The Premier and the Painter

Preface

In the writing of History we may distinguish roughly three methods : the first, of Picturesque or Prejudiced Narration ; the second, of Philosophic Narration; and the third, of Scientific or Factual Narration ; and, though all have co-existed, the three methods have — broadly speaking — been sequent in their appearance on the scientific platform. By classifying histories according to their respective methods, three species are obtained : the first is composed of those works which contain all the essentials of Historiography except the facts; the second comprises all works in which historical facts are ex hibited as containing a philosophy of their own, or proving that of the writer ; the third consists of those works which present Truth naked and unashamed. But Scientific Narration has hitherto lacked extreme Specializa tion, and it is in the thorough application of Specialization to History that what little originality the present work may have consists.

Though no greater mistake could be made than to con found this minute study of a brief episode in the career of the Elder Floppington with that extinct literary type, the " historical romance," yet the blunder is excusable when it is considered that the new method attempted by the present work is simply a novel method of writing history, and that real personages and real events are for the first time treated with the fulness of domestic and political detail hitherto accorded only to the creations of fiction. The advantages of this innovation are obvious. So long as historical figures are not shown in their work-a-day environment,

PREFACE.

VI in all their manifold relations to their fellow-creatures of every grade, so long will it remain impossible to understand the work-a day motives which have made our national history what it is. The writer need say little of the Herculean labour involved in thus recording the history of almost a quarter of a year, and he cannot hope that his existence will be prolonged sufficiently to enable him to complete his projected magnum opus, dealing with eleven-and-a-half days of what is usually considered a humdrum and uneventful year. The subjoined list of authorities includes less than a hundredth part of the volumes and newspapers con sulted by him, and is intended chiefly as a guide to those readers whom the present work may stimulate to extend their acquaintance with a most fascinating period of our annals.

The writer may, without undue immodesty, claim that for more than twenty years he has been trying to familiarise himself with that epoch, to impregnate himself with its customs, its politics, and its literature — in a word, to live in it — a task he has found by no means easy ; and if his work prove sufficiently graphic to charm one reader into the belief that he, too, is living in it, he will feel amply repaid for his long and dusty researches. He hopes that the footnotes will explain all phrases of any real difficulty ; but, should he have overlooked any obscurities, he hopes the reader will do the same, and he promises to clear up all such in a future edition. As he has throughout, and in the accompanying list, recognised his obligations to modern authors, it would be supererogatory to enumerate them here ; but he cannot refrain from expressing his indebtedness to Charles Chesterfield, Esq., O.K., Rector of Grimsby University, for his kind revision of the whole work, his suggestion of numerous improvements, and especially for his aid in the pre paration of the epitome, which is issued simultaneously with the present work as a compendium for schools and colleges. CONTENTS

Book I. Chap

pAGa I. WITH THE COGERS I II. JACK. DAWE AT HOME 9 III. THE CABINET TRICK 1 8 IV. THE PREMIER AT HOME 27 V. THE KEWBRIDGE SALON 23 VI. BEAUTY AND BRAINS 42 VII. TRANSFORMATION 5 1 VIII. BACCHUS AND VENUS 58

Book II

I. MRS. DAWE ON POLITICS AND MATRIMONY . . 64 II. THE PAINTER PAINTS A LION 74 III. ARCADIA 8l IV. PLOT AND PASSION 85 V. THEOLOGY AND MEDICINE 97

Book III

I. THE PREMIER'S SATURDAY NIGHT . . . . 102 II. THE CABINET COUNCIL 113 III. LOVE AND SUFFRAGE 122 IV. HISTORY IN BLACK AND WHITE .... 126 V. STAINS OLD AND NEW 1 36 VI. THE AUTOCRAT AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE . . 143 VII. CONFIDENCES 165

Book IV

I. SALLY AND THE PAINTER GO THROUGH PERILS TOGETHER I75 II. LIFE BEHIND THE COUNTER 185 III. RESUMES THE HISTORY OF MOUNTCHAPEL . . 193 IV. BARDOLPH GOES A-WOOING 20O V. WEAVING THE NET . . ' 212 VI. AN UNFORESEEN CONTINGENCY 220 VII. THE SORROWS OF AN UNDERTAKER .... CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE VIII. THE PAINTER DESPAIRS OF THE PEOPLE . . . 234 IX. AY OR NO? 24r X. THE ROMANCE OF A HOUSEMAID .... 25! XI. THE KEY OF THE DEVIL'S DOOR .... 2fjl XII. A SOCIAL SOCIALIST 269 XIII. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT .... 276

