SOCIETY IN ENGLAND. (By the Daughter of a Duke.)

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

SOCIETY IN ENGLAND. (By the Daughter of a Duke.)

Gossip About the New Cabinet—Interesting Reminiscences - Colonel StanleyLord Dunkavbn (The New Undersecretary for the Colonies)-- His Advisnturks—The New Home Secretary (Mk Henii\ v Matthews)— Lord Salisbukt's Chkquekkd Career— His Connection with the ' Saturday Review"— Lady Randolph Churchill and her American Relations— The Duke of Norfolk.

August 13 The Salisbury Cabinet is nearly made, and almost every plank in it is of old and seaeoned timber, did faces appear in new places, and the changes are mostly of a welcome nature. . Sir Frederick Stanley will not be regretted in the Colonial Office, where he never reaUy felt at home ; and Lord Salisbury ha8 done well to reali&e that the colonies exist for something better than merely to *yield a convenient place in the Cabinet for a man whose accidents of birth give him claims it is possible to ignore. As President of the Board of Trade. Sir Frederick will do great harm; and JVlr Edward Stanhope, as Colonial Secretary, will have the not easy task of redeeming the credit of Tory statesmanship at the Colonial Office. One of the first things, by the way, which will be brought under his official notice is the state of affairs in Mauritius, and Mr Stanhopo will be able to show of what mettle he is made by hia method of treating the difficulty created by the appointment of Clifford Lloyd as a sort of Deputy-Governor to Pope Hennessy. Any point in the armour of the Colonial Secretary will be well defended by his singularly able Dnder-Secretary, the Earl of Duuraven, who is likely to be far more successful at a member of an administration than he was as a journalist, or as the proprietor of a newspaper, or the financier of a theatre. The " Week," as Lord Dunraven's venture was called, was a phenomenally dull performance, and it dragged on a phenomenally long existence of twelve months. His theatrical experiences were not more fortunate, and I remember his theatre's inglorious-, career only by one little anecdote \ appertaining to it. The acting manager for Lord Dunraven (who was then Lord Adare) confided to a friend that he was going to produce a novelty in the shape of a Scottish opera. "Then I suppose," said j the friend quietly, "that you -will call it ' « Kobbin ' Adair i" The newest man of the Administration is undoubtedly Henry Matthews, and many causes have combined to effect this sudden leap from unofficial and unparliamentary life to the heights of the Home Secretaryship and a seat in the Cabinet. If- Henry Matthews sat in Parliament some years ago for Dungarvan —that ia an episode which he is very willingto forget. Certainly the public had forgotten it, and in truth it had very little suspicion of the existence of Henry Matthews until he won a brilliant victory for Toryism in Birmingham a month ago, and, especially, until he "led" for Mr Crawford in the recent Dilke case. But in his own profession he has alwaya been regarded as a man of brilliants parts—incomparably the best talker at a circuit-mesa of the whole Bar. The world has been said to be divided into two classes— people who cannot act, and people who can. There is no doubt to which class the Home Secretary pertains. A stranger on seeing him enter a room would at once set him down as belonging to the boards ; and when he leaves a room walking backward, and full of bows, the impression would become a conviction. But, with'all hispowers of simulation, there is a great reality about this brilliant Q C. His learning, for instance, is a very real thing indeed. I remember once hearing a case at the Stafford Assizes in which Mr Matthews was not engaged, though he was present in Court. Everything depended upon the evidence of a Dutch witness who could not speak a word ot English. Obviously the Court was at the mercy of the interpreter ; and when that functionary translated into Dutch a crucial question from an English counsel, Mr Matthews suddenly jumped up and exclaimed, "You have stultified that question !" The interpreter paused, reconsidered his phrases, and admitted his mistake; whereupon Mr Matthews modestly apologised to the Court for his intrusion, pleading that it was hi& misfortune to be familiar with Dutch. Mr Mattbews's mother was. a Miss Blount, a member of an old Oxfordshire Roman Catholic family. He has one sister, Madame Lachere, who is a widow, and lives in Paris. Her two daughters came over to London about a year ago to relieve the solitariness of their bachelor uncle, and help him to inhabit the enormous house in Carlton Gardens,' to which he migrated from bachelor chambers in honour of their advent. But among all the members of the new Government, it may be safely asserted that none has had as chequered a career as"the Prime Minister himself Lord Salisbury's journalistic history is well known ; but it will probably be news to some of nty readers that he once determined to try his luck as,a digger in the colonies. However, he soon tired of that dream, when he found it was by no means the royal road to fortune he had imagine I; and he returned to London to earn his livelihood by an instrument more effective than a spade —a pen. He was then a younger son, Lord Robert Cecil, ,and his marmge with Miss Alderson' having offended his f abher, the , latter cut off the supplies, »o that the young couple were left to . shift for themselves. Their necessities as well astheir inclinations led them to turn to journalism, and both Lord'and Lady Robert Cecil becamethesmartestof smart "Saturday Reviewers," Indeed, he,' more than anybody else, may claim to have formed the peculiar style of the ' • Saturday Review, •! The and'je^rs'arid^ flours," of.'which Lord Baaconefield decl&red^himjto foe a master in his 'speeches, -did /effective duty in.' >fais*re^ " Views. -.'Nor/; did ii^edbfinV himself 1 to i Hterary notices^lPoliMcs/we^etoo'wfaeoina. [tingtto b^esahefred^andUt aTtime when? , sbmecptvhis f party^thoge, {differences" founft 1

