But, as I have said, Mrs. Riddell, apart from her imperfect observance of editorial customs, was a delightful woman. She and her husband lived in a rambling old house in the Green Lanes, Tottenham. Here she entertained many of the notable men of letters of her time, and here I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of not a few of them. The establishment was a somewhat primitive one. The workshop in which Mr. Riddell carried on the manufacture of his patent stoves was at the back of the house, and a rather large central hall, dividing the dining-room and the drawing-room, was used as a kind of show-room in which choice specimens of Mr. Riddell's wares were displayed. The special feature of these patent stoves was that they were ornamental as well as useful. They were made to look like anything but what they were. One stove appeared in the guise of a table, richly ornamented in cast-iron; another was a vase; a third a structure like an altar, and so forth. But whatever their appearance might be, they all were stoves. One winter's night, when there was an inch of snow on the ground, I went out to the Green Lanes to attend one of Mrs. Riddell's literary parties. It was bitterly cold, and one of the stoves in the hall had been lighted for the comfort of the guests. We were a merry company, including, if I remember aright, George Augustus Sala, and some other well-known journalists. In the course of the evening Mrs. Riddell asked a well-known barrister, who at that time dabbled a little in literature, and who has since risen to fame and to a knighthood, to favour us with a song. He was an innocent young man in those days, and tried to excuse himself. "Now, Mr. C——," said Mrs. Riddell, "I know you have brought some music with you, so you must get it and do as I wish." The young man admitted that he had brought music, and blushingly retired to the hall in quest of it. Suddenly, those of us who were standing near the door heard a groan of anguish, and, looking out, we saw Mr. C—— holding in one hand the charred remains of a roll of music, and in the other the remnants of what had once been an excellent overcoat. He had laid his coat, when he arrived, on what was apparently a hall table. Unluckily for him, it happened to be the patent stove that had been lighted that evening to cheer and warm us when we escaped from the storm outside. I draw a veil over the subsequent proceedings.

I believe it was on this very evening that I heard Sala utter one of those jocosely brutal sentences for which he was celebrated. The literary men who frequented Mrs. Riddell's house were not, I am sorry to say, so respectful to her husband as they might have been. They made it very clear, in fact, that it was the novelist and not the inventor of stoves whom they came to see, and they were impatient when the latter attempted to intrude his views upon them. A party of us were gathered in the dining-room, smoking and otherwise refreshing ourselves. We had been listening to story after story from some of the best talkers in the Bohemia of those days, and again and again the attempts of Mr. Riddell to contribute to our entertainment by some long-winded narration had been vigorously and successfully repulsed. At last the unhappy host found an opening, and had got so far as "What you were saying reminds me of an interesting anecdote I once heard," when Sala, striking his fist upon the table, thundered a stentorian "Stop, sir!" Mr. Riddell looked at him, half frightened, half indignant. "If the story you propose to tell us," continued Sala, "is an improper one, I wish to tell you that we have heard it already; and if it is not improper, we don't want to hear it at all." Yes, clearly one had wandered into Bohemia in those days.

My work in the Gallery of the House of Commons was of great interest. I watched Disraeli during his first brief premiership in 1868, when he had to hold the reins of authority in a House in which his party was really in a minority, and when he had nightly to confront the fierce attacks of Mr. Gladstone, who was rallying his own followers, both in the House and in the country, for their successful onslaught upon the Government. It was a unique and most valuable experience to watch these two great men in their gladiatorial combats across the table of the House: Gladstone wielding the mighty broadsword of his powerful eloquence, and seeming as if at every moment he would annihilate his antagonist; Disraeli, with marvellous skill and exquisite adroitness, bringing the rapier of his wit to bear upon his opponent, and again and again pinking him with some stinging epigram or smart retort that set all the Tory benches roaring with delight. It made one's young blood grow warmer to watch the struggle from the impartial height of the Reporters' Gallery.

I was in the House on that memorable occasion when Disraeli made a speech which astounded his followers so much that they were only able to account for it by the hypothesis that he had taken too much to drink. This is a harsh way of stating the case, but there is no doubt a measure of truth in it. Disraeli was not a self-indulgent man, but in those days his devotion to his duties in the House was so great that he would sometimes sit all the evening listening to a debate without taking any food, and in his dinnerless condition the stimulant he took before making his speech in reply occasionally got into his head. Certainly, in the memorable speech on the Irish Church question, to which I allude, he was betrayed into excesses for which some justification was necessary. I remember seeing him, at the close of that speech, draw his handkerchief from his pocket and wave it round his head, before he sank back exhausted on the Treasury bench; and I can still see the pale and angry face of Mr. Gladstone as he sprang to his feet to reply, and hear the stern tones in which he referred to "the excitement—the too obvious excitement—of the right honourable gentleman."

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has recently furnished the world with many volumes of personal reminiscences. He does not include among those reminiscences any reference to a scene which I witnessed in the House of Commons during Disraeli's first brief premiership, although Sir Mountstuart was himself the hero of the occasion. It was one Wednesday afternoon. There was an empty House and a dull debate, but Disraeli was in his place on the Treasury Bench, so that anything might happen. It pleased the Mr. Grant Duff of those days to deliver himself of a philippic, at once voluminous and violent, against the Prime Minister. He quoted the opinions of foreign critics to the disadvantage of Mr. Disraeli; he emphasised them by fine flights of his own imagination; and he illustrated his speech with a wealth of gesticulation and a variety of intonation that convulsed his scanty audience with laughter. People wondered mildly what punishment was in store for the audacious man who was thus breaking one of the unwritten canons of the House, for in those days it was regarded as bad form on the part of a man not himself in the front rank to attack one in the position of Mr. Disraeli. As the speech proceeded, the Prime Minister sat in his favourite attitude, his arms folded, his head slightly bent forward, and his vacant eyes fixed upon the points of his boots. He might have been carved in stone for any trace of emotion that he displayed. We in the Gallery anticipated that this air of absolute indifference was to be the punishment of his rash assailant. But to our surprise, when Grant Duff sat down, Disraeli instantly sprang to his feet. As he did so, he raised his single glass to his eye, and looked fixedly across the House to the spot where the member for Elgin was slowly composing himself after his mighty effort. For some seconds Disraeli, with an air of cold, cynical aloofness, continued to gaze at the unfortunate man. Then, with a favourite action, he suddenly dropped the glass from his eye, and, waving his hand with an airy gesture of contempt, said, "I shall not detain the House, sir, by referring to the—the exhibition we have just witnessed; but I merely wish to say in reply to an honourable member below the gangway," and so on. This was, I think, the most cruel speech I ever heard Disraeli make, and for the moment it seemed to have a crushing effect upon its subject.

In those days Disraeli was not the Tory idol he subsequently became. I well remember, on the historic evening when Mr. Gathorne Hardy moved the adjournment of the House because of the absence of Mr. Disraeli at Windsor, and the news instantly spread that Lord Derby had resigned and Mr. Disraeli had become Prime Minister in his place, that there was a hubbub—not merely of excitement, but of disapproval—in the Lobby. Tory members of the old school were furious at having "that Jew," as they contemptuously styled him, set over them. I walked from the House that evening with Sir Edward Baines and Mr.—afterwards Sir Charles—Forster. They were both full of the dislike felt on the Tory side for the change in the leadership of their party. It is strange to note how quickly the views of a party change with regard to its leaders. I remember the time when the idea that Mr. Gladstone would ever be Prime Minister was treated with ridicule by not a few of those who sat beside him in Parliament. I have myself heard Mr. Disraeli assailed in scornful and sarcastic terms by Lord Salisbury, and have listened to his sneering retort. Even after Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1868 it is notorious that the Duke of Buccleuch refused to entertain him as his guest when he visited Scotland to rally the party before the General Election of that year. It was on the occasion of this visit that he gave such offence to the graver section of the Tories by the speech in which, explaining the genesis of the Household Suffrage Act, he used the words, "I educated my party." A few years later the whole party was proud of having been educated by him; but when he made this speech his words were regarded as an insolent display of vanity on the part of an upstart who had elbowed his way to the front at the expense of better men.

