It was a characteristic saying, for, in truth, he was a born debater, never so happy as when coping on the spur of the moment with the arguments and appeals which an opponent had spent perhaps days in elaborating beforehand. Again, in the art of elucidating figures he was unequalled. He was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever made the Budget interesting. "He talked shop," it was said, "like a tenth muse." He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to the most prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic and sugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings. And yet, extraordinary as were these feats of intellectual athletics, Mr. Gladstone's unapproached supremacy as an orator was not really seen until he touched the moral elements involved in some great political issue. Then, indeed, he spoke like a prophet and a man inspired. His whole physical formation seemed to become "fusile" with the fire of his ethical passion, and his eloquence flowed like a stream of molten lava, carrying all before it in its irresistible rush, glorious as well as terrible, and fertilizing while it subdued. Mr. Gladstone's departure from the House of Commons closed a splendid tradition, and Parliamentary Oratory as our fathers understood it may now be reckoned among the lost arts.
XIII.
CONVERSATION.
We have agreed that Parliamentary Oratory, as our fathers understood that phrase, is a lost art. Must Conversation be included in the same category? To answer with positiveness is difficult; but this much may be readily conceded—that a belief in the decadence of conversation is natural to those who have specially cultivated Links with the Past; who grew up in the traditions of Luttrell and Mackintosh, and Lord Alvanley and Samuel Rogers; who have felt Sydney Smith's irresistible fun, and known the overwhelming fullness of Lord Macaulay. It is not unreasonable even in that later generation which can still recall the frank but high-bred gaiety of the great Lord Derby, the rollicking good-humour and animal spirits of Bishop Wilberforce, the saturnine epigrams of Lord Beaconsfield, the versatility and choice diction of Lord Houghton, the many-sided yet concentrated malice which supplied the stock in trade of Abraham Hayward. More recent losses have been heavier still. Just ten years ago[[15]] died Mr. Matthew Arnold, who combined in singular harmony the various elements which go to make good conversation—urbanity, liveliness, quick sympathy, keen interest in the world's works and ways, the happiest choice of words, and a natural and never-failing humour, as genial as it was pungent. It was his characteristic glory that he knew how to be a man of the world without being frivolous, and a man of letters without being pedantic.
Eight years ago[[16]] I was asked to discuss the Art of Conversation in one of the monthly reviews, and I could then illustrate it by such living instances as Lord Granville, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Coleridge, Lord Bowen, Mr. Browning, and Mr. Lowell. Each of those distinguished men had a conversational gift which was peculiarly his own. Each talked like himself, and like no one else; each made his distinct and individual contribution to the social agreeableness of London. If in now endeavouring to recall their characteristic gifts I use words which I have used before, my excuse must be that the contemporary record of a personal impression cannot with advantage be retouched after the lapse of years.
Lord Granville's most notable quality was a humorous urbanity. As a story-teller he was unsurpassed. He had been everywhere and had known every one. He was quick to seize a point, and extraordinarily apt in anecdote and illustration. His fine taste appreciated whatever was best in life, in conversation, in literature, even when (as in his selection of the preface to the Sanctus as his favourite piece of English prose) it was gathered from fields in which he had not habitually roamed. A man whose career had been so full of vivid and varied interests must often have felt acutely bored by the trivial round of social conversation. But if he could not rise—who can?—to the apostolic virtue of suffering bores gladly, at any rate he endured their onslaughts as unflinchingly as he stood the gout. A smiling countenance and an unfailing courtesy concealed the torment which was none the less keen because it was unexpressed. He could always feel, or at least could show, a gracious interest in what interested his company, and he possessed in supreme perfection the happy knack of putting those to whom he spoke in good conceit with themselves.
The late Sir Robert Peel was, both mentally and physically, one of the most picturesque figures in society. Alike in his character and in his aspect the Creole blood which he had inherited from his maternal descent triumphed over the robust and serviceable commonplace which was the characteristic quality of the Peels. Lord Beaconsfield described "a still gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock coat, with a ribboned button-hole; a well-turned boot; hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new. There was something respectable and substantial about him, notwithstanding his moustaches and a carriage too debonair for his years." The description, for whomsoever intended, is a lifelike portrait of Sir Robert Peel. His most salient feature as a talker was his lovely voice—deep, flexible, melodious. Mr. Gladstone—no mean judge of such matters—pronounced it the finest organ he ever heard in Parliament; but with all due submission to so high an authority, I should have said that it was a voice better adapted to the drawing-room than to the House of Commons. In a large space a higher note and a clearer tone tell better, but in the close quarters of social intercourse one appreciates the sympathetic qualities of a rich baritone. And Sir Robert's voice, admirable in itself, was the vehicle of conversation quite worthy of it. He could talk of art and sport, and politics and books; he had a great memory, varied information, lively interest in the world and its doings, and a full-bodied humour which recalled the social tone of the Eighteenth century.
His vein of personal raillery was rather robust than refined. Nothing has been heard in our time quite like his criticism of Sir Edgar Boehm in the House of Commons, or his joke about Mr. Justice Chitty at the election for Oxford in 1880. But his humour (to quote his own words) "had an English ring," and much must be pardoned to a man who, in this portentous age of reticence and pose, was wholly free from solemnity, and when he heard or saw what was ludicrous was not afraid to laugh at it. Sir Robert Peel was an excellent hand at what our fathers called banter and we call chaff. A prig or a pedant was his favourite butt, and the performance was rendered all the more effective by his elaborate assumption of the grand seigneur's manner. The victim was dimly conscious that he was being laughed at, but comically uncertain about the best means of reprisal. Sydney Smith described Sir James Mackintosh as "abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most successful ridicule." Whoever performs that process is a social benefactor, and the greatest master of it whom I have ever known was Sir Robert Peel.