius" of Endymion, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning," growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."

The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour, weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.

Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth coming to London to see." This description, though written some years before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:

"But where is now the courtly troop That once rode laughing by? I miss the curls of Cantilupe, The laugh of Lady Di."

Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May? Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a photograph.

With regard to Public Entertainments in the more technical sense, the period of which I am writing was highly favoured. We had Irving and Miss Terry at the height of their powers, with all the gorgeous yet accurate "staging" which Irving had originated. We had Lady Bancroft with that wonderful undertone of pathos in even her brightest comedy, and her accomplished husband, whose peculiar art blended so harmoniously with her own. We had John Hare, the "perfect gentleman" of Stage-land, and the Kendals with their quiet excellence in Drawing-room Drama; and the riotous glory of Mrs. John Wood, whose performances, with Arthur Cecil, at the Court Theatre, will always remain the most mirth-provoking memories of my life. Midway between the Theatre and the Opera, there was the long and lovely series of Gilbert and Sullivan, who surely must have afforded a larger amount of absolutely innocent delight to a larger number of people than any two artists who ever collaborated in the public service.

As to the Opera itself, I must quote a curious passage from Lord Beaconsfield, who figures so often in these pages, because none ever understood London so perfectly as he.

"What will strike you most at the Opera is that you will not see a single person you ever saw before in your life. It is strange; and it shows what a mass of wealth and taste and refinement there is in this wonderful metropolis of ours, quite irrespective of the circles in which we move, and which we once thought, entirely engrossed them."

Those words describe, roughly, the seasons of 1867-1870; and they still hold good, to a considerable extent, of my earlier years in London. The Opera was then the resort of people who really loved music. It had ceased to be, what it had been in the 'thirties and 'forties, a merely fashionable resort; and its social resurrection had scarcely begun.

Personally, I have always been fonder of real life than of its dramatic counterfeit; and a form of Public Entertainment which greatly attracted me was that provided by the Law Courts. To follow the intricacies of a really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel; to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony; and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, can never be forgotten. Not so thrilling, but quite as interesting, were the "Jockey Trial," in 1888, the "Baccarat Case," in 1891, and the "Trial at Bar," of the Raiders in 1896. But they belong to a later date than the period covered by this chapter.

My fondness for the Law Courts might suggest that I was inclined to be a lawyer. Not so. Only two professions ever attracted me in the slightest degree,--Holy Orders and Parliament. But when the dividing-line of 1874 cut my life in two, it occurred to my Father that, aided by name and connexions, I might pass a few years at the Parliamentary Bar, pleasantly and not unprofitably, until an opportunity of entering Parliament occurred. Partly with that end in view, and partly because it seemed disgraceful to have no definite occupation, I became, in 1875, a student of the Inner Temple. I duly ate my dinners; or, rather, as the Temple dined at the unappetizing hour of six, went through a form of eating them; and in so doing was constantly reminded of the experiences of my favourite "Pen." The ways of Law-students had altered wonderfully little in the lapse of forty years.

"The ancient and liberal Inn of the Inner Temple provides in its Hall, and for a most moderate price, an excellent and wholesome dinner of soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the Barristers and Students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of mutton, its sufficient apple-pie, and its bottle of wine. 'This is boiled beef day, I believe, Sir,' said Lowton to Pen. 'Upon my word, Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term; on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall. 'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular swells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail, the Bishop of Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. They dine here, Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names in the Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. They dine! They won't dine these two hours, I dare say.' 'But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't eat any dinner?' Pen asked, still puzzled. 'There's plenty, isn't there?' 'How green you are,' said Lowton. 'Excuse me, but you are green! They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle to himself, if he likes it, when he messes with those three chaps. That's why Corkoran got in with them.'"

Such were dinners at the Temple in Thackeray's time, and such they were in mine. My legal studies were superintended by my friend Mr. J. S. Fox, now K.C., and Recorder of Sheffield. Should this book ever fall under his learned eye, I should be interested to know if he has ever completed the erudite work which in those distant days he contemplated undertaking,

"Tell a Lie and Stick to it:" A Treatise on the Law of Estoppel.

But this is a digression.

Before I leave London as it was when first I dwelt in it, I ought to recall some of the eminent persons who adorned it. Lord Beaconsfield was at the zenith of his power and popularity. Mr. Gladstone, though the crowning triumph of 1880 was not far off, was so unpopular in Society that I was asked to meet him at a dinner as a favour to the hostess, who found it difficult to collect a party when he was dining. Lord Salisbury had just emerged from a seven years' retirement, and was beginning to play for the Premiership. Mr. Chamberlain was spoken of with a kind of awe, as a desperate demagogue longing to head a revolution; and Lord Randolph Churchill was hardly known outside the Turf Club.

Law was presided over, as I have already said, by the brilliant Cockburn, and the mellifluous Coleridge was palpably preparing to succeed him. People whispered wonders about Charles Bowen; and Henry James and Charles Russell had established their positions. In the hierarchy of Medicine there were several leaders. Jenner ruled his patients by terror; Gull by tact, and Andrew Clark by religious mysticism. To me, complaining of dyspepsia, he prescribed a diet with the Pauline formula: "I seek to impose a yoke upon you, that you may be truly free." In the chief seat of the Church sat Archbishop Tait, the most dignified prelate whom I have ever met in our communion, and a really impressive spokesman of the Church in the House of Lords. The Northern Primate, Dr. Thomson, was styled "The Archbishop of Society"; and the Deanery at Westminster sheltered the fine flower of grace and culture in the fragile person of Dean Stanley. G. H. Wilkinson, afterwards Bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, had lately been appointed to St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and had burst like a gunboat into a Dead Sea of lethargy and formalism.

Of course, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive. It only aims at commemorating a few of the figures, in different walks of life, which commanded my attention when I began to know--otherwise than as a schoolboy can know it--what London is, means, and contains. Five and thirty years have sped their course. My Home in the country has ceased to exist; and I find myself numbered among that goodly company who, in succeeding ages, have loved London and found it their natural dwelling-place. I fancy that Lord St. Aldwyn is too much of a sportsman to applaud the sentiment of his ancestor who flourished in the reign of Charles II., but it is exactly mine.

"London is the only place of England to winter in, whereof many true men might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to the Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain. When you are weary of your lodging, you may walk into St. Paul's ... in the Middle Aisle you may hear what the Protestants say, and in the others what the Papists whisper; and, when you have heard both, believe but one, for but one of both says true you may be assured."

We clear the chasm of a century, and hear Dr. Johnson singing the same tune as Squire Hicks.

"The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I'll venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom."

"London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place."

"The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements."

But even Johnson, who is always quoted as the typical lover of London, was not more enthusiastic in its praise than Gibbon. To him "London was never dull, there at least he could keep the monster Ennui at a respectful distance." For him its heat was always tempered; even its solitude was "delicious." In "the soft retirement of my bocage de Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded. "Charming hot weather! I am just going to dine alone. Afterwards I shall walk till dark in my gardens at Kensington, and shall then return to a frugal supper and early bed in Bentinck Street. I lead the life of a philosopher, without any regard to the world or to fashion."