I am very glad to be able to thank Lord Coleridge for having, I believe for the first time, coupled the name of the President of the United States with that of her Majesty on an occasion like this. I was struck, both in what he said, and in what our distinguished guest of this evening said, with the frequent recurrence of an adjective which is comparatively new—I mean the word "English-speaking." We continually hear nowadays of the "English-speaking race," of the "English-speaking population." I think this implies, not that we are to forget, not that it would be well for us to forget, that national emulation and that national pride which is implied in the words "Englishman" and "American," but the word implies that there are certain perennial and abiding sympathies between all men of a common descent and a common language. [Cheers.] I am sure, my lord, that all you said with regard to the welcome which our distinguished guest will receive in America is true. His eminent talents as an actor, the dignified—I may say the illustrious—manner in which he has sustained the traditions of that succession of great actors who, from the time of Burbage to his own, have illustrated the English stage, will be as highly appreciated there as here. [Cheers.]

And I am sure that I may also say that the chief magistrate of England will be welcomed by the bar of the United States, of which I am an unworthy member, and perhaps will be all the more warmly welcomed that he does not come among them to practise. He will find American law administered—and I think he will agree with me in saying ably administered—by judges who, I am sorry to say, sit without the traditional wig of England. [Laughter.] I have heard since I came here friends of mine gravely lament this as something prophetic of the decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation. I answered with a little story which I remember hearing from my father. He remembered the last clergyman in New England who still continued to wear the wig. At first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. But there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly, and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church she said, "Oh, dear doctor, I have always listened to your sermon with the greatest edification and comfort, but now that the wig is gone all is gone." [Laughter.] I have thought I have seen some signs of encouragement in the faces of my English friends after I have consoled them with this little story.

But I must not allow myself to indulge in any further remarks. There is one virtue, I am sure, in after-dinner oratory, and that is brevity; and as to that I am reminded of a story. [Laughter.] The Lord Chief Justice has told you what are the ingredients of after-dinner oratory. They are the joke, the quotation, and the platitude; and the successful platitude, in my judgment, requires a very high order of genius. I believe that I have not given you a quotation, but I am reminded of something which I heard when very young—the story of a Methodist clergyman in America. He was preaching at a camp meeting, and he was preaching upon the miracle of Joshua, and he began his sermon with this sentence: "My hearers, there are three motions of the sun. The first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun; the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and the third is the motion mentioned in our text—'the sun stood still.'" [Laughter.]

Now, gentlemen, I don't know whether you see the application of the story—I hope you do. The after-dinner orator at first begins and goes straight forward—that is the straightforward motion of the sun. Next he goes back and begins to repeat himself—that is the backward motion of the sun. At last he has the good sense to bring himself to the end, and that is the motion mentioned in our text, as the sun stood still. [Great laughter, in the midst of which Mr. Lowell resumed his seat.]

* * * * *

"THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE"

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the annual Ashfield Dinner at Ashfield, Mass., August 27, 1885,—the harvest-time festival in behalf of Sanderson Academy, given for several years under the leadership of Charles Eliot Norton and George William Curtis, long summer residents in this country town. Mr. Lowell had recently returned from his post as Minister to England; and he was presented to the literary gathering by Professor Norton, President of the day. Professor Norton closed his eloquent words of introduction as follows: "On our futile laurels he looks down, himself our highest crown.—Ashfield speaks to you to-day, and the welcome is your own to New England."]

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—I cannot easily escape from some strength of emotion in listening to the words of my friend who has just sat down, unless I receive it on the shield which has generally been my protection against many of the sorrows and some of the hardships of life. I mean the shield of humor, and I shall, therefore, take less seriously than playfully the portrait that he has been kind enough to draw of me. It reminds me of a story I once heard of a young poet, who published his volume of verses and prefixed to it his own portrait drawn by a friendly artist. The endeavor of his life from that time forward was to look like the portrait that his friend had drawn. [Applause.] I shall make the same endeavor.

It is a great pleasure to me to come here to-day, not only because I have met some of the oldest friends of my life, but also that after having looked in the eyes of so many old English audiences I see face to face a new English one, and when I looked at them I was reminded of a family likeness and of that kinship of blood which unites us. When I look at you I see many faces that remind me of faces I saw on the other side of the water, and I feel that whether I speak there or here I am essentially speaking to one people. I am not going to talk about myself, and I am not going to make a speech. I have spoken so often for you on the other side of the water that I feel as though I had a certain claim, at least, to be put on the retired list. But I could not fail to observe a certain distrust of America that has peeped out in remarks made, sometimes in the newspapers, sometimes to myself, as to whether a man could live eight years out of America, without really preferring Europe. It seems to me to imply what I should call a very unworthy distrust in the powers of America to inspire affection. I feel to-day, in looking in your faces, somewhat as I did when I took my first walk over the hills after my return, and the tears came into my eyes as I was welcomed by the familiar wayside flowers, the trees, the birds that had been my earliest friends.

It seems to me that those who take such a view quite miscalculate the force of the affection that a man feels for his country. It is something deeper than a sentiment. If there were anything deeper, I should say it was something deeper than an instinct. It is that feeling of self-renunciation and of identification with another which Ruth expressed when she said: "Entreat me not to leave thee nor to depart from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go: where thou livest I will live, and where thou diest there will I die also." That, it seems to me, is the instinctive feeling that a man has. At the same time, this does not exclude the having clear eyes to see the faults of one's country. I think that, as an old President of Harvard College said once to a person who was remonstrating with him: "But charity, doctor, charity." "Yes, I know; but charity has eyes and ears and won't be made a fool of." [Laughter.]

I notice a good many changes in coming home, a few of which I may, perhaps, be allowed to touch upon. I notice a great growth in luxury, inevitable, I suppose, and which may have good in it—more good, perhaps, than I can see. I notice, also, one change that has impressed me profoundly, and when I hear that New England is drawing away, I cannot help thinking to myself how much more prosperous the farms look than they did when I was young; how much more neat is the farming, how much greater the attention to what will please the eye about the farm, as the planting of flowers and trimming the grass, which seems to me a very good sign. I had an opportunity, by a strange accident, of becoming very intimate with the outward appearance of New England during my youth by going about when a little boy with my father when he went on exchanges. He always went in his own vehicle, and he sometimes drove as far west as Northampton. I do not wish to detain you on this point, except as it interested me and is now first in my mind.

While I was in England I had occasion once to address them on the subject of Democracy, and I could not help thinking when I came up here that I was coming to one of its original sources, for certain it is that in the village community of New England, in its "plain living and high thinking," began that social equality which afterwards developed on the political side into what we call Democracy. And Democracy—while surely we cannot claim for it that it is perfect—yet Democracy, it seems to me, is the best expedient hitherto invented by mankind, not for annihilating distinctions and equalities, for that is impossible, but, so far as it is humanly possible, for compensating them. Here in our little towns in the last century, people met without thinking of it on a high table-land of common manhood. There was no sense of presumption from below, there was no possibility of condescension from above, because there was no above and below in the community. Learning was always respected in the clergyman, in the doctor, in the squire, the justice of the peace, and the rest of the community. This made no artificial distinction.

I observe, also, that our people are getting over their very bad habit with regard to politics, for Democracy, you must remember, lays a heavier burden on the individual conscience than any other form of government; and I have been glad to observe that we have been getting over that habit of thinking that our institutions will go of themselves. Now it seems to me that there is no machine of human construction, or into which the wit of man has entered, that can go of itself without supervision, without oiling; that there are no wheels which will revolve without our help, except the great wheel of the constellations or that great circle of the sun's which has its hand upon the dial plate, and which was made by a hand much less fallible than ours.

It also pleases me very much to see a friend whose constancy, whose faith, and whose courage have done so much more than any other man's to bring about that reform [great applause], though when I speak of civil service reform the friend who stands at our elbow on all these occasions will suggest to me a certain parallel, that is, that as Mr. Curtis is here to-day and I am here to-day, it reminds one of the temperance lecturer who used to go about carrying with him an unhappy person as the awful example [great laughter], and it may have flickered before some of your minds that I was the "awful example" of the very reform I had preached. However, I say that it is to me a very refreshing thing to find that this old happy-go-lucky feeling about our institutions has a very good chance of passing away.

One thing which always impressed me on the other side of the water as an admirable one, and as one which gave them a certain advantage over us, is the number of men who train themselves specifically for politics, for government. We are apt to forget, over here, that the art of governing men, as it is the highest, so it is the most difficult, of all arts. We are particular how our boots are made, but about our constitutions we "trust in the Lord," without even, as Cromwell advised, keeping our powder dry. We commit the highest destinies of this Republic, which some of us hope bears the hope of the world in her womb—to whom? Certainly not always to those who are most fit on any principle of natural selection: certainly, sometimes to those who are most unfit on any principle of selection,—and this is a very serious matter, for if you will allow me to speak with absolute plainness, no country that allows itself to be governed for a moment by its blackguards is safe. [Applause.] That was written before the United States of America existed. It is one of the truths of human nature and of destiny. If I were a man who had any political aspiration,—which, thank Heaven, I have not,—if I had any official aspiration—which, thank Heaven, also, I have not,—I should come home here, and when I first met an American audience I should say to them: My friends, America can learn nothing of Europe; Europe must come to school here. You have the tallest monument, you have the biggest waterfall, you have the highest tariff of any country in the world. [Great laughter and applause.] I would tell you that the last census showed that you had gained so many millions, as if the rabbits did not beat us in that way of multiplication, as if it counted for anything! It seems to me that what we make of our several millions is the vital question for us.

