“We went to that sermon on Sunday. It was really very fine and very bold; much better than the report in the Pall Mall Gazette made it. Mr. Albert D—— was there, but few else who looked as if they could understand him. He has a good voice and delivery, and the “cherubic” countenance and appealing eyes suit the pulpit; but he looks at one as I never knew any preacher do. We sat close to him, and it was as if we were in a drawing-room. M. says that all the first part was taken from my Broken Lights; that is,—it was a sketch of existing opinions on the same plan. It was good when he said:
“The High church watchword is: The Church; always and ever the same.
“The Low church watchword is: The Bible only the Religion of Protestants.
“The party of Knowledge has for its principle: ‘The Truth ever and always, and wherever it be found.’
“He gave each their share of praise and blame, saying: ‘the fault of the last party’ (his own, of course) was—that ‘sometimes in the pursuit of Knowledge they forgot Goodness.’”
I heard him preach more than once afterwards in the same gloomy old church. His aspect in his surplice was exceedingly quaint. His face, even in old age, was like that of an innocent, round-faced child; and his short, slender figure, wrapped in the long white garment, irresistibly suggested to me the idea of “an elderly cherub prepared for bed”! Altogether, taking into account his entire career, the Master of Balliol was an unique figure in English life, whom I much rejoice to have known; a modern Melchisedek.
Here is another memorandum about the same date, respecting another eminent man, interesting in another way:—
“Sept. 25th, 1860. A pleasant evening at Canon Guthrie’s. Introduced to old Lord Lansdowne; a gentle, courteous old man with deep-set, faded grey eyes, and heavy eyebrows; a blue coat and brass buttons! In the course of the evening I was carrying on war in a corner of the room against the Dean of Bristol, Mr. C—— and Margaret Elliot, about Toryism. I argued that if Justice to all were the chief end of Government, the power should be lodged in the hands of the class who best understood Justice; and that the consequence of the opposite course was manifest in America, where the freest government which had ever existed, supported also the most gigantic of all wrongs—Slavery. On this Countess Rothkirch who sat by, clapped her hands with joy; and the Dean came down on me saying, ‘That if power should only be given to those who would use it justly, then the Tories should never have any power at all; for they never used it justly.’ Hearing the laughter at my discomfiture, Lord Lansdowne toddled across the room and sat down beside me saying: ‘What is it all about?’ I cried: ‘Oh Lord Lansdowne! you are the very person in the whole world to help me—I am defending Tory principles!’ He laughed heartily, and said ‘I am afraid I can hardly do that.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘you may be converted at the eleventh hour!’ ‘Don’t you know,’ he said, ‘what a child asked her mother: “Are Tories born wicked, mother, or do they only become so?”’ Margaret said this was really asked by a cousin of her own, one of the Adam family. It ended in much laughter and talking about ‘Transformation,’ and the ‘Semi-attached Couple‘—which Lord Lansdowne said he was just reading. ‘I like novels very much,’ he said, ‘only I take a little time between each of them.’ When I got up to go away the kind old man rose in the most courtly way to shake hands, and paid me a little old-world compliment.”
This was the eloquent statesman and patron of literature, Henry, third Marquis of Lansdowne, in whose time his house, (Bowood,) was the resort of the finest intellectual society of England. I have a droll letter in my possession referring to this Bowood society, by Sydney Smith, written to Mrs. Kemble, then Mrs. Butler. It has come to me with all her other papers and with seven letters from Lord Lansdowne pressing her to pay him visits. Sydney Smith writes on his invitation to her to come to Combe Fleury; after minute directions about the route:—
“The interval between breakfast and dinner brings you to Combe Fleury. We are the next stage (to Bowood). Lord Lansdowne’s guests commonly come here dilated and disordered with high living.”