CHAPTER XX VISITS TO ENGLAND 1892
My next visit to England was in the spring of 1892. The winter before, I had a severe attack of iritis, which left my eyes in a very demoralized condition. I did not find much relief in this country, not, I suppose, because of want of skill in our ophthalmic surgeons, but because of the impossibility of getting any rest anywhere where I could be reached by telephone or telegraph. To a person who can bear an ordinary voyage there is no retreat like an ocean steamer. Telephone, telegraph, daily paper; call or visit of friend, client, or constituent; daily mail—sometimes itself, to a busy public man, enough for a hard day's work—all these are forgotten. You spend your ten days in an infinite quiet like that of Heaven. You sit in your deck-chair with the soft sea breeze on your forehead, as the mighty ocean cradle rocks you, and see the lace of an exquisite beauty that no Tyrian weaver ever devised, breaking over the blue or purple waves, with their tints that no Tyrian dye ever matched. Ah! Marconi, Marconi, could not you let us alone, and leave the tired brain of humanity one spot where this "hodge-podge of business and trouble and care" could not follow us and find us out?
On this journey I visited England, France and Switzerland. It so happened that I had had a good deal to do with the appointment of our Ministers to these three countries. Colonel John D. Washburn, a very accomplished and delightful gentleman, now dead, had been a pupil of mine as a law student. He lived in Worcester and had been a very eminent member of the Massachusetts Legislature. I think he would have been Governor of the State and had a very brilliant career but for a delicacy of organization which made him break down in health when under any severe strain of responsibility, especially such as involved antagonism and conflict. He was of a very friendly, gentle disposition, and disliked to be attacked or to attack other men. I told Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State when Mr. Harrison's Administration came in, that I had but one favor to ask of it; that was, that he should send Washburn as Minister to Switzerland. I had two or three very pleasant days with him at Berne. But he had sent his family away and was preparing to resign his place. So I had not much opportunity of seeing Switzerland under his guidance.
Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, then Minister to France, had also been appointed on my very earnest recommendation. He was a great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, a very able business man, highly esteemed throughout the country. His guidance was implicitly followed by many people in important business transactions. He had had the charge of the financial affairs of some large manufacturing corporations, and was understood to have extricated the Northern Pacific Railroad out of some serious difficulties, into which it fell again after he left its control. He had been a Democrat. But he had seen the importance of the protective policy to American interests, as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high protectionist, Thomas Jefferson. He had no sympathies with any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world.
Soon after Mr. Harrison's Administration began, I received a message about nine o'clock one evening, asking me to go to the White House at once. I obeyed the summons. The President said he desired, if I had no objection, to send in the name of Dr. Loring of Massachusetts, as Minister to Portugal. I told him that I had no objection whatever; that Dr. Loring was an able man of agreeable manners, and had performed admirably every public duty he had undertaken. I said that the Doctor had felt a little disturbed, I thought, that I had refused to call a meeting of the Massachusetts delegation to press his name upon the President for a Cabinet office, to which President Harrison replied, "I put my foot on that pretty quick." Dr. Loring had been a great friend and supporter of Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State. I conjectured, although the President did not say so, that the choice of Dr. Loring had been made at the Secretary's instance.
The President then said that he wanted to talk with me about the English Mission, which had troubled him a good deal. He mentioned the names of several prominent men in different parts of the country, including Robert Lincoln and Mr. Jewett, an eminent lawyer in Chicago, whose name was earnestly pressed upon him by the Senators from Illinois. I said that I had known Mr. Lincoln pretty well when he was in President Garfield's and Mr. Arthur's Cabinet, and thought very highly of him. He was a very modest man indeed, never pressing any claim to public consideration or office, either on his own account or as his father's son, and never seeking responsibility. But I had noticed that when he had anything to say or anything to do, he always said or did the wisest and best thing to be said or done under the circumstances. I do not know how much influence what I said had, but it seemed to gratify President Harrison exceedingly, and he stated that he was strongly inclined to appoint Mr. Lincoln.