Book V

I. RUMOUR'S HUNDRED TONGUES 283 II. FLOPPINGTON'S APOLOGIA 287 III. A FAMILY GROUP 300 IV. A COCKNEY COURTSHIP 307 V. THE VAGARIES OF A HAT 312 VI. IN THE LIONS' DEN 314 VII. A CLASSICAL CONSPIRATOR 319 VIII. "FOR AULD LANG SYNE" 327 IX. THE PAINTER TAKES A REMARKABLE OATH . . 333

Book VI

I. A MAN'S HEART 340 II. A NOVEL DILEMMA 343 III. SALLY WRITES A TELEGRAM 349 IV. CALM CONVALESCENCE 36 s V. TOUT PASSE, TOUT CASSE, TOUT LASSE . . . 366 VI. THE HALL OF FLIRTATION 373 VII. THE PAINTER IS DISOWNED 377 VIII. A COOL TWO THOUSAND 383 IX. THE ADVENTURES OF A HOMELESS PAINTER . . 386 X. AT THE LATIN PLAY 393 XL THE PRODIGAL SON 399 XII. A NOCTURNAL VISITOR 406 XIII. AVE ATQUE VALE 4T4

Book VII

, I. A NATIONAL TRAGEDY .Tg II. UNE CAUSE CELEBRE * ,f, III. SENSATIONAL REVELATIONS •-..'. 4~o IV. A PIECE OF SYNTHESIS .....'. 44- V. DEAD MEN'S SHOES ,5- VI. NON OMNIS MORIAR " VII. A SLEEPLESS CITY ' .gg VIII. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER '. '. § oofe £

Chapter I. With The Cogers

P'SHL Hekker\ Buy the Hekker, sir! Dissensions in the Kabbernet ! " It was a dull evening in May ; the sort of evening of which London appears to have a monopoly, which is not grudged it by the rest of the country. The almanacs, with one accord, and a unanimity worthy of better things, assured all who chose to look at them that the season called summer was about to dawn upon the metropolis. But Nature, in London at any rate, treats almanacs with contempt. A cold wind was blowing vigorously along the streets, making the almanac-deluded pedestrian wish that he had brought his overcoat with him, and causing him to look daggers at those who had laughed the almanacs to scorn. A drizzly rain was falling" in an undecided, hesitating fashion. It wasn't comfortable in its mind as to its havings any right to be where it was.

The streets, nevertheless, were full of people hurrydng to and fro ; and but few of them stopped to buy the evening papers of the eager newsvendors, who, shouting hoarsely at the top of their apologyfor-steam-whistle voices, made the sense of hearing suffer in common with the other four. They shouted and displayed their contents bills in vain. "Dissension in the Cabinet" might be printed in the biggest of type, and "rumours" in the smallest ; but the hurrying wayfarers wanted to get home. The ordinary Englishman might be fairly enough described as a political animal. It would be far more true than to describe him as a cooking animal, which some rash scientist has done. But in the year of disgrace with which thishistory deals, he was used to having his evening news' B fare highly spiced. Wars, and rumours of wars, had beguiled him into parting with stray coppers for the purchase of "specials" and " extra-do. ; " and now such mild fare as family jars in the Cabinet failed miserably to tempt the " halfpennies " from their snug retreat in breeches-pockets.

Besides, the members of the Cabinet were continually dis agreeing. Scarcely a day passed without the political atmosphere being darkened by reports that this, that, or the other Minister was about to resign. But none of them did. And so the indignant Briton began to feel that Ministers were playing it rather low upon him,* and made up his mind that the Ministry might hang together — figuratively, of course — or go to pieces, or do anything else it pleased, so long as it didn't impose any extra taxes, without his troubling himself in the least about the matter. " Hekker, sir — just out sir, sp'shl, sir ! " panted a youthful but leather-lunged street Arab, brandishing a copy of the evening paper in the face of a gentleman, who, with hat drawn down over his brows, and chin on breast, was walking slowly eastward, looking nervously about him at intervals, as if he feared recognition.

