1848 ETON V. EDUCATION non Swinburne our poet; and Henry Labouchere our journalist. 3 My contemporaries and I captured the Civil Service by storm; for, at the time when I was Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, Sir R. Welby' was Secretary to the Treasury; Robert Herbert,' Under-Secretary for the Colonies; Rivers Wilson, Comptroller of the National Debt; Charles Fremantle, Deputy-Master of the Mint; Arthur Blackwood,' Secretary to the Post Office; Charles Ryan, Auditor-General of the Exchequer; Whymper' was Head Inspector of Factories; Bertie Mitford, Secretary to the Board of Works; and Philip Currie,' UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs. As Lowe said, it was a case of Eton v. Education, and Eton always won. In 1846, as an Eton boy, I went with my friend Robert Henley" to the coming of age of his brother at Watford in Northamptonshire. The party consisted of Ogilvy (afterwards Lord Airlie), Wodehouse (afterwards Lord Kimberley), Dodson (afterwards Lord Monk-Bretton), my elder brother Henry, Sir David Dundas (who became Solicitor-General), and a man well known in London as "Johnnie Rochford," who proved himself a great actor. One day it was announced that he had been suddenly summoned to London; and it must be remembered that those were not the days of telegrams which now so conveniently call away guests who have had all the shoot 1 Now Lord Welby, G.C.B. 2 Now Sir Robert Herbert, G.C.B. 'Now Sir Rivers Wilson, C. B., K. C.M.G. 'Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B., since dead. Now Sir Charles Ryan, K. C.B. " Since dead. Late M.P. 'Now Lord Currie, K.C.B., P.C., Ambassador at Rome. 10 Now Vicar of Putney. was ing they can get. It was said that a Monsieur expected for dinner, at which he appeared, and, with only a change in the way he arranged his clothes and his hair, played his part without discovery through the entire evening. Sir David Dundas, who doubtless knew Voltaire's axiom, "Le café doit être noir comme le diable, pur comme une vierge, chaud comme l'enfer," said to his hostess, Lady Henley: "Good-bye, madam; your coffee was excellent "-and she was doubtful as to whether it was a compliment or the reverse. There were others of the party that I forget; but among them was Mr. Eden, the Rector of Battersea, who subsequently became Lord Auckland and Bishop of Sodor and Man. Five of the party became members of the House of Commons. Lord Kimberley, as Ambassador to St. Petersburg, Secretary of State for the Colonies, India, and Foreign Office, attained great distinction. Dodson, who was always called "Fogg," in allusion to the solicitors in Pickwick Papers, Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, became Secretary to the Treasury, President of the Local Government Board, Chairman of Ways and Means, and Deputy-Speaker of the House of Commons. He was a man whose abilities, after leaving Oxford, where he had distinguished himself, did not appear on the surface, and many people were puzzled at the success he attained. Indeed, through life I have often wondered at the success of some men whose qualifications did not seem to justify it; but that must arise from my own stupidity, for, notwithstanding Sir George. Cornewall Lewis's cynical saying that every man was able adequately to perform the duties of an office which he was clever enough to get, it is impossible that any one really can be successful without some ability. There are statesmen in my mind who never appeared to me to have any peculiar or extraordinary cleverness, neither were 1848 FLIGHT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE they the representatives of any interest; they were no speakers, and were poor, and yet they held in my time. every high office in the State: Secretaries for War, First Lords of the Admiralty, Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretaries of State for the Home Department, and Chancellors of the Exchequer-all Cabinet offices. Imagine somebody fifty years hence wandering into a country church-yard, and seeing such a record on a gravestone, and his astonishment at never having heard of a man who filled more high offices than a Walpole, a Pitt, or a Gladstone!-but these are the mysteries of the British Constitution and parliamentary life. I shall never forget the Confirmation at Eton held by Wilberforce, nor the solemnity with which he invested it. It was the first time, I think, that I had ever been impressed in the chapel, for our fate was to hear the dreariest utterances of superannuated Fellows, who only supplied food for our boyish merriment. Mr. Gladstone once told me that he only remembered two sermons that made any impression on him when he was a boy at Eton: one of them was when the ViceChancellor, in 1826, delivered a strong denunciation of Roman Catholic Emancipation, and the other I have forgotten. I remember, in 1848, the news coming to Eton of the French Revolution and the flight of Louis Philippe, and his arrival here as Mr. Smith. On the journey the poor ex-Queen was constantly praying; the king, fearing it would be noticed, said, "Mrs. Smith, en France on ne prie pas tant en voyage." Our holidays were delayed a day to avoid the abortive Chartist meeting on April 10th in that year. I travelled down with Robert Henley to my father's place, Preston Hall, near Leeds, the next day, and took home the news of what had happened. It seems to me so odd, writing in these days of tele graphs, that they should not have known all about it sooner; but I recollect my mother telling me that, living at her father's home at Wolterton, in Norfolk, the first news of the battle of Waterloo was brought by her brother, Colonel Walpole, who had been wounded at Quatre Bras! CHAPTER II 1848-1851 Visit to Belgium and Paris-The President and the Garter-Sir Robert Peel's Accident and Death- I Migrate from King's College, London, to Christ Church, Oxford Osborne Gordon and his Pupils -I Accept Alfred Montgomery's Offer of a Clerkship in the Income-tax Office in April, 1851-Disraeli and Monckton Milnes-Duties in the Inland-revenue Office-Transfer to the Admiralty-Sir James Graham-Bernal Osborne's Examination-Sir William Hayter's "Idiots"-Frederick Locker and the Chief Clerk-The Reign of the Dandies-Harry and William Keppel-Henry Calcraft-Society in the Early Fifties-Almack's and the Cocoa-tree Club-Fashions and Feeding-Breakfasts and Smoking-The Decline of Drinking-The Misses Berry's Salon Lansdowne House - Lady Ashburton's Humor-Sir James and Lady Graham - Mrs. Norton-Lady Palmerston's Parties-Abraham Hayward and the Wits-Sir George Cornewall Lewis and Maurice Drummond-The Exhibition of 1851A Trip to Paris-Thackeray's Lectures-The Italian Opera in its Prime-Sergeant Murphy's Stories-Lord Broughton, Albert Smith, Mr. Brookfield, and Thackeray. NOTHING definite having been settled about my future career, I went abroad in the autumn with my father and mother, my brother Richard and my two sisters, to Spa, in Belgium. On our return through Paris we were invited to the Elysée by the President, who had known my mother and sisters when staying at Wynyard; he asked me whether I was going into the Army "or to Church." He pressed my sisters to stay for a ball, and on their declining, he said, "In this land of Equality, Fraternity, |