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A REPLY AND SOME MEMORIES.

BY BERNARD HOLLAND, C.B.

SOME of the friendly, as well as most of the hostile, reviewers of my 'Life of the Duke of Devonshire' have found fault with me for not giving a more complete picture of him as he appeared in his private life. There is, I admit, some little justification for this criticism. I ought, perhaps, to have taken more trouble to hunt up anecdotes and impressions. To me, the political or public side of his career was the more entrancing, partly perhaps because my own business has been much more of an official than of a literary character, and because the study of a political life of fifty years, filled with great events, consumed the time and energy which I could give to this work for two years.

As to anecdotes, one rarely knows how far they are true, or how far they have grown by natural development. An instance of this is the famous "yawn" of Lord Hartington in the middle of his maiden speech, of which there are various versions. One version is that Lord Palmerston, observing the yawn, said, "That young man will do!" or "get on." Sir Henry Lucy says his own ingenious mind invented the story that to a lady who said she had heard he had yawned during a speech of his, and

added, "I cannot believe it possible," Lord Hartington replied, "Ah, but you did not hear the speech." The Duke much liked this story about himself, and the Duchess once told Sir Henry Lucy he had heard it so often that he had honestly come to believe it had happened as described. What a doubt this casts upon all famous historic sayings!

A difficulty in the way of his biographer was that few of the people who had seen most of the Duke at different times of his life and are still living,

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for the majority, of course, are now no more,-had, as I found by asking some of them, much that they either could, or would, tell. The quiet traits of the Duke's conversation and character were not so easy to remember or describe as the more striking or picturesque conversation or traits of some other great men. lady, who had seen much of both statesmen, said to me, "Ah, if you had asked me about Mr Gladstone I could have told you a thousand things." No doubt, if a Boswell had attached himself to the Duke he could have produced an amusing record, seeing that the Duke, although he never tried to be brilliant or striking, had as original an humour as Dr Johnson, mainly

because, like that great man, he said everything exactly as he thought it, and never pretended to take an interest in anything which did not interest him, or to admire what he did not admire. I remember that once, at luncheon at Devonshire House, some one mentioned a well-known and much talked about social set of that day, in the earlier "nineties," who were understood to combine fashion and quality with intellect and with some freedom in the minor morals. "A precious lot," said the Duke in his quietly humorous manner, and then was silent. But the Duke had no Boswell. He lived among people some of whom too busy, and others too indolent or unobservant, to note or remember conversation.

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Without a Boswell, and the supplements by others which Boswell's publication elicited, how much of Dr Johnson's truly British conversation would have survived? And to be a Boswell one must be without the instincts, sound on the whole, though exceptions may be relished, of privacy, secrecy, and real intimaey. Wellington once said of Napoleon, "The fact is, the fellow was not a gentleman," to which it might have been replied that by the methods of a gentleman Buonaparte could never have made himself Napoleon the Great. The observation can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to James Boswell, the Napoleon among biographers.

It has been remarked that a

'Life' of the Duke of Devonshire should have contained some "private" letters (see criticism in 'The Times'). But I doubt whether the Duke ever wrote any "private" letters of interest, except it were to "Her Grace." All the letters, both from and to him, that I have seen (except a few when he was travelling), are entirely concerned with business, public or private. Men of literature or leisure, such as Horace Walpole, put thoughts, feelings, descriptions, and anecdotes into their letters, and so, fortunately, do many women. But the Duke was a typical Englishman, who had many more business letters to write than he liked, and confined them strictly to business. After all, most active men are like this. Disraeli was an exception, but then Disraeli was a novelist in politics. Some statesmen, Lord Salisbury for instance, and Lord Rosebery and Mr Balfour, have been fine writers apart from political life, and no doubt their letters, even on business, would have a touch of fine art, but the Duke was not among these.

I have noticed here and there a polite surprise that, as I worked at one time under the Duke, I gave so few personal impressions or recollections. The answer is that I have nothing in me of the Boswell either. Moreover, although for two or three years I saw the Duke very frequently, not only in working, but also at the luncheon-table at Devonshire House, which was open to his secretaries when

ever they liked to come, and in the country, yet this is a long time ago, and memories fade. After I had left his service I saw him only at very rare intervals.

Quite recently I came across an old forgotten note-book, filled with notes of reading and so forth, in which, however, I had now and then made the briefest possible entry of what I was doing or thinking. With the aid of these entries I can vividly recall a few scenes which have remained in my mind, as some scenes do, probably because at some moments of life the recording attention is more vividly awake than during the rest. They are not, perhaps, very interesting, but there is not, I hope, any harm in describing them at this distance of time.

I see it was on a day at the end of January 1892 that I first went to Devonshire House by command. In the hall I met Lady Louisa Egerton, an old and kind friend to my family, who said, "So you are to be one of my brother's secretaries." After waiting a while in the room of Colonel Lascelles, the Duke's chief secretary, I went in to see the Duke in a large, dingy room on the groundfloor (now more pleasingly furnished and occupied), with windows looking north on the garden. His own study was on the floor above, but this room was then used for business purposes. He sat by the fire stroking a collie dog (the dog looked profoundly sad and

bored), and seemed as shy of his new retainer as his new retainer was of him. He explained lucidly, and in as few words as possible, how things. stood with regard to the Labour Commission and what he wished me to do, and told me that I might consider myself engaged.