My only personal encounter with the great Tory leader was connected with this same speech at Edinburgh. I went to Aylesbury, during the course of the 1868 election, in order to report a speech of his. He spoke in the Corn Exchange, which was crowded to excess. The accommodation for the reporters was quite unequal to their demands, and I had to stand among the crowd and take my notes as best I could. A good-natured farmer in front of me invited me to use his back as a desk, against which I placed my note-book. Disraeli had not proceeded very far with his speech before I found that my friend was not by any means in agreement with the illustrious speaker. Again and again he interrupted him with exclamations and questions. For a long time Disraeli took no notice of these interruptions, but at last one stung him into action. The orator had paused for a moment, and my farmer friend, seizing his chance, bawled out in a stentorian voice, "What about educating your party?" The Prime Minister instantly turned round, raised his glass to his eye, and with an angry and contemptuous glare, transfixed—me! The farmer's courage had given way when he found that his shot had told, and, to my unutterable disgust, he dropped upon his knees, and left me to face the music. Disraeli looked at me for a perceptible space of time, and then, dropping his glass, said, in those chilling tones of which he was a master, "I shall certainly not try to educate you, sir." Everybody stared at me; everybody groaned at me; and it was only the consciousness of my own innocence that kept me from dropping on my knees beside the treacherous author of my humiliation.

In that election of 1868 I recorded my first parliamentary vote. Living at 24, Addison Road North, I was an elector of Chelsea, and I duly supported at the polling booth the joint candidature of Sir Charles Dilke and Sir Henry Hoare. This was the last General Election before the passing of the Ballot Bill. Representatives of the different candidates sat on either side of the poll clerk, and duly thanked each elector as he recorded his vote for the man whom they represented.

I wrote an article in the St. James's Magazine describing the opening day of the session of the new Household Suffrage Parliament. It was called "The Birthday of an Era," and, looking back, I think I was fully entitled to make use of that somewhat high-sounding phrase. It was the beginning of the Gladstonian epoch in English history, and, for good or for evil (in my own opinion mainly for good), it was destined to make a deep impression on the institutions and fortunes of the nation. When Mr. Gladstone entered upon his first term of office as Prime Minister, he was certainly surrounded by a wonderful band of colleagues. They included Lord Granville, Lord Hartington, Lord Kimberley, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Childers, Mr. Bruce, and Mr. Forster. In my time no stronger ministry than this has had power in England. The men I admired most after Mr. Gladstone were Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster. I had not yet made the personal acquaintance of Forster, and did not dream of the close ties by which we were eventually to be united; but I was drawn to him from the very first by an instinctive feeling of liking and esteem. His blunt speech, his careless dress, his unpolished but genuine manners, all seemed to me to mark him out as that rare creature a thoroughly honest politician; and whilst I sat in the Reporters' Gallery, there was no one after Mr. Gladstone whose speeches delighted me more than did those of Forster.

Before the Ministry had been long in office I was brought into contact with one of its members, Mr. W.E. Baxter, the Secretary to the Admiralty. Mr. Baxter was a great reformer and a financial purist. When he went to the Admiralty he found extravagance and confusion, not to speak of corruption, pervading all the departments connected with the provision of materiel for the Fleet. He set to work at once, with the vigour of the new broom, to cleanse the Augean stable. Naturally he excited the bitter hostility of those whose personal interests were affected by his action, and these, being in many cases persons of influence, were able to inspire attacks upon his policy in the leading organs of the daily press in London. I, in my small way, as London correspondent of the Leeds Mercury, had defended him against some of these attacks. Baxter noticed my defence, and sought me out in order to thank me for it. He did more than this. He proposed that I should hear from him from time to time how he was advancing in his work of reorganisation and reform, and should make the facts known to the public through the columns of the Mercury. This was great promotion for me. In those days the provincial press had no direct connection with Ministers or the leaders of parties; and the "London correspondent" was not in a position to supply his readers with news at first hand, or with any news, indeed, that was at once original and authentic. Through Mr. Baxter I suddenly found myself placed in a position that enabled me to provide the Leeds Mercury with political and administrative news that was not only of the highest importance, but that had not appeared anywhere else. For Mr. Baxter was better than his word. When I went, as I did several times a week, to see him at the Admiralty, he not only told me all that was going on in his own department, but all that could be published with regard to the proceedings of the Government as a whole. I think I am correct in saying that I was at that time the only correspondent of a provincial newspaper who was favoured in this way, and my letter to the Mercury began to be read and quoted in many different quarters. Certainly my position was made both easier and more important by this friendship with Mr. Baxter.

During the whole of 1869 I attended the debates in Parliament, and watched with eager sympathy the progress of the Government in the heavy task that it had set itself. The passing of the Bill for disestablishing the Irish Church was the chief business of that memorable session. The speaking on both sides was at the highest level. In the House of Commons, Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, Lowe, and Gathorne Hardy distinguished themselves above all others. But the palm for oratory, as has so often been the case, was borne off by the House of Lords. That House presented a brilliant spectacle during the debates on the second reading of the Bill which the majority of the peers detested so heartily. The speaking against the measure was far more effective than that in its favour. Indeed, at this distance of time I can only recall one speech by a supporter of the Bill which impressed itself so strongly upon me as to remain fresh in my memory after the lapse of more than thirty years. That was the speech of Dr. Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, who was courageous enough to stand against his brethren, and to prefer the claims of justice to those of the Establishment in which he was a leading figure. On the other hand, two at least of the speeches delivered against the Bill are still vividly present to my mind. The first was the speech of Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, an extraordinary display of florid and flowing eloquence. It moved the House so greatly that when he sat down the Tory peers rose, almost in a body, and rushing across the floor, offered him their personal congratulations and handshakes in recognition of his success. Such a scene, common enough in foreign Chambers, was almost without precedent in our cold and stately House of Lords. The other memorable speech was that of Lord Derby, "the Rupert of debate." Though I had no sympathy with his views, I could not but admire the almost passionate fervour with which he pleaded for the Irish Church, and the indignation with which he denounced those who were bent upon despoiling it. I remember his quoting with dramatic effect the curse uttered by Meg Merrilees upon Ellan-gowan—a curse which he intended, of course, to apply to Mr. Gladstone. It was the last speech that Lord Derby ever made. When the announcement of the final surrender of the Peers, after the Bill had passed through Committee, was made by Lord Cairns, I saw Lord Derby rise from his seat and, with a face inflamed with indignation, hobble swiftly out of the Chamber. He never entered it again.

This incident belongs to the tragedy of politics; but the debates on the Irish Church Bill in the House of Lords were not without their touches of comedy. One of these was supplied by Lord Westbury, the ex-Liberal Lord Chancellor. He made a very amusing, a very bitter, and an almost wholly inaudible speech against the Bill. The older peers, with their hands behind their ears, clustered round him to catch his witticisms, some even kneeling on the floor in order to be near enough to hear him. They chuckled and laughed consumedly, but we unfortunate reporters in the Gallery had but the faintest idea of what it was they were laughing at. One sentence I did indeed catch, and still remember. It was to the effect that if the Irish Church were disestablished there would be no provision for the celebration of holy matrimony in Ireland in accordance with Protestant rites. "Was it possible," Lord Westbury asked, with simulated indignation, "that the authors of this iniquitous measure really meant to drive all the unmarried Protestants of Ireland into mortal sin?" The old peers around him enjoyed this effort of the imagination mightily.

The other comic incident I remember was of a different kind. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Trench, on behalf of his fellow-prelates, made a long speech against the Bill. Dr. Trench was a man of very high character and fine talent, but he was not at home in the House of Lords, or, indeed, in a political speech. When he advanced to the table of the House, he caused a slight titter by producing an unmistakable black sermon case, and spreading it open before him. By-and-by, as he proceeded with his sonorous but somewhat melancholy discourse, everybody perceived that he was preaching a sermon. The intonation of his voice, the phraseology, the measured sweep of the hands, all smacked of the pulpit. The whole House listened eagerly, and watched intently for the accident that was certain to happen. At last it came. "I beseech you, my brethren," said the Archbishop, in a moment of apostolic absence of mind, and the whole House exploded in a roar of long-suppressed laughter, which made it impossible to learn the nature of the Primate's appeal.

For any man of intelligence the position of a parliamentary reporter is one of great interest and full of great possibilities. In my days in the Gallery there was, as I have already stated, little communication between the Gallery and the House proper. The art of exploiting the Press had not yet become familiar to the politicians, and a great gulf seemed to be fixed between the reporters and the members. Since then, that gulf has almost disappeared, and not a few men have stepped down from the Reporters' Gallery to the floor of the House. But our very aloofness from the inner side of parliamentary life, with its personal interests and its incessant intrigues, strengthened our position as independent critics and observers. We looked on as at a play in which we ourselves had no part, and those who possessed the instinct for politics which is the gift of the born journalist were able to see more and learn more from our independent standpoint than many of the actual actors saw and learned. Some of the most capable of our political writers and critics were trained in the Gallery. One of my most intimate friends in those days was Mr. Mudford, who subsequently became known to fame as the editor of the Standard, and who built up that journal's great reputation. Of Mudford's capacity as an editor it is hardly necessary to speak here, but I may note in passing that even in his early days in the Gallery he displayed the marked characteristics which distinguished him when he was at once the ablest and the least known of London editors. His independence of character was even then combined with a strong indisposition to make many acquaintances, or to cut any figure in public. It was my privilege to be counted thus early in his career among his friends, and I am glad to say that it is a privilege which I still enjoy.

