Collections and Recollections

This print was given to me by a veteran Reformer, who told me that it expressed in visible form the universal sentiment of England. That sentiment was daily and hourly confirmed...

It would be foreign to my purpose to criticize Lord Houghton as a poet. My object in these chapters is merely to record the characteristic traits of eminent men who have honoure...

Dexterities of phrase sometimes recoil with dire effect upon their author. A very popular clergyman of my acquaintance prides himself on never forgetting an inhabitant of his pa...

Is he gone to a land of no laughter-- This man that made mirth for us all? Proves Death but a silence hereafter, Where the echoes of earth cannot fall? Once closed, have the lip...

Never was a brighter intellect or a more gallant heart housed in a more fragile form. His figure, features, bearing, and accent were the very type of refinement; and as the spar...

And here the practice of Ministers varies exceedingly. Lord Salisbury writes almost everything with his own hand. Mr. Balfour dictates to a shorthand clerk. Most Ministers write...

Is Lord Beaconsfield's biography ever to be given to the world? Not in our time, at any rate, if we may judge by the signs. Perhaps Lord Rowton finds it more convenient to live...

In the famous society of old Holland House a conspicuous and interesting figure was Henry Luttrell. It was known that he must be getting on in life, for he had sat in the Irish...

Closely connected with the subject of Politics, of which we were speaking in the last chapter, is that of Parliamentary Oratory, and for a right estimate of oratory personal imp...

"How formed to lead, if not to proud to please! His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze. Like or dislike, he does not care a jot; He wants your vote, but your affections...

The precocious child, even when thoroughly well-meaning, is a source of terror by virtue of its intense earnestness. In the days when Maurice first discredited the doctrine of E...

Curtness in letter-writing does not necessarily indicate oddity. It often is the most judicious method of avoiding interminable correspondence. When one of Bishop Thorold's cler...

We shall see later on that no department of human speech is altogether free from "Things one would rather have expressed differently;" but, naturally, the great bulk of them bel...

"While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of...

Nothing is so refreshing to a jaded sense of humour as to be the recipient of one of your own stories retold with appreciative fervour but with all the point left out. This was...

Mr. John Morley's agreeableness in conversation is of a different kind. His leading characteristic is a dignified austerity of demeanour which repels familiarity and tends to ke...

And as in small things, so in great. One principle consecrated his whole life. His love of God constrained him to the service of men, and no earthly object or consideration--how...

As, according to Dr. Johnson, all claret would be port if it could, so, presumably, every marquis would like to be a duke; and yet, as a matter of fact, that Elysian translation...

This affection for Mr. Gladstone was a personal matter, quite independent of politics; but in political matters also they had much in common. "You know," wrote the Cardinal to M...

Brave men have lived since as well as before Agamemnon, and those who know the present society of London may not unreasonably ask whether, even granting the heavy losses which I...

It was a characteristic saying of Talleyrand that no one could conceive how pleasant life was capable of being who had not belonged to the French aristocracy before the Revoluti...

About half way through the nineteenth century it became the fashion to make out that the effect of the Revolution on England had been exaggerated. Satirists made fun of our trad...

"One after one, the Lords of Time advance; Here Stanley meets--how Stanley scorns!--the glance. The brilliant chief, irregularly great, Frank, haughty, rash, the Rupert of Debat...

Really this is a much better rendering of the famous ode than nine-tenths of its more pompous competitors; and the allusions to the perfidious qualities of Trinity Audit Ale and...

and the word "Jingo" took its place in the language as the recognized symbol of a warlike policy. At Easter 1878 it was announced that the Government were bringing black troops...

La passion politique était vive: et pendant un temps, tout l'intérêt se concentra sur ce qui se passait en France. Tous les esprits qui avaient à coeur la liberté civile et la l...

These more distinguished portraits, of cabinet dimensions, were scattered up and down among the miscellaneous herd of _cartes de visits_. The art of Messrs. Hills and Saunders w...

This is a long digression from the subject of excessive drinking, with which, however, it is not remotely connected; and, both in respect of drunkenness and of gluttony, the hab...

Abercorn, marquis of Acton, Lord Albermarle, sixth Earl of, fifth Earl of Albert, Prince Consort Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (_see_ Wales) Alvanley, Lord Ampthill, Lord Apple...