A FAMOUS STATESMAN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1299, 30 November 1911, Page 4

A FAMOUS STATESMAN.

THE" LATE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. AN/INTERESTING 'PERSONALITY. "ICdon't know why it is, but whenever a roan is caught cheating at cards the case is reform! to me." "AU throngh life," he once told an audience'of undergraduates at Cambridge,. "I havaVbad to work wjth-.nien.who thought three'times as quick as I did."., These are two glirupsefi of tho late Duko of Devonshire, also known asi.Lord Hartingtdn, given iu a now lifo by Mr. Ber-nard-Holland (Longman). ' • "The Times" says'that tho Duke inherited a strong sense of duty and a probity of character which was re.inarkablo iroirihis earliest years. ', .' ■ A Glimpse of Lincoln. "Before ho was-thirty that shrewd jtidgo pf men, President Lincoln, who saw him at Washington in., tho second year, of the Civil Wμ, prophesied his -iutnre greatness. "Hartington," said. Lincoln, "well;- that rhymes with. Partington. But'HarHngtohV estimate of Lincoln was not equally shrewd: Writing to his father; , Hartington said.ho was "very civil and ho also told us stories. I Raid I supposed >we had como at a bad time to seo the country, and he said, 'Well, he guessed we couldn't do them much, harm.' I never saw such a specimen of a Yankco in my life. 'I should think he was a very wellmeaning sort, of a man, but, almost everyone says, about as fit for his position now a3 a fire shovel." And Lincoln was tho hero/of tho.Civil War and the peoples idol to-day! , .., ,„■ .. ;.;;:'■'_ Hisjproudost Moment. "£v&ryone,! J 'says '"The'*Tiraes," "knows the stery of Hartiugtou's yawning in tho middle of his speech in tho House of Commons, ',e.rid;.when. reminded of the fact excusing;hiins'etf by saying, 'Well, I suppose it was very dull.' And Mr. Holland tells us that when he became an.TJnder-becrc-tary ho showed at once his coolness and his habitual unpunctuality by. arriving at the-House, late, for his first official spoech. These, in fact, wore things which ho dicf from a sense ot duty, and it was easy for him to be cool because his ambition lay elsewhere. 'Sometimes,' he said on one-occasion to a friend, 'I dream that I am leading in a winner of the Derby,' but the dream, as he feared, was never to bo realised. An orator in the House of Lords was once speaking of some moment as the.-.-proudest in hi.s life. 'The proudest moment in my, lifo/ murmured the Duketo his 'neighbour, 'was when my pig won tho first prize at Skipton Fair." :'.. His Forgetfulness. His carelessness about ,dress was notorious, and wo are told how, when ho had worn a cortain round hat disgracefully long at race meetings and elsewhere, fonr-and-twenty ladies conspired each 1 to send him a hat of the same kind on tho samo day. ,'He had. A' wonderful knack of for*' getting things'which everyone else would havo remembered :— "It ,is said that upon one occasion King Edward told him that he proposed to dine quietly at Devonshire House on a certain day. /Tho Duke forgot this arrangement, and, when tho King unexpectedly arrived, bad to bo hurriedly retrieved i'roni the Tnrf Club. ,This rccaljs a certainly true tale of Queen Victoria. Tho Queen had (old the Duke of Devonshire of her idea— at that time a new and striking one —of revisiting Ireland after the lapse of many troubled years. Sho asked him to mention it to Lord Salisbury, then Primo Minister, so that she might talk to him about it when/be had had time to think it'over. When-tho Queen nest sawJLord Salisbury she said: 'And what do you think of my Irish'plan?' but'found tho Prime Minister blankly ignorant of her meaning. 'Tho fact was I clean forgot about it/ said the Duke."; .. . ... i.Striiggje for England's Soul..'