My stay in London was brought to an end in the early part of 1870, amid circumstances that changed the whole tenor of my life, and for a time left me a crippled and wounded man. I have said nothing in these pages of my private life or my domestic happiness. My marriage had proved to be, in all respects save one, everything that the heart of man could desire. The one drawback was my wife's delicate health; but she had shown such marvellous recuperative powers at times when the doctors had spoken in the gravest manner of her case, and she possessed so unfailing a flow of natural good spirits, that it was impossible for one who, perhaps, saw only that which he desired to see, to believe that her case was hopeless. Yet hopeless it really was during the whole of the two short years of her married life. Her death—it took place on the 4th of February—was a blow that seemed to shatter my own life to its very foundations. I cannot dwell upon it, unless it be to say that at that time of unspeakable sorrow I first learned the value of human sympathy, and made the discovery that there are, happily, in this world not a few men and women who seem to have the gift of being able, not indeed to remove, but to share and to lighten the burdens of their fellow-creatures. It is only those who have gone through such an ordeal as this of mine who can fully understand all that human sympathy may be in that hour of darkest woe when a man, still standing on the threshold of life, finds himself alone in a world which to him has suddenly become an empty desert.

One incident, and one only, of those days I will venture to recall. I was walking along the Strand in the blackest hours of my misery, when I saw an old man approaching me whose depth of mourning showed that he had sustained the same bereavement as myself. There was probably a difference of fifty years in our ages, but we were alike in the sacred kinship of sorrow. As he drew near me I saw his eyes fixed upon mine with a long look of tenderness and sympathy that went to my very heart, and comforted me subtly. I envied him his age, which seemed to bring him so much nearer to the end. I do not think he envied me my youth. It was but for a moment that we were thus drawn to each other in the crowded street—"ships that passed in the night," in the darkest night, indeed; but that moment I have never forgotten.



CHAPTER VII.

EDITOR OF THE LEEDS MERCURY.

Forming Good Resolutions—Provincial Journalism in the 'Seventies— Recollections of the Franco-German War—The Loss of the Captain and its Consequences to me—Settling Down at Leeds—Acquaintance with Monckton Milnes—Visits to Fryston—Lord Houghton's Chivalry—His Talk—His Skill in Judging Men—Stories about George Venables—Lord Houghton's Regard for Religious Observances.

In April, 1870, there came to me most unexpectedly the offer of the editorship of the Leeds Mercury. It came, as readers of the preceding pages know, at a time when my whole life was unsettled by the bereavement which had made me a lonely, restless man. It was, I need hardly say, an offer of a very tempting character. After little more than two years of the life of a journalist in London, the prospect was held out to me of a recognised position on the Press as chief of one of the principal provincial dailies. The position meant increased remuneration, freedom from the anxieties of miscellaneous work, and the possession of influence of no ordinary kind. All my friends and relatives urged upon me the madness of refusing such an offer, especially since it had come to me unsought and at an unusually early age. Yet for a time I was more inclined to refuse than to accept the proposal. I loved London, and the freedom of its literary life, and I knew by experience how sharp was the contrast between the social life of the capital and that of a provincial town like Leeds. Besides, London drew my sympathies more strongly than ever as the scene of those short years of married happiness which had now come to an end. So, for a time, I wavered as to the acceptance of the new position offered to me, and it was only under the sharp pressure of friends and relatives that I at last wrote to my old friend, Mr. Frederick Baines, and accepted the editorship of the Mercury.

No one not a member of the Baines family had edited the journal since it became the property of the first Edward Baines, so that it was a new departure in more respects than one that the proprietors were making in placing the editorship in my hands. The cause of the vacancy which I undertook to fill was a rather curious one. Mr. Tom Baines, who had been editor since his father, Edward Baines, entered Parliament, had become an adherent of the religious body known as Plymouth Brethren. A man of culture, of fine ability, and of high character, he had deliberately associated himself with a sect which regarded the affairs of the world as being outside the scope of a Christian's duties. He found it impossible to combine attention to the many questions of politics and public business that must engage the thoughts of a newspaper editor, with the Bible readings and sermons upon spiritual truth to which he specially desired to devote himself. It was a sore trouble to his excellent father when Mr. Tom Baines decided that the life of a journalist and that of a Plymouth Brother were not consistent; but, with that noble respect for all conscientious convictions which distinguished Edward Baines both in public and in private, he bowed to his son's decision, and regretfully acquiesced in his retirement from a post that he had filled with eminent distinction.

So it came about that on May 15th, 1870, I found myself in the train on my road to Leeds to take charge of the duties of the important post to which I had been called. I do not think that I had any conception at that time of the real importance of that post, or of the heavy responsibilities attaching to it. I was barely eight-and-twenty, and hitherto the bent of my inclination had been towards literature rather than political journalism. The ideal life, I thought, was that of a successful writer of fiction. Though a sincere and convinced Liberal, I had always possessed an unfortunate capacity for seeing the defects and blunders of my own party, and I had a strong distaste for the doctrine which finds expression in the phrase, "My party, right or wrong." Besides, I was then, as I still am, strongly attracted towards different personalities. There were men on the Conservative side of the House of Commons whom I regarded with deep respect and esteem. There were others, sitting on the Liberal benches, whom I held in something like contempt. Upon the whole, therefore, I did not feel so much attracted by the responsible editorship of a great political journal as might have been expected, and it was with considerable trepidation, and many doubts as to my own capacity, that I made that fateful journey to Leeds. I remember distinctly the current of my thoughts as the train flew northwards. The death of my wife had sobered me, and all youthful levity seemed to have been buried in her grave. I spent the four hours of the railway journey in making good resolutions as to my conduct in my new position.

The resolution which impressed itself most forcibly upon my mind was a determination not to make any enemies. I could honestly say that I had made none so far in the course of my life. If my circle of acquaintances was but a narrow one, it consisted wholly of persons who were truly my friends. In my innocence I believed that in the public position I was about to take this pleasant condition of things might be continued. I would be fair, just, and courteous to everybody, I resolved; and thus I should pass through life as one of those fortunate men who enjoy everyone's goodwill. I can smile now as I recall the speedy shattering of that illusion which awaited me at Leeds; but I well remember the almost tragical sense of surprise and disappointment which I felt when I first found that in honestly doing what I conceived to be my duty, in a public matter with which I had to deal, I had most unexpectedly made a personal enemy. Speaking now with long years of experience behind me, I may be allowed to bear my testimony to the fact that it is impossible for a public man in this country to deal honestly with the many controversial questions that politicians have to handle without finding that, in the course of his life, he must of necessity make some enemies. Human nature being what it is, it seems impossible for a man to take a clear and independent line on great questions without at times giving offence to others, who may be just as honest and conscientious as himself. It would, of course, be ridiculous to say that the test of a man's worth as a politician, whether in Parliament or the editorial chair, is the number of his enemies; but I am convinced that a public man who has absolutely no enemies must be a person who has deliberately shirked his duties and stifled his conscience.

My first step on entering on my duties as editor of the Mercury was to make a complete change in the editor's hours. My predecessor had been in the habit of writing his leader in the middle of the day, and it was very seldom that he was to be seen in the office after four o'clock in the afternoon. In common with all, or nearly all, the editors of the provincial dailies of his time, he never attempted to write upon late news. It was the fashion then for the provincial editor to wait until he had ascertained the opinions of the London daily papers upon current questions before he ventured to express his own. It was a delightful system so far as the ease and comfort of the provincial editor were concerned. To be able to finish the labours of the day in the early hours of the afternoon was an ideal state of things from the personal point of view. Fortunately I did not yield to the temptation to continue the old, easygoing regime. My experience in London had made me acquainted with the interiors of the offices of more than one of the daily newspapers, and I was no longer oppressed with a provincial reverence for London editors as beings who dwelt apart. I saw no reason why I should not express my own views upon the questions with which I had to deal, instead of waiting to pen a mere reflection of the views of other persons. So, almost from the first day of my editorship, I went to the office late, and wrote upon some subject that was absolutely fresh. Barely three weeks had passed before I was able to make a distinct impression upon the readers of the Mercury as a result of this changed system.

