Lord Carlingford believed that Francis wrote Junius, a view which old Mr.
Dilke opposed.
'But Abraham Hayward, who was constantly with him, held anti- Franciscan opinions, and he would, I knew, have the full run of the books, which I was certain in Fortescue's hands would be carefully preserved. My arrangements were not concluded until the end of the following year, 1873, when I presented the last of the Pope books and all my grandfather's Pope manuscripts to John Murray, the publisher, in consequence of his great interest in the new edition.' [Footnote: Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's works.]
In the same year Sir Charles Dilke made another arrangement which testified to the strength of his brotherly affection. Wentworth Dilke had left his personal property in the proportion of two-thirds to the elder son and one-third to the younger; and had also exercised a power of appointment which he held by dividing his wife's property in the same way. Charles Dilke now decided that the shares should be equalized, and secured this by handing over one-sixth of his property to Ashton, who was at this time in Russia, on a journey of exploration extending over the greater part of that Empire.
About this time also Sir Charles purchased Notes and Queries for £2,500 from its founder, Mr. Thoms, the Librarian of the House of Lords, 'one of the dearest old men that ever was worshipped by his friends,' and a devoted admirer of old Mr. Dilke. He appointed Dr. Doran to be editor, "partly as consolation for having refused him the editorship of the Athenaeum, for which he had asked as an old contributor and as the yearly acting editor in the 'editor's holiday.'" But Sir Charles's choice had fallen on Mr. Norman MacColl, 'that Scotch Solomon,' as he sometimes called this admirable critic, who conducted the paper for thirty years.
'In the autumn we went abroad again, and took a letter of introduction to George Sand, for whose talent Katie had a great admiration. We missed her at Trouville, but found her afterwards in Paris—an interesting person, hideously ugly, but more pleasant than her English rival novelist, the other pseudonymous George. They had few points in common except that both wrote well and were full of talent of a different kind and were equally monstrous, looking like two old horses.'
Of George Eliot's "talent" he wrote to Hepworth Dixon in 1866:
"The only fact of which I am at this present very certain … is that Miss Evans is not far from being the best indirect describer of character and the wittiest observer of human nature that has lived in England since Shakespeare, and I think that there are touches in Amos Barton, Scenes from Clerical Life, and in the first few chapters of The Mill on the Floss quite worthy of Shakespeare himself."
Also there is reference to a letter quoted in George Eliot's Life which tells that the year 1873 "began sweetly" for her, because "a beautiful bouquet with a pretty legend was left at my door by a person who went away after ringing." 'It was I,' says Sir Charles, 'who left that bouquet and I who wrote that legend. It was Katie who prepared the bouquet and asked me to take it.'
III.
After the tempestuous scene of March 19th, Sir Charles had remained on the whole a silent member of Parliament.