. Writing of tho year 1876, after tho passage of Disraeli's Bill conferring the title of Empress pf 'India ,on the Queen, Mr. Holland says:— . "Now. began, the supreme struggle for tho soiil of 'England between the descendant of'cool and wary Italian-Jews and tho descendant of , hot-blooded and combative Scottish peasants. Hartington was a high-born Englishman, and was in political sympathy with neither; oven less, perhaps', in his. heart with Gladstone than with Btsraeli. In private lifa lie would certainly have, preferred to spend an evening in.,tbc company of Disraeli, who, .in «dditipn to his more serious qualities, Was a man/of this worlds very amusing, and 'able, to-talk. about people, and even horses, in an intelligent manner." ■;;A Letter, from Beaconsfisld. ■ Here'is quite a charming letter- frori Lord Beaconsfield to.Lord Hartington just after Disraeli had gone to tho Lords:— - : ■ '■ "Hugbendon Manor, 6, 1876. "My, dear Lord,—lt is very kind of you •to remember•.tee, r one likes to be remembered. I am..sorry.. I shall not meet-yon-I so often, in futur£, but 'we may meet perhaps moro frequently in those secret societies where wo sometimes encounter each other, when we ' ought; to be,, as Madame do Stael said, 'conspiring on tho public place. , ....... "I really have had only one week's holiday, which I spent at tho Bradfords's at Castlo Bromwich, thci/inost charming old. house, smallor, but like Holland House, and with gardens' two hundred years old; full of yew terraces and nvomios of variegated holly, and formal glades. Wo'drove over one day. to see Dray ton, by which Iwas struck; a stately place, abounding in art;.-quite worthy of the man who n-eated it. The country is not- beautiful but that is nothing. Ono likes beautiful scenery .when ono is travelling, or on a vial. You never look at your own lands, us, in town, you never look, out of .your own window.' '. "I shan't bo able to go to Doncaster, or win back my money, which I lost last year by G- —- putting me on a horse with a broken leg.: Ho deserves to become ono hirosolf for such conduct. ' "I hope you are well, nnd that , you will win in all your encounters; except, of Kotirse, at St. Stephen's, and I am, sincerely yours, ;.' '"• "BEACONSFIELD.". Gladstone Studies Homo Rule. The Duke's lifo is of special interest at the present moment because of tho light it sheds'on Gladstone's Home Euie Bill, which made Lord Hartinyton, Mr. Chamberlain; and others leave the Liberal Party. * On December 17, 1885, Lord Hartington writes to .Lord' GranviJle, saying:— "I took the opportunity of asking Gladstone whether he could give mo any information as to his present views on tho Irish question' as developed by the resultof tho elections; and hirited that I found myself embarrassed in anything I might have to say about Ireland by the persistent roports in tho newspapers and ebewhero about his expressed opinions and communications. I don't know w&ether this will. produce any; result. "From all I can hear ho appears to be actiiitf in a most extraordinary manner, and I should think will utterly smash up the party. I don't know who is going Jo support him in proposing a Home Eulo policy for Ireland. Chamberlain and Dilke., as at present advised, are, I hear, ontirely opposed to it; but they may come round." Lord Hartington, in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, from Devonshire House, Januury 1, 1886, says:— "Elarcourt, Chamborlaiu, Dilke, and.l act this afternoon, and had a good deal of discussion on tho Irish question. "I think that the only definite conclusion at which we arrived was that it in of great importance that as early an opportunity as possible, should be given, In tho first placo, to tho leaders, and eubger/ucntly to tho party itself, of hearing what are- your views and intentions on this subject, and what course is (0 lie taken on tho meeting of Parliament. . ," "Mr. Gladstone's reply nppuars in his 'Lifo'," says "The Times," "ami the gist of it was tlmt on the Irish question ho was preparing himself 'by stndy and reflwHon.' As everybody knows, study and reflection led him within a l'nw weeks to the alliance; with I'arncll." Refused to be Premier, For thirty-four years Lord Hartincrfcon served as a memoer of tho House of Commons. Ho toiled for twenty-three years as Minister of tho Crown, and was for several years Leader of the Opposition in tho House of Commons, In later times,

as Duke of Devonshire, ho was Leafier of tho House of Lords. Ou Ihrco occasions he waa offered Hl3 highest, position in which any subject of the Crown can aspire —that: of' Prime Minister of tho United Kingdom—bill always refused ii. 'I'lie J)ukc died nt Cannes, in March, 1008. "Ah he luy umunseiou.s lie was hrind lo mutter some words, as if ho t bough th<r worn playing at cards. Then he murmured, '"Well; the game is over, iiud i am not sorry."