It was on the night of June 9th, 1870. I had finished my leader for the next morning's paper, and was just preparing to leave the office, when a telegram was brought to me with the sad announcement of the death of Charles Dickens. My old leader was instantly thrown aside, and, sitting down, I wrote out of a full heart of the irreparable loss which English literature and the Englishmen of that generation had suffered. No matter what the faults of the article might be, it made a great impression upon the readers of the Mercury next morning, for the death of Dickens was one of those events that touch the heart of the nation, and everybody was anxious to read any comments upon it. The impression made by my article was deepened by the fact that no other provincial paper had commented upon the absorbing topic. From that moment I seemed to have gained the ear of my readers, and Leeds, which, not unnaturally, had taken coldly to me in the first instance, began to open its heart and extend its sympathies to the new and unknown editor. All this sounds like sheer egotism; but as to the fact that, with my editorship of the Mercury, the practice of writing upon the latest topics in the provincial daily press first became general, there can be no dispute, and as it is a fact of interest in the history of the Press, I have dwelt upon it at this length.

Very soon the attention of newspaper readers all over the world was absorbed by one engrossing topic—the great war between France and Germany. The experiences of an editor during those exciting days were not uninteresting. There have been no such days since in my recollection. In the first instance, when the clouds were gathering with startling suddenness, few persons in this country believed that war was possible. It was incredible, they held, that two civilised nations should fight over such a question as the candidature for the Spanish throne. All the orthodox authorities were furiously angry with those journals that pointed out the real dangers of the situation, and the difficulty of arresting two great nations like France and Prussia when they had once begun to approach each other with the language of menace. One day Mr. Frederick Baines brought into my room one of the most influential citizens of Leeds. His purpose in calling was to protest against the alarmist tone of the articles in the Mercury, and nothing could have been better than the imposing air of authority with which he informed me that he knew for a fact that neither the members of the English Government nor any other well-informed persons looked upon a war as being even remotely possible. I felt very uncomfortable, and somewhat overweighted by the air of my visitor. I could see, too, that Mr. Frederick Baines, though thoroughly loyal to me, was also impressed by his friend's statement. But in spite of the high authority on which this gentleman spoke, just three days later war was declared.

Never in my time has the world looked on at a drama at once so stupendous and so enthralling in its excitement as that of the Franco-German War. We have had wars since then which have affected this country more nearly, and have, of course, stirred deeper emotions in our breasts, than this war between France and Germany; but as a dramatic spectacle on which, thank God, we Englishmen could look as spectators merely, this great struggle was unsurpassed and unapproached. The march of events was so swift, the surprises were so great and numerous, the field of operations was so near and so familiar, and the political upheaval so terrible and so complete, that we onlookers were kept in a state of perpetual, almost breathless, suspense whilst the struggle lasted.

Of course, the newspapers were full of the war from the moment of its breaking out. The arrangements for special correspondents and news from the front were more complete than they had ever been before, and as the astounding drama swiftly advanced from the trivial overture at Saarbruck to the overwhelming catastrophe at Sedan, the civilised world had eyes and ears for nothing else. Barely seven weeks elapsed between the declaration of war and the surrender of the Emperor and the fall of his empire. During those seven weeks, public opinion in this country seemed to be equally divided between the two belligerents; but after the collapse of the Imperial army and the fall of the empire, the balance swung round in favour of France. That wholesome human sentiment which leads most men to take sides with the weak against the strong acted upon us, and drew our sympathies to unhappy France. The French have never given us credit for this fact, but have continually reproached us for not having espoused their side in a quarrel with which we had absolutely no concern. On the other hand, the Germans have never openly resented our sympathy with France in her day of immeasurable misfortune. I do not think, however, that they have forgotten it.

It was after Sedan, when it became evident that Paris was about to be invested by the victorious troops, that the war entered upon a new phase. At first nobody believed in a possible siege of Paris, any more than people now believe in a possible siege of London. I remember one of the sub-editors of the Leeds Mercury, who happened to take the Prussian side in the quarrel, bursting into my room one day in a furious passion to denounce the conduct of those wretched Frenchmen, who were positively cutting down the woods outside the city barriers in order to prevent their affording shelter to the enemy. My friend had once visited Paris, and had been struck by the beauty of these woods. Apparently he thought that, even for their own salvation, the French had no right to disfigure scenes of beauty that had delighted the eyes of sentimental tourists.

The newspapers, when it became evident that the siege of Paris was, after all, destined to take place, had to adopt measures to secure correspondents who were prepared to endure the hardships of that siege in order to furnish information to the British public. The most famous of these correspondents was Mr. Labouchere, who furnished the Daily News with the most entertaining journal of a siege ever written by a besieged resident. On behalf of the Leeds Mercury I engaged the services of another well-known journalist to act as our representative during the siege. This gentleman very naturally required a considerable sum of money in advance for his maintenance during the investment. He had written one or two admirable letters in anticipation of the siege, and I cheerfully sent him the amount for which he asked. He received it just before the Prussian lines closed round Paris, and I do not remember that I ever heard from him again. The letters which it is to be presumed he wrote to the Leeds Mercury never reached that journal.

When the investment began, and Paris was cut off from the outer world, we onlookers with the strip of sea between had certain visible signs of the reality of the siege offered to us in our very midst. The front page of the Times furnished one of these signs. Day after day, for weeks at a stretch, the whole of that page was occupied by messages from the French outside Paris to their friends and relatives within the walls. At first English readers were puzzled by this phenomenon. The investment of the city was very strict, and it was difficult to understand how the newspaper could be smuggled inside the barriers; but presently the truth was made known. This page of the Times was part of the machinery of the famous pigeon post which connected the outside world with Paris during its long beleaguerment. The page was photographed on a microscopic scale. The film on which the photograph was printed was carried into Paris by a pigeon, a magic-lantern was used to enlarge the photograph, and the messages it contained were copied by Post Office officials, and forwarded to their different destinations. Such a postal service was, I imagine, unique. It was certainly most ingenious.

Another sign of the siege of Paris was presented during those bright autumn days by the appearance of Piccadilly, especially on a Sunday afternoon. I generally spent Sunday in London, and during that autumn, when walking on a Sunday in Piccadilly, I noticed more than once that the majority of the well-dressed persons promenading on the northern side of the street were Frenchmen—most of them wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. They were chiefly Imperialists, for whom there was no place in France under the new regime, and they had flocked to London literally in thousands, so that the great West End thoroughfare resounded at times with the French tongue.

One feature of that autumn was the unwonted magnificence of the displays of the aurora borealis. I never saw such fine auroras before or since. Night after night the sky was lighted up by the brilliantly coloured shafts of quivering flame. It is hardly surprising that the vulgar should have associated the phenomenon with the wonderful tragedy which was being enacted so near to our shores. The most ignorant, however, did not regard it as an omen. They honestly believed that they saw in the heavens the reflection of the glare from burning Paris.

I did not settle down to my editorial work in Leeds easily. Everything drew me back to London, and I told the proprietors of the Mercury that I did not mean to retain my post after the war came to an end. But at this point a fresh piece of good fortune came to me, though it arose out of a deplorable calamity. The Captain, the experimental vessel built by Captain Cowper Coles on designs that many high naval authorities had declared to be dangerously unsound, capsized in the Bay of Biscay, and sank with nearly every soul on board, including her designer, Captain Coles himself. There had been a great newspaper discussion about the Captain, and the Times had taken a vigorous part in it against the Admiralty authorities and in favour of Captain Coles. On the morning on which the news of the disaster was announced, the Times in its leading article maintained that the catastrophe was in no sense due to the instability of the ship, and urged that another Captain should be forthwith built. The Leeds Mercury, on the other hand, took what I regarded as the commonsense view, and insisted that for the future the opinions of the trained experts of the Admiralty should be preferred to those of irresponsible enthusiasts, even though they happened to be, like Captain Cowper Coles, men of genius.

Mr. Edward Baines, like most old journalists, had a profound respect for the wisdom of the Times, and he was very much disturbed when he found that the Leeds Mercury took a directly opposite view of the disaster to that of "the leading journal." He expressed to me, in his usual friendly and courteous manner, his regret that I had expressed myself so strongly, and evidently felt that what the Times said must be true. But on the following day the Times, after an interval for reflection, completely changed its position, admitted that the design of the Captain must have been at fault, recalled the fact that the catastrophe had been foreseen by the highest authorities, and protested against the building of any more ships of the same character. There was nothing surprising in this change of front, for the first views of the paper had been obviously inconsistent with the facts and with commonsense. But Mr. Baines was immensely impressed by the fact that the Leeds Mercury had grasped the essential truth before the Times. He greatly exaggerated the merit of his editor in the matter, came to the conclusion that I had become indispensable to the paper, and would not rest until I had entered into a new and binding agreement with him to continue my editorship on conditions that were greatly to my own advantage.