"What's in to-night, my lad?" he said, taking a paper of the youngster. '•' 'Orful row at to-day's Kabbernet — reg'lar scrimmage, sir," replied the lad, with a grin. " Anybody hurt ? " " They don't go at it with fists, sir. Hekher, yes, sir. But old Floppy'U have to give some on 'em the kick out, or else chuck up the sponge," was the reply, given with the air of conviction and superior knowledge characteristic of people talking on a subject of which their ignorance is almost phenomenal, if any degree of ignorance could fairly merit that adjective. " I should let Floppy know, if I were you," said the stranger, with grim sarcasm, as he strode on, leaving the newspaper lad staring at him, and whistling contemplatively as he stared. Then muttering, " I've seen that mug afore," he dropped the contempla tive whistle, and resumed the ear-splitting business cry.

" So Floppy had better kick some of them out or throw up the sponge. Easily said, my lad, easily said ; but the doing of it — ay, there's the rub." " What a night for May ! " he murmured, as he drew his coat collar higher up, and let his chin sink lower down. " Nature's as inconsistent as myself, but more permanent. I wonder whether the modern philosophy is right, and that even Nature is not un conscious. If so, to judge by myself, she must regret ever having * It is worthy of remark that this phrase, now used by the gravest writers, was, at the period treated of, considered an American vulgarism. See last edition of Pugil's " History of Modern Idioms." The distich of Drychurch (who, with something of Pope's condensed brilliancy, combines not a little of his scurrility) will be fresh in every one's memory : " For classic phrases, like patrician clans, Owe birth to scoundrels and to harridans."

WITH THE COGERS 3 allowed mankind to evolve speech. That boy is right ; the times are out of joint. Oh, cursed spite, that ever I was born to set them right ! Even Hamlet hadn't a Cabinet to tackle, where every man is for himself, though all say they're for the State. The State's for them, rather," he chuckled. This soliloquy, which wasn't rattled straight off, but ran discon nectedly and jerkily through the mind of the Unknown but not the Unknowable as he strode along the Strand, will ere this have let the discriminating reader into the secret of his identity. Mysteries are bores and best avoided. Thegentleman was Floppy himself. "Floppy" was the abbreviation more or less affectionately used by all classes when speaking of the Right Honourable Arnold Floppington. The Right Honourable Arnold Floppington was Premier of an Empire on which the sun never set, and in the centre of which it occasionally manifested evident indisposition to rise.

He belonged to a family, whose members took to politics as a matter of course. A House of Commons might have existed without a member of the Floppington family on its benches ; but the experiment was never tried. He belonged to one of the two great parties into which the State was divided. He was born a "little Conser vative," and as years rolled on he became, in every sense of the term, a big one. Family connections, brilliant oratory, and, perhaps, the mutual jealousies of stronger if not abler men, had made him the leader of his party. By instinct and training he was an old-fashioned Tory, but being of a reflective turn of mind, he could not escape from living in a state of doubt, honest enough, it is true, but in which his enemies did not believe there lived more faith than in the accepted party creeds.

And if his enemies doubted his honesty, his friends were not always sure of his sanity. Once at the epoch of a general election, his then opinions happened by a strange coincidence to be those of the majority of the electors, and very much to his own surprise he became Home Secretary in a Conservative Cabinet. But unfortunately the Minister's opinions were constantly in a state of flux, and so he had not held office long. And now when, having by his opposition brought about the defeat of the Reform Bill of the Liberals, he had with much hesitation consented to form an Administration, he still retained his old habits of conscientiousness, and was still liable to be tossed about on the "fell incensed points" of opposite opinions. Wherefore seeing that his colleagues had only one opinion, that it was better to be in office than in opposition, the reports of dissension in the Cabinet naturally had quite enough truth in them to deprive the morning papers of the pleasure of contradicting the evening ones.

