1897] CAUGHT IN A THICKET 193 The second mentioned that he had copied at the British Museum a very remarkable paper, which does not seem to have attracted a proper amount of attention. It is a most elaborate minute, drawn up with the co-operation of many of the Cabinet, at Pitt's house on 25th March 1795, and detailing all the negotiations with Lord Fitzwilliam. Our talk strayed to an American young lady. Some one suggested she would marry a Duke; and the question arose as to what members of the order were available. "When an American," said Lyulph Stanley, "is desirous of sacrificing his daughter, is there always an English Duke caught in a thicket?" At night we had at dinner the Tyrrells, Fritz, Miss Shaw, Lady Catherine Milnes-Gaskell and Mrs. Arkwright. It was one of the pleasantest parties we have had this year in London; but it is not always the pleasantest parties which leave the most definite recollections. After dinner Mrs. Arkwright sang, as usual quite enchantingly, some Spanish songs, and, by particular desire, Heine's Lorelei, not specially fitted for the guitar, but, in her mouth, delightful. 30. Finished in these days Mr. Strachan - Davidson's book on Cicero, in the "Heroes of the Nations" series, which takes for its motto: "Facta ducis vivent, operosaque gloria rerum." It seems to me a thoroughly just and sane estimate of one who, in spite of all his foibles, was really a great and good man. Dined with Mr. T. N. Longman in Prince's Gardensan amusing party. George Trevelyan, General Maurice, Sir John Ardagh and I were all without our wives; Mrs. Ridley, the authoress of the story of Aline, whom I took down, was without her husband; Mrs. Reeve and Mrs. Freeman were both widows, and there was only one married couple. 31. The Bernard Mallets, the Reays and others dined with us. Lady Reay mentioned that she had lately been told by Lord Ripon that Mrs. Grant, the wife of the President, by way of illustrating the entente cordiale between the United States and Great Britain, had had served up at her table two ices, one representing the American Eagle, and the other the British Lion. With her own fair hand she gave to him the head of the bird, receiving from him that of the mammal. 1897] THE MARBLE ARCH 195 April 3. My wife read to me some very pleasant pages from Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's autobiographic sketch, entitled My Long Life. She mentions that when Cardinal Wiseman was on a visit to Lord Clifford, a maid, who had been told that the proper title of the great man was His Eminence, always addressed him as "Your Immense." I do not wonder; for although I did not know him. personally, I have a distinct recollection of his very portly presence. Have I ever noted that when Lord Clifford was staying in London with Coleridge, Manning, not yet Cardinal, came to dine and talked with the utmost unreserve? After he had gone Lord Clifford said to his host: "I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for showing me the Archbishop in a new character. He is never like that with us. We call him the Marble Arch." The same maid whom I have quoted above, when twelve Jesuit fathers arrived at Ugbrook, remarked: "There's a matter of a dozen Jezebels come here." Miss Oakley, who lives with her uncle, Lord Ducie, brought his pet dog Leo and Mrs. Leo to visit us. They are both most beautiful gryphons, the former bought from the Queen of the Belgians and worthy of his royal up-bringing. Lady Henley, and ourselves duly worshipped, while Poppet and Lavender maintained a not unfriendly but somewhat critical attitude. 4. Things one would rather have put differently. Mr. Cecil Rhodes to his neighbour at dinner, an extremely pretty woman : He: "I hate Germans." She: "Well, I don't hate them, but I by no means like them." He: "Oh! I thought you were a German." A correspondent speaking of the Island of Rhodes, says that what struck her most there was a scarcely readable epitaph in a ruined old church of the Knights of St. John. It ran thus: "Ci-gît très haut et très puissant Seigneur J'ai aimé, j'ai pêché, j'ai souffert. Ayez pitié de moi, Ô mon Dieu." "Doesn't it," she adds, “ resume all the anguish of mankind?" I have had a good many of Dean Church's occasional papers, just published in two volumes, read to me. They are very well written, very scholarly, and show the most 1897] DEAN CHURCH 197 anxious desire to do justice, even to persons with whom their author disagreed about the most important subjects. Several treat of Renan, but while giving his friends no occasion to complain, they contain nothing of any real value. Church is at his best, I think, when dealing with Keble and Newman, best of all when he is describing the sermons of the latter, and pointing out how they differed from all those which were to be heard when he first began his work at St. Mary's. With all his gifts Church had his limitations. He told me once that he thought that there was altogether too much of the world in the Récit d'une Sœur! 6. Dined at The Club, Pember and I being the only members present. We beat over many subjects, and among them talked a good deal of Venables. "I urged him very much," said Pember, "to leave the Parliamentary Bar and to write something." "There is," he said "one thing I could do. I could write, I think, the history of my own time, without referring to a single book." He repeatedly wrote the summary of the year for the Times in this way, and always made his speeches to Committees without notes. He had absolutely no ambition, and although his contributions to the Saturday Review alone would, if collected, fill many volumes, his name, when we who knew him have passed away, will be quite forgotten. |