Thus this grave disaster to an English ship led to my final relinquishment of the idea of returning to London as a literary free lance, and to my settling in Leeds as permanent editor of the Mercury. Gradually my life in the town of my adoption became more agreeable to me. I made friends who were kind to me with the characteristic kindness of Yorkshire. I began to feel the power, as well as the responsibility, of my position; and I learned before long that, even in connection with the local affairs of a great community, a man can render services to his fellow citizens quite as important as any that he can render on the larger platform of public life.

It was at the close of 1870 that I first made the personal acquaintance of a man to whom I was afterwards to be deeply and permanently indebted. This was Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton. There was no better known figure in London society in those days than Lord Houghton. But he was much more than a figure in society. Delightful as host, raconteur, poet, and man of letters, he was more admirable still as the generous and willing servant of those who needed help. He had his foibles, his likes and his dislikes; but he was not one of those philanthropists who wait to be asked for their help. Where he was attracted towards anyone he was eager to aid, not only without solicitation, but at times even against the will of the beneficiary himself. I have known many kind men, many true friends, in the course of my life; I have known none whose kindness was more unstinted, more constant, or more generous than that of Lord Houghton. He had come to Leeds in December, 1870, to attend some public meeting, and he was entertained as his guest by Mr. Baines, whose son, as I have already explained, was my predecessor in the editorship of the Mercury.

At the dinner-table at Mr. Baines's house, Lord Houghton was as vivacious and as full of good talk as usual. The conversation happened to turn upon slips of the tongue. Houghton said that the most amusing he remembered was that of the lady who, meeting a friend in the street, exclaimed, "Have you heard of the dreadful thing that has happened to my poor brother John? He has become a Yarmouth Bloater." The good lady meant, of course, to say "Plymouth Brother." To Houghton's surprise, his story was received in embarrassed silence, and someone, as he told me afterwards, trod heavily upon his foot. Monckton Milnes was not a man to be easily disconcerted, and he speedily restored the party to a proper mood of geniality; but after dinner he took someone aside, and asked the meaning of the cold reception of his joke. He received the explanation which the reader will anticipate. It was because Mr. Tom Baines had become a Plymouth Brother that he had been compelled to retire from the editorship of the Mercury, to the great distress of his father. My name as his successor in that position was unknown until then to Lord Houghton, but he had no sooner heard it than he invited me to visit him at Fryston.

When I first entered the hospitable door of Fryston, I suffered from a distinct feeling of trepidation. It was new to me to meet men of Lord Houghton's social rank and fame on terms of friendly intimacy, and I confess that I was miserably shy when I made my first appearance among the company assembled in that pleasant morning room, where, long years before, Thomas Carlyle had been first introduced to the amenities of English country-house life. Carlyle has told the world, in a letter written to his wife, how much he was confounded by what seemed to him to be the splendours of a society that he had hitherto viewed only from the outside. His description of his bedroom—it was much larger and grander in the letter than any bedroom that really existed at Fryston—of the servants in livery, the menu of the dinner-table, and of the valet who made unlawful and undesired investigation of the contents of his pockets when he intruded himself upon him in the morning, all bespoke the absolute novice. I do not think, however, that he was a greater novice in 1842 than I was in 1870. A very brief experience enables any person of ordinary intelligence to grasp the essential details of country-house life; but many persons—including Carlyle and myself—would have been spared a certain spell of nervous discomfort if there had existed some simple written code explaining those usages and customs in which country-house life differs from the ordinary life of the English middle-classes. But kindness puts an end to all difficulties of the shy guest, and certainly there never was a kinder hostess than Lady Houghton.

From 1870 down to 1885 I had the good fortune to be a frequent visitor at Fryston. Lord Houghton's kindness to me at our first meeting only increased as time passed; and writing of him now, long after he has passed away, I must relieve my heart by saying that I owe more to him and to his unceasing efforts, not merely to draw me out, but to push me forward, than to any other friend I have ever made. There was a whimsical side to his character which, naturally enough, attracted more attention than was given to his more sober qualities. The eccentricities of his youth, embalmed by Sydney Smith and the other humorists of the 'thirties and 'forties, had disappeared when I made his acquaintance; but to the last he was absolutely careless as to public opinion, except on such points as those on which he himself shared that opinion. The truest thing that was ever said of him was said by William Edward Forster at the Cosmopolitan Club one night, when Houghton was leaving it. Someone said, referring to Houghton, "He's a good man to trust when you're in trouble, for he'll stand by you." "He'll do more than that," responded Forster; "he'll stand by a man not only in trouble but in disgrace, and I know nobody else who will." This was where the finer trait in Houghton's independence of character came in. He was always ready to espouse the cause of a man upon whom the world was frowning, but happily this quality is not uncommon among our nobler natures. That which was most uncommon in Houghton's character was his willingness to befriend a man even when he knew that the disgrace into which he had fallen was not undeserved. He could be severe—as severe as anybody I have ever known—upon vice and meanness; but if the sinner needed help he pitied him at once, and was ready to aid him to the best of his power.

His talk in his own house was delightful. It was altogether different from the talk that men heard when they met him at London dinner-tables. Strangely enough, it was at the breakfast-table that he talked best. Most Englishmen are not roused to conversational brilliancy until the day is far spent; but Houghton was at his best at breakfast and immediately afterwards. And how good that best was! He was a walking encyclopaedia, although no man was ever less of "a book in breeches." Whenever I wished to clear up some obscure point in history or politics, in literature or in the personal life of our times, I went to him, and seldom was it that I failed to get the light I wanted. As a judge of character he had no equal among the men I have known, and in the years that have flown since his death I have had the happiness of seeing his forecast of the future of not a few men strikingly realised. The first time I ever heard the name of Lord Rosebery was from his lips, in 1874 or 1875. I had seen the name in print, of course, but to me it was a name, and nothing more. "You don't know Lord Rosebery?" said he one day. "Then mark him well. He is the ablest young man in England, and, I believe, will be Prime Minister before he dies."

On another occasion he shocked me for the moment by a deliverance about Mr. Gladstone. It was in 1880, when the great statesman, having won the most brilliant triumph of his life, and finally defeated his great rival, Lord Beaconsfield, was struck down by serious illness a few weeks after he had regained power. "I am so sorry to see that Gladstone is getting better," Houghton said to me as we sat in the library at Fryston. I could hardly believe my own ears, and expressed my surprise at hearing such a sentiment from the lips of one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest admirers. "Don't you see," responded Houghton, "that if he dies now he will be one of the greatest figures in English history? He has just won the greatest triumph a statesman ever enjoyed. It is impossible that he can remain at this dazzling height. Now is the time for him to die." Those who only knew Lord Houghton as a genial cynic would have been surprised if they had known that in his opinion the greatest Englishman of his own time was Lord Shaftesbury, and the greatest Englishwoman Florence Nightingale. Those who were acquainted with his poetry would not have felt this surprise. There is much in his verse, neglected though it now be, which deserves a high place in our national literature. But in his later days—or, rather, throughout his life—the world refused to see his more serious side, and treated him as the humorist and the wit, the cynic, and the kind-hearted but eccentric peer who made it his mission in life to try to fuse the two worlds of society and intellect.

He certainly had wonderful success in bringing together men who stood at opposite poles both of position and opinion. In the days when Mr. John Morley was only known as a promising writer of the most terrible heterodoxy, he dined with Houghton, and was placed next the Archbishop of Canterbury. "Who is that clever-looking young man sitting next the Archbishop?" asked Lord Selborne, who was also at the table. When he was told that it was Mr. Morley, the editor of the Fortnightly Review and the author of the famous "little g," he threw up his hands in absolute consternation. But Houghton had a rare discrimination in bringing men together. He never brought people who disliked each other into juxtaposition, as some notorious hostesses of our own time are fond of doing. What he did was to gather round his table men of talent and worth who would have had little chance of meeting but for his kindly and hospitable intervention, and many a lifelong friendship has thus been begun beneath his roof.