The rain having stopped, the wind having ceased from troubling, and the hats being at rest, the unwonted calm caused him to look up from his reverie. He had reached that joint shrine of Thespis and Venus, the Gaiety Theatre. The notices " Stalls full," " Dress Circle full," attracted him. He smiled at the thought of the people whom he had found it so hard to govern, enjoying them .selves, regardless of him and his government. B " Foolish theory of Hobbes," he thought, " that the Common wealth is a gigantic man. In this case the bead aches, while the legs dance. If the gigantic man's head ached like mine, the only dance his legs would care for would be the ' Danse Macabre.'" He was now in Fleet Street, where he would have had a glorious view of St. Paul's, had it not been for the rapidly gathering shades of night, and the intervention of a railway bridge : a piece of bar barism which we, in our more æsthetic age and with our improved means of locomotion, can hardly comprehend.

Unthinkingly turning a corner, he found himself in a side street, and paused to look at a bill displayed in the window of a public-house. From it he learnt that the "Antient Society of Cogers" held their meetings there; that the meetings were open to the public, and that strangers were invited to take part in the discussions, which were on politics. "The Antient Society of Cogers" was well known ; but the Right Honourable Arnold Floppington had never heard of it. The subject for debate, " The Events of the Week — Will Mountchapel resign ?" attracted him and roused him from the train of thought into which he had fallen. To hear what that abstraction " the People " had to say on the great question of the day would be a novelty. He knew that in a sort of theoretical fashion, he and his Cabinet were supposed to carry out the wishes of "the People."

But he also knew, {hat neither he nor his colleagues ever got to know at first hand what " the People " really said and thought. That only reached him after passing through many media, and being refracted out of all shape in the process. " Haroun Alraschid be my guide," he murmured, as, without stopping to think of consequences, he walked boldly in. He found himself in a long, narrow room, with a row of tables at each side, and another row down the centre. At these tables were seated some thirty or forty men, busily engaged in smoking and drinking. They were listening gravely, as befitted members of so ancient a Society, to a speaker who eked out the feebleness of his arguments by the violence of his gesticulations. At the end of the room sat the " Grand," whose duty it was to keep order, and see that no speaker exceeded the regulation time of twenty minutes; though when the speaker did not please those assembled, loud cries of " Time " were heard before the twenty minutes had expired.

It was noticeable, moreover, that those who had most to say, never took long in saying it. Dropping into a quiet corner seat, the Right Honourable Arnold' Floppington seemed to realise what he had done. He might at any moment be recognised, as his portrait figured in the shop windows side by side with those of the fashionable beauties ; though it must be reluctantly admitted that it did not sell so well! Having gone so far however, he determined to see it out, and hear what treatment he and his colleagues would meet with. Hidinohis face as much as possible by leaning it upon his hand, he called the waiter, and ordered a tankard of bitter. He had often dilated on the noble part that beverage had played in making the British, WITH THE COGERS 5 workman what he was ; he had, when in opposition, objected to its being taxed ; he had done everything but taste it.

After doing so, he determined to tell his Chancellor to tax chemicals in his next Budget. Cries of " Time " roused the Premier from the fit of abstraction into which the People's beer had cast him. He looked up, not knowing what the cries might mean. He soon learnt they denoted that the audience had had enough of the gentleman who was ad dressing them, and after a peroration which failed to be heard above the din, the unfortunate debater subsided. Scarcely had he done so when loud cries of " Floppy! Floppy!" resounded throughout the room. The Premier looked up, and felt himself turning pale, He had hoped he would not be recognised ; he had not for a moment thought that, if recognised, he would be thus addressed by the democracy. He had coquetted with democracy, it is true, but he never forgot that he was allied to Conservatism.

Among his many changing veins of thought, democracy had found a place. But such democratic familiarity was like to make him an oligarch for ever. Involuntarily he seized his hat, determined to leave the place, when loud cheers following the words " Mr. Chairman and gentle men " made him pause. On the opposite side of the room, a plainly dressed man had risen to address the assembly. The Premier rubbed his eyes. Was he dreaming ? For in this man, despite the obscuring difference of dress, he saw his fetch, his wraith, his double, his living image. The puzzle was solved. This, then, was " Floppy." The man's marvellous resemblance to himself had struck the habitues of the place, and hence they had playfully presented him with the name by which the Right Hon. Arnold Floppington was usually spoken of. ■' Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," said the man in the dulcet high-pitched tones of the born orator, " I shall be very happy to discuss the question when I have finished discussing my supper."

