XI.
BEFORE THE LIVERPOOL PHILOMATHIC SOCIETY.
TheHon.J. Russell Lowell, formerly the United States representative at the Court ofSt.James, was the special guest on Wednesday night, November 23, 1888, at a banquet of the Liverpool Philomathic Society, held at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. In response to the toast, “The Guest of the Evening,” Mr.Lowell, who met with a cordial reception, referred at the outset to what he termed a rather pathetic incident of his literary history. He said:
It is connected, with the first volume which introduced me to the English public. It was not the “Bigelow Papers” or “Biglow Papers”—I beg pardon—(laughter), but it was a little volume of ratherimmature poetry which some enthusiast on this side of the water reprinted privately. He was good enough to send me a copy. Perhaps it is known to you that we have a protective system. (Laughter.) The book was accordingly liable to duty as coming to its author, and for the information of whomsoever it might concern there had been written on the outside “Value6d.” (Laughter.) I laid it to heart at once, and I said to myself, “Here is a piece of criticism you can appreciate, and which, perhaps, may do you a great deal of good.” (Laughter.)As I was saying, I do not intend to make you any formal speech, and I should not have come here had itnot been that I think it the duty of every man who can say anything that affects the people, whether by his pen or by his tongue, to go anywhere where expression is given to the friendly feeling which it is the desire of all wise and all honest men, I think, to deepen between the two countries which you and I represent. You have been good enough, Mr. President, also to refer to my career as a diplomatist in England, and you were quite right in saying that it was my endeavor to maintain those relations—those friendly relations—and I hope not without some success. (Cheers.) But I cannot listen to this compliment, I cannot accept it, without saying that I was followed by anAmerican representative who has the same feeling, and who has represented America as ably in my judgment as she was ever represented in England. (Cheers.) That reminds me that we have been rather remarkably represented here in England. If you look over the list of our Ministers you will find that we have had three Adamses, one after the other, grandfather, father and son—one of the most really striking instances of heredity I know of (laughter); and the last Mr. Adams wore at the Court of Queen Victoria, as he told me, the regalia in which his grandfather was robed when he made his bow before George III. as the first American Minister in England, and was, I am bound tosay, very civilly received by His Majesty. (Laughter.) Those are only three illustrations, but we have many others. We have had Galitz, for instance, a prominent American diplomatist—though he was not an American by birth, but was a naturalized Swiss.There has been lately—I am not going to say a word about politics; I always rigidly avoid them—but I have seen a number of allusions in the newspapers lately to a certain tension, as the journalists like to call it, between the two countries. I cannot help thinking it is the result of a little irritation on both sides; but I have always felt that nothing was more foolish and that nothingought to be more rigidly left to children than the “You’re another.” (Laughter and cheers.) Now, I dare say metaphysically, you are another; but there are occasions when the telling one that he is “another” is apt to have a disastrous effect, and I think we ought to avoid it. (Cheers.) When we look at the enormous extension of the race which speaks English (as we call it, for I am always desirous to avoid confining it to the English race, as we used to term it in our pride); when we consider this growth (though I do not quite agree with the figures of some of my friends, I do not believe we shall be a population of one hundred millions or two hundred millions so soon as is expected);when we consider this growth we find a remarkable fact, and one which no thoughtful man can help observing and reflecting upon. England is the greatest of colonizing races. This is a great distinction, and ennobles a nation. England has put a girdle of three prosperous and vigorous communities around the globe. Of course, it is not for me to say a word about Imperial federation. I am not sure Imperial federation would be a good thing. I am not sure, even if it were a good thing, it is not a dream. It is not for me to say; but it seems to me nobody who looks far can help seeing that the time may not be far distant when the good understanding among all theseEnglish-speaking people and their enormous resources may have great weight in deciding the destinies of mankind. (Cheers.) Now, I am one of those who believe that civilization and freedom are better married than divided, that they go better together. Nobody who has studied history would say they do not exist apart, but it is in divorce, and each is the worse for it. (Cheers.) The duty which has been laid upon the English-speaking races, so far as we can discover, has been to carry ever the great lessons of liberty combined with order. (Cheers.) That is the great secret of civilization. We may have our different laws and different forms of government; but so long as wesympathize with any idea that so far transcends all geographical boundaries and all municipal limits as that, I think you will agree with me that nothing can be more important than to preserve the friendliest relations between the two greatest representatives of this conquering and colonizing race. (Cheers.)I did not intend to detain you so long as I have (cries of “Go on”), but I have also