One of the earliest lessons a man learnt on being admitted to Houghton's cosmopolitan society was the great need of care in the selection of topics in addressing a stranger. Most persons one met at Fryston had either done something or were somebodies, and occasionally their fame was not of the kind that commends itself to everybody. It was necessary, therefore, to walk delicately, like Agag, in opening a conversation with a stranger. A terrible experience of my own will illustrate this fact. As boy and man I had adored Thackeray, and made him the hero of my literary dreams. There was one incident in his early life about which I was quite unreasonably curious. I wanted to know which of his schoolfellows it was who broke his nose and disfigured him for life, and I had made up my mind that if ever I met a man who had been at school with him I would question him on this point. During one of my earlier visits to Fryston I found that George Venables, the well-known Parliamentary counsel and Saturday Reviewer, was staying there. Venables was one of the most distinguished men of his day. His ripe judgment commanded universal confidence, whilst the somewhat austere manner which veiled a warm heart inspired chance acquaintances with a certain feeling of awe. During dinner I heard Venables talking about his early days at the Charterhouse, and felt at once that my long-sought chance had come. Accordingly, when I was walking with him in the Fryston woods on the following morning, I plucked up my courage, and asked him if he had been at the Charterhouse with Thackeray. "Certainly I was," replied the eminent publicist; "we entered on the same day, and were great friends all the time we were at school." "Then," said I, rushing blindly upon my fate, "you can tell me what I have long wanted to know. Who was it that broke Thackeray's nose?"

It was winter, and we were walking in Indian file through the woods. As I put this question to Venables, he suddenly stopped, and, turning round, glared at me in a manner that instantly revealed the terrible truth to my alarmed intelligence. He continued to glare for several seconds, and then, apparently perceiving nothing but innocent confusion, not unmixed with alarm, on my face, his own features became relaxed into a more amiable expression. "Did anybody tell you," he said slowly, and with solemn emphasis, "to ask me that question?" I could truthfully say that nobody had done so. My answer seemed to mollify Venables at once. "Then, if nobody put you up to asking me that question, I don't mind answering it. It was I who broke Thackeray's nose. We were only little boys at the time, and quarrelled over something, and had the usual fight. It wasn't my fault that he was disfigured for life; it was all the fault of some wretched doctor. Nowadays a boy's nose can be mended so that nobody can see that it has ever been broken. Let me tell you," he continued, "that Thackeray never showed me any ill-will for the harm I had done him, and I do not believe he felt any." Nor, I must add, did Venables show any ill-will to me for the gaucherie which had caused me to rake up this painful episode in his career.

Venables himself had been the victim of another mistake, which he resented more strongly than he did my indiscretion. He told the story to me and to Mrs. Procter one day in the drawing-room at Fryston, with keen indignation. A certain noble lord had approached him at an evening party with an air of extraordinary deference. Venables knew the peer very slightly, and was surprised by the salaams with which he was greeted. His surprise changed to fury when he discovered that his lordship had mistaken him for a notorious millionaire of somewhat dubious reputation who had just blossomed into a baronetcy. "Think of it!" he said with lofty scorn. "The fellow came cringing to me as if I were a prince of the blood, merely because he thought I was that odious adventurer, and had money in my pocket." Mrs. Procter sprang from her seat, and, hobbling across the room with extended forefinger, cried to Venables, in tones of dramatic intensity, "Does that noble lord still live?"

It was from Venables that I heard a delightful story about our host which, years afterwards, I repeated in writing Lord Houghton's life. It was the story of Carlyle's remark when Tennyson's friends were trying to procure a pension for him from Sir Robert Peel. "Richard Milnes," said Carlyle, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "when are ye gaun to get that pension for Alfred Tennyson?" Milnes tried to explain to Carlyle that there were difficulties in the way, and that possibly his constituents, who knew nothing about Tennyson, might accuse him of being concerned in a job if he were to succeed in getting the desired pension for the poet. "Richard Milnes," replied the sage, "on the Day of Judgment, when the Lord asks ye why ye didna get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it'll no do to lay the blame on your constituents. It's you that'll be damned." I always had a half impression that, for some reason or other, Lord Houghton did not like to hear that story told in his presence. All the world knows, of course, that he did get the pension for the poet, and thus escaped the penalty anticipated by the philosopher.

But if Lord Houghton was sensitive on some points, he was frank and courageous in acknowledging his own youthful follies and the punishment which they brought upon him. I shall never forget his taking me to a particular corner in that vast library at Fryston—which, like some vegetable parasite, seemed to have spread itself over every inch of available wall-space in the house—and taking down from the shelves a volume of the "Life of Sydney Smith." His object in doing so was to show me the original manuscript of the pungent and witty letter in which Sydney Smith rebuked him sharply for having written a somewhat peppery note to ask the Canon if it was true that he had dubbed him "the cool of the evening." "What a young fool I was!" said Lord Houghton, when he had read the letter to me. "And how good it was of Sydney Smith to set me down in that fashion!"

Everybody knows that Lord Houghton was the most tolerant of men in all matters of faith and opinion; but he did not allow mere carelessness or idleness to serve as an excuse for the disregard of religious observances. My usual time for visiting Fryston was on Saturday, when I was free from the charge of my paper for four-and-twenty hours. My kind friend always insisted on Sunday morning that instead of going to church I should spend the morning in strolling in the park, either alone or in his delightful company. This, he would say, was necessary in the interests of my health. I spent more Sundays at Fryston than I can count, but I never entered the little church hard by the park gates until the sad day when I went there to attend his funeral. One Sunday evening, when there was a rather large party at the Hall—including John Morley—we were summoned by the old butler—himself a character not unworthy of commemoration—to prayers in the morning room. Lord Houghton was good enough to intimate to Morley and myself that we should not be expected to attend, and we accordingly remained in the drawing-room in conversation. A certain young Yorkshire baronet, who was also of the party, influenced by our bad example, stayed behind with us. In a couple of minutes, however, the butler reappeared, and going up to the baronet, said, "Sir Henry, his lordship is waiting for you before he begins prayers." The liberty accorded to the philosophic writer and the editor was not permitted to the country gentleman. I think I ought to add, in justice to Mr. Morley at least, that he and I accompanied the unwilling young man to the scene of the family devotions.

I must stay my hand, however, in these rambling recollections of my kind and brilliant friend and benefactor. No doubt I shall have more to say about him before my task is finished; but for the present I must take up again the thread of my narrative.



CHAPTER VIII.

MY FIRST CONTINENTAL TOUR.

A Generous Scot—Paris after the Commune—An Uncomfortable Journey Home—Illness of the Prince of Wales—Revived Popularity of the Throne—Death and Funeral of Napoleon III.—Burial of the Prince Imperial—Forster's Educational Policy—Bruce's Incensing Bill—My Second Marriage.

With the opening of 1871 came the armistice before Paris, quickly followed by the conclusion of peace. Then took place the ghastly upheaval of the Commune, and the eyes of the world were once more riveted upon the great city which has been the theatre of so many tragedies. It shocked everybody to think that the heavy sufferings through which unhappy France had passed, instead of uniting all classes of the people together in the bonds of a common sorrow, had only intensified the conflicts of parties and social grades. But in due time the Communist rising itself was suppressed, and peace at last fell to the lot of distracted France.

In September of this year, 1871, I went abroad for the first time in my life. Passing through Belgium and by the Rhine to Switzerland, I visited the Italian lakes before returning to England by way of Paris. There is no need to dwell upon the incidents of a commonplace tour like this, though one can never forget the delightful sense of exhilaration produced by a first experience of the living grandeur of the Alps. Switzerland was not so completely hackneyed in those days as it is now, and to me, of course, as a newcomer, it did not seem to be hackneyed at all. I was too young, I think, fully to realise the indescribable charm of Italy, a charm which is felt more strongly by most of us with each successive visit to that land of dreams and beauty. At Milan I was the victim of a not unusual incident in travel. I found myself stranded at the old Hotel de la Ville for want of money. I had arranged for a remittance to reach me there; but in those days there were no tunnels through the Alps, and Italy was, in consequence, still a long way from England. My remittance, therefore, took longer to reach me than I had anticipated. The result was that I spent certain miserable days in a state of almost complete impecuniosity. I shall never forget the weary hours during which I tramped the streets, and the endless visits to the post office in search of the letter which I awaited so anxiously.

But whilst in this unpleasant position, I was fortunate enough to meet with an instance of genuine kindliness that really raised my opinion of my fellow-creatures. An old Scotsman used to sit beside me at the table d'hote at the Hotel de la Ville. He was a man of intelligence, and I found his conversation very pleasant. With the pride and sensitiveness of youth, I was, of course, resolute in my determination to conceal from him my unpleasant fix; but one night at dinner he startled me by asking when I was going to leave Milan. I feebly evaded the question by saying that I must first of all see all the sights of the place. "Hoots, man!" he retorted, "ye've seen all the sights, and ye're jist wasting your time and losing your holiday stopping here. I ken weel what it is ye're waiting for. Ye're short of money—that's it, isn't it?" I murmured something to the effect that I was expecting remittances which would, no doubt, reach me almost immediately. "Weel, I'm not going to let a young fellow like you lose your holiday," said my friend, in a very positive manner, "and ye'll just have to make me your banker for what ye want, and get away out of this hole as soon as ye can, for there are better sights to be seen than Milan." I could only prevent his forcing money upon me on the spot by promising that if my remittance did not come next day I would avail myself of his generous offer. Happily, the next day relief came, and I was no longer in pawn at Milan. But blessings on the head of that worthy old Scot, who must long ago have gone over to the majority! At least he nobly redeemed the character of his countrymen from the libel which makes the name of a Scotsman synonymous with meanness.