I was very much interested in what Prof. Stanley Hall said. I am heretic enough to have doubted whether our common schools are the panacea we have been inclined to think them. I was exceedingly interested in what he said about the education which a boy gained on the hills here. It seems to me we are going to fall back into the easy belief that because our common schools teach more than they used—and in my opinion much more than they ought—we can dispense with the training of the household. When Mr. Harrison [J. P. Harrison, author of "Some Dangerous Tendencies in American Life," one of the preceding speakers] was telling us of the men who were obliged to labor without hope from one end of the day to the other, and one end of the year to the other, he added, what is quite true—that, perhaps, after all, they are happier than that very large class of men who have leisure without culture, and whose sole occupation is either the killing of game or the killing of time—that is the killing of the most valuable possession that we have.

But I will not detain you any longer for, as I did say, I did not come here to make a speech, and I did not know what I was going to say when I came. I generally, on such occasions, trust to the spur of the moment, and sometimes the moment forgets its spur. [Laughter and applause.]

* * * * *

LITERATURE

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 1, 1886, in response to the toast, "The Interests of Literature." The President of the Academy, Sir Frederic Leighton, said, in introducing Mr. Lowell: "In the name of letters, of English letters, in the broadest sense, I rejoice to turn, not for the first time at this table, to one who counts among the very foremost of their representatives. As a poet richly endowed, as a critic most subtle and penetrating, among humorists the most genial, as a speaker not surpassed—who shall more fittingly rise in the name of Literature than Mr. Russell Lowell, whom I welcome once more to this country, as one not led to it to-day by mere hap and chance of diplomatic need, but drawn, I would fain believe, as by the memory of many friends."]

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:—I think that I can explain who the artist might have been who painted the reversed rainbow of which the Professor[11] has just spoken. I think, after hearing the too friendly remarks made about myself, that he was probably some artist who was to answer for his art at a dinner of the Royal Society; and, naturally, instead of painting the bow of hope, he painted the reverse, the bow of despair. [Laughter.] When I received your invitation, Mr. President, to answer for "Literature," I was too well aware of the difficulties of your position not to know that your choice of speakers must be guided much more by the necessities of the occasion than by the laws of natural selection. [Laughter and cheers.] I remembered that the dictionaries give a secondary meaning to the phrase "to answer for," and that is the meaning which implies some expedient for an immediate necessity, as, for example, when one takes shelter under a tree from shower he is said to make the tree answer for shelter. [Laughter.] I think even an umbrella in the form of a tree has certainly one very great advantage over its artificial namesake—viz., that it cannot be borrowed, not even for the exigencies for which the instrument made of twilled silk is made use of, as those certainly will admit who have ever tried it during one of those passionate paroxysms of weather to which the Italian climate is unhappily subject. [Laughter.]

I shall not attempt to answer for Literature, for it appears to me that Literature, of all other things, is the one which most naturally is expected to answer for itself. It seems to me that the old English phrase with regard to a man in difficulties, which asks: "What is he going to do about it?" perhaps should be replaced in this period of ours, when the foundations of everything are being sapped by universal discussion, with the more pertinent question: "What is he going to say about it?" ["Hear! Hear!" and laughter.] I suppose that every man sent into the world with something to say to his fellow-men could say it better than anyone else if he could only find out what it was. I am sure that the ideal after-dinner speech is waiting for me somewhere with my address upon it, if I could only be so lucky as to come across it. I confess that hard necessity, or, perhaps I may say, too soft good nature, has compelled me to make so many unideal ones that I have almost exhausted my natural stock of universally applicable sentiment and my acquired provision of anecdote and allusion. I find myself somewhat in the position of Heine, who had prepared an elaborate oration for his first interview with Goethe, and when the awful moment arrived could only stammer out that the cherries on the road to Weimar were uncommonly fine. [Laughter.]

But, fortunately, the duty which is given to me to-night is not so onerous as might be implied in the sentiment that has called me up. I am consoled, not only by the lexicographer as to the meaning of the phrase "to answer for," but also by an observation of mine, which is, that speakers on an occasion like this are not always expected to allude except in distant and vague terms to the subject on which they are specially supposed to talk.

Now, I have a more pleasing and personal duty, it appears to me, on this my first appearance before an English audience on my return to England. It gives me great pleasure to think that, in calling upon me, you call upon me as representing two things which are exceedingly dear to me, and which are very near to my heart. One is that I represent in some sense the unity of English literature under whatever sky it may be produced; and the other is that I represent also that friendliness of feeling, based on a better understanding of each other, which is growing up between the two branches of the British stock. [Cheers.] I could wish that my excellent successor here as American Minister could fill my place to-night, for I am sure that he is as fully inspired as I ever was with a desire to draw closer the ties of friendship between the mother and the daughter, and could express it in a more eloquent and more emphatic manner than even I myself could do—at any rate in a more authoritative manner.

For myself, I have only to say that I come back from my native land confirmed in my love of it and in my faith in it. I come back also full of warm gratitude for the feeling that I find in England; I find in the old home a guest-chamber prepared for me, and a warm welcome. [Cheers.] Repeating what his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief has said, that every man is bound in duty, if he were not bound in affection and loyalty, to put his own country first, I may be allowed to steal a leaf out of the book of my adopted fellow-citizens in America; and while I love my native country first, as is natural, I may be allowed to say I love the country next best which I cannot say has adopted me, but which, I will say, has treated me with such kindness, where I have met with such universal kindness from all classes and degrees of people, that I must put that country at least next in my affection.

I will not detain you longer. I know that the essence of speaking here is to be brief, but I trust that I shall not lay myself open to the reproach that in my desire to be brief I have resulted in making myself obscure. [Laughter.] I hope I have expressed myself explicitly enough; but I would venture to give another translation of Horace's words, and say that I desire to be brief, and therefore I efface myself. [Laughter and cheers.]

* * * * *

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the dinner of the Incorporated Society of Authors, London, July 25, 1888, given to the "American Men and Women of Letters" who happened to be in London on that date.]

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—I confess that I rise under a certain oppression. There was a time when I went to make an after-dinner speech with a light heart, and when on my way to the dinner I could think over my exordium in my cab and trust to the spur of the moment for the rest of my speech. But I find as I grow older a certain aphasia overtakes me, a certain inability to find the right word precisely when I want it; and I find also that my flank becomes less sensitive to the exhilarating influences of that spur to which I have just alluded. I had pretty well made up my mind not to make any more after-dinner speeches. I had an impression that I had made quite enough of them for a wise man to speak, and perhaps more than it was profitable for other wise men to listen to. [Laughter.] I confess that it was with some reluctance that I consented to speak at all to-night. I had been bethinking me of the old proverb of the pitcher and the well which is mentioned, as you remember, in the proverb; and it was not altogether a consolation to me to think that that pitcher, which goes once too often to the well, belongs to the class which is taxed by another proverb with too great length of ears. [Laughter.] But I could not resist. I certainly felt that it was my duty not to refuse myself to an occasion like this—an occasion which deliberately emphasizes, as well as expresses, that good feeling between our two countries which, I think, every good man in both of them is desirous to deepen and to increase. If I look back to anything in my life with satisfaction, it is to the fact that I myself have, in some degree, contributed—and I hope I may believe the saying to be true—to this good feeling. [Applause.]

You alluded, Mr. Chairman, to a date which gave me, I must confess, what we call on the other side of the water "a rather large contract." I am to reply, I am to answer to Literature, and I must confess that a person like myself, who first appeared in print fifty years ago, would hardly wish to be answerable for all his own literature, not to speak of the literature of other people. But your allusion to sixty years ago reminded me of something which struck me as I looked down these tables.

Sixty years ago the two authors you mentioned, Irving and Cooper, were the only two American authors of whom anything was known in Europe, and the knowledge of them in Europe was mainly confined to England. It is true that Bryant's "Water-Fowl" had already begun its flight in immortal air, but these were the only two American authors that could be said to be known in England. And what is even more remarkable, they were the only American authors at that time—there were, and had been, others known to us at home—who were capable of earning their bread by their pens. Another singular change is suggested to me as I look down these tables, and that is the singular contrast they afford between the time when Johnson wrote his famous lines about those ills that assail the life of the scholar, and by the scholar he meant the author—

"Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol."

And I confess when I remember that verse it strikes me as a singular contrast that I should meet with a body of authors who are able to offer a dinner instead of begging one; that I have sat here and seen "forty feeding like one," when one hundred years ago the one fed like forty when he had the chance. [Laughter.]

