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THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
FOREWORD
The Public has given so kindly a reception to The Varnished Pomps of Yesterday (a reception which took its
author wholly by surprise), that I have extracted some further reminiscences from the lumber-room of
recollections. Those who expect startling revelations, or stale whiffs of forgotten scandals in these pages, will,
I fear, be disappointed, for the book contains neither. It is merely a record of everyday events, covering
different ground to those recounted in the former book, which may, or may not, prove of interest. I must
tender my apologies for the insistent recurrence of the first person singular; in a book of this description this is
difficult to avoid.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Early days The passage of many terrors Crocodiles, grizzlies and hunchbacks An adventurous journey and
its reward The famous spring in South Audley Street Climbing chimney-sweeps The story of Mrs.
Montagu's son The sweeps' carnival Disraeli Lord John Russell A child's ideas about the Whigs The Earl
of Aberdeen "Old Brown Bread" Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend A live lion at a
tea-party Landseer as an artist Some of his vagaries His frescoes at Ardverikie His latter days A devoted
friend His last Academy picture
CHAPTER II
The "swells" of the "sixties" Old Lord Claud Hamilton My first presentation to Queen Victoria Scandalous
behaviour of a brother Queen Victoria's letters Her character and strong common sense My mother's
recollections of George III. and George IV Carlton House, and the Brighton Pavilion Queen
Alexandra The Fairchild Family Dr. Cumming and his church A clerical Jazz First visit to Paris General
de Flahault's account of Napoleon's campaign of 1812 Another curious link with the past "Something
French" Attraction of Paris Cinderella's glass slipper A glimpse of Napoleon III The Rue de Rivoli The
Riviera in 1865 A novel Tricolour flag Jenny Lind The championship of the Mediterranean My father's
CHAPTER I 6
boat and crew The race The Abercorn wins the championship
CHAPTER III
A new departure A Dublin hotel in the "sixties" The Irish mail service The wonderful old paddle
mail-boats The convivial waiters of the Munster The Viceregal Lodge Indians and pirates The
imagination of youth A modest personal ambition Death- warrants; imaginary and real The Fenian
outbreak of 1866-7 The Abergele railway accident A Dublin Drawing-Room Strictly private
ceremonials Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal An unbidden spectator of the State dinners Irish
wit Judge Keogh Father Healy Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature An unexpected honour and its
cause Incidents of the Fenian rising Dr. Hatchell A novel prescription Visit of King Edward Gorgeous
ceremonial, but a chilly drive An anecdote of Queen Alexandra
CHAPTER IV
Chittenden's A wonderful teacher My personal experiences as a schoolmaster My "boys in blue" My
unfortunate garments A "brave Belge" The model boy, and his name A Spartan regime "The Three
Sundays" Novel religious observances Harrow "John Smith of Harrow" "Tommy" Steele "Tosher" An
ingenious punishment John Farmer His methods The birth of a famous song Harrow school
songs "Ducker" The "Curse of Versatility" Advancing old age The race between three brothers A family
failing My father's race at sixty-four My own A most acrimonious dispute at Rome Harrow after fifty
years
CHAPTER V
Mme. Ducros A Southern French country town "Tartarin de Tarascon" His prototypes at Nyons M.
Sisteron the roysterer The Southern French An octogenarian pasteur French industry "Bone- shakers" A
wonderful "Cordon-bleu" "Slop-basin" French legal procedure The bons-vivants The merry French
judges La gaiete francaise Delightful excursions Some sleepy old towns Oronge and Avignon M. Thiers'
ingenious cousin Possibilities French political situation in 1874 The Comte de Chambord Some French
characteristics High intellectual level Three days in a Trappist Monastery Details of life there The Arian
heresy Silkworm culture Tendencies of French to complicate details Some examples Cicadas in London.
CHAPTER VI
Brunswick Its beauty High level of culture The Brunswick Theatre Its excellence Gas vs.
