CHAPTER XIIIORATORS

HollyerJAMES MARTINEAUFrom the painting byG. F. Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.To face page 167.

Hollyer

JAMES MARTINEAU

From the painting byG. F. Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.

To face page 167.

From a very early time the art of oratory attracted me strongly. I remember, as a boy, my father reading to us the full report in theTimesof Edwin James’s defence of Orsini; and in later days, during my apprenticeship in the city, I began from time to time to attend debates in the House of Commons.

It was at about the same time that my friend Alan Skinner and I used to find ourselves Sunday after Sunday in the little chapel in Great Portland Street listening to the great Unitarian preacher, James Martineau.

Though not a constant church-goer, I had the opportunity of hearing most of the foremost pulpit orators of that day, including men as opposite in their styles as Spurgeon, Canon Liddon, and Dean Stanley. Liddon’s voice was a great possession, but his eloquence was not of a kind that specially attracted me; and Dean Stanley, though his preaching was impressive, scarcely ranked as an orator. On the other hand, Spurgeon’s unquestioned power over his audience constantly puzzled me. I was drawn again and again to his great tabernacle simply from the desire to discover, if I could, the secret of hisauthority; to understand if it were possible the means by which he contrived to sway the vast crowds that gathered to hear him. But I remained to the end baffled in my inquiries and, as regards my own personal impressions, entirely unconvinced by the exercise of a gift that for the multitude possessed an obvious fascination. It may be said, of course, that his appeal was intended to be merely popular, but I found in the case of other speakers who owned no loftier mission that it has been impossible not to realise in some degree the source of their influence. From Spurgeon’s preaching I derived no such satisfaction; the impression left upon me never passed beyond cold disappointment.

With Martineau the case was wholly different. To my feeling, he easily distanced all his contemporaries in the pulpit, and the impression left upon me to-day is, that he and John Bright stand out as the two greatest speakers of their generation.

Though widely divergent in manner, they both possessed an unequalled power of impressing an audience with the sense of ethical fervour and elevation of spirit.

There was no sentence of Martineau’s sermons that was not carefully balanced and considered, and yet even the most complex passages of philosophic thought were illumined and sustained by the sense of a passionate love for the truth he was seeking to expound. In every sentence the white light of reason was shot with fire; and although I think his sermons were always prepared and written, they had the effect, as he delivered them, of springing directly from the heart of the man. He seemed less of a

Emery WalkerJOHN BRIGHTFrom the painting byWalter William Ouless, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.To face page 169.

Emery Walker

JOHN BRIGHT

From the painting byWalter William Ouless, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.

To face page 169.

preacher than a seer; and although he never strove for rhetorical display, even the most logical exposition as it fell from his lips was charged with some thing of poetic impulse and inspiration.

And in his case eloquence was enforced by a noble presence. The beautiful portrait by Mr. Watts recalls, without exaggeration of dignity, the man himself as he stood there in the dimly lit chapel in Great Portland Street; and in gazing again at those chiselled features that seemed moulded by Nature to serve the speaker’s purpose, I can almost hear again the tones of that deep sonorous voice which, in its grave and impassioned utterances, stamped every separate word with something of the high fervour that so manifestly inspired the preacher.

It was, I think, in virtue of this same quality of spiritual elevation that the oratory of John Bright stood beyond the reach of rivalry. Bright never attempted the complexity of thought that distinguished so many of Martineau’s essays in the pulpit. He laid no claim to the philosophical spirit as it was understood by Martineau, but he possessed, even in a greater degree, the power of lifting every topic he discussed into a higher spiritual atmosphere than any other speaker of his time could command. And yet this unsurpassed power which he wielded over an audience was secured by the simplest means, and often in the simplest language.

In choice of the fitting word Bright was almost faultless. The great English poets, as we know, he had deeply studied, and, indeed, no one who was not sensitive to the finer moods of poetic feeling could have forged such exquisite prose.