You have alluded also, in terms which I shall not qualify, to my own merits. You have made me feel a little as if I were a ghost revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon, and reading with considerable wonder my own epitaph. But you have done me more than justice in attributing so much to me with regard to International Copyright. You are quite right in alluding to Mr. Putnam, who, I think, wrote the best pamphlet that has been written on the subject; and there are others you did not name who also deserve far more than I do for the labor they have expended and the zeal they have shown on behalf of International Copyright, particularly the secretaries of our international society—Mr. Lathrop and Mr. G. W. Green. And since I could not very well avoid touching upon the subject of International Copyright, I must say that all American authors without exception have been in favor of it on the moral ground, on the ground of simple justice to English authors. But there were a great many local, topical considerations, as our ancestors used to call them, that we were obliged to take into account, and which, perhaps, you do not feel as keenly here as we did. But I think we may say that the almost unanimous conclusion of American authors latterly has been that we should be thankful to get any bill that recognized the principle of international copyright, being confident that its practical application would so recommend it to the American people that we should get afterwards, if not every amendment of it that we desire, at least every one that is humanly possible. I think that perhaps a little injustice has been done to our side of the question; I think a little more heat has been imported into it than was altogether wise. I am not so sure that our American publishers were so much more wicked than their English brethren would have been if they had had the chance. [Laughter.] I cannot, I confess, accept with patience any imputation that implies that there is anything in our climate or in our form of government that tends to produce a lower standard of morality than in other countries. The fact is that it has been partly due to a certain—may I speak of our ancestors as having been qualified by a certain dulness? I mean no disrespect, but I think it is due to the stupidity of our ancestors in making a distinction between literary property and other property. That has been at the root of the whole evil.

I, of course understand, as everybody understands, that all property is the creature of municipal law. But you must remember that it is the conquest of civilization, that when property passes beyond the boundaries of that municipium it is still sacred. It is not even yet sacred in all respects and conditions. Literature, the property in an idea, has been something that it is very difficult for the average man to comprehend. It is not difficult for the average man to comprehend that there may be property in a form which genius or talent gives to an idea. He can see it. It is visible and palpable, this property in an idea when it is exemplified in a machine, but it is hardly so apprehensible when it is subtly interfused in literature. Books have always been looked on somewhat as ferae naturae, and if you have ever preserved pheasants you know that when they fly over your neighbor's boundaries he may take a pot shot at them. I remember that something more than thirty years ago Longfellow, my friend and neighbor, asked me to come and eat a game pie with him. Longfellow's books had been sold in England by the tens of thousands, and that game pie—and you will observe the felicity of its being a game pie, ferae naturae always you see—was the only honorarium he had ever received from this country for reprinting his works.

I cannot help feeling as I stand here that there is something especially—I might almost use a cant word and say monumentally—interesting in a meeting like this. It is the first time that English and American authors, so far as I know, have come together in any numbers, I was going to say to fraternize, when I remembered that I ought perhaps to add to "sororize." We, of course, have no desire, no sensible man in England or America has any desire, to enforce this fraternization at the point of the bayonet. Let us go on criticising each other; it is good for both of us. We Americans have been sometimes charged with being a little too sensitive; but perhaps a little indulgence may be due to those who always have their faults told to them, and the reference to whose virtues perhaps is sometimes conveyed in a foot-note in small print. I think that both countries have a sufficiently good opinion of themselves to have a fairly good opinion of each other. They can afford it; and if difficulties arise between the two countries, as they unhappily may,—and when you alluded just now to what De Tocqueville said in 1828 you must remember that it was only thirteen years after our war,—you must remember how long it has been to get in the thin end of the wedge of International Copyright; you must remember it took our diplomacy nearly one hundred years to enforce its generous principle of the alienable allegiance, and that the greater part of the bitterness which De Tocqueville found in 1828 was due to the impressment of American seamen, of whom something like fifteen hundred were serving on board English ships when at last they were delivered. These things should be remembered, not with resentment but for enlightenment. But whatever difficulties occurred between the two countries, and there may be difficulties that are serious, I do not think there will be any which good sense and good feeling cannot settle. [Applause.]

I think I have been told often enough to remember that my countrymen are apt to think that they are in the right, that they are always in the right; that they are apt to look at their side of the question only. Now, this conduces certainly to peace of mind and imperturbability of judgment, whatever other merits it may have. I am sure I do not know where we got it. Do you? I also sympathize most heartily with what has been said by the chairman with regard to the increasing love for England among my countrymen. I find on inquiry that they stop longer and in greater numbers every year in the old home, and feel more deeply its manifold charms. They also are beginning to feel that London is the centre of the races that speak English, very much in the sense that Rome was the centre of the ancient world. And I confess that I never think of London, which I also confess that I love, without thinking of that palace which David built, sitting in hearing of a hundred streams—streams of thought, of intelligence, of activity. And one other thing about London, if I may be allowed to refer to myself, impresses me beyond any other sound I have ever heard, and that is the low, unceasing roar that one hears always in the air. It is not a mere accident, like the tempest or the cataract, but it is impressive because it always indicates human will and impulse and conscious movement, and I confess that when I hear it I almost feel that I am listening to the roaring loom of time. A few words more. I will only say this, that we, as well as you, have inherited a common trust in the noble language which, in its subtle compositiveness, is perhaps the most admirable instrument of human thought and human feeling and cunning that has ever been unconsciously devised by man. May our rivalries be in fidelity to that trust. We have also inherited certain traditions, political and moral, and in doing our duty towards these it seems to me that we shall find quite enough occupation for our united thought and feeling. [Long-continued applause.]



JOHN LOWELL

HUMORS OF THE BENCH

[Speech of Judge John Lowell at a banquet given by the Boston Merchants' Association in Boston, May 23, 1884, in his honor, upon his retirement from the bench of the United States Circuit Court.]

GENTLEMEN:—I hardly know why I am here. I suppose I must have decided some case in favor of our honored chairman. But, then, if every one in whose favor I have decided a case should give me a dinner I should have some thousands to eat, if I could live long enough.

I observe that in your invitation to me you say very little, if anything, about any judicial qualities which I may have displayed in office, but you do mention my courtesy and patience. You are right. There are better judges here to-night than I ever was; but in courtesy and consideration, which I learned at my mother's knee, I hope I have not been surpassed. I have received several compliments of the same kind. I will tell you one story about that.

I was sitting one day up in court. The jury had just gone out, when a very nice looking young man came up. His hair was a little short, I believe, but I didn't notice it particularly. Said he, "Good-morning, Jedge." "Good morning." "You don't remember me?" he said. "Your countenance is familiar to me," I said, "but it does not impress itself on my memory." Said he: "Four years ago to-day you sentenced me to four years' imprisonment in the State prison." I suppose it ought to have been five, I don't know. He said: "I got out to-day, and I thought I would make my first call on you." [Laughter. A voice: "That was his courtesy."] True; and mine then came in. Said I: "Many happy returns of the day." [Great laughter and applause.] He took it very kindly and went off. I haven't seen him since.

I might have resigned some time ago. I was waiting to be turned out. [Laughter.] I got tired of waiting. I will tell you how that is now. My great-grandfather was judge of the District Court, appointed by Washington; then he was made circuit judge by Adams. Well, Adams made a good many circuit judges, and they were all Federalists; and when the Democrats—they called themselves Republicans—all the same, you know [laughter]—when the Republicans came in they abolished the court to get rid of the judges. They made a circuit court here about nineteen years ago, and they appointed my friend Shepley the first judge. I told him if the Democrats only got in soon enough he would go the way of my grandfather. He admitted it. When I was appointed I expected the same thing. In fact, some of our prominent Democrats told me so. I said, "All right, bring on your bear. Bring on your Democratic President." So I waited for that Democratic President about eight years. I got tired of waiting. That is the only reason I resign now. [Laughter and applause.]

You take things so good-naturedly I will tell you one or two more stories. One of the principal difficulties we have is in serving on the jury. The members of the Merchants' Association always presented me with a certificate showing that they were members of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company.[12] [Laughter.] But a man who was not a house guard came into my private office one day just as the jury was about to be impanelled. Said he: "Judge, I hear you live out of town." Said I: "Yes." Said he: "I guess you burn kerosene. You don't have electric lights or anything of that kind? Well," said he, "if you will let me off this jury I will give you the darnedest nice can of kerosene ever you see." Said I: "Young man, I see in your mind the exact virtues which would be most useful,—a justice and probity which will make you serve the country most admirably as a juryman." So he served. I don't know but that if it had been a barrel it might have been different. [Great laughter.]

Another tried the intimidation dodge. He says: "Jedge, I have been exposed to the small-pox, and expect it to break out every minute." Said I: "Break!" [Laughter.] He broke into the jury box and served his country well, and had no incapacitating disease that I ever heard of.