Paris in September, 1871, presented a strange sight to the eyes of a visitor. The shadow of the double ordeal of the siege and the Communist rising still lay heavily upon it. In the streets traces of the conflict between the Versaillists and the Communards were everywhere visible. Lamp-posts twisted by the shell fire, plate-glass windows perforated by bullets, columns chipped and shattered, and the pavement ripped up for the erection of barricades, were the common sights of the streets; whilst the blackened ruins of the Tuileries, and the other public buildings destroyed by the rebels, remained to attest the desperate character of the civil war that had been waged in the capital. The inhabitants had not yet recovered from the privations of the siege and the horrors of the Commune. There were few who smiled, and there were many who could not speak of the past without tears. That which was specially noticeable was the fact that all the fury of the Parisians seemed to be turned against the Communards. Many of them, speaking of the Prussians, referred warmly to the contrast between their conduct and that of their own lawless fellow-citizens.

Outside Paris the traces of the siege were everywhere visible, and driving along the country roads near St. Cloud—where the people were still living in tents and wooden sheds, almost every house having been destroyed—one came constantly upon little groups of graves of German soldiers who had been buried where they fell, each grave marked by its wooden cross with its simple inscription. These monuments spoke eloquently of the tragic character of the struggle. At Versailles, where the National Assembly was sitting, the great bulk of the Communist prisoners were confined in the orangery in front of the palace. Loaded cannon commanded this improvised prison, where many hundreds of men and women were herded promiscuously. Standing on the terrace above the orangery, I leant over the balustrade in order to look on the prisoners beneath. I had to withdraw hastily, for from the miserable crowd there came up an unbearable stench, such as might emanate from a cage of wild animals. Now and then one saw Communists being escorted by soldiers to meet the swift vengeance of the court-martial which was sitting to try them. These unhappy prisoners, who had little chance of escaping the penalty of death, bore themselves with firmness, and manifestly believed that they were sufferers in a holy cause. Not even the sight of the destruction they had wrought in Paris could wholly stifle one's feelings of sympathy with them in their wretched plight.

I had a second experience of the disadvantages of impecuniosity before I reached London. During the latter part of my trip I had found a pleasant travelling companion in the person of Mr. Charles Townsend, of Bristol, a gentleman who subsequently represented that city in Parliament. As we were travelling straight through from Paris to London, and had, as we believed, ample funds for the journey, we signalised the close of our trip on the Continent by a specially good dinner on the evening of our departure, for which we had to pay a price in accordance with its merits. We were returning by the Dieppe route. The journey by rail was delayed because all the bridges near Paris were broken, and we had to creep across temporary wooden structures. Before we were allowed to board the steamer at Dieppe, all passports were carefully examined. The police were on the search for escaped Communists, and whilst it was easy enough to get into France, it was much more difficult to get out of the country. Our passports, however, were in order, and we were soon lying down to sleep in the cabin of the steamer in the full belief that we should find ourselves in England in a few hours. I slept soundly, and only awoke when the sun was well up in the heavens. The steamer was at rest, and I thought we were in the harbour of Newhaven; but, to my dismay, when I went on deck I found that we were still moored to the quay at Dieppe. A terrific northwesterly gale was blowing, and the captain had not ventured to put out. All that day we lay at Dieppe, the result being that the money which would have taken us, under ordinary circumstances, in comfort to London, was expended before we quitted France. When we reached Victoria Station our united capital consisted of a halfpenny. We could not even tip the porter who attended to us. I felt it was the meanest moment of my life. We drove straight to a bank, however, and in a few minutes had each a pocketful of gold. The double lesson I received during this first Continental trip has made me careful ever since to take sufficient funds on every journey to carry me safely through to the end.

The great public event of the autumn of 1871 was the illness of the Prince of Wales. He had been staying in November with Lord Londesborough at Scarborough, and on his return to Sandringham he was attacked by typhoid fever. For a time no anxiety was felt, because it was believed that the illness was a slight one. But suddenly the news was flashed through the country that his Royal Highness had taken a turn for the worse. This was followed a few hours later by the announcement that the Queen and the other members of his family had been suddenly summoned to his bedside; and yet a little later came the tidings that his case was hopeless, and that he was rapidly sinking. December 14th, the day which had proved fatal to his father exactly ten years before, was at hand, and everybody believed that it would see another heavy blow dealt at the Royal Family. It is impossible to describe the emotion produced by the most unexpected news of the Prince's condition. The telegrams from Sandringham were of so positive a nature that they forbade hope. On Friday, December 13th, the gloom deepened hourly. At midnight a telegram reached the office of the Leeds Mercury saying that the family were gathered round the Prince's bed awaiting his dissolution. That telegram was received in every other newspaper office in the kingdom. Everywhere Lives of the Prince were hurriedly prepared, and articles written announcing the event which appeared to be imminent.

When the time approached for the Mercury to be sent to press, though we had made every preparation in case of the Prince's death, the fatal news had not yet arrived. I consequently wrote an article upon his illness and the emotion it had caused, to be inserted if his death had not taken place when we went to press. Needless to say, it was this article, and not that in which the national calamity was bewailed, that appeared in the Leeds Mercury next morning. The only other daily newspaper that had a leading article on the Prince's illness was the Times. In every other newspaper office the conviction that he was at the very point of death was so strong that no preparation had been made for his possible survival. When the morning of the fateful 14th came it was announced that the Prince, though still in grave danger, had rallied. For several days he hung between life and death, and then began rapidly to mend, thanks to his own good constitution and to the extraordinary care and skill with which he was nursed by Sir William—then Dr.—Gull.

The revived popularity of the Throne in England may be dated, I believe, from that period. The Queen's long withdrawal from the public eye, consequent upon her widowhood, had led the multitude, ignorant of the manner in which she devoted herself to the heavy duties of her position, to regard her as being little more than a figurehead. Certain politicians, in the autumn of 1871, had taken advantage of this state of feeling to begin a crusade against the monarchy, and a section of the extreme Radicals really seemed to believe that the glorious Throne of England was about to be overthrown. But the sharp touch of personal sorrow changed all this, and revealed to the English people their true sentiments towards the Queen and her family. The grief, universally felt when it was believed that we were about to lose the heir to the Crown, and the affectionate sympathy with which his slow recovery was followed, convinced us all, as they convinced the outside world, that the bonds between the English Throne and the English people were far closer and stronger than most persons had imagined. The trumpery campaign against the monarchy died in a single night, and from that day to this the mutual love and trust of monarch and people have gone on steadily increasing.

The announcement that the Queen proposed to attend St. Paul's Cathedral in state to return thanks for the recovery of her eldest son touched the heart of the nation afresh, and evoked the first great popular demonstration of loyalty that had been witnessed since the early days of the reign. I was present in the Cathedral at that solemn and stately service on the 27th February, 1872, the precursor of the still more stately service held at Westminster on the 21st June, 1887. Except on the occasion of the Jubilee of the last-mentioned year, and of that of 1897, London has never witnessed a more remarkable outburst of loyal enthusiasm. At night the whole town was illuminated, St. Paul's Cathedral being lighted up after the fashion of St. Peter's at Rome on Easter Day. The crowds which filled the streets were enormous, and as the London police had not then acquired the art of marshalling vast multitudes, there was terrible crushing, and several lives were lost. Three persons were suffocated at Temple Bar, which was already marked for removal. I myself had the narrowest escape from death on Ludgate Hill, where the multitude was packed in one dense, immovable mass for hours. The people in the houses on the hill passed down water in buckets to the fainting crowd, and now and then some woman or child was positively hauled out of it by ropes, and thus placed in safety. It was not a sight that could ever be forgotten, and it impressed forcibly upon one's mind the strength of the hold which the monarch has upon the hearts of the people of this country.

