And Harcourt was capping the jokes of Delane."
The sole survivor of that brilliant group now[[19]] leads the Opposition; but at the time when the lines were written he had not yet entered the House of Commons. As a youth of twenty-five he had astonished the political world by his anonymous letters on The Morality of Public Men, in which he denounced, in the style of Junius, the Protectionist revival of 1852. He had fought a plucky but unsuccessful fight at Kirkcaldy; was making his five thousand a year at the Parliamentary Bar; had taught the world international law over the signature of "Historicus," and was already, what he is still, one of the most conspicuous and interesting figures in the society of London. Of Sir William Harcourt's political alliances this is not the place nor am I the person to treat:
"Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:
We are but mortals, and must sing of Man."
My theme is not Sir William Harcourt the politician, but Sir William Harcourt the man, the member of society—above all, the talker. And, although I have thus deliberately put politics on one side, it is strictly relevant to my purpose to observe that Sir William is essentially and typically a Whig. For Whiggery, rightly understood, is not a political creed but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated its spirit. The Whigs, indeed, as a body have held certain opinions and pursued certain tactics which have been analyzed in chapters XIX. and XXI. of the unexpurgated Book of Snobs. But those opinions and those tactics have been mere accidents, though perhaps inseparable accidents, of Whiggery. Its substance has been relationship.
When Lord John Russell formed his first Administration his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed of his cousins, and one of his younger brothers was charged with the impossible task of rebutting the accusation in a public speech. Mr. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made excellent fun of what he called "the sacred circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed—what, indeed, the Whigs themselves knew uncommonly well—that from a certain Earl Gower, who flourished in the eighteenth century, and was great-great-great-grandfather of the present Duke of Sutherland, are descended all the Levesons,[[20]] Gowers, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Russells, and Harcourts, who walk on the face of the earth. Truly a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They are our superiors," said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps it is as unnecessary to say so as to say I'm not King Pippin in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts). I'm not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!"
From this illustrious stock Sir William Harcourt is descended through his grandmother, Lady Anne Harcourt —born Leveson-Gower, and wife of the last Prince-Archbishop of York (whom, by the way, Sir William strikingly resembles both in figure and in feature). When one meets Sir William Harcourt for the first time in society, perhaps one is first struck by the fact that he is in aspect and bearing a great gentleman of the old school, and then that he is an admirable talker. He is a true Whig in culture as well as in blood. Though his conversation is never pedantic, it rests on a wide and strong basis of generous learning. Even those who most cordially admire his political ability do not always remember that he is an excellent scholar, and graduated as eighth in the First Class of the Classical Tripos in the year when Bishop Lightfoot was Senior Classic. He has the Corpus Poetarum and Shakespeare and Pope at his finger-ends, and his intimate acquaintance with the political history of England elicited a characteristic compliment from Lord Beaconsfield. It is his favourite boast that in all his tastes, sentiments, and mental habits he belongs to the eighteenth century, which he glorifies as the golden age of reason, patriotism, and liberal learning. This self-estimate strikes me as perfectly sound, and it requires a very slight effort of the imagination to conceive this well-born young Templar wielding his doughty pen in the Bangorian Controversy, or declaiming on the hustings for Wilkes and Liberty; bandying witticisms with Sheridan, and capping Latin verses with Charles Fox; or helping to rule England as a member of that "Venetian Oligarchy" on which Lord Beaconsfield lavished all the vials of his sarcasm. In truth, it is not fanciful to say that whatever was best in the eighteenth century—its robust common sense, its racy humour, its thorough and unaffected learning, its ceremonious courtesy for great occasions, its jolly self-abandonment in social intercourse—is exhibited in the demeanour and conversation of Sir William Harcourt. He is an admirable host, and, to borrow a phrase from Sydney Smith, "receives his friends with that honest joy which warms more than dinner or wine." As a guest, he is a splendid acquisition, always ready to amuse and to be amused, delighting in the rapid cut-and-thrust of personal banter, and bringing out of his treasure things new and old for the amusement and the benefit of a later and less instructed generation.
Extracts from the private conversation of living people, as a rule, I forbear; but some of Sir William's quotations are so extraordinarily apt that they deserve a permanent place in the annals of table-talk. That fine old country gentleman, the late Lord Knightley (who was the living double of Dickens's Sir Leicester Dedlock), had been expatiating after dinner on the undoubted glories of his famous pedigree. The company was getting a little restive under the recitation, when Sir William was heard to say, in an appreciative aside, "This reminds me of Addison's evening hymn—
'And Knightley to the listening earth
Repeats the story of his birth.'"