I was told the next morning he sent for the two Illinois Senators, and told them that he had made up his mind to nominate Mr. Lincoln, and that one of them, Senator Farwell, was exceedingly offended. He was also much disturbed by President Harrison's attitude in regard to the appointment of the postmaster at Chicago. The result was that when President Harrison's name came up for another nomination, Mr. Farwell was opposed to him, and when he was with difficulty nominated for reelection, the State of Illinois voted for Cleveland. Senator Cullom, though not liking very well to have his opinion disregarded, was more discreet. He did not see fit to make the exercise of the President's rightful and Constitutional prerogative a reason for breaking off his friendly relations with the Administration, with whose principles he was in full accord. This is an instance of President Harrison's want of tact. I have little doubt that if, before finally announcing his intention, he had sent for the Illinois Senators—as Abraham Lincoln would have done, or as President McKinley would have done—gone over the whole ground with them, and told them his reasons and desire, they would have cheerfully acquiesced in the conclusion to which he had come, and their friendship with him would have been strengthened and not weakened.
After saying what was to be said about the English Mission, I said to President Harrison: "We have a gentleman in Massachusetts, whom I think it is very desirable indeed to place in some important public service; that is Thomas Jefferson Coolidge. He is a great-grandson of Mr. Jefferson." I said to the President the substance of what I have just stated above, about Mr. Coolidge. I added that while Mr. Coolidge would be an excellent person for the English Mission, which his uncle Mr. Stevenson had held, yet, of course, I did not think, under the circumstances, that it would be proper to make another important diplomatic appointment from Massachusetts just then; but I hoped that an opportunity might come later. President Harrison seemed to be much impressed with the suggestion, and said that he would bear it in mind.
When I went back to my room, it occurred to me that I had better speak to Mr. Blaine about it. If he first heard of it from the President he might think that I was trying to deal with the President about matters in his Department over his head and without consulting him. So I went round to the State Department early the next morning, and told Mr. Blaine what I had said to the President. I found that he knew all about Mr. Coolidge. I inadvertently spoke of him as grandson of Mr. Jefferson. Blaine immediately corrected me by saying, "great-grandson." He seemed to like the plan very well.
Nothing came of the matter at that time. But later, when the Pan-American Commission was appointed, the President, of his own motion, appointed Mr. Coolidge as one of the American representatives. Later, I happened to be one day at the White House, and President Harrison told me that Whitelaw Reid had announced his intention of resigning the French Mission before long. I reminded him of our conversation about Mr. Coolidge, and urged his name very strongly on him. He hesitated a good deal. I got the approval of every New England Senator but one to the proposal. The President still hesitated and seemed inclined to appoint Mr. Andrew D. White. But he finally yielded to the urgency for Mr. Coolidge. I should have been sorry if anything I had done had resulted in depriving the country of the service of Andrew D. White. I suppose him to be one of the very best representatives we ever had abroad. But an opportunity came soon after, to send him first to Russia, and then to Germany, where he has represented what is best in the character, ability, desire, interest and scholarship of the American people.
So we had two first-rate representatives abroad instead of one. Mr. Coolidge discharged his functions to the satisfaction of the Administration, and to the universal approval of his countrymen.
He received me when I visited Paris with a very cordial and delightful hospitality. I had the pleasure of meeting at his house at dinner M. Ribot, then Prime Minister of France and afterward President of the French Republic, and several others of the leading men in their public life. But I spoke French very imperfectly indeed, and understood it much less, when spoken by a Parisian. The conversation was, in general, in French. So I got very little knowledge of them by being in their society.
My visit in England gave me a good deal more to remember. Mr. Lincoln also received me with great cordiality. He gave a dinner at which several of the leaders of the Liberal Party were present; among them, Sir William Vernon Harcourt. I had letters to Sir William Vernon Harcourt, and to Lord Rosebery, and to Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England. Sir William Vernon Harcourt and Lord Rosebery each called on me, and spent an hour at my room. But Parliament was dissolved just at that time, so the Liberal leaders had at once to begin the campaign which resulted in Mr. Gladstone's victory. So I had no opportunity to make an intimate acquaintance with either of them. I owed to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes an introduction to John Bellows, a Quaker, a most delightful gentleman, the first authority in his time on the Roman antiquities of Great Britain, a fine classical scholar and learned in old English literature and in the languages from which came the roots of our English tongue. I formed with him a close friendship which ended only with his death, in 1902. A year before he died he visited me in my home at Worcester, and received the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard. Mr. Bellows is the author of the wonderful French Dictionary.
I spent a few days with Lord Coleridge in Devon. His house at Ottery St. Mary's is close to the spot where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born. I met there several of the race. I do not know whether they were living in the neighborhood or happened to be there on a visit.
I found in the church, close by, the tomb of John Sherman, one of my own kindred, I have no doubt, of the race which came from Colchester and Dedham in Essex, and Yaxley in Suffolk.
