light-hearted transgressions of discipline (for they were nothing more, and corrected, as Dr. Keate corrected everything, by the rod) he settled down to a course of steady but not excessive or unhealthy industry. In

un

those days, I speak of the decade between 1830 and 1840, the curriculum of Eton was undoubtedly narrow and defective. But at least, what was taught was well worth teaching, and was taught excellently and thoroughly. The more perfect idea of a great educational seminary had not then taken shape. The masters taught us Latin and Greek, and did not teach us pulling and cricket. The Duke of Newcastle had recently founded and endowed a scholarship for the best scholar the school could annually produce; and the masters had not founded prizes for running and leaping and walking, and other natural or natural athletics. The Newcastle Scholar, strange as it may sound to the present generation, was as much thought of in the school, as the Captain of the Boats or the Captain of the Eleven. The answer of a distinguished Devonshire nobleman to a public commission, that it would not be against a boy at Eton to be a Newcastle scholar if he was also a fair proficient in some athletic pursuit, could not then have been given with truth, as no doubt it was when the noble Earl gave it. It seemed in those days to be the idea that the river and the playing-fields presented sufficient attractions of themselves; and that there was no need for the authorities to urge on the boys to games and amusements of which they were tolerably certain, without such encouragement, to be quite fond enough. Yet they pulled, they played cricket, they played hockey and fives and football, not perhaps with the fierce enthusiasm and profound science of the present time, yet well enough to do themselves a great deal of good in the way of manly self-reliance and healthy exercise. They could put a boat through the water at a good pace

against a swift stream: they could knock balls about in what seemed good style they could beat Westminster (I speak as an Eton man): they could hold their own against Winchester and Harrow.

Into this Eton of 1830 Sir Stafford Northcote entered as a boy, and soon became distinguished both as a scholar and as an adept in the games which scholars then pursued. He was a good oar, a good hockey-player, and a remarkably fast runner. In some other games his short sight stood in his way. Then, as always, he was conspicuous for the singular facility with which everything he did was done. A sound scholar, with a graceful and accurate command of such Greek and Latin as Eton boys were familiar with, he never seemed to be taking trouble or expending labour. Everything was done almost as a matter of course, and he seemed always to have leisure for games, for walks, for talks, for all those things which make life pleasant without making it useless. He had time for everything, and everything was well done. This reputation followed him to Oxford, where, with Arthur Hugh Clough for his fellowscholar, he won a scholarship at Balliol, a prize as eagerly coveted in those days. as in these, and subjecting the Scholar to a discipline in Lecture and out of Lecture which I believe no one who has undergone it but has felt to his great advantage in his whole after- life. There, too, he obtained a Classical firstclass and some distinction in Mathematics, without any one being aware that he was reading hard, and with no apparent serious interference with the social and other pleasures of the place.

This was from no affected ostentation of a disregard for the distinctions of the University. Sir Stafford

Northcote was not a man who made up for studied negligence in public by keeping himself awake on strong green tea, and reading half the night with a wet towel round his head. The simplicity of his nature would have recoiled from such silly and dangerous

vanity. But, then, as always, the quickness of his apprehension, the clearness and method of his mind, the ease and felicity with which he could reproduce what he had digested and assimilated, enabled him to attain success with an amount of labour which was the admiring despair of his friends and the wonder of those who saw him only as the delight of wineparties for his humorous stories, his genial playfulness, his hearty enjoyment of the fun, the brightness, and the wisdom of others, which (so far as young men are capable of such things) made college-life a joy in the present, and a rich storehouse of good and happy thoughts in the past.

Such as he was when he left Oxford, such he remained in all the main outlines of his character till the very end of his life; and although, of course, lapse of years told upon him as on other men, ripening his judgment, strengthening his oratory, developing his intellect; still he remained at sixtyeight very much what he was twenty-eight, except that he was an old man instead of a young. He was a character who exemplified in life the precept of Horace as to fiction:

"Servetur ad imum

at

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet." It follows from what I have already said that with the ordinary and greatest Greek and Latin writers he was familiar. Not that he was ever so learned a scholar as Mr. Gladstone

or Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Lowe or, above all, Sir George Cornewall Lewis; but he knew his classics as Mr. Canning or Mr. Pitt or Sir Robert Peel knew them; and they formed the occasion of a pleasant controversy between the young Northcote and the aged Wellesley; in which, as was natural, the larger reading of the old Marquis was able to defend with success the classical authority of a Latin word which the young Oxford man had ventured to question. I cannot speak of his

The word was littus, which Sir Stafford Northcote maintained to be applicable to the

knowledge of German or Italian, but he had an unusually wide acquaintance with French literature; so wide and deep that I should suppose few living Englishmen excelled or even equalled him. His knowledge of English literature, both old and recent, was very great indeed; and if he did not always admire what I do, nor as I do, this is natural in such matters, and though, as every one else does, I think my taste right, he probably thought just the same of his taste, and very likely upon grounds just as good. Having said this, I may add, merely as my own opinion, that I do not think he appreciated fully works of high imagination, and that he hardly felt refinement of style, melody of language, subtlety of expression, as much as many men I have known far his inferiors in intellectual power and general cultivation. I should myself say that it was the same as to art. Perhar he had not given time to it; perhaps he could not give the time; perhaps it did not seem to him worth the trouble and the study which a real and thorough comprehension of fine art, as of everything really great and profound, requires of a man who wishes fully to comprehend it. He knew much about it, in a general way he admired it; but, to say the very truth, he always seemed to me, as he was somewhat deaf to the highest strains in literature, so to be somewhat blind to the most exquisite and sublimest creations of the painter or sculptor. Remember, that in saying this I feel entirely that he would probably have said something in kindly disparagement of the taste of his critic, if he had lived and thought it worth while to criticise him.

