Lord Beaconsfield and other Tory memories

Preface

In offering these "Memories" to the pubhc I wish it to be understood that, be their value what it may, they depend for it exclusively on my own personal experiences, and are in no wise indebted to either books or hearsay. In the second place, it should be stated that, besides some passages introduced from my own writings and acknowledged in their proper place, others may not improbably be found scattered up and down the pages of our periodical literature with which I have been long connected, though at this distance of time I should not know where to look for them. If any such do exist, they would, I am quite sure, form but a very small proportion of the whole volume, and would, equally with the rest of it, be drawn entirely from my own personal recollections.

I am, of course, referring only to those chapters which follow the sketches of Lord Beaconsfield, as these are republished directly, though not without alteration and re-arrangement, from the columns of the Standard.

I have not thought it necessary to restrict the book

entirely to anecdote, narrative, or description. Such

observations as the matter in hand seemed naturally

to suggest are sometimes introduced, but at long

intervals and in few words.

T. E. Kebbel.

London, March, 1907.

Chapter I. Page. Lord Beaconsfield

Disraeli the Leader of a Reconstructed Party — My First Sight of Him — The Publication of " Coningsby " and " Sybil " — ■ My Introduction to Disraeli — His Remarks on Bolingbroke r

CHAPTER II. LORD BEACONSFIELD (continued)

Disraeli's Views on Lord Derby's Refusal to Form a Government — As Reformer — A Blue-book Mystery — Lord Palmerston's Second Administration — Disraeli's Appreciation of Pluck — In Isolation — Literary Admirations — As Journalist — His Estimate of Contemporary Biography — Attitude Towards the Church of England . . . . . . . -13

CHAPTER III. LORD BEACONSFIELD (continued)

A Visit to Hughenden — Disraeli's Love of Trees — A Walk with Mrs.

Disraeli — A Drive with Disraeli — His Views on the Origin of

the Civil War — After-dinner Talk — A Sally which Made one of

the Guests Look Grave ....... 30

CHAPTER IV. LORD BEACONSFIELD (continued)

Disraeli's Views on Parliamentary Reform in General — The Reform BUI of 1867 Carried — Mr. Gladstone's Strategy in 1868 — Disraeli's Inadequate Grasp of Church Questions — His Admiration of the Whigs — His Reticence on Questions Affecting the Court — His View of " the Rupert of Debate " — Lady Beaconsfield's Death ........ 38

CHAPTER V. LORD BEACONSFIELD (continued)

"Waking Up" (1871) — Opposition to the Ballot — His Vigilance in the House — His Refusal to Take Of&ce with a Minority viii CONTENTS.

PAGE

(1873) — His Second Government — The Public Worship Regulation Act — On Personal Government — In the Lords — " Peace ■with Honour " — Why he Did Not Dissolve in 1878 — His Eastern Policy — Illness and Death ..... 46

CHAPTER VI. LORD BEACONSFIELD (condiided)

His Kindness to Friends — Mr. Montagu Corry — Lord Beaconsfield's Efforts to Serve the Author — Not a Dandy in his Later Years — His Popularity with the Farmers and the Peasantry— A Defence of his Sincerity — His Relations with the Author . 59

Chapter VII. Some Other Tory Statesmen

The Late Duke of Rutland — Belvoir Castle and the Squirearchy — A Survival of Eighteenth Century Toryism — " Young England " — A Visit to Belvoir Castle — In the Belvoir Kennels — The Duchess's Stories of the Imperial Court — The Late Lord Carnarvon : A Day at Highclere . . . . . .71

CHAPTER VIII. SOME OTHER TORY STATESMEN (concluded)

The Late Lord Salisbury — Sir Stafford Northcote (Lord Iddesleigh) — Lord Derby (the Fourteenth Earl) — The Late Lord Beauchamp — Lord Onslow — Some Canvassing Experiences — Mr. Brodrick — Lord Balfour of Burleigh — Lord Randolph Churchill — Cecil Raikes and his Estimate of Lord Beaconsfield — Lord Brabourne — Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff — Mr. Arthur Balfour. 86