Electricity Primitive theatre toilets Operatic stars in private life Some operas unknown in
London Dramatic incidents in them Levasseur's parody of "Robert" Some curious details about
operas Two fiery old pan- Germans Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany The "French
and English Clubs" A meeting of the "English Club" Some reflections about English reluctance to learn
foreign tongues Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875 Concerning various beers A German
sportsman The silent, quinine-loving youth The Harz Mountains A "Kettle-drive" for hares Dialects of
German The odious "Kaffee-Klatch" Universal gossip Hamburg's overpowering hospitality Hamburg's
attitude towards Britain The city itself Trip to British Heligoland The island Some
peculiarities Migrating birds Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse Lady Maxse The Heligoland Theatre Winter in
Heligoland
CHAPTER II 7
CHAPTER VII
Some London beauties of the "seventies" Great ladies The Victorian girl Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre
Two witty ladies Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare The family who talked Johnsonian
English Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation Practical jokes Lord Charles Beresford and the old
Club-member The shoeless legislator Travellers' palms The tree that spouted wine Ceylon's spicy
breezes Some reflections Decline of public interest in Parliament Parliamentary giants Gladstone, John
Bright, and Chamberlain Gladstone's last speech His resignation W.H. Smith The Assistant Whips Sir
William Hart-Dyke Weary hours at Westminster A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay
CHAPTER VIII
The Foreign Office The new Private Secretary A Cabinet key Concerning theatricals Some surnames
which have passed into everyday use Theatricals at Petrograd A mock-opera The family from
Runcorn An embarrassing predicament Administering the oath Secret Service Popular errors Legitimate
employment of information The Phoenix Park murders I sanction an arrest The innocent victim The
execution of the murderers of Alexander II The jarring military band Black Magic Sir Charles
Wyke Some of his experiences The seance at the Pantheon Sir Charles' experiments on myself The
Alchemists The Elixir of Life, and the Philosopher's Stone Lucid directions for their manufacture Glamis
Castle and its inhabitants The tuneful Lyon family Mr. Gladstone at Glamis He sings in the glees The
castle and its treasures Recollections of Glamis
CHAPTER IX
Canada The beginnings of the C.P.R Attitude of British Columbia The C.P.R. completed Quebec A
swim at Niagara Other mighty waterfalls Ottawa and Rideau Hall Effects of dry climate Personal
electricity Every man his own dynamo Attraction of Ottawa The "roaring game" Skating An ice-palace
A ball on skates Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo The building of the snow hut The snow
hut in use Sir John Macdonald Some personal traits The Canadian Parliament buildings Monsieur
l'Orateur A quaint oration The "Pages' Parliament" An all-night sitting The "Arctic Cremorne" A curious
Lisbon custom The Balkan "souvenir-hunters" Personal inspection of Canadian convents Some
incidents The unwelcome novice The Montreal Carnival The Ice-castle The Skating Carnival A
stupendous toboggan slide The pioneer of "ski" in Canada The old-fashioned raquettes A Canadian
Spring Wonders of the Dominion
CHAPTER X
Calcutta Hooghly pilots Government House A Durbar The sulky Rajah The customary formalities An
ingenious interpreter The sailing clippers in the Hooghly Calcutta Cathedral A succulent banquet The
mistaken Minister The "Gordons" Barrackpore A Swiss Family Robinson aerial house The child and the
elephants The merry midshipmen Some of their escapades A huge haul of fishes Queen Victoria and
Hindustani The Hills The Manipur outbreak A riding tour A wise old Anglo-Indian Incidents The
fidelity of native servants A novel printing-press Lucknow The loss of an illusion
CHAPTER VII 8
CHAPTER XI
Matters left untold The results of improved communications My father's journey to Naples Modern
stereotyped uniformity Changes in customs The faithful family retainer Some details Samuel Pepys'
stupendous banquets Persistence of idea Ceremonial incense Patriarchal family life The barn dances My
father's habits My mother A son's tribute Autumn days Conclusion
THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
CHAPTER I
Early days The passage of many terrors Crocodiles, grizzlies and hunchbacks An adventurous journey and
its reward The famous spring in South Audley Street Climbing chimney-sweeps The story of Mrs.
Montagu's son The sweeps' carnival Disraeli Lord John Russell A child's ideas about the Whigs The Earl
of Aberdeen "Old Brown Bread" Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend A live lion at a
tea-party Landseer as an artist Some of his vagaries His frescoes at Ardverikie His latter days A devoted
friend His last Academy picture.