in my experience of after-dinner speeches observed that a speech is like an ill-broken horse; it is apt to take the bit between its teeth and to bolt at the most unexpected moment. A speaker frequently brings up, not where he intended to bring up, but where hissteed chooses to land him. I suppose that before coming here I ought to have studied carefully the history of Liverpool, with which I ought to have appeared to have been familiar from my earliest childhood. (Laughter.) Unfortunately, there was no history of Liverpool in my friend Tom Brown’s library. (Laughter.) There were histories of inferior places—Chester, and so on—but no history of Liverpool; and I therefore cannot give you a great deal of information which I have no doubt would have been new and very interesting to you, and which would make the staple of a proper after-dinner speech. But there is one thing I remember about Liverpool. I have always felt a sortof literary gratitude to Liverpool, strange as you may think it. In my father’s library I remember very well three quarto volumes stood side by side more years ago than I like to say. Two of these volumes were “Lorenzo the Magnificent,” and the other was “Poggio Bracciolini.” I, of course, when I was a boy, did not know precisely the meaning of those books; but they did to a certain extent afford me an introduction to the “Renaissance in Italy.” I thought—but Sir James Picton corrects me—that it was Roscoe who translated the life of the second Lorenzo; but it was his son, I am informed, who translated another book which gave me my first acquaintance with theItalian Novelists, and which was a book which I remember buying when I was making a library of my own very early in life.But to an American Liverpool generally represents the gate by which he enters the Old World; for as our ancestors went across West to find a new world there in that unexplored Atlantic, as they thought it might be, we go back Eastward to find our new world in the old—a new world of continental instruction and freshness. And I am glad, linked as we are in history and speaking, as I am given to understand, a language which at least can be understood the one by the other (laughter)—I am glad to find that my countrymenlinger more and more in the land of their ancestors. Formerly Bristol was the great port through which intercourse with America was kept up, but now certainly Liverpool is one end of the three-thousand-mile loom on which the shuttles which are binding us all in visible ties more and more together are continually shooting to and fro. Liverpool is also the gate by which Americans leave the Old World to go home, and I am to a certain extent, as a person who crosses the seas not infrequently, interested in a discussion which I saw in the newspapers the other day as to the difficulties of embarcation at Liverpool. But I have encountered one which I did not expect, and thatdifficulty has been put in my way by the Philomathic Society. You have made it harder to get away from Liverpool than I should have expected or supposed, and I shall carry away with me when I go to-morrow the recollections of this pleasant meeting with you, of its cordiality, of the pleasant things that have been said to me, and that we often accept things that we do not deserve. (Laughter and cheers.)
It is connected, with the first volume which introduced me to the English public. It was not the “Bigelow Papers” or “Biglow Papers”—I beg pardon—(laughter), but it was a little volume of ratherimmature poetry which some enthusiast on this side of the water reprinted privately. He was good enough to send me a copy. Perhaps it is known to you that we have a protective system. (Laughter.) The book was accordingly liable to duty as coming to its author, and for the information of whomsoever it might concern there had been written on the outside “Value6d.” (Laughter.) I laid it to heart at once, and I said to myself, “Here is a piece of criticism you can appreciate, and which, perhaps, may do you a great deal of good.” (Laughter.)
As I was saying, I do not intend to make you any formal speech, and I should not have come here had itnot been that I think it the duty of every man who can say anything that affects the people, whether by his pen or by his tongue, to go anywhere where expression is given to the friendly feeling which it is the desire of all wise and all honest men, I think, to deepen between the two countries which you and I represent. You have been good enough, Mr. President, also to refer to my career as a diplomatist in England, and you were quite right in saying that it was my endeavor to maintain those relations—those friendly relations—and I hope not without some success. (Cheers.) But I cannot listen to this compliment, I cannot accept it, without saying that I was followed by anAmerican representative who has the same feeling, and who has represented America as ably in my judgment as she was ever represented in England. (Cheers.) That reminds me that we have been rather remarkably represented here in England. If you look over the list of our Ministers you will find that we have had three Adamses, one after the other, grandfather, father and son—one of the most really striking instances of heredity I know of (laughter); and the last Mr. Adams wore at the Court of Queen Victoria, as he told me, the regalia in which his grandfather was robed when he made his bow before George III. as the first American Minister in England, and was, I am bound tosay, very civilly received by His Majesty. (Laughter.) Those are only three illustrations, but we have many others. We have had Galitz, for instance, a prominent American diplomatist—though he was not an American by birth, but was a naturalized Swiss.