Chapter IX. Tory Members I Have Known

Baron Dimsdale — Origin of the Title — The Baron as a Party Man — A Stolid Audience — Convivial Electioneering — Lord Glamis and the Memory of William III. — An Elegant Metaphor — Baron Dimsdale and his Tenants — Mr. Albert Pell — A Retort upon Lord Curzon — Pell's Views on the Poor Law — Sewell Read — Sir George Baden-Powell — The Education Bill of 1902 — Mr. Balfour's Frankness . . . . . . . .104

CONTENTS. ix

Chapter X

THE CAVE. PAGE

Lord Palmerston's Domestic Policy — Formation of the Cave — ■ How the Whigs were " Dished " — Lord Grosvenor's Amendment — The Day and its Brief Career ..... 121

Chapter XI. Tory Ladies

The Era of the PoUtical Hostess — Lady GranvUIe and the Rising Liberal Journalist — Lady Jeune's Receptions — Sir John Gorst and Lord Beacons field's Funeral- — Sir Richard Webster — An Eminent Counsel on County Government — Reminiscences of Prince Charles Edward — Lady Ridley — A Sympathiser with Lord Iddesleigh — Lady Carnarvon — Lady Stanhope — Lady Salisbury — Lady Winifred Herbert — Mrs. St. John Brodrick 132

Chapter XII. Tory Arcadia

The Halfords— Wistow— Sir Robert Peel's Frigidity— The Old Duke of Cambridge — His Dialogue with a Curate — Likened to the Hippopotamus — A Question of Clerical Etiquette — Sir Henry Halford, the Physician — Could the Duke of York have Prevented the Revolution of 1828-32 ? — The Second Sir Henry Halford — ^The Last of the Chanticleers — His Love for the Classics — The Family Becomes Extinct — The New Poor Law — A Hunt Breakfast at Quorn — Boys and Port Wine — ^The Economics of County Influence — Parsons in Arcadia — Eccentrics .......... 149

Chapter XIII. Tory Bohemia

Journalism in the Mid-century — War Between Tory and Liberal Journalists— James Hannay and G. A. Sala — The Idler — The Retort upon "S. and B." — The Company at the "Cock" and the " Cheese " — Edgar and His Love of Genealogy — Evans's — • The Last Stage in Hannay's Career — Mortimer Collins — His Eccentricities — His Love of Nature — Charming a Thrush- Edward \\'hitty— A Bohemian who was Found Reading the Commination Service — Antinomies of Character — Johnny Baker .......... 171

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV. TORY CLUBS. page

The Tumbler and its Leading Spirits — The Rambler — Installation at Dick's — Witty Irish Members — Jack Ormsby — His Narrow Escape from Drowning — His Liking for Practical Jokes — Toryism and Scholarship — Gowan Evans — Sotheby — Trevor : A Loud Snorer — His Cynicism — George Danvers and the Sub-editorial Nose — Henry Fawcett — Twenty Years Afterwards— The Canning Club — ^The Cecil — The Junior Carlton and St. Stephen's 193

Chapter XV. Tory Journalism And Literature

The Press — ^The Seeleys, Father and Son — The New Quarterly — A Subsidy from the Porte — Musurus Pasha— The Pall Mall Gazette Founded — Mr. Frederick Greenwood — The County Government Bill— The Pall Mall Staff— A Wink from an Archdeacon— The Yorkshire Post : A Start Under Difficulties — Joining the Staff of the Standard — Writing Leaders by Snatches — System of Paynient — Invited to Join the Times Staff — Mr. Mudford — Mr. Curtis — The Standard Changes Hands — Contributions to the Quarterly Review— Its Editors — Founding of the National Review — Articles in the Fortnightly and in the Nineteenth Century — Sir James Knowles — Praser's and Blackwood's — Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice and Junius — Mr. Sidney Low and Mr. Jeyes — Mr. William Blackwood . . . .216

Chapter XVI. Tory Democracy

Lord Randolph Churchill's Definition of Tory Democracy — What

Lord Beaconsfield Meant by It — Toryism in the Eighteenth

Century — Peasantry and Gentry — Tory Proclivities of the

Artisan Class — ^The Peasantry and " Methodies" . . 254

Chapter XVII. Tory Sportsmen

The Late Lord Stanley of Alderley — A Mahometan Supporter

of the Church of England — Coot-Shooting at Alderley —

George Baden-Powell — Southey's Small Band of Admirers —

A Writing Contest with Lord Stanley — Trespassers — Lord

CONTENTS. xi

^ . PAGE

Stanley's Eccentricities — Solitary Shoots — Wind and Ram — A Shooting Bishop — The Editor of the Edinburgh Review — ^The Dowager Lady Stanley — Her Treatment of a Fellow- Passenger — More About Shooting — A Murderous Ass — Three Welsh Parsons — At a Welsh Manor House— -A Welsh Dissenter and His Little Superstitions — Colonel Talbot — A Reminiscence of the Fourteenth Earl of Derby — Lord Stanley of Alderley's Mastiffs — A Tenants' Ball — Morris Dancing — Making Converts — A Compliment from Lord Strathnairn . . . .261