I remember my old schoolmaster, Dr. Hill, had been present at the public breakfast given to William Lloyd Garrison in the year 1867, in recognition of his efforts for the abolition of slavery. He told me there was a point in the speech where, after gathering in Miltonic catalogue the names of the many distinguished men who had been associated with the movement, Bright turned to his audience with the added sentence, “and of noble women not a few.” And Dr. Hill said that these simple words stirred his hearers to a feeling of deepest emotion, so magical had been the effect of Bright’s superb voice as it passed, in brief tribute of homage, from one name to another.

This is an illustration, of which many more can be quoted, of how impossible it is in the case of an orator so great as Bright to realise that astounding influence from any mere printed record of his speeches.

I myself was present and heard the great oration he delivered at St. James’s Hall, in 1866, on the subject of Reform. There had been some turbulent episodes during the Reform agitation in London, and on one occasion, when the right of meeting in the Park had been refused by the Government, the railings had been thrown down by the crowd, who had overborne the forces at the disposal of the authorities.

In certain quarters John Bright had been accused of encouraging the populace to such acts of violence, and in the speech to which I refer there was a passage in which he indignantly hurled back upon his enemies this unworthy suggestion.

“These opponents of ours,” he said, “many of them in Parliament openly, and many of them secretly in the Press, have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They say we are the source of the danger which threatens; they have absolutely the effrontery to charge me with being the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely if there be one thing in a free country more dear than another, it is that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them, if I speak of their danger and the monopolies of power, am I not a wise counsellor, both to the people and to their rulers? Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet or in that homestead, ‘You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain? That vapour may become a dense black smoke that will obscure the sky. You see that trickling of lava from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain? That trickling lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain? That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities for which there is no resurrection, as history tells us; that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away and their name has been known no more for ever.’ If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makesthe world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men who were in danger.”

As these words stand on the printed page it is not possible to gather from them their extraordinary influence upon the packed masses of the crowded hall. Throughout the whole passage his hearers were held as though by magnetic influence; and as he passed from image to image of the long metaphor he had adopted, there was a hushed stillness that was almost oppressive.

Never prodigal of gesture, his slightest movement became for that reason the more significant and dramatic. The greater part of his speech had been delivered with the tips of his fingers just touching the table before him, content, for all accompaniment to the words he uttered, to rely upon the swiftly changing expression of his leonine face, which seemed to mirror in its noble dignity the very soul and spirit of the man.

But when he came to the words, “You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain?” he raised his hand to his ear, and at the call of that simple gesture it seemed to us who listened to him as though he had summoned into the very hall itself the sound he had only suggested in words. The effect was as though the building in which we sat was actually threatened, and it was with a sense almost of relief that the deafening cheers broke forth as he brought this noble vindication of his own character to an end.

It is said that Bright’s speeches were alwaysvery carefully prepared, and that in particular his perorations were verbally committed to memory. If this be so, it forms the very highest tribute to his intuitive sense of the true functions of an orator, for there is not one of all the many splendid conclusions of his speeches which might not, as it was uttered, have been forged in the white heat of the moment.

No preparation, whatever labour it may have involved, ever tempted him to depart from that strict simplicity of language which formed his crowning gift as a speaker. What, for instance, could be more instinct with the mood of the moment, more directly inspired by the passionate enthusiasm of the men he addressed, than that wonderful ending to his speech in Glasgow delivered only two months before the address in St. James’s Hall at which I was present.

“If a class has failed,” he said, “let us try the nation. That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry: let us try the nation. This it is which has called together this countless number of people who demand a change, and as I think of it, and of these gatherings sublime in their vastness and in their resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and for the people that I love so well.”

However careful in his custom of preparation, there were certainly occasions when Mr. Bright could speak with equal effect on the spur of the moment. A splendid example of his power in this respect was afforded at that same meeting at St. James’s Hall when, on the conclusion of Mr. Bright’s address, some indiscreet remarks were offered by Mr. Ayrton, which seemed to imply a reproach against the Queen for her indifference towards the movement that was then in progress.

Without a moment’s pause Mr. Bright rose in sudden indignation, and in a few passionate sentences vindicated the character of his sovereign.

