The Fx-Governor in 'Robert Elsmere.'

Evening Star, Issue 7751, 24 October 1888, Page 2

The Fx-Governor in 'Robert Elsmere.'

I have been reading 'Robert Eisners' (says a writer in the ' European Mail'), and have been wondering, like many other colonials, who is the individual who Bat for the portrait of Sir John fieadlam, which, Mrs Humphrey Ward has so cleverly drawn. It is, of course, an open secret that many of her characters are drawn from life, and this has set me thinking who "the little blackhaired Jewish looking man with a limp-= an ex-colonial Governor, who had made himself accepted in London as an amusing fellow, bat who was at least much disliked by one-half of society as he was liked with the other "—can be I The authoress, further describing the party at Madame de Netteville's, speaks of his "old roguish face," and that he dearly loved a pun. Cannot anyone recognise him by the following further description and conversation? Lady Aubrey, with whom he has been holding an animated conversation, taunts him with being dull at their last meeting, and so he retorts:—" You began to wonder to what I owed my paragraph in the ' Society de Londres,'" be rejoined, smiling, though a close observer might have seen an angry flash in his little eyes. "My education has been neglected," Sir John continues; "I get my art and my literature from you. The last time we met yovj gave me the cream of three new French novels, and all the dramatic scandal of the period. I have lived on it for a week. By the way, have you read the ' Princess de ?' " Then, says Mrs Humphrey Ward, continuing her pourtrayal, he looked at her audaciously. The book had affronted Wen Paris. "I haven't,'' Lady Aubrey replied, adjusting her bracelet, while she flashed a rapier glanpe at him; "tut if I had I should say precisely the same ' thing.'' Then Sir John has to be called to order. To assist further in the detection of the original of this sketch, his " odd, puckered flee," his " glittering amused eye, as of a malicious child," his " high creaked voice," bis fonxL-

ness for the New Club, his grotesque little airs of gallantry, are all spoken of, and he disappears from the party with an ironical little bow. Who is the ex-Governor ?