CHAPTER X

LONDON

1845-1861

Macaulay-Samuel Rogers-Lord Houghton-Henry HallamMilman Thackeray - Croker-Tyndall - Herbert Spencer -"The Grange" - Lady Ashburton - Carlyle - Tennyson -Bishop Wilberforce-Lady Waldegrave - Parliamentary Debates-The Theatre-Louis Blanc-Brougham-Lady Dukinfield.

LAW and the three Commissions severed me from my College work and took me a good deal to London. Connections of different kinds opened to me a good deal of social life there.

It was an epoch in my social life when at the dinner-table of Sir R. H. Inglis,1 a member for the University of Oxford, high Tory, and Protestant, but genial friend and host of men of all parties, I first met Macaulay. Macaulay did talk essays and engross the talking

conversation it could not be called. One could understand how he was a bore to other talkers. He evidently was to a great talker who sat next to me. He would seize upon a theme and dilate, with copious illustration, from a marvellous memory. Mention of the exclusive respect of the Ritualists for churches in the Gothic style led to an enumeration of the Fathers

[1 Sir Robert Harry Inglis, M.A., D.C.L., F.S.A., F.R.S., second Baronet. He opposed parliamentary reform, Jewish relief, repeal of the corn laws, etc. 1786-1855.]

Copy of a photograph by Mayall, of Brighton.

(The original hangs in the Common Room of University College, Oxford.)

of the early Church who had ministered in churches which were not Gothic. A question about the rules of equestrian statuary led to a copious dissertation proving that nature was the only rule. I have seen a whole evening party kept listening in a ring to an essay on final causes and the limits of their recognition, with numerous illustrations. But it seemed to me all exuberance, not assumption or ostentation. Once, however, even I thought Macaulay a bore. It was at a breakfast at Lord Stanhope's.1 Lord Russell was beginning to give us an account of the trial of Queen Caroline, which he had witnessed. Macaulay broke in with an essay, and Lord Russell was swept away by its tide. Of all English talkers that I ever heard, Macaulay seemed to me the first in brilliancy. He is the first in brilliancy of English writers, though not always the most sober or just. Of all his writings the least just, while it is perhaps the most brilliant, is the Essay on Warren Hastings. Justice has been done upon it by Fitzjames Stephen.3

4

Rogers especially might well dislike Macaulay, against whom, with his feeble voice, he could make no head. He was silent during dinner. After dinner, 1805-1875.]

[1 Philip Henry, fifth Earl Stanhope, the historian.

[2 Queen of George IV.]

[ "The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey." By Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I., one of the Judges of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. two volumes. London: Macmillan and Co. 1885.]

In

[ Samuel Rogers, the poet; published "Pleasures of Memory," 1792; "Columbus," 1810; "Human Life," 1819; etc. Born 1763; died in 1855.]

when the ladies were gone, he told anecdotes in language evidently prepared. It was treason then to talk. There was certainly a strain of malice in him. He was sensitive on the subject of his social position, and could not forgive Sydney Smith for saying in his presence that he would "bet a cheque on Rogers and Co." Theodore Hook' was never tired of whipping him on that tender spot. He was sensitive also about his appearance, as, if he aspired to beauty, he had good reason for being. It was said that he had driven his foot through a portrait which told unflattering truth. I wish I had been present when the attention of the party was suddenly drawn to a caricature bust of him which the host had inadvertently left upon the mantel-piece. The struggles of the party to cope with the horror, some taking the line that it was a likeness, others that it was not, were described to me as very amusing. The immortality which Rogers expected for his poems has not been theirs. He is not deep, yet there are passages in him, such as the opening lines of "Human Life," which are pleasant to my simple ear.

Of all the social talkers I should say the pleasantest was Sir David Dundas,2 then Solicitor-General. He really conversed, and, while leading the conversation, drew out his company and made other people feel that they too had said good things.

[ Theodore Edward Hook, the novelist and wit. 1788-1841.] [2 Sir David Dundas, the statesman; M.A. 1822; barrister 1823; M.P. 1840-1852 and 1861-1867; Q.C. 1840; Judge-AdvocateGeneral 1849.]