“But Mr. Ayrton referred further,” he said, “to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband, to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns, but I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sense of wonder and of pain. I think there has been, by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this: that a woman—be she the Queen of a great Realm, or be she the wife of one of your labouring men—who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy withyou.”

Although the dominant quality of Mr. Bright’s oratory lay in the almost biblical simplicity and gravity of the spirit which inspired it, there were times when he could show a quick command of a lighter mood.

I happened to be present in the House of Commons when he attacked with admirable raillery Mr. Horsman and Mr. Lowe, who had retired into what Mr. Bright described as their political Cave of Adullam. He kept the House in a mood of continualamusement, which culminated at last in his well-known reference to the Scotch terrier.

Seizing upon the fact that Mr. Horsman’s party seemed at present to consist of only two members, he added: “When a party is formed of two men so amiable, so discreet, as the two right honourable gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious and distinguished by mutual and unbroken trust. But there is one difficulty which it is impossible to remove. This party of two reminds me of the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it.”

Millais’s portrait of John Bright does less than justice to the dignity of his face. It may be that the artist was confronted by his task at too late a period in Bright’s life; certain it is that as I recall him in the years 1866 and 1867 there were elements of beauty in the face, both as regards colouring and expression, that are not to be found in the later portrait.

In this respect it compares unfavourably, I think, with the great painter’s superb representation of Mr. Gladstone’s features. I heard Mr. Gladstone many times in the House of Commons, but I must frankly own that even in its highest moments his oratory never to my thinking came to within even measurable distance with that of John Bright.

In readiness of debate I suppose he had no superior on either side of the House, but the complexity of his mind, with its ever-watchful care to temper each direct and simple statement with whatthe speaker conceived to be its necessary qualifications, was mirrored in the often overburdened structure of his lengthened periods; and yet even in this defect the unflagging energy and sustained intellectual agility of the speaker were constantly exhibited.

I fancy no orator of his own or any other time could so safely conduct himself through the sinuous ways of a prolonged sentence with a sense of such security to the hearers that there would be no lapse or failure in the ordered arrangement of its many modifying clauses. On constant provocation he often spoke with a fire that enabled him to liberate himself from the entangled meshes of parenthesis which haunted him in his more considered utterances, and I remember being present in the House during the dramatic little scene between him and Disraeli which showed these two parliamentary gladiators at their best.

Somewhat rashly, perhaps, Disraeli had indulged in a sarcastic reference to Mr. Gladstone’s earlier adherence to Tory principles, and at the conclusion of his speech Mr. Gladstone, springing to his feet, retorted upon his opponent with telling effect by reminding the Conservative statesman that he himself had once sought to win the Liberal vote.

The right honourable gentleman, secure I suppose in the knowledge of his own consistency, has taunted me with the political errors of my boyhood. The right honourable gentleman, when he addressed the honourable member for Westminster [J. Stuart Mill], took occasion to show his magnanimity, for he declared that he would not take the philosopher to task for what he wrotetwenty-five years ago. But when he caught one who thirty-five years ago, just emerged from boyhood and still an undergraduate at Oxford, had expressed an opinion adverse to the Reform Bill of 1832, of which he had so long and bitterly repented, then the right honourable gentleman could not resist the temptation that offered itself to his appetite for effect. He, a parliamentary champion of twenty years’ standing, and the leader, as he informs us to-night, of the Tory party, is so ignorant of the House of Commons, or so simple in the structure of his mind, that he positively thought he would obtain a parliamentary advantage by exhibiting me to the public view for reprobation as an opponent of the Reform Bill of 1832. Sir, as the right honourable gentleman has done me the honour thus to exhibit me, let me for a moment trespass on the patience of the House to exhibit myself. What he has stated is true. I deeply regret it. But I was bred under the shadow of the great name of Canning; every influence connected with that name governed the first political impressions of my childhood and my youth; with Mr. Canning I rejoiced in the removal of religious disabilities from the Roman Catholic body, and in the free and truly British tone which he gave to our policy abroad; with Mr. Canning I rejoiced in the opening he made towards the establishment of free commercial interchanges between nations; with Mr. Canning, and under the shadow of that great name, and under the shadow of the yet more venerable name of Burke, I grant my youthful mind and imagination were impressed with the same idle and futile fears which still bewilder and distract the mature mind of the right honourable gentleman. I had conceived that very same fear, that ungovernable alarm, at the first Reform Bill in the days of my undergraduate career at Oxford which the right honourable gentleman now feels; and the only difference between us is this—I thank him for bringing it into view by his quotation—that, having those views, I, as it would appear, moved the Oxford Union DebatingSociety to express them clearly, plainly, forcibly, in downright English, while the right honourable gentleman does not dare to tell the nation what it is that he really thinks, and is content to skulk under the meaningless amendment which is proposed by the noble Lord. And now, sir, I quit the right honourable gentleman; I leave him to his reflections, and I envy him not one particle of the polemical advantage which he has gained by his discreet reference to the proceedings of the Oxford Union Debating Society in the year of grace 1831....I came among you [the Liberal party] an outcast from those with whom I associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal phraseology,in pauperis forma. I had nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service. You received me as Dido received the shipwrecked Aeneas—Ejectum littore egentemAccepi—and I only trust you may not hereafter at any time have to complete the sentence in regard to me—Et regni demens in parte locavi.You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may even say with some measure of confidence. And the relation between us has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but that I must for ever be in your debt.”