I don't know that there is much of anything else, except that I would give some advice. I am going to draw up some rules for my successor, and the first one will be: "Always decide in favor of the Merchants' Association." When there are two Merchants' Associations together, in different interests, then you must do like that jury in Kennebec county. There was a jury there which was very prompt and satisfactory. When they got through, the judge said: "Gentlemen, I thank you very much for the very satisfactory character of your verdicts, for the great promptness with which they have been rendered, without a single disagreement." The foreman returned thanks for the compliment, and said that the jury had escaped the delays and disagreements to which his Honor had referred, by always tossing up a copper as soon as they had retired, and abiding by the result of the throw.

One word in a more serious vein. I wish to express, in closing, my profound gratification that my efforts to do my duty simply and industriously should have met with your approval, and my gratitude for its public and spontaneous expression. [Applause.]



LORD LYTTON

(SIR EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON)

MACREADY AND THE ENGLISH STAGE

[Speech of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton at a public dinner given to William C. Macready, London, March 1, 1851, on the occasion of the tragedian's withdrawal from the stage. Lord Lytton, in proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.]

GENTLEMEN:—When I glance through this vast hall, and feel how weak and indistinct is my voice, I feel that I must frankly throw myself upon your indulgence, and entreat your most patient and courteous attention while I approach that subject which unites to-day an assembly so remarkable for the numbers and distinction of those who compose it. We are met to do honor to an eminent man, who retires into private life after those services to the public which are most felt at the moment we are about to lose them. There are many among you far better qualified than I am to speak critically of the merits of Mr. Macready as an actor, but placed as I am in this chair, I feel that I should justly disappoint you if I did not seek to give some utterance to those sentiments of admiration of which you have made me the representative.

Gentlemen, this morning I read in one of the literary journals, some qualifying remarks as to the degree of Mr. Macready's genius; and now, as I recognize here many who are devoted to literature and art, I will ask them if I am not right in this doctrine—that the true measure of the genius of an artist is the degree of excellence to which he brings the art that he cultivates. Judge of Mr. Macready by this test, and how great is that genius that will delight us no more; for it is because it has so achieved what I will call the symmetry of art that its height and its breadth have been often forgotten. We know that it is the uneven and irregular surface that strikes us as the largest, and the dimensions of a genius, like those of a building, are lost in the justness of its proportions; and therefore it is that in recalling the surpassing excellence of our guest as an artistical performer, one is really at a loss to say in what line of character he has excelled the most. The Titanic grandeur of Lear, the human debasement of Werner, the frank vivacity of Henry V, the gloomy and timorous guilt of King John, or that—his last—personation of Macbeth, in which it seemed to me that he conveyed a more correct notion of what Shakespeare designed than I can recollect to have read in the most profound of the German critics; for I take it, what Shakespeare meant to represent in Macbeth was the kind of character which is most liable to be influenced by a belief in supernatural agencies—a man who is acutely sensitive to all impressions, who has a restless imagination more powerful than his will, who sees daggers in the air and ghosts in the banquet-hall, who has moral weakness and physical courage, and who—as our guest represented him—alternates perpetually between terror and daring—a trembler when oppressed by his conscience, and a warrior when defied by his foe. But in this and in all that numberless crowd of characters which is too fresh in your memories for me to enumerate, we don't so much say "How well this was spoken," or "How finely that was acted," but we feel within ourselves how true was the personation of the whole.

Gentlemen, there is a word that is often applied to artists and to authors, and I think we always apply it improperly when we speak of a superior intellect—I mean the word "versatile." Now, I think the proper word is "comprehensive." The man of genius does not vary and change, which is the meaning of the word versatile, but he has a mind sufficiently expanded to comprehend variety and change. If I can succeed in describing the circle, I can draw as many lines as I please from the centre straight to the circumference, but it must be upon the condition—for that is the mathematical law—that all these lines shall be equal, one to the other, or it is not a circle that I describe. Now, I do not say our guest is versatile; I say that he is comprehensive; and the proof that he has mastered the most perfect form of the comprehensive faculty is this—that all the lines he has created within the range of his art are equal the one to the other. And this, gentlemen, explains to us that originality which even his detractors have conceded to him.

Every great actor has his manner as every great writer has his style. But the originality of our guest does not consist in his manner alone, but in his singular depth of thought. He has not only accomplished the obvious and essential graces of the actor—the look, the gesture, the intonation, the stage play—but he has placed his study far deeper. He has sought to penetrate into the subtlest intentions of the poet, and made poetry itself the golden key to the secrets of the human heart. He was original because he never sought to be original but to be truthful; because, in a word, he was as conscientious in his art as he is in his actions. Gentlemen, there is one merit of our guest as an actor upon which, if I were silent, I should be indeed ungrateful. Many a great performer may attain to a high reputation if he restrains his talents to acting Shakespeare and the great writers of the past; but it is perfectly clear that in so doing he does not advance one inch the literature of his time. It has been the merit of our guest to recognize the truth that the actor has it in his power to assist in creating the writer. He has identified himself with the living drama of his period, and by so doing, he has half created it. Who does not recollect the rough and manly vigor of Tell, the simple grandeur of Virginius or the exquisite sweetness and dignity and pathos with which he invested the self-sacrifice of Ion; and who does not feel that but for him, these great plays might never have obtained their hold upon the stage, or ranked among those masterpieces which this age will leave to posterity? And what charm and what grace, not their own, he has given to the lesser works of an inferior writer, it is not for me to say.

But, gentlemen, all this, in which he has sought to rally round him the dramatic writers of his time, brings me at once from the merits of the actor to those of the manager. I recall, gentlemen, that brief but glorious time when the drama of England appeared suddenly to revive and to promise a future that should be worthy of its past; when by a union of all kindred arts, and the exercise of a taste that was at once gorgeous and severe, we saw the genius of Shakespeare properly embodied upon our stage, though I maintain that the ornament was never superior to the work. Just remember the manner in which the supernatural agency of the weird sisters was made apparent to our eye, in which the magic Isle of Prospero rose before us in its mysterious and haunted beauty, and in which the knightly character of the hero of Agincourt received its true interpretation from the pomp of the feudal age, and you will own you could not strip the scene of these effects without stripping Shakespeare himself of half the richness and depth of his conceptions. But that was the least merit of that glorious management. Mr. Macready not only enriched the scene, but he purified the audience; and for the first time since the reign of Charles II, a father might have taken his daughters to a public theatre with as much safety from all that could shock decorum as if he had taken them to the house of a friend. And for this reason the late lamented Bishop of Norwich made it a point to form the personal acquaintance of Mr. Macready, that he might thank him, as a prelate of the Church, for the good he had done to society.

Gentlemen, I cannot recall that period without a sharp pang of indignant regret, for if that management had lasted some ten or twelve years, I know that we would have established a permanent school for actors—a fresh and enduring field for dramatic poetry and wit—while we should have educated an audience up to feel that dramatic performances in their highest point of excellence had become an intellectual want that could no more be dispensed with than the newspaper or review. And all this to be checked or put back for ages to come! Why? Because the public did not appreciate the experiment! Mr. Macready has told us that the public supported him nobly, and that his houses overflowed. Why then? Because of the enormous rent and exactions, for a theatre which even in the most prosperous seasons, make the exact difference between profit and loss. Gentlemen, it is not now the occasion to speak of remedies for that state of things. Remedies there are, but they are for legislation to effect. They involve considerations with regard to those patents which are secured to certain houses for the purpose of maintaining in this metropolis the legitimate drama, and which I fear, have proved the main obstacle to its success.

But these recollections belong to the past. The actor—the manager—are no more. Whom have we with us to-day? Something grander than actor, or manager: to-day we have with us the man. Gentlemen, to speak of those virtues which adorn a home, and are only known in secret, has always appeared to me to be out of place upon public occasions; but there are some virtues which cannot be called private, which accompany a man everywhere, which are the essential part of his public character, and of these it becomes us to speak, for it is to these that we are met to do homage. I mean integrity, devotion to pure ends, a high ambition, manly independence, and honor that never knew a stain. Why should we disguise from ourselves that there are great prejudices to the profession of an actor? Who does not know that our noble guest has lived down every one such prejudice, not falling into the old weakness of the actor, and for which Garrick could not escape the sarcasm of Johnson, of hankering after the society and patronage of the great? The great may have sought in him the accomplished gentleman, but he has never stooped his bold front as an Englishman to court any patronage meaner than the public, or to sue for the smile with which fashion humiliates the genius it condescends to flatter. And therefore it is that he has so lifted up that profession to which he belongs into its proper rank amid the liberal arts; and therefore it is, that in glancing over the list of our stewards we find every element of that aristocracy upon which he has never fawned uniting to render him its tribute of respect. The ministers of foreign nations—men among the noblest of the peers of England—veterans of those professions of which honor is the lifespring—the chiefs of literature and science and art—ministers of the Church, sensible of the benefits he has bestowed upon society in banishing from the stage what had drawn upon it the censure of the pulpit—all are here and all unite to enforce the truth, the great truth, which he leaves to those who come after him—that let a man but honor his calling, and the calling will soon be the honor of the man.

Gentlemen, I cannot better sum up all I would say than by the words which the Roman orator applied to the actor of his day; and I ask you if I may not say of our guest as Cicero said of Roscius—"He is a man who unites yet more of virtues than of talents, yet more of truth than of art, and who, having dignified the scene by the various portraitures of human life, dignifies yet more this assembly by the example of his own."

