Biographical Study of A.W. Kinglake Part 13

{28} He is very fond of this word; it occurs eleven times.

{37} "Quarterly Review," December, 1844.

{38a} "Eothen," p. 46.

{38b} Poitier's "Vaudeville."

{40} One characteristic anecdote he omits. Two French officers were attached to our headquarters; and the staff were partly embarra.s.sed and partly amused by Lord Raglan's inveterate habit, due to old Peninsular a.s.sociations, of calling the enemy "the French" in the presence of our foreign guests.

{47} Some of us can recall the lines in which Sir G. Trevelyan commemorated "The Owl's" nocturnal flights:

"When at sunset, chill and dark, Sunset thins the swarming park, Bearing home his social gleaning- Jests and riddles fraught with meaning, Scandals, anecdotes, reports,- Seeks The Owl a maze of courts Which, with aspect towards the west, Fringe the street of Sainted James, Where a warm, secluded nest As his sole domain he claims; From his wing a feather draws, Shapes for use a dainty nib, Pens his parody or squib; Combs his down and trims his claws, And repairs where windows bright Flood the sleepless Square with light."

{60} Greville, vii. 223, quotes from a letter written after Inkerman to the Prince Consort by Colonel Steele, saying "that he had no idea how great a mind Raglan really had, but that he now saw it, for in the midst of distresses and difficulties of every kind in which the army was involved, he was perfectly serene and undisturbed."

{63} "Go quietly" might have been his motto: even on horseback he seemed never to be in a hurry. Airey used to come in from their rides round the outposts shuddering with cold, and complaining that the Chief would never move his horse out of a walk. "I daresay," said Carlyle, "Lord Raglan will rise quite quietly at the last trump, and remain entirely composed during the whole day, and show the most perfect civility to both parties."

{64} The first death! out of how many he nowhere reckons: he shrinks from estimates of carnage, and we thank him for it. But an accomplished naturalist tells me that the vulture, a bird unknown in the Crimea before hostilities began, swarmed there after the Alma fight, and remained till the war was over, disappearing meanwhile from the whole North African littoral.

{66} "D-n your eyes!" he said once, in a moment of irritation, to his _attache_, Mr. Hay. "D-n your Excellency's eyes!" was the answer, delivered with deep respect but with sufficient emphasis. Dismissed on the spot, the candid _attache_ went in great anger to pack up, but was followed after a time by Lady Canning, habitual peacemaker in the household, who besought him if not to apologize at least to bid his Chief good-bye. After much persuasion he consented. "Hardly had he entered the room when Sir Stratford had him by the hand. 'My dear Hay, this will never do; what a devil of a temper you have!' The two were firmer friends than ever after this" (LANE POOLE'S _Life of Lord Stratford_, chapter xiii.).

{68} The story of an old quarrel between Sir Stratford Canning and the then Grand Duke Nicholas at St. Petersburg in 1825 is disproved by Canning's own statement. The two met once only in their lives, at a purely formal reception at Paris in 1814.

{82} _La Femme_ was a "Miss" or "Mrs." Howard. She followed Louis Napoleon to France in 1848, and lived openly with him as his mistress.

In the once famous "Letters of an Englishman" we are told how shortly after the December ma.s.sacre the _elite_ of English visitors in Paris were not ashamed to dine at her house in the President's company: and in 1860, Mrs. Simpson, in France with her father, Na.s.sau Senior, found her, decorated with the t.i.tle of Madame de Beauregard, inhabiting La Celle, near Versailles, once the abode of Madame de Pompadour, "with the national flag flying over it, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood."

{87} Bachaumont's criticism of Latour. Lady Dilke's "French Painters,"

p. 165.

{96} Here is one of the stanzas:

"L'Autriche-dit-on-et la Russie Se brouillent pour la Turquie.

Des aujourd'hui il n'en est plus question.

En invitant une femme charmante, Le Turc-et je l'en complimente- Est devenu pour nous un trait d'union."

{111} "Blackwood's Magazine," December, 1895, p. 802.

{130} I inserted this quotation before reading the "Etchingham Letters."

Sir Richard would wish me to erase it as hackneyed; but it applies to Kinglake's talk as accurately as to Virgil's writing, and I refuse to be defrauded of it.

{133} This delightful phrase is Lady Gregory's. One would wish, like Lord Houghton, though suppressing his presumptuous rider, to have been its author.

{140} Of course Kinglake was not alone in this opinion. It was voiced in a delightful _jeu d'esprit_, now forgotten, which it is worth while to reproduce:

"THE BERLIN CONGRESS.

"The following Latin poem, from the pen of the well-known German poet, Gustave Schwetschke, was distributed by Prince Bismarck's special request amongst the Plenipotentiaries immediately after the last sitting on Sat.u.r.day:

"'GAUDEAMUS CONGRESSIBILE.

"'Gaudeamus igitur Socii congressus, Post dolores bellicosos, Post labores gloriosos, n.o.bis fit decessus.

"'Ubi sunt, qui ante nos Quondam consedere, Viennenses, Parisienses Tot per annos, tot per menses?

Frustra decidere.

"'Mundus heu! vult decipi, Sed non decipiatur, Non plus ultra inter gentes Litigantes et frementes Ma.n.u.s conferatur.

'Vivat Pax! et comitent Dii nunc congressum, Ceu Deus ex machina Ipsa venit Cypria Roborans successum.

"'Pereat discordia!

Vincat semper litem Proxenetae probitas, {141} Fides, spes, et charitas, Gaudeamus item!

"G. S."

"THE OTHER VERSION.

(From the "Pall Mall Gazette.")

"A correspondent informs us that the version given in 'The Standard'

of yesterday of the congratulatory ode ('Gaudeamus igitur,' etc.) addressed to the Congress by 'the well-known German poet Gustave Schwetschke,' and 'distributed by Prince Bismarck's request among the Plenipotentiaries,' is incorrect. The true version, we are a.s.sured, is as follows:

"'Rideamus igitur, Socii Congressus; Post dolores bellicosos, Post labores b.u.mptiosos, Fit mirandus messus.

"Ubi sunt qui apud nos Causas litigare, Moldo-Wallachae frementes, Graeculi esurientes?

Heu! absquatulare.

"'Ubi sunt provinciae Quas est laus paca.s.se?

Totae, totae, sunt part.i.tae: Has tulerunt Muscovitae, Illas Count Andra.s.sy.

"'Et quid est quod Angliae Dedit hic Congressus?

Jus pro aliis pugnandi, Mortuum vivificandi- Splendidi successus!

"'Vult Joannes decipi Et bamboosulatur.

Io Beacche! Quae majestas!

Ostreae reportans testas Domum gloriatur!'"

"This version, which from internal evidence will be seen to be the true one, may be roughly Englished thus:

"Let us have our hearty laugh, Greatest of Congresses!

After days and weeks pugnacious, After labours ostentatious, See how big the mess is!

"'Where are those who at our bar Their demands have stated: Robbed Roumanians rampaging, Greeklings with earth-hunger raging?

Where? Absquatulated!

"'Where the lands we've pacified, With their rebel ma.s.ses?

All are gone; yes, all up-gobbled: These the Muscovite has n.o.bbled, Those are Count Andra.s.sy's.