I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen, on the thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many
years resided at No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular prejudice attached to this
numeral, I am not conscious of having derived any particular ill-fortune from my accidental association with
it.
Owing to my sequence in the family procession, I found myself on my entry into the world already equipped
with seven sisters and four surviving brothers. I was also in the unusual position of being born an uncle,
finding myself furnished with four ready- made nephews the present Lord Durham, his two brothers, Mr.
Frederick Lambton and Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, and the late Lord Lichfield.
Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes that have already lost their keen vision, the most vivid
impression that remains of my early childhood is the nightly ordeal of the journey down "The Passage of
Many Terrors" in our Irish home. It had been decreed that, as I had reached the mature age of six, I was quite
old enough to come downstairs in the evening by myself without the escort of a maid, but no one seemed to
realise what this entailed on the small boy immediately concerned. The house had evidently been built by
some malevolent architect with the sole object of terrifying little boys. Never, surely, had such a prodigious
length of twisting, winding passages and such a superfluity of staircases been crammed into one building, and
as in the early "sixties" electric light had not been thought of, and there was no gas in the house, these endless
passages were only sparingly lit with dim colza-oil lamps. From his nursery the little boy had to make his way
alone through a passage and up some steps. These were brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase
that had to be negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but at its base came the "Terrible Passage." It was
interminably long, and only lit by an oil lamp at its far end. Almost at once a long corridor running at right
angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness, had to be crossed. This was an awful place, for under a
marble slab in its dim recesses a stuffed crocodile reposed. Of course in the daytime the crocodile
PRETENDED to be very dead, but every one knew that as soon as it grew dark, the crocodile came to life
again, and padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws
snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of
common knowledge that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare legs in a white
suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors
awaiting the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was a dark lobby, with
cupboards surrounding it. Any one examining these cupboards by daylight would have found that they
contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet- mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the
shades of night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency
CHAPTER XI 9
into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their species. It was advisable to walk very
quickly, but quietly, past the lair of the grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one second.
Immediately after the bears' den came the culminating terror of all the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks.
These malignant little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross- passage. It was their horrible habit to
creep noiselessly behind their victims, tip tip tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind their prey, and then
with a sudden spring they threw themselves on to little boys' backs, and getting their arms round their necks,
they remorselessly throttled the life out of them. In the early "sixties" there was a perfect epidemic of
so-called "garrotting" in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably homeward through unfrequented
streets or down suburban roads at night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands, and found arms
pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with a second hand drawing their heads back until they
collapsed insensible, and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables they might happen to have about them.
Those familiar with John Leech's Punch Albums will recollect how many of his drawings turned on this
outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders talking about this garrotting, and had somehow
mixed it up with a story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the wee people," but the
terror was a very real one for all that. The hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass,
but this archway led to the "Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had their
fastnesses along this passage, but the dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of such a band of
desperadoes was considerably modified by the increasing light, as the solitary oil-lamp of the passage was
approached. Under the comforting beams of this lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to
thump less wildly after his deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door and walk into the great hall
as demurely as though he had merely traversed an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very
reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups
writing, reading, and talking unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers lurking within a few
yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with toys and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the
"Passage of Many Terrors" soon faded away, and the return journey upstairs would be free from alarms, for
Catherine, the nursery- maid, would come to fetch the little boy when his bedtime arrived.
Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also of a very stolid disposition. She stumped unconcernedly
along the" Passage of Terrors," and any reference to its hidden dangers of robbers, hunchbacks, bears, and
crocodiles only provoked the remark, "Quel tas de betises!" In order to reassure the little boy, Catherine took
him to view the stuffed crocodile reposing inertly under its marble slab. Of course, before a grown-up the
crocodile would pretend to be dead and stuffed, but the little boy knew better. It occurred gleefully to him,
too, that the plump French damsel might prove more satisfactory as a repast to a hungry saurian than a skinny
little boy with thin legs. In the cheerful nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it "turf"), the terrors of
the evening were quickly forgotten, only to be renewed with tenfold activity next evening, as the moment for
making the dreaded journey again approached.