Among those who watched the passage of the Queen and the Prince of Wales from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's there was one notable and historic personage. This was Napoleon the Third, at that time living in exile at Chislehurst. Within twelve months the ex-Emperor was dead. His death was the cause of a singularly picturesque demonstration on the part of the ruined Imperialist party. I went to Chislehurst to see the lying-in-state which preceded the funeral. The train which took me down from Charing Cross was crowded with Frenchmen wearing the rosette of the Legion of Honour, and on every side I heard men called by names that for twenty years had been part of the history of Europe. The poor Emperor lying in his coffin, guarded by men who but recently had been the great officers of an Imperial household, was a pathetic object. I noticed that his hair had turned grey; and the shortness of stature that he had been so anxious to conceal when living was now plainly apparent. His funeral, which took place on the following day, fittingly symbolised the fall of the Second Empire. Preceding the hearse walked a body of French workmen in blue blouses, the foremost of whom bore the tricolour, rudely fastened to a branch which had been hastily torn from one of the fine trees at Camden Place. Behind the hearse the young Prince Imperial walked alone, a pale, thoughtful, delicate youth, who seemed little fitted to bear the burden of the Pretendership. Behind him, in a single line, were four of his father's cousins, of whom the most conspicuous was Prince Napoleon. His likeness to the great Emperor was startling, and, as he walked bareheaded, one could see that it was emphasised by the way in which he had trained a solitary lock of hair upon his massive brow.

The Emperor was buried in a temporary vault in the Catholic chapel of Chislehurst. The building was too small to admit a tithe of the crowd of French people who were present, but those who could not enter the chapel knelt throughout the service on the damp grass of the churchyard. When the funeral party returned to Camden House, I witnessed an unexpected and dramatic scene. The mourners had come back, as they went, in absolute silence. From highest to lowest, all seemed to be suffering from the deepest depression. The young Prince was the first to step within the door of the house. As he did so, he turned and bowed to the great company of Frenchmen—the wreckage of his father's empire. Instantly every hat was raised, and a tremendous cry went up, "Vive Napoleon le Quatre!" The suddenness and unexpectedness of this acclamation of the youth as the inheritor of the Napoleonic legend startled and impressed all those of us who were present as spectators.

Alas! in how brief a space of time I attended another funeral at Camden Place, and saw the body of the boy, who had thus been hailed as Emperor, carried across the breezy common to rest by his father's side. But now it was with the sad music of military bands and the pomp and glitter of an army in motion that the body was carried to the tomb. The Prince Imperial was buried with the honours due not merely to a royal prince, but to an English soldier. The Union Jack lay side by side with the tricolour upon his coffin, and four English princes acted as pall-bearers. The Queen herself watched from a pavilion erected above the wall of Camden Place the passage of the funeral party from the house to the place of burial. It was strange to think that this display of heartfelt sorrow, which was shared alike by the highest and the lowest, had been drawn forth by the death of the last representative of the Napoleonic Empire. But one could not forget the opening words of the young Prince's will, in which he declared that he died with a heart full of gratitude to the Queen of England and her family. If that could have been the end of the Napoleonic legend it would have been a fitting one; but even on the day of the funeral of the Prince the truth that peace is seldom to be found in the houses of the great was painfully illustrated. The chief mourner was Prince Napoleon, to whom had fallen the second place only at the burial of the Emperor. When the party came out of church the Prince took a ceremonious farewell of the members of our Royal Family, and then, disregarding the entreaties of the officials that he would return to Camden Place and meet the greatly bereaved mother, leapt into his carriage and in a harsh voice cried imperiously to the driver, "A Londres!"

After the curtain had fallen on the great drama of the Franco-German War there was an interval during which this country was chiefly occupied with questions of domestic interest. The Gladstone Ministry had completed its great achievements. It had disestablished the Irish Church, abolished purchase in the Army, established vote by ballot, reformed the Irish land system, and, above all, had created a national system of education. To Mr. Forster had fallen the high honour of carrying this last-named measure, and it is an honour which seems even greater now than it did at the moment when the Royal assent was given in 1870 to the Education Bill. At that time, indeed, Forster met with criticism and abuse, rather than admiration and gratitude, for his great achievement. As older persons will remember, he excited the bitter hostility of the Dissenters and a section of the Radicals because of his refusal to make a hopeless crusade against the Church schools the basis of his educational policy. Even if he had believed such a step to be just, he would have committed the gravest of errors if he had yielded to Nonconformist clamour. It would have been impossible, even in the Parliament of 1868, to have carried such a Bill as the Birmingham Education League demanded, and there has been no Parliament since then that would even have looked at such a task. Remembering this fact, the injustice of the bitter attacks made upon Mr. Forster by a certain section of the Radicals, among whom a young Birmingham manufacturer named Joseph Chamberlain was now beginning to make himself conspicuous, is manifest.

One can only account for the acerbity with which Mr. Forster was attacked on the ground that, both as a Radical and the son of Nonconformist parents, he had excited the hope among the extreme party that he himself would be as extreme as any of them. The wisdom with which he turned existing institutions to account, and succeeded in masking the batteries that the Church was ready to open upon any State system of education, was denounced as cowardice and lukewarmness; and as a consequence of the greatest triumph of his career—a triumph hardly excelled by any other Minister of our time—he became the object of the undying suspicion and hatred of a large number of the members of his own party. To the end of my days it will be a cause of pride to me that, although myself an ardent Liberal, and the son of a Nonconformist minister, I gave all the support I could in the columns of the Leeds Mercury to Mr. Forster. That this support was of real importance to him was due to the fact that the Leeds Mercury circulated largely in Bradford, the town for which Mr. Forster sat.

My championship of Forster and his educational policy, though it had the warm support of Sir Edward Baines and of the majority of Yorkshire Liberals, brought upon me the heavy displeasure of the advanced Radicals. Like Mr. Forster, I was regarded as a traitor to my principles, and again and again in those days, when I attended public meetings, I heard the Leeds Mercury and its editor denounced by those who declared that the Liberalism propounded in its columns was a feeble, milk-and-water product, scarcely better than open and undiluted Toryism. Here I must pause to interject one word of grateful acknowledgment of the generous manner in which the proprietors of the Mercury stood by me in those stormy days, and encouraged me to give free expression to the independent opinions that I had formed. It was a time of trial for Liberalism in general, and it was also a time of trial for the young editor who, in supporting what he believed to be the truth, had thus to run counter to the convictions of a very important section of his readers. Yet, looking back, I cannot say that I suffered any substantial injury from the ordeal through which I had thus to pass. It is true that for many years I was regarded with suspicion as being only a half-hearted Liberal by a considerable section of my party in Yorkshire; but I had the compensation of being allowed to speak my own mind, and of knowing that my words were not without influence upon others. No greater compensation than this can be desired by any publicist.

It was not the education question alone that engaged the attention of the public in the years 1872 and 1873, with which I am now dealing. The great problem of the liquor traffic had been brought to the front, in a large measure owing to the spirited but somewhat mischievous campaign maintained at a great cost by the United Kingdom Alliance, in favour of the measure known as the Permissive Bill. I have never been able to understand why the promoters of the Permissive Bill should have made a fetich of that very dubious measure. Yet for a whole generation it has been their shibboleth, and, no matter what might be the aims or the virtues of the man who refused to pronounce it, the supporters of the Permissive Bill have regarded him as an enemy. They, at least, have not laid themselves open to the charge of trimming. For more than thirty years the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill, has been their cry; and as a consequence they have seen these years pass without the carrying of any real amendment of our licensing system.

In 1873 the Gladstone Government, now drawing towards the close of its remarkable history, introduced a great measure of licensing reform, known at the time as Mr. Bruce's Bill. It was a wise and statesmanlike scheme, and if it had been carried it would have wrought a beneficent social revolution in this country. But the Government, in their attempt to deal in a practical way with the evils of our drink system, had to face not only the opposition of the unholy alliance of the pulpit and the beer-shop, but the hostility of the United Kingdom Alliance and its supporters throughout the country. It was from the friends of the Permissive Bill, rather than from the friends of the Tory party and the publicans, that the Government scheme received its death-blow. The fanatical opposition of extreme politicians had not proved fatal to Mr. Forster's Education Bill, and as a consequence we have had for thirty years a great national system of education at work in England, producing results of immeasurable value. But the fanatics did kill Mr. Bruce's Licensing Bill, and the thirty years that have followed have in consequence seen no amelioration of the greatest of our social evils. The Leeds Mercury gave an uncompromising support to the Government proposals with regard to the licensing system, and I thus roused against myself the anger and ill-will of the adherents of the United Kingdom Alliance, who were no less bitter against me than were the extreme Radicals and Dissenters. I have no desire to fight my battles over again in these pages, but the reader will understand that the editor of a Liberal newspaper who was thus placed in a position of antagonism to more than one important section of his party had not an altogether happy lot. Yet I enjoyed it. I had my full measure of confidence in the soundness of my own opinions, that great characteristic of the young journalist, and in my many encounters with the foes of my own household I always tried not to come off second-best.