102
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. v. FEB. 10, 1900.
much general interest or in good style. The
following in my collection of autographs-
written in his twenty-fifth vear, when re-
siding at the Albany, by the Hon. E. H.
Stanley, shortly afterwards known as Lord
Stanley, and subsequently fifteenth Earl of
Derby (b. 1826 ; d. 1893), to his friend and, if
I remember rightly, late fellow-student of
Trinity (Camb.), Charles Astor Bristed, the
author (b. 1820 ; d. 1874), at Washington, U.S.,
is, however, an exception to the rule, and (as
containing references to the then prevailing
epidemic of catarrh called "influenza," to our
first Great Exhibition, to the recent changes
in the Government, the "No Popery" agita-
tion, and other matters of considerable public
interest) deserving of publication. It will
be noted that the writer terms his letter
"short and dull," but this is in the humorous
vein which runs throughout:
Albany, London, March 9th, 1851. DEAR BRISTED, You will owe this epistle in part to your pamphlet of last year, which arrived in safety, and was eagerly read : and also to an in- fluenza, as I believe the learned in such things call it, which keeps me at home half-deaf, nearly dumb, and altogether lazy. I never knew until now that doing nothing was so amusing an occupation as I find it : the discovery once made, I shall profit by it in future. We are a nation of invalids, and France, at least Paris, is the same. They say there are there 40,000 people ill with colds, coughs, &c. I don't put much faith in such social statistics, but certainly London does nothing but sneeze and wheeze in chorus. This is since the ministerial crisis : then everybody \vas too busy, too anxious, or too impatient for news, to recollect that they were ill. As I see none of your papers except the New York Herald, and that only in the edition in- tended for Europe, 1 never know to what extent the transatlantic editors keep you misinformed on the state of affairs here. Our penny-a-liners com- bine on such occasions not only to tell all that is passing, but a great deal more into the bargain : and the inventive powers of " our own correspond- ents " have been heavily taxed in the course of the last few weeks. The history is briefly this. Govern- ment found themselves weak, and grew weary of being baited every night in the speeches, and often beaten in the division: besides, they had raised difficulties innumerable, which they could not settle, and durst not leave alone, but which they hoped to have the satisfaction of bequeathing to their successors : so one fine morning they resigned, and we tried our chance. During three or four days we thought ourselves nearly certain of success : unluckily our intended colleagues did not agree with us, and looked on at our efforts as an English- man (according to some authors) looks on at a row : in the end it failed, and things remain as they were. The most peculiar feature of these political changes is the immense amount of slander and gossip which they produce : no old maid in a country town could invent or circulate half the scandals which on these occasions are hatched in the clubs, and passed round from one grave politician to another. You used to complain, and as far as I could judge, with perfect
justice, of the talking of the New York coteries :
had you only seen London ten days back, you
would have gone home reconciled to your country,
and patriotic for life. We have cooled down for
the present, but I expect fresh troubles before the
autumn.
For myself I left Paris about a fortnight after you, rambled on to Madrid, thence returned through the South of France, paid Lord Brougham a visit at Cannes, and vegetated through a winter in Lancashire. I have not spoken once during the three weeks of the session : my silence was choice at first, and just now is necessity. But I find the " grand talent pour le silence " our national boast grow upon me even in Parliament : one of the qualifications for a debater is the power of occasion- ally talking nonsense either without knowing, or without caring that it is so : and when one has succeeded to a certain extent at first, one grows more afraid of failure, afterwards. Of our Parisian friends I have seen none. Rochefoucauld talked of coming over to look at the Exhibition, which really w r ill be a fine show. Imagine a gigantic conservatory 1,800 feet long, and 900 wide in the broadest part : that is, about six times the length of the Astor House front which looks on Broadway : fill this with everything that can be found or made between ~ hina and Peru : and collect 20,000 people, who will be able to move about at the same time without crowding the building, to look on and wonder. There is a story that Barnum has bid for it house,
- oods, and all at secondhand
- and that you are to
have the scene acted over again 1 suppose near Eellgate or on Long Island. After Jenny Lind and Thackeray, he could do no less. Our good cockneys, lowever, have no idea of parting with their toy : last year they insisted on its being a mere temporary ouilding, and now they are ready to tear the archi- tect to pieces because he obeyed his orders.
When I first came home, I found England in one of its periodical fits of No-Popery madness. No one could speak, write, or think, of anything except the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman : it reminded me of the three months immediately before a Pre- sidential election. Among the mob the feeling amounted to frenzy. You may judge whether this is exaggeratic, when I tell you that soon after Wise- man came over, his legal adviser (a Mr. Bagshaw) asked him to dinner. On the day for which his party was fixed, the butler came and told him that " other people might do as they liked, but for his part, he had a soul to be saved, and he could not reconcile it to his conscience to wait upon Papists." The man persisted, and left his place accordingly. Can you fancy this in England, and in 1851 ? I heard the story directly from the person concerned. It really ought to be set down to our credit politically, that we have done everything to discourage this mania. Had we chosen to avail ourselves of it, we might long ago have been carried into Downing Street on a high tide of fanaticism. To be sure we should have had a civil war in Ireland : but there are some speculators who say that such an event rather strengthens a government, since nobody dares then oppose their measures for fear of being suspected of abetting revolution.
We have no new books of much interest, except a posthumous memoir of Lord Holland's, contain- ing much scandal, not exactly about Queen Eliza- beth, but what is hardly newer, about Marie Antoinette. A minister's politics follow him into the grave : the rival reviews have praised and