Gentlemen, the toast I am about to propose to you is connected with many sad associations but not to-day. Later and longer will be cherished whatever may be sad of these mingled feelings that accompany this farewell—later, when night after night we shall miss from the play-bill the old familiar name, and feel that one source of elevated delight is lost to us forever. To-day let us rejoice that he whom we prize and admire is no worn-out veteran retiring to a rest he can no longer enjoy—that he leaves us in the prime of his powers, with many years to come, in the course of nature, of that dignified leisure for which every public man must have sighed in the midst of his triumphs, and though we cannot say of him that his "way of life is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf," yet we can say that he has prematurely obtained "that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends;" and postponing for this night all selfish regret, not thinking of the darkness that is to follow, but of the brightness of the sun that is to set, I call upon you to drink with full glasses and full hearts, "Health, happiness and long life to William Macready."

* * * * *

FAREWELL TO CHARLES DICKENS

[Speech of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton at a farewell banquet given to Charles Dickens, London, November 2, 1867, prior to his departure on a reading tour in the United States. In giving the toast of the evening, Lord Lytton, the chairman, delivered the following speech.]

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:—I now approach the toast which is special to the occasion that has brought together a meeting so numerous and so singularly distinguished. You have paid the customary honors to our beloved sovereign, due not only to her personal virtues, but to that principle of constitutional monarchy in which the communities of Europe recognize the happiest mode of uniting liberty with order, and giving to the aspirations for the future a definite starting-point in the experience and the habits of the past. You are now invited to do honor to a different kind of royalty, which is seldom peacefully acknowledged until he who wins and adorns it ceases to exist in the body, and is no longer conscious of the empire which his thoughts bequeath to his name. Happy is the man who makes clear his title-deeds to the royalty of genius while he yet lives to enjoy the gratitude and reverence of those whom he has subjected to his sway. Though it is by conquest that he achieves his throne, he at least is a conqueror whom the conquered bless; and the more despotically he enthralls, the dearer he becomes to the hearts of men.

Seldom, I say, has that kind of royalty been quietly conceded to any man of genius until his tomb becomes his throne, and yet there is not one of us now present who thinks it strange that it is granted without a murmur to the guest whom we receive to-night. It has been said by a Roman poet that Nature, designing to distinguish the human race from the inferior animals by that faculty of social progress which makes each combine with each for the aid and defence of all, gave to men mollissima corda,—hearts the most accessible to sympathy with their fellow kind; and hence tears,—and permit me to add, and hence laughter,—became the special and the noblest attributes of humanity. Therefore it is humanity itself which obeys an irresistible instinct when it renders homage to one who refines it by tears that never enfeeble, and by a laughter that never degrades.

You know that we are about to intrust our honored countryman to the hospitality of those kindred shores in which his writings are as much "household words" as they are in the homes of England. And if I may presume to speak as a politician, I should say that no time could be more happily chosen for his visit; because our American kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or wrongfully, that they have some cause of complaint against ourselves, and out of all England we could not have selected an envoy more calculated to allay irritation and to propitiate good-will.

In the matter of good-will there is a distinction between us English and the Americans which may for a time operate to our disadvantage; for we English insist upon claiming all Americans as belonging to our race, and springing from the same ancestry as ourselves, and hence the idea of any actual hostility between them and us shocks our sense of relationship; and yet in reality a large and very active proportion of the American people derives its origin from other races besides the Anglo-Saxon. German and Dutch and Celtic forefathers combine to form the giant family of the United States; but there is one cause forever at work to cement all these varieties of origin, and to compel the American people, as a whole, to be proud as we are of their affinity with the English race. What is that cause? What is that agency? Is it not that of one language in common between the two nations? It is in the same mother tongue that their poets must sing, that their philosophers must reason, that their orators must argue upon truth or contend for power.

I see before me a distinguished guest, distinguished for the manner in which he has brought together all that is most modern in sentiment with all that is most scholastic in thought and language; permit me to say, Mr. Matthew Arnold. I appeal to him if I am not right when I say that it is by a language in common that all differences of origin sooner or later we are welded together—that Etruscans, and Sabines, and Oscans, and Romans, became one family as Latins once, as Italians now? Before that agency of one language in common have not all differences of ancestral origin in England between Britons, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, melted away; and must not all similar differences equally melt away in the nurseries of American mothers, extracting the earliest lessons of their children from our own English Bible, or in the schools of preceptors who must resort to the same models of language whenever they bid their pupils rival the prose of Macaulay and Prescott, or emulate the verse of Tennyson and Longfellow? Now, it seems to me that nothing can more quicken the sense of that relationship which a language in common creates, than the presence and voice of a writer equally honored and beloved in the old world and in the new; and I cannot but think that where-ever our American kinsfolk welcome that presence, or hang spell-bound on that voice, they will feel irresistibly how much of fellowship and unison there is between the hearts of America and England. So that when our countrymen quits their shores he will leave behind him many a new friend to the old fatherland which greets them through him so cordially in the accents of the mother tongue. And in those accents what a sense of priceless obligations—obligations personal to him and through him to the land he represents—must steal over his American audience! How many hours in which pain and sickness have changed into cheerfulness and mirth beneath the wand of this enchanter! How many a combatant beaten down in the battle of life—and nowhere is the battle of life more sharply waged than in the commonwealth of America—has caught new hope, new courage, new force from the manly lessons of this unobtrusive teacher!

Gentlemen, it is no wonder that the rising generation of people who have learned to think and to feel in our language, should eagerly desire to see face to face the man to whose genius, from their very childhood, they have turned for warmth and for light as instinctively as young plants turn to the sun. But I must not forget that it is not I whom you have come to hear; and all I might say, if I had to vindicate the fame of our guest from disparagement or cavil, would seem but tedious and commonplace when addressed to those who know that his career has passed beyond the ordeal of contemporaneous criticism, and that in the applause of foreign nations it has found a foretaste of the judgment of posterity. I feel as if every word that I have already said had too long delayed the toast which I now propose: "A prosperous voyage, health and long life, to our illustrious guest and countryman, Charles Dickens."



HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND LITERATURE

[Speech of Hamilton W. Mabie at the ninety-first annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1896. Henry E. Howland, vice-President of the Society, presided and introduced the speaker as follows: "There is no person better qualified to speak upon any literary subject than the editor of a great paper. He scans the whole horizon of literature, and his motto is: 'Where the bee sups there sup I.' As a gentleman eminently fitted to speak upon the literature of New England or any kindred subject, I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, of 'The Outlook.'"]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—When one has the army and navy behind him, he is impelled to be brief. And when one has a subject which needs no interpreter, when one has a theme the very recital of the details of which recalls the most splendid chapter in our intellectual history, one feels that any words would be impertinent. We are indebted to New England, in the first place, for giving us a literature. I know it has been questioned in Congress, why anybody should want a literature; but if the spiritual rank of a people is to be determined by depth and richness of life, and if the register of this life of a people is its art, and especially its art in books, then no country is reputable among the nobler countries unless it has produced a literature; and we are, therefore, indebted to New England for literature. Not the greatest we shall produce, but a literature continuous from the first settlement of the colonies. It is a very significant fact that the three men before the Revolution whom we may call literary men were men born in New England—Benjamin Franklin, who is too well known to all of you for comment; John Woolman, of whose work Charles Lamb said: "Woolman's writings should be learned by heart;" and that great theologian, who wrote in a stately style, Jonathan Edwards. After the Revolution I have but to call the roll of those names which are the glory of New England—Hawthorne, the man of finest literary gift who has yet appeared upon this continent; Longfellow, with his tender touch; Holmes, with his three o'clock wit, as some one has called it, the man who was always awake; Lowell, with his rich culture and his passionate loyalty to all that was best in life and art; and the historians of the country, Motley, Prescott, Bancroft, and Francis Parkman, with his splendid record of patient and tireless energy. And then we have the New England writers of the second generation in Edmund Clarence Stedman, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Charles Dudley Warner, John Fiske, and Henry James; and we have also a third generation.

The most striking characteristic of the older, as of the younger, New England literature is its deep and beautiful humanism, the closeness of its touch upon experience, the warmth of its sympathy with men and women in contact with the great movement of life. Growing out of such a soil, it could hardly have been otherwise, for New England represents, not an abstraction, but a commanding faith in personality, the clear self-realization of a man whose obligation goes straight to God, and to whom God's word travels like an arrow's flight. In one form or another, all the New England writers deal with this theme; they are concerned, not with abstractions, but with the hopes and fears and temptations of man. Hawthorne is absorbed in the problem of the return of a man's deed, or of his ancestors' deed upon himself; Lowell cares supremely for nobility and freedom of impulse, act and deed; Whittier for truth and spiritual fellowship; Emerson, for the reality of spiritual force and meaning in common duties and ordinary relations; Longfellow, for the tenderness and purity of childhood, the sweetness and fragrance of family relations, the charm of historic association; Holmes, for the endless paradox and surprise which are in human thought and conduct; Brooks, for the abundance of man's life and the fulness of its spiritual possibilities; Curtis, for a public life at once pure, free, rich and stable. For all these writers organization and institutions had great interest, but they cared primarily for the men whose history these institutions represent. The quays at Geneva are massive and shine at night like a constellation; but our interest centres in the river which rushes between them from the Alps to the sea. This is a democratic note, but there is another quite as distinct and characteristic—the note of buoyant cheerfulness, faith in God and man.