I came among you [the Liberal party] an outcast from those with whom I associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal phraseology,in pauperis forma. I had nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service. You received me as Dido received the shipwrecked Aeneas—

Ejectum littore egentemAccepi—

and I only trust you may not hereafter at any time have to complete the sentence in regard to me—

Et regni demens in parte locavi.

You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may even say with some measure of confidence. And the relation between us has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but that I must for ever be in your debt.”

It was only in later years that I met Mr. Gladstone personally, on the occasion of his annual visits to the Grosvenor or the New Gallery, and it was always then interesting to watch the extraordinary diligence of observation with which he studied every picture upon the walls, all the while with pencil in hand carefully noting in the margin ofhis catalogue the impression which each separate work had made upon him.

It was in connection with the opening of the New Gallery in the year 1888 that a little incident recurs to my memory that bears witness to the constant alertness of his powers of observation.

After completing a survey of one of the larger rooms, he was about to take leave of me with the remark that he had seen as much as he could reasonably enjoy upon a single visit, and that he would return another day to complete his study of the remaining galleries. It happened that year that we had rather a remarkable piece of sculpture by a young artist who had suddenly died after the work had been sent in for exhibition, and I was anxious before he went to ascertain Mr. Gladstone’s opinion of the statue.

“Before you go, Mr. Gladstone,” I said, “I should like to show you one of the sculptured works in the central hall which seems to me more than remarkable.”

“Stay!” he cried. “Let me first show it to you,” and then without a moment’s hesitation he set himself in front of the work I had in my mind.

“Is it this?” he said; and on my replying in the affirmative, “I was surprised,” he added, “when we passed through the hall that you did not direct my attention to so remarkable a work.”

It happened at the Grosvenor Gallery that it also fell to my lot to conduct Lord Beaconsfield round the exhibition of drawings by the old masters then arranged upon the walls. The contrastbetween the two men showed itself characteristically enough on the occasion to which I refer.

With sphinx-like face, and with hardly a spoken word, Lord Beaconsfield passed from the work of one great master to another, raising his eye-glass as he went, but displaying by no change of expression either criticism or appreciation, and at the finish he gracefully took his leave with a sentence that seemed to me, as he uttered it, to have been made ready for ultimate use even before he had entered the Gallery.

The drawings of Titian and Giorgione, of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, had apparently left him cold.

“I thank you,” he said, “for having been so good as to point out to me the examples of the great masters you admire, but I think for my part I prefer the eclectic school of the Caracci.”

In that one sentence he seemed to bring back the atmosphere of his earlier novels, and to image the taste of England at a time when connoisseurs made the grand tour.