The little boy had had the Pilgrim's Progress read to him on Sundays. He envied "Christian," who not only
usually enjoyed the benefit of some reassuring companion, such as "Mr. Interpreter," or "Mr. Greatheart," to
help him on his road, but had also been expressly told, "Keep in the midst of the path, and no harm shall come
to thee." This was distinctly comforting, and Christian enjoyed another conspicuous advantage. All the lions
he encountered in the course of his journey were chained up, and could not reach him provided he adhered to
the Narrow Way. The little boy thought seriously of tying a rolled-up tablecloth to his back to represent
Christian's pack; in his white suit, he might perhaps then pass for a pilgrim, and the strip of carpet down the
centre of the passage would make an admirable Narrow Way, but it all depended on whether the crocodile,
bears, and hunchbacks knew, and would observe the rules of the game. It was most improbable that the
crocodile had ever had the Pilgrim's Progress read to him in his youth, and he might not understand that the
carpet representing the Narrow Way was inviolable territory. Again, the bears might make their spring before
they realised that, strictly speaking, they ought to consider themselves chained up. The ferocious little
hunchbacks were clearly past praying for; nothing would give them a sense of the most elementary decency.
On the whole, the safest plan seemed to be, on reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an eye on the distant
lamp and to run to it as fast as short legs and small feet could carry one. Once safe under its friendly beams,
CHAPTER I 10
panting breath could be recovered, and the necessary stolid look assumed before entering the hall.
There was another voyage, rich in its promise of ultimate rewards, but so perilous that it would only be
undertaken under escort. That was to the housekeeper's room through a maze of basement passages. On the
road two fiercely-gleaming roaring pits of fire had to be encountered. Grown-ups said this was the furnace
that heated the house, but the little boy had his own ideas on the subject. Every Sunday his nurse used to read
to him out of a little devotional book, much in vogue in the "sixties," called The Peep of Day, a book with the
most terrifying pictures. One Sunday evening, so it is said, the little boy's mother came into the nursery to find
him listening in rapt attention to what his nurse was reading him.
"Emery is reading to me out of a good book," explained the small boy quite superfluously.
"And do you like it, dear?"
"Very much indeed."
"What is Emery reading to you about? Is it about Heaven?"
"No, it's about 'ell," gleefully responded the little boy, who had not yet found all his "h's."
Those glowing furnace-bars; those roaring flames there could be no doubt whatever about it. A hymn spoke
of "Gates of Hell" of course they just called it the heating furnace to avoid frightening him. The little boy
became acutely conscious of his misdeeds. He had taken no, stolen an apple from the nursery pantry and
had eaten it. Against all orders he had played with the taps in the sink. The burden of his iniquities pressed
heavily on him; remembering the encouraging warnings Mrs. Fairchild, of The Fairchild Family, gave her
offspring as to their certain ultimate destiny when they happened to break any domestic rule, he simply dared
not pass those fiery apertures alone. With his hand in that of his friend Joseph, the footman, it was quite
another matter. Out of gratitude, he addressed Joseph as "Mr. Greatheart," but Joseph, probably unfamiliar
with the Pilgrim's Progress, replied that his name was Smith.
The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm, comfortable housekeeper's room, with its red
curtains, oak presses and a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of rest. To this very day,
nearly sixty years afterwards, it still looks just the same, and keeps its old fragrant spicy odour. Common
politeness dictated a brief period of conversation, until Mrs. Pithers, the housekeeper, should take up her
wicker key- basket and select a key (the second press on the left). From that inexhaustible treasure-house
dates and figs would appear, also dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised apple-paste which,
impaled upon straws, and coloured green, red and yellow, were in those days manufactured for the special
delectation of greedy little boys. What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been with such a prodigal
wealth of delicious products always at her command! It was comforting, too, to converse with Mrs. Pithers,
for though this intrepid woman was alarmed neither by bears, hunchbacks nor crocodiles, she was terribly
frightened by what she termed "cows," and regulated her daily walks so as to avoid any portion of the park
where cattle were grazing. Here the little boy experienced a delightful sense of masculine superiority. He was
not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in daylight and the open air; of course at night in dark passages
infested with bears and little hunchbacks Well, it was obviously different. And yet that woman who was
afraid of "cows" could walk without a tremor, or a little shiver down the spine, past the very "Gates of Hell,"
where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.