The Lord Chief Justice was much distressed lest he had done wrong in complying with General Butler's invitation to visit him at Lowell. He said that many of his American friends had treated him coldly afterward, and that his friend Richard Dana, whom he highly esteemed, had refused to call upon him for that reason.
I told him he did absolutely right, in my opinion. I said that General Butler was then Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that an eminent person, holding a high official character, from a foreign country, could not undertake to question the personal character, or the title to be considered gentlemen, of the men whom the American people put into their high places.
Lord Coleridge said he received fifty guineas every morning for his services in the Tichborne trial. "But," he added, "my general practice in my profession was so much interrupted by it that I could not have got along that year but for my salary as Attorney-General."
He spoke with great pride of his cross-examination of the Claimant. He said one of the papers had complained that his cross-examination did no good to his case whatever. "But I made him admit that he sent his photograph to some person, as the photograph of Arthur Orton." He said the common people in England still held to the belief that the Claimant was the genuine Sir Roger Tichborne, and, by a curious contradiction, this feeling was inspired largely by their sympathy with him as a man of humble birth. I said, "Yes, I think that is true. I heard somebody, a little while ago, say that they heard two people talking in the cars, and one of them said to the other, 'They wouldn't give him the estate, because he was the son of a poor butcher.'" This very much amused the Lord Chief Justice.
I asked him about the story I had heard and had verified some time before, of the connection, in the person of Lady Rolle, between two quite remote periods. Lady Rolle was alive until 1887, maintaining her health so that she gave dinner parties in that year, shortly before she died. She was the widow of Mr. Rolle, afterward Lord Rolle, who made a violent attack on Charles James Fox in 1783. He was then thirty-two years old. From him the famous satire, the Rolliad, took its name. When he went to pay his homage to Queen Victoria at her Coronation in Westminster Abbey, he was quite feeble, and rolled down the steps of the throne. The young Queen showed her kindness of heart by jumping up and going to help him in person. Some of the English told the foreigners present at the ceremonial that that was part of the ceremony, and that the Rolles held their lands on the tenure of going through that performance at every coronation. Lady Rolle was married to her husband in 1820. He was then sixty-nine, and she a young girl of twenty years old. He was eighty or ninety years old when he died, and she survived as his widow for many years. Something came up on the subject of longevity which induced me to refer to this story and ask Lord Coleridge if it were true. We were then riding out together; "Yes," said he, "there," pointing to a dwelling-place in full sight, "is the house where she lived."
His Lordship asked me about an American Judge with whom he had some acquaintance. I told him that I thought his reputation was rather that of a jurist than a Judge. "Oh, yes," said he, "a jurist is a man who knows something about the law of every country but his own."
Lord Coleridge had a good reputation as a story-teller. It was pleasant to get an auditor who seemed to like to hear the stories which have got rather too commonplace to be worth telling over here. He had a great admiration for President Lincoln, and was eager to hear anything anybody had to tell of him. I told him the famous story of Lincoln's reply to the man who had left with him his poem to read, when he gave it back. "If anybody likes that sort of thing, it's just the sort of thing they'd like." I overheard his Lordship, as he circulated about the room, a little while afterward, repeating the story to various listeners.
He thought Matthew Arnold the greatest living Englishman. He spoke with great respect of Carlyle. He said: "Emerson was an imitator of Carlyle, and got his thoughts from him." I could not stand that. It seemed to me that he had probably never read a page of Emerson in his life, and had got his notion from some writer for a magazine, before either of these great men was well known. I took the liberty of saying, with some emphasis, "Emerson was a far profounder and saner intellect than Carlyle." To which he said, "Why, what do you say?" I repeated what I had said, and he received the statement with great politeness, but, of course, without assent.