His preference for the fashion of an earlier date in all matters appertaining to taste was, I suppose, deeply implanted in Disraeli’s nature, and I remember a story told me by Sir William Harcourt, which illustrates with what quiet and restrained sarcasm he could sometimes receive the announcement of a more modern development of thought.

It was during one of Sir William Harcourt’s visits to Hughenden that Disraeli turned to him after dinner and said, “Harcourt, I have had two young gentlemen from Oxford staying with melately, and it seems from what I have learned from them that our judgments in all literary matters are sadly old-fashioned. These young gentlemen assured me that, according to the accepted canons of the present day, the late Lord Byron is to be admired, not so much for his qualities as a poet, as for the beauty of his moral character.”

Lord Beaconsfield’s appearance, as expressed in his dress, even at that later date when I first came in contact with him, still retained something of the florid taste that had characterised him as a youth. The bright colours he chose to affect stood in striking contrast with the impassive pallor of a countenance that seemed, as it gazed out upon the world, like some insoluble riddle of the East. The racial characteristics of his face were sufficiently marked, but the sense of death-like stillness that pervaded it gave it something of historic remoteness and antique calm. He looked out upon the present as though from the recesses of a buried past, and of all the representatives of his nation whom I have known, he appeared to me the only one who possessed in any pre-eminent degree the quality of self-possession in manner and bearing.

These external attributes served as the index of that extraordinary power of intellectual detachment which enabled him to sway the passions of others and to control his own. Such unquestioned authority as he ultimately acquired over the Tory party could, perhaps, only have been achieved by one who used their prejudices without sharing them, and who could appeal to their deeply rooted convictions rather as an artist than as a partisan.

As a speaker, he affected more of florid grace than was quite congenial to the taste of the time or the sympathies of his hearers, and his choice of language, whether in his novels or in his speeches, was sometimes insecurely poised between a leaning towards ornament that was sometimes tawdry, and a genuine and convincing eloquence.

Here again the racial characteristics were apt to assert themselves, and such a phrase as he employed at the conclusion of the Abyssinian War—that we had set the standard of St. George upon the mountains of Rasselas—may be taken as an instance of an essay in the sublime that verges nearly upon the ridiculous.

I heard him for the first time when he introduced his great Reform Bill in 1867, and his gestures also struck me then as often bordering upon the grotesque.

I can recall his attitude now as he drew towards the close of his speech with his arms folded and his head sunk upon his breast, rolling out in a voice, that I confess had for me neither intrinsic beauty of tone nor perfect accent of sincerity, the carefully forged phrases which formed the close of his peroration.

“Those who take a larger and a nobler view of human affairs,” he said, “will, I think, recognise that, alone in the countries of Europe, England now, for almost countless generations, has—by her Parliament—established the fair exemplar of free government, and that, throughout the awful vicissitudes of her heroic history, she has—chiefly by this House of Commons—maintained and cherished that public spirit which is the soul of Commonwealth, without which Empire has no glory, and the wealthof nations is but the means of corruption and decay.”

Earlier passages of that same speech had been marked by brilliant flashes of humour and sarcasm, showing, here as always, his incomparable power of registering in a single sentence the characteristics of a cause he desired to condemn.

I remember in particular a reference to Professor Goldwin Smith which was very happily expressed.

“Why, the other day,” he said, “a rampant orator who goes about the country maligning men and things, went out of his way to assail me, saying, ‘Where now are the 4000 freeholders of Buckinghamshire?’ Why, sir, they are where you would naturally expect to find them—they are in the county of Buckingham. I can pardon this wild man, who has probably lived in the cloisters of some abbey, making this mistake ...” etc.

There are orators who are not orators, and who yet, by some undefinable power of personality, exercise an extraordinary authority upon their hearers. In this class, and I should be disposed to think foremost in this class, must be set Mr. Parnell, whose acquaintance I made at the house of Sir George Lewis about the date of the publication of the famous letter in theTimes.

To me that letter had seemed from the first a manifest forgery, and I had made several small bets in the Garrick Club that it would be so proved whenever it was made the subject of a judicial investigation.

Mr. Parnell’s comment when I told him of my confidence as to the result was tinged with a certainsadness that was, I think, a constant quality of his nature.