Chapter XVIII. Tory Agriculturists

Where the Allotment System Originated^Difierence Between Allotments and Small Holdings — -The " Tatur Field " — Advantages of a Large System of Peasant Farming — A Call to Landowners for Combined Action — A Co-operative Farm Forty Years Ago — The Tenant Farmer, Old Style 288

Chapter XIX. Oxford Toryism

Distinct Types of Toryism at Oxford — Sewell — Dr. Marsham — Mucklestone — Mitchell — Dr. Routh — Tommy Short — Dr. Symonds — Plumptre and Punch — Dr. Pusey — His Toryism — - An Apparition — Newman — Lost Causes and False Quantities — Mansel — Mark Pattison — Halford Vaughan — Brocket of St. Dunstan's .......... 299

Chapter XX. Tory Inns

Rival Inns — ^Tory Inns on the Road to London — A Tory Tavernkeeper's Horror of Mechanics' Institutes — Tory Shops and Whig Shops — A Candid Tory Fishmonger — The Engine-driver and the Statesman . . . . . . -313

Chapter XXI. Our Village

The Village Described — ^The Vicar — Farmer Dryman — John Ashcot the Yeoman — The Village Blacksmith — Farmer Wright — A xii CONTENTS.

True Blue — The Feast — Christmas Celebrations — The Parish Clerk — An Antinomian Dissenter — A Versatile Constable — Village Termagants — The Scythe and the Flail— A Happy and Contented Population — The Clothing Club — Old Poor Law and the New ........ 319

Chapter XXII. Retrospect

Childhood and Old Age — Effect on the Tory Party of the Reform Act of 1832 — Of the Oxford Revival — Of the Young England Movement— Protection — The Present Economic Reaction — The Future — Present Position of the Church of England — Decline of the House of Commons — A Last Word . . 342

AND OTHER

TORY MEMORIES.

Chapter I. Lord Beaconsfield

Disraeli the Leader of a Reconstructed Party — My First Sight of Him — The PubUcation of " Coningsby " and " Sybil " — My Introduction to Disraeli — His Remarks on Bolingbroke.

The first time I saw Lord Beaconsfield was a few years after I had left Oxford and had relinquished all thoughts of following my fortunes at the Bar, to which I had been originally destined. On leaving the University I took chambers in the Temple, and hoped for two or three years that I might be able to pursue the path chalked out for me. But family circumstances soon made it evident to me that I must find some more immediate means of supporting myself without further assistance from my relations.

At that time journalism had not become the common resort of gentlemen in want of an income, and unwilling or unable to wait for the tardy returns to be expected from the regular professions. The estimation in which it was held in those days is described with perfect truth by Trollope in his novel of " He Knew He Was Right." The public in general, and country people in particular, had the haziest conception of the machinery by which newspapers were produced. That the higher class papers afforded regular and remunerative employment to a limited number of educated gentlemen was what few country parsons or squires who did not mix much in London Society or in literary circles understood or believed. And it was not all at once that journalism occurred to me in the light of a possible career and a short cut to independence. I had, however, ventured to send one or two short pieces to the Press newspaper, then recently established as the organ of the Tory Opposition; and I remember that while I was sitting at breakfast in our country parsonage at home one morning in 1855, dismally meditating on the dreary prospect which confronted me, the postman brought me a letter which decided my fate. It was from Mr. Coulton, the Editor of the Press, which at that time was said by Mr. Gladstone to be " admirably written," offering me a place on the paper, which I at once accepted ; and as Mr. DisraeU (for so must we continue to call Lord Beaconsfield throughout the greater part of these reminiscences) was in frequent communication with Mr. Coulton, it was not long before I came m contact with the great man himself.