There is a ringing tone in the literature of New England which is not only a protest against any form of oppression, but a challenge to fate. That courage came from faith in the divine order of life. And that buoyant courage and cheerfulness were possible because these writers kept life and art in harmony. There was no schism between ideal and action in them. They not only followed the vision in spirit; they lived in the light of it. They illustrated that unity of life without which there is no God. They kept in the way of growth and truth and inspiration because they lived wisely. We do not half value their splendid sanity. A manly and noble moral health was theirs. They rang true to every moral appeal. They were not only men of letters, but they were also gentlemen, and they have associated literature in the thought of the country with dignity, culture and beauty of life—Emerson's unworldliness, Lowell's loyalty to truth, and Curtis's splendid rectitude, as enduring as the granite, are of lasting value to the higher life of the nation.

Their courage and buoyancy were of higher value than we yet understand. Faith is absolutely essential in a great democratic society. When we cease to believe in God we cease to believe in man, and when our faith in man goes, democracy becomes a vast, irrational engine of tyranny and corruption. In the last analysis democracy rests in the belief that there is something of the divine in every man, and that through every life there shines a glimpse of the eternal order. For Government rests, not in the will of the majority, but on the will of God; and democracy is but a vaster surface upon which to discover the play of that will. It follows from these characteristics that the real significance of the New England writers lies not in what they did, but in what they unconsciously predicted. Clear and ringing as are the notes they struck, these notes are prelusive; they suggest the great motifs, but they do not completely unfold them; they could not, for the time was not yet ripe; they announced the principle of individuality, and they sang the great idea of nationality; but the depth and richness of national life was not theirs to express. That vast life rises more and more into the national consciousness, but its Homer or Dante or Shakespeare has not appeared—probably cannot appear for a long time to come. That life is too wide and still too inharmonious for clear expression. Its very richness postpones the day of its ultimate expression; but when the hour is ripe it will embody an ideal as significant as any in history, with illustration more varied and vital. We are still the victims of our continent; we shall one day be its masters.

One of the oldest drawings in the world is on the side of a cave in France, and represents a man fleeing naked and defenceless from a great serpent—man still in bondage to material conditions. One of the most stirring of modern scenes is that in which Siegfried waits at the mouth of the cavern—leaves rustling, light shimmering, birds singing about him. The glory of youth is on him and the beauty of the world about him; but he cannot understand what the sounds mean. Then comes the struggle, the victory, the revelation of song and light; and the hero passes swiftly up the heights, where, encircled with flame, sleeps the soul of his strength. In some other day, when the continent is tamed and we have struck to the heart that materialism which is our only real foe, we, too, shall climb the heights of achievement, and we shall stand face to face with that ideal which is now so dim and remote. Then comes the poet of the real new world—the world of opportunity, of sacrifice, of unselfish freedom of the larger art and diviner life. And when that day comes and the great poet sings and the great writer speaks, we shall hear faint and far the sounds of those old voices of New England; not so vast as the later music, but as pure and harmonious and true. We shall understand how they made the later music possible; how they have made possible the fulfilment of the prediction of one of their own number: between Shakespeare in the cradle and Shakespeare in "Hamlet" there was needed but an interval of time, and the same sublime condition is all that lies between the America of toil and the America of art. [Applause.]



DONALD SAGE MACKAY

THE DUTCH DOMINE

[Speech of Rev. Dr. D. Sage Mackay at the eleventh annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896. The President, Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, said in introducing the speaker: "Before I announce the next toast I want to remark that one of our distinguished speakers, a Huguenot, said at the St. Nicholas dinner, that it was such a particularly good dinner, that there were such particularly good speeches, and that very few of them had been made by Dutchmen. But now we shall have a gentleman who represents the profession we all delight to honor, and who will delineate the next regular toast:—

'The Dutch. Domine: guide, philosopher, and friend, A man he was to all the country dear.'

"I have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who wishes he had been born a Dutchman but who is not entitled, I suppose, to that great honor, as he is to many others deservedly showered upon him—the Rev. Dr. D. Sage Mackay."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—I will confess, at the outset here to-night, that when by the courtesy of your Committee I was asked to respond to this sentiment, which so poetically and yet so truly enshrines the memory of the old Dutch Domine, that I felt somewhat in the condition in which a member of the Glasgow Fire Brigade found himself some years ago. One night, being on duty, he had the misfortune to fall asleep, and to insure his comfort before doing so he had divested himself of his heavy overalls. About midnight the alarm bell rang. He staggered to his feet, and in the condition of a man suddenly aroused from sleep drew on the overalls so that back was front and front was back. In the excitement of the moment he forgot all about his abnormal condition. Coming down the staircase of the burning building he had the misfortune to slip and fall heavily to the ground, in a heap of cinders. His companions eagerly asked him if he was hurt. "No," he replied, with true Scotch canniness. "No, chaps, I canna' say I am hurt, but eh, sirs, I maun hae got an awfu' twist." [Laughter.] And so, sir, when I, unfortunately to-night, a Scotchman born and bred, was asked to reply to the toast "The Dutch Domine," I felt that in the arrangements of the evening there was something of a twist. [Laughter.] And yet, if twist it may be called, it was only on the surface.

After a happy experience in the Dutch ministry, and after enjoying for a second time the hospitality of this honorable Society, I know nowhere where a Scotchman can feel himself so at home as in the genial influences of Dutch custom and Dutch tradition. [Applause.] We gladly echo all these patriotic and inspiring sentiments which have fallen from the lips of the speakers to-night. We believe that Dutch influences have salted America, but we Scotchmen have got the idea somehow that Scotland was leavening if not salting Holland for a hundred years before that exodus to these shores took place. [Laughter.]

General Morgan, on one occasion, in discussing the fighting qualities of the soldiers of different nations, came to the conclusion that in many respects they were about the same, with one notable exception. "After all," he said, "for the possession of the ideal quality of the soldier, for the grand essential, give me the Dutchman—he starves well." [Laughter.] And, no doubt, when provisions are scarce, no man can afford to starve better than he, for the simple reason that when provisions are plentiful no man can manage to eat better. [Laughter.]

I feel like mentioning as the first quality of the Dutch Domine to-night the possession of a good digestion. I myself have fared so well on Dutch fare for these last two or three years that I feel I could almost claim to be a Dutchman, very much as a man once claimed to be a native of a certain parish in Scotland. He was being examined by counsel. Counsel asked him, "Were you born here?" "Maistly, your honor," was the reply. "What do you mean by 'maistly'? Did you come here when you were a child?" "Na, I didna' cam here when I was a chiel," he replied. "Then what do you mean by 'maistly,' if you have not lived here most of your life?" counsel asked. "Weel, when I cam here I weighed eighty pun, and now I weigh three hundred, so that I maun be maistly a native." [Laughter.] So, perhaps, that "maistly" may be the claim to be a Dutchman which some of us may make, if we go on.

The sentiment to which I have been asked to respond is one which I doubt not will strike a responsive chord in the memories of most of you Hollanders here to-night. Across the vanished years will come back the picture of the old Dutch village, nestling in some sheltered nook behind the Hudson, and there in the old-fashioned pulpit arises the quaint, once well-loved face and form of the Domine, with big, dome-shaped head, full mouth and nose, marked with lines of humor, the fringe of white whiskers, and underneath, around the throat, the voluminous folds of the white choker, a kind of a combination of a swaddling-band and a winding-sheet, suggestive of birth or death, as the occasion demanded. [Laughter.] So he appeared an almost essential feature in the landscape, as year in and out he ministered in unassuming faithfulness to the needs of his people. By the bedside of the dying, or in the home of the widow, a comforter and friend; in the stirring days of revolutionary struggle, a leader and patriot, and sometimes a martyr too; in the social gatherings around the great open fireplace in the long dark nights, pipe in hand, a genial companion, so in every walk of life, in scenes gladsome or sad, the old Domine was a constant presence, an influence for righteousness, moulding his people in that simplicity of life and independence of spirit, which in all times have been preeminent as features in the Dutch character. Into the homespun of common life, he wove the threads of gold, revealing by life and precept that type of religion which is not "too bright and good for human nature's daily food."