“You may make your mind quite easy upon that point,” he said. “I only wish I felt as sure that every incident, in what has been practically a revolution, would redound as surely to the credit of the Irish people. But it is inevitable,” he added, “that such a movement must of necessity call into being forces which it is beyond the power of any single individual to control.”

Through his chief whip Mr. Richard Power, a dear friend and companion of the Garrick Club, Mr. Parnell had offered me a seat as one of the Irish party, but although I had then, and still retain, complete sympathy with the principles of Home Rule, I felt it would be impossible for me as an Englishman to yield such complete surrender of my independent judgment as was demanded by the parliamentary tactics of the party.

A little later I heard Mr. Parnell in the House of Commons on one of the few occasions when his rigid self-control yielded to a moment of almost uncontrollable passion.

The subject under debate was this same forged letter which had imposed upon the credulity of theTimes, and it was Mr. Parnell’s natural desire that this imputation which so deeply affected his character should be made the subject of a separate and independent inquiry.

His opponents, not unwisely from their point of view, desired to merge the single issue in a general examination of the Home Rule movement, and this view had been, at an earlier period of the debate,strongly enforced by Mr. Chamberlain in a speech of icy coldness that seemed to withhold the last particle of sympathy from a man who had been so grossly attacked.

The tone of Mr. Chamberlain’s speech, for it was a matter rather of tone than of substance, must have deeply incensed Mr. Parnell, for as he rose, with the usual pallor of his face deepened to an ashen whiteness, the trembling tones of his voice were, it was obvious, scarcely under control.

I have not, sir, had an opportunity before this of thanking the right honourable gentleman the member for West Birmingham for his kind references to me, and for the unsolicited character he was kind enough to give me when he last addressed the House a few nights since. He spoke of me not long ago, when he said he entertained a better opinion of me than he does to-day. I care very little for the opinion of the right honourable gentleman. I have never put forward men to do dangerous things which I shrank from doing myself, nor have I betrayed the secrets of my colleagues in Council. My principal recollection of the right honourable gentleman before he became a minister is that he was always most anxious to put me forward and my friends forward to do work which he was afraid to do himself. And after he became a minister my principal recollection of him is that he was always most anxious to betray to us the secrets and counsels of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and to endeavour, while sitting beside these colleagues and while in consultation with them, to undermine their counsels and their plans in our favour. If this inquiry is extended into these matters—and I see no reason why it should not—I shall be able to make good my words by documentary evidence that is not forged.

The withering scorn with which these final sentences were delivered, the tall slim figure visiblyshaken by emotion, recall an unforgettable image of the man as he stood erect in his place below the gangway.

But a still more dramatic scene of that time occurred during the trial itself on the day when the forger Mr. Pigott was to be put into the box. I shall not easily forget the breathless interest of the Court when the Attorney-General called Mr. Inglis, the expert in hand-writing.

The witness was arranging his papers on the desk before him when Sir Charles Russell rose in his place and in strong but measured tones said, “My lords, I shall decline to cross-examine this witness until Mr. Pigott has been put into the box.”

This produced a quick protest from the Attorney-General, who, as he declared, was not to be dictated to by his learned friend as to the manner in which he should conduct his case.

But again Sir Charles Russell rose, and again in the same vibrating voice announced his determination as before.

There was a pause for a moment’s whispered interchange of opinion among the judges on the Bench, and then Mr. Justice Hannen, in a voice that was never loud but which even in its lowest tones could always command authority, conveyed to the Attorney-General the intimation that, without any intention of dictating to him the course he should take, they were all clearly of opinion that Mr. Pigott ought to be put into the box without delay.

Sir Richard Webster yielded, and Mr. Pigott was called; and then, when the examination-in-chief was complete, began that cross-examination bySir Charles Russell which stands out as the main dramatic episode in that great historic trial.

The advocate was at his best, and when Sir Charles Russell was at his best his time knew no equal. As question followed question in quick pursuit, the unhappy witness seemed to crumble away beneath his hand.