Mr. Disraeli at that time was firmly established as the Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. He had gained their confidence by the skill with which he had re-formed their broken ranks, had reclaimed to their colours numerous waverers or deserters, and finally had formed a Government which the public in general allowed to have played its part with dignity and efficiency. He always looked back on this stage of his career with great satisfaction. He often told me of the pains which he had taken to reconstruct the party and the success which had rewarded them. The Conservative Ministry of 1852 showed how well he had performed his task. Out of the broken and dispirited remnants which accepted his leadership in 1848 he had built up a powerful Opposition, had drawn from its ranks men capable of filling with credit the highest offices in the State, and had shown the world that there was again a Conservative Party qualified both by numbers and ability to take the reins of government whenever the Liberals should drop them. To the younger generation of Tories he presented just that combination of originality, courage and wit which was a welcome change after the Parliamentary respectability which followed the death of Mr. Canning. They asked for nothing better. After the great tergiversation of 1846 and the coalition of contradictories in 1853, men had ceased to inquire too curiously about principles.

The personal recollections to which my articles in the Standard were as closely as possible confined will here be extended to all such reminiscences as are in any way connected with the name and fame of the Tory leader, showing how his influence permeated all ranks of society, and how wide and how deep was the impression created, apart from all political considerations, by his unique personality. I remember my first sight of him well ; and, though but momentary, it printed itself on my mind in more vivid and lasting colours than any subsequent interviews of much longer duration. At that time, when Parliament was sitting, it was the custom of Mr. Coulton every Friday night to go down to the House of Commons as late as could conveniently be managed, returning to the ofiice in the Strand with a bundle of pencil notes dictated by Mr. Disraeli, to be moulded into the first leader for next day's paper. He more often than not brought back with him some terse and neatly turned sentences, or some epigrammatic sarcasm, which savoured of the master hand. Coulton was a capital writer, but he had not that particular gift. " Lord Aberdeen's Peace Government against its will drifted into war, and Lord Palmerston's War Government against its will drifted into peace," was a sentence which exactly hit off the situation in the winter of 1856. It was Disraeli's object, in this epigram, to show that a Coalition Government could have no fixed or definite policy, and must be at the mercy of events.

It was my business at this time to go down to Mr. Coulton's house, which is now, I think, 16, Old Queen Street, Westminster, every Thursday afternoon, to arrange about articles ; and there, for the first time, I set eyes upon my future patron. He was coming out of Mr. Coulton's house just as I was going in, and I remember that Coulton said two or three words to him which I did not distinctly catch, but I suppose they referred to the newcomer. He threw a careless sideglance at myself as he walked out, and I see him before my mind's eye now as clearly as I did at that moment. He was then in his fifty-second year, and looked younger. His lithe, erect figure, clad in the well-known black frock-coat, buttoned rather low down, the grey trousers, the black or dark green neckerchief, tied vnth a neat bow — for he seldom, I think, wore anything else — all fixed themselves in my memory, though the features which surmounted them might well have absorbed my attention to the exclusion of everything else.

It was a face, I thought, indicative of great reserve power, and bore the cachet which Mr. Thackeray says is always visible in great men : " They may be as mean on many points as you or I : but they carry their great air. They speak of common life more largely and generously than common men do. They regard the world with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare look at life through blinkers or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it." This is so curiously applicable to Mr. Disraeli, and so eminently characteristic of his whole career, that I wonder it has never been applied to him.

It was not till two years afterwards that I was actually introduced to Mr. Disraeli, and in the meantime, before referring to the conversations with which from time to time he was kind enough to indulge me, I must revert to an earlier period and to the work which first attracted the attention of the world at large, who knew little as yet of his parliamentary reputation or of the earlier novels which, with the exception perhaps of " Vivian Grey," were almost forgotten.