There has been lately—I am not going to say a word about politics; I always rigidly avoid them—but I have seen a number of allusions in the newspapers lately to a certain tension, as the journalists like to call it, between the two countries. I cannot help thinking it is the result of a little irritation on both sides; but I have always felt that nothing was more foolish and that nothingought to be more rigidly left to children than the “You’re another.” (Laughter and cheers.) Now, I dare say metaphysically, you are another; but there are occasions when the telling one that he is “another” is apt to have a disastrous effect, and I think we ought to avoid it. (Cheers.) When we look at the enormous extension of the race which speaks English (as we call it, for I am always desirous to avoid confining it to the English race, as we used to term it in our pride); when we consider this growth (though I do not quite agree with the figures of some of my friends, I do not believe we shall be a population of one hundred millions or two hundred millions so soon as is expected);when we consider this growth we find a remarkable fact, and one which no thoughtful man can help observing and reflecting upon. England is the greatest of colonizing races. This is a great distinction, and ennobles a nation. England has put a girdle of three prosperous and vigorous communities around the globe. Of course, it is not for me to say a word about Imperial federation. I am not sure Imperial federation would be a good thing. I am not sure, even if it were a good thing, it is not a dream. It is not for me to say; but it seems to me nobody who looks far can help seeing that the time may not be far distant when the good understanding among all theseEnglish-speaking people and their enormous resources may have great weight in deciding the destinies of mankind. (Cheers.) Now, I am one of those who believe that civilization and freedom are better married than divided, that they go better together. Nobody who has studied history would say they do not exist apart, but it is in divorce, and each is the worse for it. (Cheers.) The duty which has been laid upon the English-speaking races, so far as we can discover, has been to carry ever the great lessons of liberty combined with order. (Cheers.) That is the great secret of civilization. We may have our different laws and different forms of government; but so long as wesympathize with any idea that so far transcends all geographical boundaries and all municipal limits as that, I think you will agree with me that nothing can be more important than to preserve the friendliest relations between the two greatest representatives of this conquering and colonizing race. (Cheers.)
I did not intend to detain you so long as I have (cries of “Go on”), but I have also in my experience of after-dinner speeches observed that a speech is like an ill-broken horse; it is apt to take the bit between its teeth and to bolt at the most unexpected moment. A speaker frequently brings up, not where he intended to bring up, but where hissteed chooses to land him. I suppose that before coming here I ought to have studied carefully the history of Liverpool, with which I ought to have appeared to have been familiar from my earliest childhood. (Laughter.) Unfortunately, there was no history of Liverpool in my friend Tom Brown’s library. (Laughter.) There were histories of inferior places—Chester, and so on—but no history of Liverpool; and I therefore cannot give you a great deal of information which I have no doubt would have been new and very interesting to you, and which would make the staple of a proper after-dinner speech. But there is one thing I remember about Liverpool. I have always felt a sortof literary gratitude to Liverpool, strange as you may think it. In my father’s library I remember very well three quarto volumes stood side by side more years ago than I like to say. Two of these volumes were “Lorenzo the Magnificent,” and the other was “Poggio Bracciolini.” I, of course, when I was a boy, did not know precisely the meaning of those books; but they did to a certain extent afford me an introduction to the “Renaissance in Italy.” I thought—but Sir James Picton corrects me—that it was Roscoe who translated the life of the second Lorenzo; but it was his son, I am informed, who translated another book which gave me my first acquaintance with theItalian Novelists, and which was a book which I remember buying when I was making a library of my own very early in life.
But to an American Liverpool generally represents the gate by which he enters the Old World; for as our ancestors went across West to find a new world there in that unexplored Atlantic, as they thought it might be, we go back Eastward to find our new world in the old—a new world of continental instruction and freshness. And I am glad, linked as we are in history and speaking, as I am given to understand, a language which at least can be understood the one by the other (laughter)—I am glad to find that my countrymenlinger more and more in the land of their ancestors. Formerly Bristol was the great port through which intercourse with America was kept up, but now certainly Liverpool is one end of the three-thousand-mile loom on which the shuttles which are binding us all in visible ties more and more together are continually shooting to and fro. Liverpool is also the gate by which Americans leave the Old World to go home, and I am to a certain extent, as a person who crosses the seas not infrequently, interested in a discussion which I saw in the newspapers the other day as to the difficulties of embarcation at Liverpool. But I have encountered one which I did not expect, and thatdifficulty has been put in my way by the Philomathic Society. You have made it harder to get away from Liverpool than I should have expected or supposed, and I shall carry away with me when I go to-morrow the recollections of this pleasant meeting with you, of its cordiality, of the pleasant things that have been said to me, and that we often accept things that we do not deserve. (Laughter and cheers.)
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