But the hour of adjournment came before the wretched man, driven from point to point, had finally succumbed, and, as subsequent events proved, the brilliant cross-examination of Sir Charles Russell was destined to have no close.

On the next morning, when Pigott was again called, there was no answer; and after a sufficient pause to give time for his arrival, Sir Charles rose and applied for a warrant for his arrest.

I went with Mr. Parnell and Sir George Lewis to Bow Street to obtain from the magistrate the issue of the warrant, and I remember, as a comic incident in our brief passage along the Strand, that a little street urchin vending newspapers, who, with the sharpness of the London boy, was already well informed of what had taken place, danced in front of the Irish statesman and bowing with mock gravity said, “Charlie, you’ve done it nice.”

At that time one of my brothers was staying in Madrid, and on the following night I was awakened about two o’clock by the arrival of a telegram which said: “A man whom I am sure is Pigott has committed suicide here in the hotel.”

And so ended this extraordinary episode which at one time had threatened to drive from public life one of the most remarkable men of his time. Thathe was finally hounded from the leadership of his party speaks, I think, but little for the reputation of those of his comrades who joined in the attack; and less still—as I have always felt—for Mr. Gladstone, whose part in that unworthy transaction was not altogether consistent with the high courage that he usually exhibited in public affairs.

Parnell’s was undoubtedly a strange inscrutable character. He was imperfectly understood even by the party he so imperiously controlled: he had, I think, but little desire to be understood. Power used to tell me that on the occasion of an important debate his closest associates never knew with any certainty whether he would be present; and yet once present they knew beyond all question that his will would dominate them all.

It was indeed impossible to be in his company without being sensible of the strength of his personality. His reserve was impenetrable, and yet he could yield to sudden gusts of emotion which revealed as by a lightning flash the strong nervous tension by means of which his self-possession was held and preserved. I think he himself was always conscious of the degree of secrecy, almost, one might say, of mystery, that cloaked his life even in matters where secrecy could have no purpose or significance. He told me once that if he had occasion to consult a doctor, even for the most trifling ailment, he always withheld his name, and such was the habit of reserve that had grafted itself upon his life, that he seemed almost surprised the custom was not common to all the world.

Some of the American ambassadors sent to this country have been notable speakers, amongst them Mr. James Russell Lowell and Mr. Choate. Mr. Bayard also, though not perhaps possessed of an equal natural gift, could on occasion be deeply impressive.

I remember at a dinner of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, in 1895, he extricated himself with considerable grace and tact from a somewhat awkward predicament. The dinner was held on the 18th of December, and it had been arranged that I should propose the toast of “Friends across the Sea,” to which Mr. Bayard was to respond. But it so happened on that very day had come President Cleveland’s unhappy message to Congress about Venezuela, a message so entirely unexpected: and at the same time so warlike and menacing in its tone, that the tenor of it created something like consternation in the mind of the English public.

When I arrived Mr. Bayard was pacing alone, among the assembled guests in the anteroom, and I ventured to suggest to Sir Francis Jeune, who was to take the chair, that it might be wiser, in view of the circumstances, to omit this particular toast. Sir Francis Jeune, however, was firm in the opinion that the situation must be faced. As he observed to me, “I hear that as a speaker you can skate over thin ice, and to-night you have your opportunity.”

All the correspondents of the chief American newspapers were present, and all were in eager expectation to see how a difficult and delicatesituation would be handled by the ambassador. I confess, for my own part, that I felt a little nervous in regard to the task assigned me, and I remember my dear friend, Sir Frank Lockwood, coming to me just before we sat down to dinner and imploring me to say something that might tend to soothe the irritated feeling which the unfortunate despatch had aroused.

I think I must have steered my course successfully, for at the end of my speech Mr. Bayard, rising to respond, was received with genuine enthusiasm by the assembled company. He was evidently deeply moved, for his words came slowly; but he contrived also to move and impress his audience. His opening sentences, earnestly delivered, seemed to still the menace of war and to relieve the feeling of tension that President Cleveland’s actions had created.