I remember an elder brother coming down from London during my school holidays and astonishing us all with the marvellous tale of " Young England." " Have you read ' Coningsby ' ? " was, he assured us, on everyone's lips. Not to have read " Coningsby " was what Count Mirabel in "Henrietta Temple " would have called a bitise. People in general, however, did not know what to make of it ; and no one described the sensation which it created in fashionable circles better than the author himself. The dandy who had dined with the Regent, and was a dandy still, enjoying life as much as ever, inquires of his friend Mr. Melton, supposed to have been meant for James Macdonal, what this new thing was that young Coningsby had brought from abroad, and which everybody was going to believe in. "A sort of magnetism, or unknown tongues," the dandy concluded it must be. On hearing that it was not that sort of thing at all, but that it required a " deuced deal of history," he observed that " one must brush up one's Goldsmith." I merely quote from so well-known a book to show the absurd ideas which " Coningsby " inspired in some quarters. Another class felt more aggrieved by the " Venetian Constitution." To have all their previous ideas of our glorious Constitution in Church and State suddenly upset by a novel ! Who was the upstart who thus ventured to tamper with all our most cherished traditions ? Out on him ! Young England indeed ! and grave men would sometimes mutter the name of Rehoboam, and ask how it fared with him when he chose to rely on young Israel.

This was the kind of talk which went on in many a country parsonage and manor house ; and such prejudices were not mitigated by Henry Sidney's views about the peasantry or the praises bestowed upon Eustace Lyle, which were thought to savour of Popish proclivities, and still further fomented the alarm which the Roman Catholic Relief Act had kindled, and which the Oxford movement had inflamed. Then, of course, all the ridiculous stories with which we have so long been familiar were raked up against Disraeli — his first parliamentary speech, the green velvet coat, the long ringlets, the laced ruffles. Such was the atmosphere in which my first impressions of Mr. Disraeli were formed. But there was a counter influence at work which tended slowly to modify them. By the older people this was not so much felt, but by the younger generation, who had come under the influence of the Oxford revival, it was soon recognised, and especially after the publication of " Sybil," that these striking pictures represented only one-half of a great religious and political movement, of which the other half had started from Oriel. I doubt if Mr. Disraeli himself ever saw the connection between the two so clearly as he might have done. Had he done so, it would have saved him from some mistakes which exercised a mischievous effect on his after life.

But, at all events, in " Sybil " he had given such apparent evidence of his sympathies with Anglicanism, and showed so much apparent insight into the real history of the Church, that all the younger Tories and High Churchmen began to look to him as a champion who might in the end do as much for their principles as Mr. Gladstone. Young men who had been taught to regard Charles I. as a martyr and the Rebellion as a great crime, found it hard to reconcile this belief with what they were equally required to profess — namely, that William III. was a hero, and the Revolution a great blessing. They had, however, accepted the current theory without much inquiry, though Scott had done something to make them suspicious of it ; and when Mr. Disraeli cut the Gordian knot by declaring that the popular view of 1688 was founded on a total misconception of the national history, they welcomed the discovery with enthusiasm.

Of course, it was imputed to him that he meant a great deal more than this, and that under his denunciation of the Venetian Constitution lurked the intention of reviving personal government. That such an idea ever took practical shape in his mind I do not believe. What he told me himself has always led me to suppose that his aim was rather to correct what he thought some mistaken views of English history than to suggest any monarchical revival for present adoption. " Coningsby " called popular attention to what had really been done by the legislation of 1828, 1829, and 1832. The old Constitution, whatever its faults or its vices, Venetian or Batavian, was something, as Mr. Gladstone has somewhere said, in which a man could believe as a whole : something which supplied him with a real political faith. Mr. Disraeli did not think that its place was supplied by the Tamworth Manifesto. But that the void might be filled by a revival of the old form of monarchy was an idea which never, I think, passed out of the realm of imagination into the region of reality.

As I got to know him better I became aware how large a part in his political speculations had been played by his imagination. It dwelt fondly on the spectacle presented by the Tory party under the first two Georges, on their struggle with the Whig oligarchy, and on the efforts of Tory statesmen to emancipate the Crown from their control. That the author of " Coningsby " may have amused himself by living in an ideal world, and brooding so closely over past conditions as to fancy himself for the moment in the midst of them, is a tenable hypothesis supported by the example of Sir Walter Scott. But we may be satisfied with thinking that the theories of " Coningsby " and " Sybil " were put forward rather as a contribution to the history of England and an exposure of the false impressions which had been handed down by interested parties, than with any ulterior object or any serious intention of reducing them to practice.