Of his English style you have yourselves had examples and can judge as well as I; and we have to thank Lady

sea-shore alone, whereas Lord Wellesley ad used it of a river-bank, for which kind of shore it was contended ripa was the proper expression. But Lord Wellesley met and silenced the contention by the authority of Horace and Virgil.

Iddesleigh for a volume of his papers, full of interest, excellent as pieces of literature, handling a variety of topics with that easy mastery difficult to attain, but delightful to those for whose benefit it is exercised: different altogether from the superficial cleverness of the sciolist, and suggesting always that the sources of it are unexhausted, and in every page of them, if I may quote a phrase of Lady Iddesleigh's own, "reflecting his clear judgment and his gentle, unprejudiced mind." The range of the volume is very wide; from Political Economy and the closing of the Exchequer by Charles the Second to Nothing.

"Intervalla vides humani commoda."

Yet all the subjects receive fresh and apposite illustration from his large knowledge, his playful wit and fancy, his serene and impartial understanding; and the papers appear to me to hit the exact and happy medium between learned and exhaustive dissertations, which would have been entirely out of place, and those merely superficial addresses which wile away half an hour more or less agreeably, and then are, as they ought to be, forgotten. Something akin to these papers were his speeches delivered in Parliament and elsewhere. In oratory, however, he greatly and distinctly improved as years went on. I remember many years ago, when Sir Stafford was a young man, his making a speech from this platform at a meeting presided over by the then Bishop of Exeter, a man of very great qualities, himself in a certain style an orator wellnigh unrivalled, and a critic of other men's performances at once most competent and most severe. His judgment of Sir Stafford's speech was not only very unfavourable, but committed him to the opinion that the speaker never could succeed in public life. How entirely the bishop's forecast was falsified by the event we all know. He became, as I can testify, a speaker perfectly competent to hold his own with the greatest masters of debate in

the House of Commons, one with whom the foremost man of his time always felt that he must deal respectfully, and put forth his whole strength to answer : not perhaps one who could thunder down a Chamber or sweep the House of Commons away in a fierce flood of eloquence; but one who could express clear thought in clear language, could conceive with spirit and express with dignity, and could leave his audience when he sat down not, perhaps, convinced (who ever convinced a political antagonist on the spot by a speech?), yet brought to a pause, if they were his opponents, and supplied, if they were his supporters, with excellent reasons for the vote they were about to give. Above all, he had in large measure that which Aristotle calls the iris

ok, the moral suasion, the influence of character, charming and conciliating even where it did not convince. The great Lord Erskine, as I have heard his son say, was once discussing with Mr. Canning the merits and gifts of Mr. Perceval, whom Lord Erskine thought Mr. Canning underrated as a rival. Lord Erskine said that Mr. Perceval was a much abler man than Mr. Canning was disposed to admit, for various reasons, which he gave, and then he added: "Remember, Canning, that you never speak without making an enemy, Perceval never speaks without making a friend, and this in itself is a great power." I leave the application of the story to those who have heard Sir Stafford Northcote speak.

In this assembly I must pass over his politics sicco pede. At one time we thoroughly agreed, but for many years his politics and mine very widely differed. Which of us changed most I really do not know; but of this I am sure, that in every change or modification of opinion he was actuated by the purest principle, and that in no single action of his life did he ever deviate for one instant from the path pointed out to him by unbending integrity and stainless honour. Two remarks, quasi-political in their character, will I permit myself.

First, that Free-trade opinions were almost congenital with him. In his allegiance to them he never wavered. Almost the last public service he rendered his country was to preside with remarkable prudence, fairness, and ability over the Commission on the Depression of Trade, of which one unquestioned and unquestionable result was to show that countries relying on Protection suffered much more heavily from the depression than those which rely upon Free-trade. He once indeed, under strong pressure, admitted Fair-trade to the rank of what he called "a pious opinion"; but every one knew that his own opinion on the subject was not pious, and that whatever he might allow as an opinion, his practice would be rigidly orthodox. Next, that wherever Sir Stafford Northcote was, into whatever office he was put, by whomsoever he was surrounded, his first impulse was to reform; to find out and correct abuses, to curtail useless expenditure, to promote practical efficiency. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that every society and every institution, with which he ever was connected, is the better for the connection. Many of the best and most approved reforms made in the last thirty years in our internal administration are due to the suggestion and to the guiding hand of Sir Stafford Northcote. To his reforms no one ever did or could object. It is only to be regretted that being of late years so much necessarily absorbed in the fierce strife of party politics, he had so little time or opportunity for displaying the genius, which he undoubtedly possessed, of a great practical reformer.