He pointed downward to his plate of bread and cheese, with the easy grace of a man sure of his position, and the burst of laughter and applause that followed the unconventional remark proved unmis takably that he was a prime favourite in the room. The rule of the alternation of speakers of opposite politics was even relaxed for the nonce, for as no Conservative ventured consciously to precede so satirical an opponent, a Radical was permitted to act as a stop-gap till the nonchalant Jack Dawe (for such was "Floppy's" real name) was ready to charm the expectant audience. The Premier did not carry out his resolution of instant departure. He could not tear himself away. The scene had a weird fascination for him. His eyes rested, by an irresistible attraction, upon the remarkable lineaments of his double ; the features so strangely like his, but the whole face so alive with confident strength.

The few words spoken by the man had moved him strangely — the same trumpet-like clearness of timbre which he himself commanded in moments of impassioned oratory, thrilled in the tones of his wraith — and he felt himself chained to his seat by a morbid desire to hear what this almost mysterious being would say of him. En attendant, the feeble diatribe of the stop-gap fell upon his patient ears ; but they were too hardened to tingle. He heard, as he had often heard in the House of Commons, that everything he had done was wrong ; and cynically reflected that, if it were so, the doctrine of chances must have treated him shabbily. As moreover, he had, on certain points of detail, followed diametrically opposite policies, he felt there was a flaw somewhere or other ; but whether in him, in his opponents, or in Nature herself, he had never been able to determine satisfactorily.

What gave him a. good deal of rather melancholy amusement was to find that he was held responsible for everything, while his colleagues were quietly ignored. He knew it was perfectly constitutional, but as he had not unfrequently done little more than serve as the coloured glass through which the lights of his colleagues shone, he couldn't resist appreciating the joke. He grew somewhat more interested when the speaker touched upon his want of decision. " If the Prime Minister," he thundered forth, " doesn't know what he wants, we know what we don't want — and that's him ! Why doesn't he make up his mind ? " " If it were only as easy as making up one's face," muttered the Premier disconsolately. " How much longer is this weathercock going to tax our patience ? " A voice with a strong Irish brogue : " Hear, hear !

Floppy's finished his supper." Laughter, and some confusion. The speaker, perceiving that his opportunity was over, dashed at once into his peroration : " But ' it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good,' " he cried ; " and if the wind which blows about this weathercock stamps the Ministry with indelible disgrace, and crowns the Opposition with victory amid the crumbling ruins of the Ministerialists, I for one will call down blessings on its head ; " and striking the table emphatically, he sat down amid good-humoured applause, which, a moment afterwards, swelled into an outburst of tremendous cheering as Jack Dawe slowly rose to his feet. Unmoved by the enthusiastic salvo to which he was probably accustomed, the man stood facing his audience, the central figure in the cloudwreathed atmosphere, his right hand resting uporTthe rim of a pewter-pot, with the alcoholic contents of which he was wont to moisten his lips from time to time.

The Premier, still magnetised by the subtle influence of the strange personage he had chanced upon, bent forward eagerly as though feverishly anxious not to miss a syllable of the coming speech. In the intensity of his interest, he almost forgot his dread of recognition, and he utterly missed the quaint and somewhat old-fashioned charm of the scene— the archaic simplicity of the tableau, made up of the rows of flushed, excited faces of almost every type of physiognomy, and of all ages from seventeen to seventy ; the background of imitation. WITH THE COGERS 7 painted panelling ; the long tables glittering with half-empty glasses, and with huge tankards of shandy-gaff ; the whole veiled in nebulous folds, picturesquely relieved here and there by the red glow of cigars and cigarettes, or the artistic colouring of the more or less grotesquely shaped pipes.

The man, whose oratory was now for the first time to stir the pulses of a listener of exalted position, was only a house-and-sign painter. But in politics he could have given lessons to many of those who were bent upon educating their masters. He was in many respects a workman of the best type — studious, thoughtful, and a thorough master of his business. His intellectual faculties were of a high order, and his debating powers — not by any means the same thing — had been proved in many a tough encounter, where his extreme Radicalism had held its ground against all comers by dint of a rare talent for satire, and a sledge-hammer force of expression. The first half-dozen sentences of his double convinced Floppington that he was in the presence of a speaker of a different stamp from his predecessors, and of one whose intrinsic merits called sor attention to his remarks, apart from the interest excited by his personality.