During this summer I paid a visit to Moyle's Court, near Southampton, formerly owned by Lady Alice Lisle, whose daughter married Leonard Hoar, President of Harvard College. Leonard Hoar was the brother of my ancestor, John Hoar of Concord, and the son of Charles Hoar, Sheriff of Gloucester. There is a statement in an old account of some Puritan worthies that I have seen, to the effect that John Hoar and Leonard married sisters. If that be true, John Hoar's wife, Alice, was a daughter and namesake of Lady Alice Lisle. Although I should like to believe it, I am afraid that the claim cannot be made good. Lady Alice Lisle was a lady of large wealth and good lineage. Her husband was John Lord Lisle, who was Lord Justice under Cromwell, and one of the Judges in the trial of Charles I. He drew the indictment and sentence of the King, and sat next to Bradshaw at the trial, and directed and prompted him in difficult matters. He was murdered one Sunday morning on his way to church when in exile at Lausanne, Switzerland, on the Lake of Geneva, by three ruffians, said to be sent for that purpose by Queen Henrietta. Lady Alice Lisle was a victim of the brutality of Jeffries. After Monmouth's rebellion and defeat, she gave shelter and food to two fugitives from Monmouth's army. The report of her trial is in Howell. There was no proof that she knew that they were fugitives from Monmouth's army, although she supposed one of them was a Dissenting minister. There had been no conviction of the principals, which the English law required before an accessory after the fact could be found guilty. She suggested this point at the trial, but it was overruled by Jeffries. He conducted the case with infinite brutality. She was a kindly old lady, of more than seventy years. She slept during part of the trial, probably being fatigued by the journey, in which she had been carried on horseback from Moyle's Court to Winchester, and the sleepless nights which would naturally have followed. She was sentenced to be burned at the stake. But the sentence was commuted to beheading, at the intercession of the gentry of the neighborhood. She had disapproved of the execution of the King; said she had always prayed for him, and had a son in the King's army. Macaulay's account of the story is familiar to all readers of English history.
I was received at the old house with great kindness by Mrs. Fane, wife of the present proprietor. It is a beautiful old house with carved oak partitions, with a dining room rising to the roof. Lady Lisle's chamber and the place where the two fugitives were concealed are still shown. Mrs. Fane had gathered some local traditions which are not found in print. One old lady, who had been well known to persons now living, had received some of them from her grandmother, who was cotemporary with Lady Alice.
The lady was very popular with her tenants in the neighborhood. The messenger who came from Winchester to arrest her took her on horseback behind him, according to the custom of the time. The horse cast a shoe. The messenger was for pressing on without regard to the suffering of the animal. She insisted that he should stop and have the horse shod. The man roughly refused. She said: "I have made no outcry, on my own account. But everybody here loves me. If you do not stop, I shall cry out. You will never get away with me alive." The fellow was frightened and consented to stop at a smithy. When the smith had finished his work, Lady Lisle said: "I will be back this way in two or three days, and I will pay you." To this the messenger said: "Yes, you will be back this way in two or three days, but without your head."
The headless body was brought back from Winchester after the trial. The next day, when the household were at dinner, a man came to the outside and thrust into the dining room window a basket, containing her head. This was said to be for "greater indignity."
Lady Lisle had known Hicks, one of the persons whom she relieved, before. When the court was sitting for the trial of Charles I., she went up to London to expostulate with her husband. She arrived at his lodgings just as he was setting out in a procession, with some state, for Westminster Hall, where the trial was held. As she approached to speak to him, he did not recognize her in the soiled dress in which she had travelled, and motioned her away rather roughly. It was said that she was overcome by the press in the crowd and fell to the ground. Hicks, who was a Dissenting minister, raised her up and took her to his own lodging near by in the Strand. She said to him that she could not recompense him there, but if he would come to Hampshire, or to the Isle of Wight, where she had property, she would be glad to repay him.
Saturday, October 22, 1892, with Mrs. Hoar and her sister, Mrs. Rice, I went from Southampton to Ringwood, about twenty miles, and thence drove to Ellingham Church, about two miles and a half. The church is a small but very beautiful structure of stone, with a small wooden belfry. The tomb of Lady Alice Lisle is a heavy, flat slab of gray stone, raised about two or three feet from the ground, bearing the following inscription:
Here lies Dame Alicia Lisle and her daughter Ann Harfeld who dyed the 17th of Feb. 1703-4 Alicia Lisle dyed the second of Sept. 1685.
It is close to the wall of the church, on the right of the porch. In the church is seen the old Lisle pew of carved oak, now the pew of the Earl of Normanton. Opposite the pew is the pulpit, also of carved black oak, apparently ancient. The church contains a tablet to the memory of the former owner of Moyle's Court, who died in 1622.
Moyle's Court is about a mile and a half from Ellingham Church. The drive is along a beautiful lane shaded by trees whose branches meet from the two sides, through a beautiful and fertile country, adorned by herds of fine cattle. Moyle's Court is a large two-story building, consisting of two square wings connected by the main building. The wings project from the main building in front, but the whole forms a continuous line in the rear. As you approach it, you pass numerous heavy, brick outbuildings, including several farmhouses, one of which is quite large, and apparently of great antiquity. We were received by Mrs. Fane with the greatest courtesy. She said that the landed estate connected with Moyle's Court is very large, now or recently yielding the Earl of Normanton seven thousand pounds a year.