What were some of the distinctive features in the character of the old Domine? Pre-eminently, we remember him for his wide and genial humanity, as a man strong in his convictions yet generous in his sympathies, faithful in his denunciation of sin yet holding outstretched hands of brotherhood to the weak and tempted. In a parish near by to where my grandfather was settled, there had been three ministers, one after the other in quick succession. The old beadle compared them to a friend something after this fashion: "The first yin was a mon, but he was na' a meenister; the second yin was a meenister, but he was na' a mon; but the third was neither a mon nor a meenister." [Great laughter.] But the Dutch Domine was at once a man and a minister. The official never overshadowed the man, neither did the humanity of the man degrade the sacred office. All strong character is the union of two opposite qualities, and in the Dutch minister I trace the harmonious presence of two elements not often found in one personality. On the one hand there was a rigid adherence to his own church and creed, so that to the orthodox Dutch mind, whatever may happen elsewhere, heaven will be peopled by Reformed Dutchmen, and in the celestial hymn-book an appendix will be found for the Heidelberg Catechism and liturgical forms of the Dutch Church [laughter]; but on the other hand, with this loyalty to his own creed, there was a generous tolerance towards the view of others, a broad-minded charity, expressed in thought and life, towards those whose standpoint in religion differed from his own. In reality, your old Domine had, and I venture to say, has, little sympathy with that narrow ecclesiasticism, which in effect claims a monopoly in religion and would practically hand over the salvation of the race to the hands of a close corporation. Now, whence did it come; where did he learn this steadfastness to his own principles, yet this generosity towards the convictions of other men, which has been so eloquently dwelt on to-night as a cardinal feature of the American character through the leavening power of Dutch influence? It came, gentlemen, as part of his birthright. We have been told that to study and appreciate Dutch character and Dutch history we must keep in view what has been called the geographical factor, that constant war with the elements, which trained the Dutchman to patience, to endurance, and to self-mastery. So, in studying the Dutch Domine, you must keep in view the historic factor out of which he and his church have come. I make no extravagant claim for the old Dutch Church of New Amsterdam and New York, when I say she stands to-day for a great and a splendid tradition in American life. She enshrines within her history facts and forces which have been woven into the texture of her most enduring institutions. Out of the darkness of persecution she came, bearing to these shores the precious casket of civil and religious liberty. When with prophetic vision she gazed across the Western sea, and saw the red dawn of a new day glow upon the waters, that dawn but reflected the red blood that dripped like sacramental wine from her robes—the blood of martyrdom poured forth for that sacred trophy of liberty of conscience which it is your privilege and mine to hand on to the generations yet to come. For full forty years, the Dutch Church was the only religious institution on this island, and who in these early times, when the great ideas for which America stands to-day were in their formative stage, guided in the light of truth the young country to a larger conception of her destiny? Not only from the standpoint of religion, but from the standpoint of education, the Dutch Church and her clergy were a mighty factor in the evolution of the great twin truths of civil and religious liberty. To the Dutch Church we owe it, that liberty, in the reaction from old-world despotism, was not allowed to degenerate into license. To them we owe it that freedom of conscience was impressed not merely as a right to be claimed, but as a duty to be safe-guarded, and, need I say?—this sense of personal duty and responsibility in respect of the rights of conscience is the note above all others that we have to strike in our nation's life to-day. [Applause.]

Gentlemen, in the old country, among others, I have looked at the monument of your noble old Dutch Admiral, Tromp, and there it says, "Unconquered by the English, he ceased to triumph only when he ceased to live," and I take these words, the epitaph of the old hero, not indeed as the epitaph of Dutch influence—that will never die—but as the ideal of Dutch character in this country in the years to come. Let it cease to triumph only when it ceases to live; let it seek to lead onward and upward to a diviner freedom this country, whose history is the evolution of the great God-given idea—civil and religious liberty. [Applause.]



ALEXANDER C. MACKENZIE

MUSIC

[Speech of Sir Alexander C. Mackenzie at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 4, 1895. The toast to "Music," to which Sir Alexander C. Mackenzie responded, was coupled with that of the "Drama" for which Arthur W. Pinero spoke. Sir John Millais, who proposed the toast, said: "I have already spoken for both Music and the Drama with my brush. I have painted Sterndale Bennett, Arthur Sullivan, Irving, and Hare."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:—I am aware that there are some of my most distinguished colleagues now present whose claims to the honor of replying to your amiable words far exceed my own. But I also know that they will not grudge me that distinction and none of them would appreciate it more than myself, whom you have elected to mention in connection with your toast. I only hope that my companion, the brilliant representative of the Drama, may be inclined to forgive me for taking precedence of him, for his art had already attained a state of perfection while ours was still lisping on a feeble tibia to the ill-balanced accompaniment of some more sonorous instrument of percussion. It was all we had to offer at the time, but I am sure that since then we have steadily improved. But even then we were accustomed to ring up the curtain, and so I look upon myself as a mere overture or prelude to the good thing, the word-painting, which will follow. ["Hear! Hear!"] Let me assure him that the composer knows no greater delight than when he is called upon to combine his art with that of the dramatic author, even should our most divinely-inspired moments be but faintly conveyed to the audience through the medium of the—otherwise excellent but still metropolitan—under ground orchestras at our disposal. My only regret is that none of us were permitted to accompany the fascinating heroine of his latest work through the play. Some correspondingly alluring music has doubtless been lost to the world.

On the last occasion that the toast of Music was responded to in this room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. I fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the oppressive weight of over-popularity—at least not to any very alarming extent. [Cheers.] But I may permit myself to say that while the popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very familiarity which it undoubtedly enjoys subjects it more than any other art to the fitful temper of fashion—to rash and hastily-formed judgments—as well as to the humors of self-complacent guides whose dicta all too frequently prove the dangerous possession of a very small allowance of real knowledge.

"Academic" is, I believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy art, or a mere nerve titillater. We are not, sir, by any means ashamed to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a genuine compliment—gratifying because, although perhaps unintentionally it implies that we have acquired the possession of "that one thing" which (as Wilhelm Meister was informed by the venerable Three) "no child brings into the world with him,"—that is, "reverence"—reverence for our great past as well as, I hope, a due estimation of the vigorous activity of the present. So our sweet-natured muse smiles benignly upon the impish gambols of the "new boy" who has the supreme advantage of not having been to school, for any appreciable length of time at least, and who seems to derive considerable satisfaction from his endeavors to improve the education of those who have never left it. [Laughter.]

We are sometimes instructed that English Purcell (whose glorious memory our musicians mean to honor in a few months), that German Bach ought to be considerably touched up to suit the altered requirements of the day, and that the rich hues of romantic Weber—nay, even of his giantship the great Beethoven himself—are fading visibly and rapidly. Far be it from the academics to undervalue the great significance of "modernity." Our musical palette, the orchestra, has in our own time been enriched by the addition of many brilliant colors. Music has become, if possible, still more closely allied with and indebted for inspiration to each and all of the sister arts: while the peremptory and ever-increasing demand upon the dexterity as well as the intellectual grasp of the executant has brought into the field such an array of splendid artist interpreters as possibly the world has never before seen. ["Hear! Hear!"] What the effect produced by audible performance of the works of the great past-masters in music may be upon the ricketty understandings is difficult even to guess at. The healthily trained student, however, to whom the preservation of the history of his art is still of some consequence, shows that the word "perishable" has positively no meaning to him so long as tough paper and honest leather hold together. To him those noble scores can never become dumb, sealed, or silent books; he has only to reach them down and, reading, hear them speak—each master in the language of his own time—in living notes, as glowing now as when they were first penned.

It is not without some diffidence, sir, that I allude before sitting down to that time when our own English music had a high and most honorable place among the arts of the nations—because, alas! that recollection necessarily compels the remembrance of a subsequent and too prolonged period of decayed fortunes. But I must allow myself to say a few words in recognition of the efforts of the three of our native contemporary composers, who never tire in the endeavor to reclaim the lost ground. For, within very recent years, much has been achieved which has been helpful towards the recapture of the position, towards the recovery of the old-time renown. That "artist corps" may perhaps not be a very numerous company and besides it is without doubt, in the words of a popular lyrical humorist, a somewhat "nervous, shy, low-spoken" little band, which is content to wait and work incessantly in the service of its national music. Generous in acknowledgment of the efforts of all who assist its onward progress, it has already done much, can and will do more. I said advisedly "national music" because its members, hailing as they do from all the subdivisions of this country, are no doubt, with so many widely differing musical characteristics by birthright, that it is not at all unreasonable even for the most modest among them—and this virtue still attaches to some, I should say, to all, of them—build great hopes of a definitely distinct British music, such as you, Sir John [Millais], doubtless had in your mind when you honored our art by proposing this toast; such our very best painters would willingly hail and acknowledge; such as your own Academy would welcome in that genial manner which for many years past it has so generously taught us to expect. [Cheers.]