On the 16th August 1892, an entry reminds me, I went to Devonshire House as usual in the morning. The Duke soon appeared, looking unusually well-dressed, with a white waistcoat, and gave me some instructions about work. An hour later or so he came in again, gave me more instructions, and said that he was going down to Bolton Abbey. He added, "I suppose you have heard of the domestic event?" I said indifferently, "Yes," thinking of quite another matter. He looked rather surprised, said no more, and went away. Soon afterwards Lascelles told me that, in the interval between these two visits, the Duke had been married at the Down Street Church to the Duchess of Manchester. I had heard nothing previously. I suppose it was the brevity and uninterested tone of my answer which surprised him when I said "Yes." I wrote to apologise, and heard heard afterwards that the misunderstanding had amused the Duke when he read my explanation.

My note-book shows that I spent two nights, 3rd to 5th October 1893, at Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire, and that

I remember very vividly. old Thomas Hobbes the philThe Duke and Duchess, by osopher, who lived here and a rare chance, were quite at Chatsworth, on and off, as alone there. Conversation a kind of retainer of the Earls was rather difficult the first of Devonshire. In the afternight at dinner in the great noon, dim and damp, I had a room, 80 much too large silent walk with the Duke to for a party of three. After visit a decayed duck-decoy, in dinner they played cards- which he seemed to feel a bezique-together, and I sat faint and melancholy interest. reading, or pretending to read, We passed some workmen, who something. An autumnal wind did not seem to know who howled outside, and seemed also he was. The park, that dull to be getting through the end- afternoon, looked depressing less great latticed windows of with its old, stag-headed, de"Hardwick Hall, more glass caying oaks, blackened by the than wall," and careering smoke from collieries hardly a through the long picture-gal- mile away. It was the same lery and presence - chamber kind of evening,-embarrassed above, and down the stair- dinner, cards for their Graces, case, and behind the tapestries. and a book for me. The The Duke and Duchess were Duchess always made me feel trying to do their duty by shy, kind and good-natured spending five or six days of though she was: her world of the year at Hardwick; but interests was too remote for the Duchess was visibly im- me. The Duke gave the feelpatient to get away to Chats- ing of a man who was shy worth, and I did not wonder. himself. He was a really There is something melan- touching character, for reasons choly as death about this old hard to define, perhaps beTudor house, at any rate in cause he seemed to be a spirit this kind of weather, and at not living in his right century. this time of year, and with so "Qui n'a pas l'esprit de son few people in it. It feels thickly âge, de son âge a tout le haunted: the great "Bess of malheur." He was almost too Hardwick" and poor Mary great a gentleman for political Queen of Scots are among life. Next morning the Duke the ghosts, perhaps. Next and Duchess drove to Chatsmorning the Duke did some worth in an open brake. I work with me, and then took accompanied them as far as me through the long picture- Chesterfield Station, whence I gallery, and told me a little took train for Scotland to (very little) about the pictures. Whittingehame, where I was The most interesting portraits to go through the Labour to me were, and still are, those Commission Draft Report with of Sir William Cavendish, who Gerald Balfour, one of the founded the greatness of the Commissioners. What could family, and looks very much be less like Hardwick Hall a Cavendish; and of grumpy than the solid, comfortable,

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eighteenth-century house at Whittingehame, with its large and cheerful family party of all ages, rapid exchange of ideas, and sparkling conversation revolving round Arthur Balfour? There is a romantio charm in such rapid

contrasts.

My note-book reminds me that I spent a week in November 1893 at Chatsworth, and that I was there again from the 5th to the 13th January 1894. On each occasion I was given a room on the groundfloor to inhabit, only divided from the Duke's study by a passage leading to a door opening on the west terrace. This I liked, both for convenience and liberty. Chatsworth is a delightful house, full of beautiful pictures and sculptures, and, best of all, of the most perfect editions of books. One would like to spend idle months there in order to read in comfort. The visit to Chatsworth in the freezing January of 1894 is that which, for good reasons, I most vividly remember. There was a great party in the house all the time, varying in details, as guests came and went. I was told that one day, with some thirty guests and their servants, and those of the house, there were over 130 people sleeping below the roofs, not equal to a fairly large hotel after all. Time was killed by shooting and, after dark, by cards; but the Duke got through much work immediately after breakfast, and between tea and dinner. After dinner he sat down to a cardtable till a late hour. He got

through things rapidly because he did not worry about details; he trusted these to others, and so could concentrate his mind upon main lines of policy. He seemed to enjoy the social life, and had the air of a princely host. He was easily amused, especially by humorous situations, and sometimes laughed loudly, probably at some simple jest or story. I well remember thinking, one day at dinner, that not in all England, hardly in all Europe, could one have anything much better, of this kind, than these surroundings. It was the middle day in the shooting week; the party was at full tide; and the toilettes and display of jewellery were at the culminating point. Beautiful in its way, as part of life's fine art, the nobly proportioned room, the statuary, the select portraits on the walls by great masters, the rich and artistic gold plate on the table, the cool, unemotional men, mostly rulers in some territorial official sphere of their own, the self-assured, beautifully dressed women: all was warmth and brightness in this oasis, while outside frost and darkness held the hills and dales of Derbyshire.

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Pathos lies in the swift contrast between that which is and that which was, and one feels it in recalling some such scene of pleasure and beauty as that party at Chatsworth. Eighteen years have passed away: the illustrious host is dead, and the life - enjoying hostess, and so too is the wild and beautiful young Countess

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