expression in the articles of this trenchant penman. A little later his elder brother died, and Lord Robert Cecil became Lord Cranbourne. Lady Salisbury is said to have been greatly troubled about "Bob,' 1 h«r husband, having to go to the*- House of Lords. She used to take "copy" every Thursday to th© " Saturday , Review * office, and on hearing there of the change in fortune, simply remarked, with a sigh, "Oh,. Bob will 'never 1 be Prime Minister of England 'now." In Parliament Lord Cranbourne, who became more or less reconciled with his father, followed his old bent, and continued his attacks on Mr Disraeli at intervals, even after they had been in office together. Everyone must remember the great Tory leader's retort in which he said, referring to the <• Saturday Review" articles:— " The noble lord attacked me before he was my colleague. He attacked me after he was my colleague.- I do not know whether he attacked m« fjoJiile he was my colleague." These things are ancient history now, anil the close friendship which existed between Lord Salisbury ani the loat chief at the end of the latter's life was all the closer by reason of the fallings out and misunderstandings of former days. Lady Salisbury, by the way, was so smart a writer as to be credited for a long time with the authorship of the " Girl of the Period ° articles, written by Mrs Lynn Lynton. Now, in her owb way, she enjoys the -triumphs of her lord aa much aa Mrs Gladstone has enjoyed the triumphs of William ; but her health is now too indifferent to allow her to take a great position as a leader of society and the queen of a salon devoted to- the interests of Conservatism. It is said that Lady Randolph Churchill would like to take the position which Lady Salisbury's health obliges her to vacate, but if she is wise she will not attempt it. A pretty American is she— very pretty, very American ; but to take the place of queen of the Conservative salon par excellence, a " grande dame" is required, and that pretty Lady Randolph can never hope to be. Besides her good looks, however, Lady Randolph has also got a fair amount of brains. She plays that terrible instrument the piano, and paints pictures with the same amount of amateur merit which entitled the lady of the famous tombstone inscription to belong to * l the kingdom of Heaven." But in no way does she show he*r social cleverness so much as in the manner she contrives, without actually giving offence, to hold aloof from he" compatriots. On her occasional visits to her native land she is, no doubt, charmed to find herself among them j but in her adopted country ehe " prefers to do without them," and to succeed in this, without getting herself disliked, proves social ability of a high degree. Another evidence of her quickness may be gathered from the following little anecdote. Six month? ago, when Bartlett Burdett-Coutts first stood for Westminster,* a man who took Lady Randolph down to dinner a day or two before the election, informed her that he had a vote in Westminster, and meant to give it to the Liberal. By the end of dinner he had begun to relent, and said that if certain old electioneering tactics were revived, and the kwa of Party bestowed, as of old, by the lovely Duchess of Devonshire, he, like the butcher, might also succumb. " Oh," said Lady Randolph, with her most bewitching smile, as she rose with the jest of the ladies, and glanced across the table at the aged wife <}f the Conservative candidate for Westminster, "how kind of you ! I will go straight and tell the Baroness !" Many people who are making a fuea about the appointment of Mr Matthews because he happens to be a\Roman Cathelic are probably quite unaware that a far greater Roman Catholic than he was nearly made a member of the Government. The Duke of Norfolk was offered any po?t he chose by Lord Salisbury ; but with his usual self-effacement he refused any high post, offering at the same time to fill any humble one— such as that of an Undersecretary - if by doing so he could serve the party. In the scramble for office and th» craving for notoriety, which are such terribly salient features among public men of late years, it is pleasant to be able to call attention to a fact like this.— Beltenebrosa, in the "Town and Country Journal."