" I would willingly echo the concluding sentiment of the gentle man who has just sat down," he began, amid a continuous current of more or less boisterous laughter, " were it not that its metaphors were as mixed as the ideas of the gentleman who preceded him. Metaphors have a bad habit of being mixed, though their intentions are generally good. Mr. Rowley's comparison of Mr. Floppington to a weathercock is true, if not new. A weathercock at the top of the Church is all very well (in fact only a weathercock could remain there for a day) ; but, as Mr. Rowley rightly declared, it is out of place at the head of the State. But when he proceeded to accuse the weathercock in question of taxing our patience, I could not help speculatingon the exact fiscal abilities of a vane, and I came to the conclusion that the only bond of connection between it and a Chancellor of Exchequer was the ignorance of arithmetic.

Mr. Rowley might suggest to Sir Stanley Southleigh the advisability of imposing a tax upon patience, though perhaps it would be too direct to suit that great financier. We are a long-suffering people — we have stood hereditary legislators long enough to prove that — but I don't think the receipts would be very great nevertheless. England expects every man to pay his duties, and we should not quite refuse to submit to an extra one ; but what I am afraid of is, that our impatience at the new demand would seriously interfere with the official estimate of our normal amount of the commodity under taxation. Mr. Chairman, I am aware I am digressing ; but if I were to remain in the route which the debate has been allowed to drift into, I should have no chance of getting to the real issue at all. I have noticed it as a remarkable peculiarity of the subjects down for discussion in this room, that they have a rude habit of leaving directly we are assembled, and of going off to spend their evenings elsewhere."

(Loud laughter.) With these bantering words of introduction, the speaker entered upon an elaborate and philosophical, yet amusingly-couched dis quisition upon the political situation. Ever and anon wild bursts of cheering and laughter escaped from his listeners — from all but that one pathetic figure in the corner, the poor, pallid stranger who leaned his throbbing brow upon his burning palm. As Jack Dawe warmed to his work, his remarks became less and less general, and at last he found himself dissecting, with remorseless scalpel, the whole public career of the Hon. Arnold Floppington. The last speaker had also cut up the Premier ; but with what inferior weapons ! His previous tenure of the Home Secretaryship ; his factious opposition to the Radical Reform Bill ; his overthrow of the last Government ; the feigned hesitation of his accept ance of office ; his own Reform Bill ; his difficulties with his Cabinet ; were all passed in review.

The intricacy of his motives was laid bare ; his weaknesses and his inconsistencies were exposed; his incompetence was painted in the most glaring colours; and his whole life was made to point the evils of the system of administration under which a man so hopelessly behind the times, and so terribly inefficient, could yet rise to the head of affairs. " This, then," concluded the house-painter vehemently, " is the man who, according to gentlemen opposite, is to lead their party to victory after the dissolution — whether it be precipitated, as it almost certainly will be, by the defeat of the Reform Bill, or whether it take place in the natural course of events. This is the man whose wavering and antiquated principles are to secure a triumphant majority in the next Parliament. Let me tell my Conservative friends that their hopes are as hollow as their arguments.

So long as Flopping ton remains what he is, so long as Mountchapel remains what he is, so long the Cabinet Chamber would be not the bureau of Govern ment but the arena of contending ambitions, and so long as Con servatism has no better leaders than these two men, so long a stable Conservative Administration is an impossibility. Nor would even the retirement of one of them mend matters in the least. Flop pington, with Mountchapel in opposition, would be a ludicrous and pitiable sight; but the sight of Mountchapel at the helm of the vessel of state would, if possible, be still more ludicrous and pitiable. The gorge of this great nation would rise in disgust at the spectacle. But if by a wild stretch of imagination one could conceive the Premier as, to apply the sinewy language of Milton, rousing him self like a strong man after sleep, or as an eagle, mewing his mighty youth and kindling his endazzled eyes at the lull midday beam ; rid ding himself of the incubus of his Foreign Secretary (though it might be well to retain the valuable unscrupulousness of that remarkable politician), and opening his ears to the imperious demands of modern democracy instead of dulling them with the dismal drone of mummified ecclesiastics; if, I say, there was the remotest probability of this, why, then there might be some hope for Con servatism; but, as it is, the confidence of Tories in their continued political existence resembles the state of mind of the patients in a galloping consumption.