Our English home had brightly-lit passages, and was consequently practically free from bears and robbers.
Still, we all preferred the Ulster home in spite of its obvious perils. Here were a chain of lakes, wide, silvery
expanses of gleaming water reflecting the woods and hills. Here were great tracts of woodlands where
countless little burns chattered and tinkled in their rocky beds as they hurried down to the lakes, laughing as
they tumbled in miniature cascades over rocky ledges into swirling pools, in their mad haste to reach the
CHAPTER I 11
placid waters below. Here were purple heather-clad hills, with their bigger brethren rising mistily blue in the
distance, and great wine-coloured tracts of bog (we called them "flows") interspersed with glistening bands of
water, where the turf had been cut which hung over the village in a thin haze of fragrant blue smoke.
The woods in the English place were beautifully kept, but they were uninteresting, for there were no rocks or
great stones in them. An English brook was a dull, prosaic, lifeless stream, rolling its clay-stained waters
stolidly along, with never a dimple of laughter on its surface, or a joyous little gurgle of surprise at finding
that it was suddenly called upon to take a headlong leap of ten feet. The English brooks were so silent, too,
compared to our noisy Ulster burns, whose short lives were one clamorous turmoil of protest against the many
obstacles with which nature had barred their progress to the sea; here swirling over a miniature crag, there
babbling noisily among a labyrinth of stones. They ultimately became merged in a foaming, roaring salmon
river, expanding into amber-coloured pools, or breaking into white rapids; a river which retained to the last its
lordly independence and reached the sea still free, refusing to be harnessed or confined by man. Our English
brook, after its uneventful childhood, made its stolid matter-of-fact way into an equally dull little river which
crawled inertly along to its destiny somewhere down by the docks. I know so many people whose whole lives
are like that of that particular English brook.
We lived then in London at Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, which covered three times the amount
of ground it does at present, for at the back it had a very large garden, on which Chesterfield Gardens are now
built. In addition to this it had two wings at right angles to it, one now occupied by Lord Leconfield's house,
the other by Nos. 1 and 2, South Audley Street. The left- hand wing was used as our stables and contained a
well which enjoyed an immense local reputation in Mayfair. Never was such drinking-water! My father
allowed any one in the neighbourhood to fetch their drinking-water from our well, and one of my earliest
recollections is watching the long daily procession of men- servants in the curious yellow-jean jackets of the
"sixties," each with two large cans in his hands, fetching the day's supply of our matchless water. No
inhabitants of Curzon Street, Great Stanhope Street, or South Audley Street would dream of touching any
water but that from the famous Chesterfield House spring. In 1867 there was a serious outbreak of Asiatic
cholera in London, and my father determined to have the water of the celebrated spring analysed. There were
loud protests at this: what, analyse the finest drinking-water in England! My father, however, persisted, and
the result of the analysis was that our incomparable drinking-water was found to contain thirty per cent. of
organic matter. The analyst reported that fifteen per cent. of the water must be pure sewage. My father had the
spring sealed and bricked up at once, but it is a marvel that we had not poisoned every single inhabitant of the
Mayfair district years before.
In the early "sixties" the barbarous practice of sending wretched little "climbing boys" up chimneys to sweep
them still prevailed. In common with most other children of that day, I was perfectly terrified when the
chimney-sweep arrived with his attendant coal- black imps, for the usual threat of foolish nurses to their
charges when they proved refractory was, "If you are not good I shall give you to the sweep, and then you will
have to climb up the chimney." When the dust-sheets laid on the floors announced the advent of the sweeps, I
used, if possible, to hide until they had left the house. I cannot understand how public opinion tolerated for so
long the abominable cruelty of forcing little boys to clamber up flues. These unhappy brats were made to
creep into the chimneys from the grates, and then to wriggle their way up by digging their toes into the
interstices of the bricks, and by working their elbows and knees alternately; stifled in the pitch-darkness of the
narrow flue by foul air, suffocated by the showers of soot that fell on them, perhaps losing their way in the
black maze of chimneys, and liable at any moment, should they lose their footing, to come crashing down
twenty feet, either to be killed outright in the dark or to lie with a broken limb until they were
extricated should, indeed, it be possible to rescue them at all. These unfortunate children, too, were certain to
get abrasions on their bare feet and on their elbows and knees from the rough edges of the bricks. The soot
working into these abrasions gave them a peculiar form of sore. Think of the terrible brutality to which a
nervous child must have been subjected before he could be induced to undertake so hateful a journey for the
first time. Should the boy hesitate to ascend, many of the master- sweeps had no compunction in giving him
what was termed a "tickler" that is, in lighting some straw in the grate below him. The poor little urchin had
CHAPTER I 12
perforce to scramble up his chimney then, to avoid being roasted alive.