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

FAREWELL TO THE STAGE

[Speech of William C. Macready at a farewell banquet given in his honor, London, March 1, 1851, on the occasion of his retirement from the stage. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton acted as chairman. He said: "Gentlemen, I cannot better sum up all I would say than by the words which the Roman orator applied to the actor of his day, and I ask you if I may not say of our guest as Cicero said of Roscius, 'He is a man who unites yet more of virtues than of talents, yet more of truth than of art, and who, having dignified the scene by various portraitures of human life, dignifies yet more this assembly by the example of his own.' [Great applause.] Gentlemen, the toast I am about to propose to you is connected with many sad associations, but not to-day. Later and long will be cherished whatever may be sad of these mingled feelings that accompany this farewell,—later when night after night we shall miss from the play-bill the old familiar name, and feel that one source of elevated delight is lost to us forever. ["Hear! Hear!"] To-day let us only rejoice that he whom we so prize and admire is no worn-out veteran retiring to a rest he can no longer enjoy [cheers]—that he leaves us in the prime of his powers, with many years to come, in the course of nature, of that dignified leisure for which every public man must have sighed in the midst of his triumphs; and though we cannot say of him that his 'way of life is fall'n with the sere, the yellow leaf,' yet we can say that he has prematurely obtained 'that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends'—[cheers]—and postponing for this night all selfish regrets, not thinking of the darkness that is to follow, but of the brightness of the sun that is to set, I call upon you to drink with full glasses and full hearts, health, happiness, and long life to William Macready."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:—I rise to thank you, I should say to attempt to thank you, for I feel the task is far beyond my power. What can I say in reply to all that the kindly feeling of my friend has dictated? I have not the skill to arrange and address in attractive language the thoughts that press upon me, and my incompetency may perhaps appear like a want of sensibility to your kindness, for we are taught to believe that out of the heart's fulness the mouth speaks. But my difficulty, let me assure you, is a contradiction to this moral. [Cheers.] I have to thank my friend, your distinguished chairman, for proposing my health to you and for the eloquence—may I not add the brilliant fancy, with which he has enriched and graced his subject. But that we may readily expect from him, who in the wide and discursive range of his genius touches nothing that he does not adorn. ["Hear!" and cheers.] I have to thank you for the cordiality and—if I may without presumption say so,—the enthusiasm with which the compliment proposed has been received, and for the honor—never to be forgotten—that you have conferred on me, by making me your guest to-day.

Never before have I been so oppressed with a sense of my deficiency as at this moment, looking on this assemblage of sympathizing friends crowded here to offer me a spontaneous testimony of their regard. I observe among you many who for years have been the encouraging companions of my course; and there are present too those who have cheered even my very earliest efforts. To all who have united in this crowning tribute, so far beyond my dues or expectations—my old friends, friends of many years, who welcomed me with hopeful greeting in the morning of my professional life, and to younger ones who now gather round to shed more brightness on my setting, I should wish to pour forth the abundant expression of my gratitude. [Loud cheers.] You are not, I think, aware of the full extent of my obligations to you. Independent of the substantial benefits due to the liberal appreciation of my exertions, my very position in society is determined by the stamp which your approbation has set upon my humble efforts. [Cheers.] And let me unhesitatingly affirm that without undervaluing the accident of birth or titular distinction, I would not exchange the grateful pride of your good opinion which you have given me the right to cherish, for any favor or advancement that the more privileged in station could receive. [Great cheering.]

I really am too much oppressed, too much overcome to attempt to detain you long; but with the reflection and under the conviction that our drama, the noblest in the world, can never lose its place from our stage while the English language lasts, I will venture to express one parting hope—that the rising actors may keep the loftiest look, may hold the most elevated views of the duties of their calling. ["Hear! Hear!" and cheers.] I would also hope that they will strive to elevate their art, and also to raise themselves above the level of the player's easy life, to public regard and distinction by a faithful ministry to the genius of our incomparable Shakespeare. [Cheers.] To effect this creditable purpose, they must bring resolute energy and unfaltering labor to their work; they must be content "to scorn delights, and live laborious days;" they must remember that whate'er is excellent in art must spring from labor and endurance:—

"Deep the oak, Must sink in stubborn earth its roots obscure That hopes to lift its branches to the sky."

This, gentlemen, I can assure you, was the doctrine of our own Siddons, and of the great Talma; and this is the faith I have ever held as one of their humblest disciples. [Applause.]

Of my direction of the two patent theatres on which my friend has so kindly dilated, I wish to say but little. The preamble of their patents recites as a condition of their grant, that the theatres shall be instituted for the promotion of virtue and to be instructive to the human race. I think those are the words. I can only say that it was my ambition to the best of my ability to obey that injunction ["Hear! Hear!"] and believing in the principle that property has its duties as well as its rights, I conceived that the proprietors should co-operate with me. [General cries of "Hear!"] They thought otherwise, and I was reluctantly compelled to relinquish on disadvantageous terms my half-achieved enterprise. Others will take up this uncompleted work, and if inquiry were set on foot for one best qualified to undertake the task I should seek him in the theatre which, by eight years' labor, he has from the most degraded condition raised high in public estimation, not only as regards the intelligence and respectability of his audiences, but by the learned and tasteful spirit of his productions. [Cheers.]

Gentlemen, I shall not detain you longer. All that I could desire and far more than I ever could expect you have conferred upon me in the honor you have done me to-day. It will be a memory that must remain as an actual possession to me and mine, which nothing in life can take from us. The repetition of thanks adds little to their force, and therefore, deeply as I am already obliged to you, I must draw still further on your indulgence. You have had faith in my zeal for your service; you will, I am sure, continue that faith in my gratitude, for the value you have set upon it. With a heart more full than the glass I hold, I return you my most grateful thanks, and have the honor of drinking all your healths. [Mr. Macready who had displayed considerable emotion during some portions of his address, then resumed his seat amid enthusiastic cheering.]



JUSTIN McCARTHY

IRELAND'S STRUGGLE

[Speech of Justin McCarthy at a dinner given in his honor, New York City, October 2, 1886. When the speaking began, Judge Browne, who presided, asked the audience to drink the health of Justin McCarthy, the guest of the evening, with this quotation from Thomas Moore:—

"Here's the Poet who drinks; here's the warrior who fights; Here's the statesman who speaks in the cause of men's rights; Charge! hip, hip, hurrah! hurrah!"

Continuing, Judge Browne said: "We feel it a proud privilege to be permitted to gather and do honor to one who has done honor to our name and nation in a foreign land. When the great leader of the Irish people was bidding you good-by at the other side of the water, he said that the aid you had rendered him and his colleagues had largely helped to advance the interests of Ireland in her onward march to freedom. Our knowledge of you enables us to indorse that statement. [Applause.] What you have written in one of our city papers has shown us step by step the progress of the Home Rule movement. That great work has been accomplished by the Irish leader there can be no doubt. I witnessed it personally a few short weeks ago, when standing in the strangers' gallery in the House of Commons, I saw a handful of Irish members under the leadership of Parnell withstand the assaults of six hundred English members. [Applause.] It was an awe-inspiring sight. When one remembers that within the four walls of that small building that group of Englishmen were making laws for three hundred millions of people, and that the representatives of a nation numbering only five millions were enabled to keep them in check at the bidding of Parnell, I was struck with astonishment. Not only have the Irish people Parnell with them now, but they have Gladstone [applause], and more than half of the English people; and we have in addition Justin McCarthy [prolonged applause], and with this continuation of moral force we are certain to win Home Rule for Ireland soon. Gentlemen, I give you the health of our guest, Justin McCarthy."]

GENTLEMEN, FRIENDS, ALL:—I am very sure you will believe that I speak with the utmost sincerity when I say that, although much in the habit of addressing public meetings of various kinds, friendly and hostile, I really do feel somewhat embarrassed in rising to address this entirely friendly meeting to-night. The warmth and the kindness of your reception, many of you Irishmen, some of you Americans, does surprise and does, to a great extent, overpower me. Judge Browne, your chairman, has regretted the absence of Eugene Kelly. I myself regret his absence on personal and on public grounds; on personal grounds for his sake, and still more, as I am rather selfish, for my own sake. [Applause.] For his sake because ill health keeps him away, and for my own sake because I have never yet had the chance of meeting him, and had finally hoped that here to-night I should have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. I should not complain very much for myself after all, for the worthy gentleman who fills the place of Mr. Kelly so ably—I mean Judge Browne [applause]—has said more complimentary things of me than I really deserve before a gathering so influential and so representative as this.

Upon the great political questions which interest me, and which interest you, I shall perhaps have occasion to say a few words, perhaps more than a few words Monday night, and I hope to see many of the gentlemen who are now here present then, and if they be wavering on the question of Home Rule I am nearly certain they will go away stanch disciples of justice to Ireland, in a legislative sense, at all events. [Applause.] There may be some among you who do not entirely agree with me upon my views regarding the relations between England and Ireland. Some may regard me with more favor as a writer of books than as an expounder of Home Rule for Ireland. [Cries of "No! No!"] I will therefore regard this occasion as a welcome given by you to me personally, and shall not go into any political question whatever. Regarding myself, I may assume this much, at least, that the question of Home Rule for Ireland is now universally regarded in America as one of those questions bound up with the great cause of civilization and of progress, and I entirely agree with the chairman when he said that the Irish people in this struggle do not entertain any feelings of hate or enmity for the English people. [Applause.] I may say sincerely that I would not have joined the agitation if it had been selfish and merely for the sake of Ireland alone, and not, as it has been, a movement for the advancement of freedom and enlightened ideas among other struggling nations of the earth. [Applause.]