One other neutral observation I must be permitted to make; neutral always, thank God, as far as party politics are concerned, but one which it was at one time rather dangerous to make; dangerous I mean to one's personal comfort, if one made it in most social gatherings, whether in London or elsewhere. There was a time when, in the great American civil war, the

sympathies of the English upper classes went with Slavery, and when the North had scant justice and no mercy at their hands. I have myself seen that most distinguished man, Charles Francis Adams, subjected in society to treatment which, if he had resented it, might have seriously imperilled the relations of the two countries; and which nothing but the wonderful self-command of a very strong man, and his resolute determination to stifle all personal feeling, and to consider himself only as the minister of a great country, enabled him to treat, as he did, with mute disdain. But in this critical state of things in and out of Parliament, Mr. Disraeli and Sir Stafford Northcote on one side, and the Duke of Argyll and Sir George Cornewall Lewis on the other, mainly contributed to keep this country neutral, and to save us from the ruinous mistake of taking part with. the South. On this matter Sir Stafford Northcote thought with his usual clearness, but spoke with an energy not usual in so kind a man. I well remember his saying to me in this city that he hoped to live long enough to see a particular member of Mr. Jefferson Davis's cabinet hanged for his treason; and he added that he could not understand how any man could look without utter horror and loathing (they were his own words, not mine) at the prospect of a great empire founded upon slavery and committed to the maintenance of slavery as the very principle of its being. His calmness was not coldness or indifference, his gentleness was not weakness. Moral wrong (as he regarded it), oppression, cruelty, roused him to wrath and indignation, the more striking from their contrast to his habitual serenity, the more impressive from the unexpected disclosure of those depths of feeling and emotion, the existence of which was generally concealed under the veil of his quiet self-control. I do not know, but I imagine that it was his strong sympathy with the Federal cause, and his sense of the reparation we owed to America, which led him to place his great abilities at the service

of his country as one of the commissioners of the Treaty of Washington, though the Treaty was negotiated by a Government to which he was politically opposed. And I can never forget the unbroken dignity with which he sustained remarks upon himself, and the spirit with which he repelled attacks upon the provisions of the Treaty, made, I must say, with complete impartiality from both sides of the House of Commons.

Of his powers as a financier it does not become me to speak. Finance is a subject which I most imperfectly understand; and if you have no clear ideas yourself about a subject, you are pretty sure to waste the time of others and your own if you try to speak upon it. But I have heard from those who are competent to judge that he had great financial skill and power, and that where subsequent Chancellors of the Exchequer have departed from his plans, they have departed generally for the worse.

It follows, if I have placed before you even the faintest image of Sir Stafford Northcote, that he lacked one quality of the great Dr. Johnson: he was but a poor hater. I do believe, that either by original creation or in answer to his prayers, God had de livered him from envy, hatred, malice,

For this

and all uncharitableness. reason, though he led his party, as it seems to one not belonging to it, with singular skill and wisdom, he was not perhaps a very good party man. Ben Jonson says that in his day the times were "so wholly partial or malicious, that if a man be a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if an enemy or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in him; insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgements to soothe our passions." Nothing in this vigorous passage found an echo in Sir Stafford's nature. He thought the best he could of every one he declined to ascribe bad motives to those at whose hands he had experienced slights and injuries

which many men, which perhaps most men, would have bitterly resented. He felt these things keenly, but with a rare magnanimity he uttered no complaint, he held his peace. I believe that he forgave those who did them: he certainly made excuses for them, and that with no double sense of irony or sarcasm, but honestly, truly, simply. Well, they have their reward, and he has his !

For it follows also from what I have said, that if he was a poor hater he was a fast friend. He was indeed and in truth,

"That faithful friend, best boon of Heaven,
Unto some favoured mortal given,
Though still the same, yet varying still
Our each successive want to fill;
Beneath life's ever fitful hue
To us he bears an aspect new."

So says the author of The Cathedral: and those who had the friendship of Sir Stafford Northcote might well thank Heaven for the boon it had bestowed. His friendship once given

was

never capriciously, was, I may say by him, never withdrawn. It outlasted diversities of life, changes of opinion, differences of politics, severance of circumstances. He clung to friends always, in success, in sorrow, nay more, in discredit: he worked actively for friends without regard to politics, till the ties of party became too strong for him to break. In this place I would not if I could, and I could not if I would, say all he was to one who had known him from a child. The lofty eulogy of Virgil,

"Ripheus, justissimus unus Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus aequi,"

was once quoted by Mr. Gladstone of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and might form the foundation of an eulogy as lofty and as true upon Sir Stafford Northcote; but I take refuge in the noble lines written by Mr. Lyttelton in 1749, describing his friend:

"He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart,

So clear of interest, so devoid of art,