All honour to the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, the philanthropist, who as Lord Ashley never rested in the
House of Commons until he got a measure placed on the Statute Book making the employment of
climbing-boys illegal.
It will be remembered that little Tom, the hero of Charles Kingsley's delightful Water-Babies, was a
climbing-sweep. In spite of all my care, I occasionally met some of these little fellows in the passages,
inky-black with soot from the soles of their bare feet to the crowns of their heads, except for the whites of
their eyes. They could not have been above eight or nine years old. I looked on them as awful warnings, for of
course they would not have occupied their present position had they not been little boys who had habitually
disobeyed the orders of their nurses.
Even the wretched little climbing-boys had their gala-day on the 1st of May, when they had a holiday and a
feast under the terms of Mrs. Montagu's will.
The story of Mrs. Montagu is well known. The large house standing in a garden at the corner of Portman
Square and Gloucester Place, now owned by Lord Portman, was built for Mrs. Montagu by James Wyatt at
the end of the eighteenth century, and the adjoining Montagu Street and Montagu Square derive their names
from her. Somehow Mrs. Montagu's only son got kidnapped, and all attempts to recover the child failed. Time
went on, and he was regarded as dead. On a certain 1st of May the sweeps arrived to clean Mrs. Montagu's
chimneys, and a climbing-boy was sent up to his horrible task. Like Tom in the Water-Babies, he lost his way
in the network of flues and emerged in a different room to the one he had started from. Something in the
aspect of the room struck a half-familiar, half-forgotten chord in his brain. He turned the handle of the door of
the next room and found a lady seated there. Then he remembered. Filthy and soot-stained as he was, the little
sweep flung himself into the arms of the beautiful lady with a cry of "Mother!" Mrs. Montagu had found her
lost son.
In gratitude for the recovery of her son, Mrs. Montagu entertained every climbing-boy in London at dinner on
the anniversary of her son's return, and arranged that they should all have a holiday on that day. At her death
she left a legacy to continue the treat.
Such, at least, is the story as I have always heard it.
At the Sweeps' Carnival, there was always a grown-up man figuring as "Jack-in-the-green." Encased in an
immense frame of wicker-work covered with laurels and artificial flowers, from the midst of which his face
and arms protruded with a comical effect, "Jack-in- the-green" capered slowly about in the midst of the street,
surrounded by some twenty little climbing-boys, who danced joyously round him with black faces, their
soot-stained clothes decorated with tags of bright ribbon, and making a deafening clamour with their dustpans
and brushes as they sang some popular ditty. They then collected money from the passers-by, making usually
quite a good haul. There were dozens of these "Jacks-in- the-green" to be seen then on Mayday in the London
streets, each one with his attendant band of little black familiars. I summoned up enough courage once to ask
a small inky-black urchin whether he had disobeyed his nurse very often in order to be condemned to sweep
chimneys. He gaped at me uncomprehendingly, with a grin; but being a cheerful little soul, assured me that,
on the whole, he rather enjoyed climbing up chimneys.
It was my father and mother's custom in London to receive any of their friends at luncheon without a formal
invitation, and a constant procession of people availed themselves of this privilege. At six years of age I was
promoted to lunch in the dining-room with my parents, and I always kept my ears open. I had then one brother
in the House of Commons, and we being a politically inclined family, most of the notabilities of the Tory
party put in occasional appearances at Chesterfield House at luncheon-time. There was Mr. Disraeli, for
whom my father had an immense admiration, although he had not yet occupied the post of Prime Minister.