The present occupant of Moyle's Court, Frederick Fane, Esq., came there about twenty-one years before. The house was then much dilapidated, but he has restored it in a style in keeping with the ancient architecture. The principal room is a dining hall, rising from the ground some twenty-five feet in height, with a gallery at one end, on a level with the second story. The walls of this room are of beautiful, carved oak, the front of the gallery being ancient, and as it existed in the time of Lady Alice Lisle. The staircase, also of fine, carved oak, is of equal antiquity. The carved oak in the passages and some of the other rooms has been restored by Mr. Fane from material found in the attic. There is also a curious old kitchen, with a large fireplace, with a closet in the chimney where it is said one of the persons succored by Lady Alice Lisle was found hidden. In the cellar is a curiously carved head on a stone beam, which seemed as if it might formerly have supported a mantel-piece or shelf. It is said that this portion of the cellar was once a chapel.
Some of the chambers have been named by Mr. Fane from persons
connected with the tragedy—Dame Alicia, Monmouth, Nelthrop,
Hicks, Tryphena—these names being inscribed on the doors.
The room is shown where Lady Lisle is said to have been seized.
The old tombstone over the grave of Leonard Hoar and his wife, at the Quincy burial-ground, in Massachusetts, is almost an exact copy of that over Lady Alice Lisle, at Ellerton near Moyle's Court. They were doubtless selected by the same taste. Mrs. Leonard Hoar, whose maiden name was Bridget Lisle, was connected quite intimately with three of the great tragedies in the history of English liberty. Her father, as has been said, was murdered at Lausanne. Her mother was murdered under the form of the mock judgment of Jeffries, at Winchester. Her niece married Lord Henry Russell, son of the Duke of Bedford, and brother of Lord William Russell, the story of whose tragic death is familiar to every one who reads the noble history of the struggle between liberty and tyranny which ended with the Revolution of 1688.
Bridget Hoar married again after the death of her husband, President Hoar. Her second husband was a Mr. Usher, who seems to have been insane. She lived with him very unhappily, then separated from him and went back to England, staying there until he died. She then came back to Boston and died, May 25, 1723. At her own request she was buried at the side of her first husband. A great concourse of the clergy and the principal citizens, including the Governor, attended her funeral.
It was my good fortune to be instrumental, after this visit, in correcting an evil which had caused great annoyance to our representatives abroad for a good many years.
The Americans have never maintained their representatives abroad with a dignity becoming a great power like the United States. The American Minister is compelled by our rules to wear a dress which exposes him to be mistaken for a waiter at any festive gathering. Distinctions of rank are well established in the diplomatic customs of civilized nations. It is well understood that whether a representative of a county shall be an Ambassador, a Minister Plenipotentiary, a Minister Resident, or a Charge' d'affaires, depends on the sense of its rank among the nations of the world of the country that sends him. For many years all argument was lost on Congress. The United States representative must not adopt the customs as to dress of the effete monarchies of the old world. To send an Ambassador instead of a Minister was to show a most undemocratic deference to titles, abhorrent to every good republican. There had been several attempts to make a change in this matter, always unsuccessful, until I went abroad in 1892.
When I was in London in that year, I saw a great deal of Mr. Lincoln. He told me how vexatious he found his position. When the Minister for Foreign Affairs received the diplomatic representatives of other countries at the Foreign Office, Ambassadors were treated as belonging to one rank, or class, and the Ministers as to a lower one. The members of each class were received in the order of their seniority. We change our Ministers with every Administration. So the Minister of the United States is likely to be among the juniors. He might have to wait all day, while the representatives of insignificant little States were received one after another. If, before the day ended, his turn came, some Ambassador would arrive, who would get there, perhaps, five minutes before it was time for Mr. Lincoln to go in, he had precedence at once. So the representative of the most powerful country on earth might have to lose the whole day, only to repeat the same experience on the next.
An arrangement was made which partly cured the trouble by the Minister for Foreign Affairs receiving Mr. Lincoln, on special application, informally, at his residence, on some other day. But that was frequently very inconvenient. And, besides, it was not always desirable to make a special application for an audience, which would indicate to the English Government that we attached great importance to the request he might have to make, so that conditions of importance would be likely be attached to it by them. It was quite desirable, sometimes, to mention a subject incidentally and by the way, rather than to make it matter of a special appointment.