“To-night,” he said, “we stand upon common ground. Mr. Comyns Carr’s remarks have affected me deeply. There is no sea between us now.” And at the close he added, “There is a headline used by Mr. Gladstone in the article, ‘Our Kith and Kin beyond the Seas,’ which I would gladly recall at this moment. In that article he used this couplet—

When love unites, wide space divides in vain,And hands may clasp across the spreading main.

I think it is time to repeat those words. No profession can speak them so well as yours, and none can speak them so well, in the name of your country or my country, as the profession that is domiciled in both countries, and I therefore ask youto join with me in wishing that ‘hands may clasp across the spreading main.’”

As Mr. Bayard took his leave on that evening at the conclusion of the dinner he turned to me and said, “I think things will go our way”; and the event happily proved that he was right.

With some after-dinner speakers their task sits heavily upon them, and sets them in a state of trepidation from the commencement of the feast. I was sitting at a dinner, given to Edmund Yates after his liberation from prison on a charge of libel, by the side of a worthy alderman of the City of London who was also a member of Parliament. His name was entered upon the card in connection with the usual military toast, and before we were half way through the dinner he begged to be excused from further conversation in order that he might concentrate his thoughts upon the duty he had to discharge. It was only while he was covering the menu card with liberal pencil-notes that he realised the fact that I also was among the speakers of the evening. He turned to me suddenly with an expression of blank amazement on his face, and pointing to my name inquired with an air of incredulity if it was true I was going to speak, and when I answered in the affirmative he said, “Well, you surprise me. I notice that you have been drinking champagne. Now,” he said, “when I want to sway an audience I sway them on water.” And as he drank nothing but water that evening I was prepared to be swayed. But something must have gone wrong with the water on that occasion, and I tremble to think to what further depths of ineptitude hemight have fallen if he had followed my pernicious habit of drinking champagne, for after a few halting sentences, fashioned in the usual mould, he sat down, evidently quite unconscious that he had delivered one of the feeblest addresses ever uttered by the lips of man.

HollyerLORD TENNYSONFrom the painting byG. F. Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.To face page 193.

Hollyer

LORD TENNYSON

From the painting byG. F. Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.

To face page 193.

Among the great literary men of the time, Lord Tennyson was the first with whom I came into personal contact. When I was about seventeen I used to stay sometimes with Mrs. Cameron in her house at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, where her son Henry and I occupied ourselves very earnestly in private theatricals.

Farringford, where Lord Tennyson dwelt, was near by, and the first time that I saw the poet was on the occasion of our performance of Tom Taylor’s play,Helping Hands, in which I enacted the part of a Jew dealer in musical instruments. As I came upon the little stage I felt almost startled by the great white dome of Tennyson’s head as he sat in the front row of the stalls.

I suppose there was no man of his time in any walk of life whose personal appearance was so striking and impressive. Watts has imaged him well, and Millais too. But there was something in the presence of the man himself that Art could not render, a mingled impression of beauty and dignity, of simplicity and power, which I cannot recall asbeing combined in equal measure in any other face I have known.

It is a singular fact, not I think generally recognised while they were both living, that there are many elements of resemblance in the features of Tennyson and Charles Dickens. I saw Dickens only once at a reading which he gave in St. James’s Hall, and I was then deeply impressed by the power exhibited in the upper part of the head. But it was not until I was looking one day at a beautiful pencil-drawing which Millais had made of Dickens after death that I perceived the striking resemblance between them—a resemblance that was recognised by Tennyson himself, for while this very drawing, now the property of Mrs. Perugini, was still in Millais’s studio, Tennyson, after he had gazed at it for some time, suddenly exclaimed, “This is the most extraordinary drawing. It is exactly like myself.”

During those early Isle of Wight days Mrs. Cameron would sometimes take us in the evening to Farringford, where Tennyson, if he were in the mood, would read some of his own poems. It was not reading in the ordinary sense, but may more truly be likened to a deep organ chant, and yet it was effective and impressive to an extraordinary degree.

I remember in particular, as he recited one of the songs from thePrincess, the splendid cadence of his deep echoing voice as it rose and swelled and sank and fell in almost musical response to the changing mood of the verse:

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