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Mr. Disraeli's curiously impassive face, with its entire absence of colouring, rather frightened me. It looked
like a mask. He had, too, a most singular voice, with a very impressive style of utterance. After 1868, by
which time my three elder brothers were all in the House of Commons, and Disraeli himself was Prime
Minister, he was a more frequent visitor at our house.
In 1865 my uncle, Lord John Russell, my mother's brother, was Prime Minister. My uncle, who had been born
as far back as 1792, was a very tiny man, who always wore one of the old-fashioned, high black-satin stocks
right up to his chin. I liked him, for he was always full of fun and small jokes, but in that rigorously Tory
household he was looked on with scant favour. It was his second term of office as Prime Minister, for he had
been First Lord of the Treasury from 1846 to 1852; he had also sat in the House of Commons for forty-seven
years. My father was rather inclined to ridicule his brother-in-law's small stature, and absolutely detested his
political opinions, declaring that he united all the ineradicable faults of the Whigs in his diminutive person.
Listening, as a child will do, to the conversation of his elders, I derived the most grotesquely false ideas as to
the Whigs and their traditional policy. I gathered that, with their tongues in their cheeks, they advocated
measures in which they did not themselves believe, should they think that by so doing they would be able to
enhance their popularity and maintain themselves in office: that, in order to extricate themselves from some
present difficulty, they were always prepared to mortgage the future recklessly, quite regardless of the
ultimate consequences: that whilst professing the most liberal principles, they were absurdly exclusive in their
private lives, not consorting with all and sundry as we poor Tories did: that convictions mattered less than
office: that in fact nothing much mattered, provided that the government of the country remained permanently
in the hands of a little oligarchy of Whig families, and that every office of profit under the Crown was, as a
matter of course, allotted to some member of those favoured families. In proof of the latter statement, I learnt
that the first act of my uncle Lord John, as Prime Minister, had been to appoint one of his brothers Sergeant-
at-Arms of the House of Commons, and to offer to another of his brothers, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell,
the vacant Bishopric of Oxford. Much to the credit of my clergyman-uncle, he declined the Bishopric, saying
that he had neither the eloquence nor the administrative ability necessary for so high an office in the Church,
and that he preferred to remain a plain country parson in his little parish, of which, at the time of his death, he
had been Rector for fifty-six years. All of which only goes to show what absurdly erroneous ideas a child,
anxious to learn, may pick up from listening to the conversation of his elders, even when one of those elders
happened to be Mr. Disraeli himself.
Another ex-Prime Minister who was often at our house was the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, who had held office
many times, and had been Prime Minister during the Crimean War. He must have been a very old man then,
for he was born in 1784. I have no very distinct recollection of him. Oddly enough, Lord Aberdeen was both
my great-uncle and my step-grandfather, for his first wife had been my grandfather's sister, and after her
death, he married my grandfather's widow, his two wives thus being sisters-in-law. Judging by their portraits
by Lawrence, which hung round our dining-room, my great-grandfather, old Lord Abercorn's sons and
daughters must have been of singular and quite unusual personal beauty. Not one of the five attained the age
of twenty-nine, all of them succumbing early to consumption. Lord Aberdeen had a most unfortunate skin and
complexion, and in addition he was deeply pitted with small-pox. As a result his face looked exactly like a
slice of brown bread, and "Old Brown Bread" he was always called by my elder brothers and sisters, who had
but little love for him, for he disliked young people, and always made the most disagreeable remarks he could
think of to them. I remember once being taken to see him at Argyll House, Regent Street, on the site of which
the "Palladium" now stands. I recollect perfectly the ugly, gloomy house, and its uglier and gloomier garden,
but I have no remembrance of "Old Brown Bread" himself, or of what he said to me, which, considering his
notorious dislike to children, is perhaps quite as well.
Of a very different type was another constant and always welcome visitor to our house, Sir Edwin Landseer,
the painter. He was one of my father and mother's oldest friends, and had been an equally close friend of my
grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. He had painted three portraits of my father, and five of my
mother. Two of the latter had been engraved, and, under the titles of "Cottage Industry" and "The Mask," had
a very large sale in mid-Victorian days. His large picture of my two eldest sisters, which hung over our
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