When I got to Paris, I found Mr. Coolidge complaining of the same difficulty. I told our two Ministers that when I got home I would try to devise a remedy. Accordingly I proposed and moved as an amendment to the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, the following clause:
"Whenever the President shall be advised that any foreign government is represented, or is about to be represented in the United States, by an Ambassador, Envoy Extraordinary, Minister Plenipotentiary, Minister Resident, Special Envoy, or Charge' d'affairs, he is authorized, in his discretion, to direct that the representatives of the United States to such government shall bear the same designation. This provision shall in no wise affect the duties, powers, or salary of such representative."
This had the hearty approval of Senators Allison and Hale, the leading members of the Committee on Appropriations, and was reported favorably by that Committee.
Senator Vest was absent when the matter came up, and it passed without opposition. Mr. Vest announced, the next day, that he had intended to oppose it. I am afraid if he had, he would have succeeded in defeating it.
When it went to the House, the Committee on Appropriations consented to retain the amendment, and it was favored by Mr. Hitt of Illinois, who had, himself, represented the country abroad and knew all about such matters. There was a little opposition in the House. But it was quieted without great difficulty. Vice-President Morton, who had, himself, represented the country at Paris, went personally to the House and used his great influence in favor of the proposition. Mr. Blount of Georgia, a very influential Democrat, threatened to make a strong opposition. But the gentlemen who favored it said to him: "Now you are going out of the House, but your countrymen will not long let you stay in retirement. You will be summoned to important public service somewhere. It is quite likely that your political friends will call you to one of these important diplomatic places, where you will be in danger of suffering the inconvenience yourself, if the present system continue." Mr. Blount was pacified. And the measure which I think would have been beaten by a pugnacious opposition in either House of Congress, got through.
Among the most impressive recollections of my life is the funeral of Tennyson in Westminster Abbey. I got a seat at the request of the American Minister by the favor of Archdeacon Farrar, who had charge of the arrangements. It was a most impressive scene. I had a seat near the grave, which was in the Poets' Corner, of which the pavement had been opened. The wonderful music; the stately procession which followed the coffin through the historic West entrance, in the most venerable building in the world, to lay the poet to sleep his last sleep with England's illustrious dead of more than a thousand years,
In those precincts where the mighty rest,
With rows of statesmen and with walks of Kings,
to which
Ne'er since their foundation came a nobler guest,
was unspeakably touching and impressive. The solemn burial service was conducted by the aged Dean, doomed, not long after, to follow the beloved poet to his own final resting-place near by.
The choir sang two anthems, both by Tennyson—"Crossing the
Bar" and "Silent Voices"—the music of the latter by Lady
Tennyson.
The grave lay next to Robert Browning's, hard by the monument to Chaucer. I looked into it and saw the oaken coffin with the coronet on the lid.
The pall-bearers were the Duke of Argyle, Lord Dufferin,
Lord Selbourne, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Jowett, Mr. Lecky, Mr.
Froude, Lord Salisbury, Dr. Butler, Head of Trinity, Cambridge,
Sir James Paget, Lord Kelvin and the United States Minister.
The place of Mr. Lincoln, who had gone home on leave of absence,
was taken by Mr. Henry White.
After depositing the body, the bearers passed the seat where I sat, one by one, pressing through between two rows of seats, so that their garments touched mine as they went by.
The day was cloudy and mournful, blending an unusual gloom with the dim religious light of the Abbey. But just as the body was let down into the earth, the sun came out for a moment from the clouds, cheering and lightening up the nave and aisles and transepts of the mighty building. As the light struck the faces of the statues and the busts, it seemed for a moment that the countenances changed and stirred with a momentary life, as if to give a welcome to the guest who had come to break upon their long repose. Of course it was but an idle imagination, begot, perhaps, of the profound excitement which such a scene, to the like of which I was so utterly unaccustomed, made upon me. But as I think of it now, I can hardly resist the belief that it was real.
It was my good fortune during this journey to become the purchaser of Wordsworth's Bible. It was presented to him by Frederick William Taber, the famous writer of hymns. While it is absolutely clean, it bears the mark of much use. It was undoubtedly the Bible of Wordsworth's old age. On my next visit to England I told John Morley about it. He said, if it had been known, I never should have been allowed to take it out of England. It bears the following inscription in Taber's handwriting:
William Wordsworth
From Frederick Wm Taber,
In affectionate acknowledgment of his many kindnesses,
and of the pleasure and advantage of his friendship.
Ambleside. New Year's Eve. 1842. A. D.
Be stedfast in thy Covenant, and be conversant
therein, and wax old in thy work.
Ecclesiasticus XI. 20.