My reason for thinking so is this. After the downfall of the Palmerston Ministry in 1858, the Press changed hands, and I ceased to be a pohtical contributor. Then I thought I should hke to see Mr. Disraeh, and, as this was easily managed, I was invited on a certain day to call at Grosvenor Gate — I think on a Sunday. He received me very kindly, and, perhaps, with his peculiar views on the subject of youth, my age told in my favour. I remember being much impressed — perhaps, indeed, rather amused — by one little circumstance which occurred while I was sitting with him. A servant brought him in a card, which he looked at attentively for a minute, and then said, " Tell his Highness I will be with him very shortly," and then turned round to renew the conversation about Bolingbroke with your humble servant. Without referring directly to his estimate of that statesman given in " Coningsby," he spoke very highly of him, and advised me particularly to read his correspondence.

I left Grosvenor Gate without any reason to think that less was meant by the pohtical speculations which had so startled the public when they first appeared than I had hitherto — perhaps too readily — supposed. But shortly after the above conversation I wrote an article on Bolingbroke for Fraser's Magazine, of which Mr. Froude was then editor, when, in spite of my reverence for the author of " Coningsby," I took occasion to ask whether, had Lord Bohngbroke continued to take an active part in pubhc affairs after the death of Queen Anne, he would ever have indulged in such reflections as we find in " The Patriot King " and elsewhere. But for the policy of proscription initiated by the Whigs in 1714, Bolingbroke would have taken office under George I. " He believed himself," I said, " a second Cicero in exile, and gratified his taste by a great deal of fine writing to prove that Walpole and his party were reenacting the part of Augustus, who only exercised absolutism more readily through the medium of a servile Senate. But such language as this was not natural to the man. His brain was too strong, his intellect too masculine, not at once to have seen through the weakness of his own position, had he been obliged to look it fairly in the face. He must have known well enough that no monarchy could be permanent which depended upon the character of a single individual. His experience of James H. must, we should think, have opened his eyes, if they wanted any opening."

On Mr. Disraeli's receipt of a volume that contained this essay, he wrote me a letter, which will be found on another page, expressing warm approval of its contents, including the article on Bolingbroke. The next time I saw him I asked him in person the same question which I had raised in my essay : What did he think would have happened had Queen Anne lived till Bolingbroke had matured his schemes, and secured the ascendency of the Tory Party throughout the country. He said that if Bolingbroke had restored the Stuarts, and the Stuarts had been reconciled to the Church of England, there need have been no such

LORD BEACONSFIELD. ii

startling change as some historians have supposed. Government would have been carried on much as it had been under Anne. Had Bolingbroke, on the other hand, succeeded in making terms with " the Elector of Hanover, and placing a Tory king upon the throne, St. John himself would simply have been another Walpole." In that case we should probably have avoided two costly wars, some millions of debt, and a good deal of Parliamentary corruption. Bolingbroke and the Tories would have carried on the administration instead of Walpole and the Whigs.

" Then, sir," I said, " we should still have had the Venetian Constitution, and the Sovereign would still have been a Doge." " No," he said, " not the Venetian Constitution. The country would not have been governed by a few great Whig families — the Council of Ten, who kept all real power in their own hands. The Sovereign, indeed, might stiU have been a Doge, but that would have been owing to his ignorance of England and English affairs, not to the deliberate purpose of the oligarchy." " But," I continued, " how would Bolingbroke and the first two Georges have agreed about foreign affairs — about Germany, for instance ? " This, he saw, was a more difficult question to answer. But it was important to remember that much of Bolingbroke's declamation against the German Alhance and the sums which it had cost us was written after Sir Robert Walpole had been Minister for twenty years, and not before. It is fair to conclude that Bolingbroke would have found some way of reconciling the King's German proclivities with English interests, had he been Minister from the first. In 1740 he only saw that Walpole had failed to do so, and that the consequences had been disastrous.

Thus we see that when compelled to take a practical view of eighteenth-century politics Disraeli could lay aside his ideals, if he ever secretly cherished any, and face the situation as it really was. We might suppose — and many persons have supposed — from the language used in " Coningsby " and " Sybil," that when he wrote these novels he really believed that England's best hope for the future lay in the restoration of the Royal prerogative to the point at which William III. left it. I wiU not say but what he might have thought as much in the abstract, or even that the pre-Revolution monarchy was preferable to the one that succeeded it. He certainly seems to have agreed with Lord Shelburne that a real monarchy was preferable to a " sham " one, as Shelburne always styled the monarchy of the first two Georges; but that he ever thought the revival of Shelburne's " real royalty" was a practical possibility in the middle of the nineteenth century, all I ever heard him say about the subject forbids me to believe.