"PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10531, 30 November 1895, Page 2

"PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY."

REMINISCENCES BY MB JUSTIN

M'CAKTHY.

Mr Justin M'Carthy, lecturing at Bristol recently, gave gome interesting raminidcenceß of political and literary personages he had me' iv the course of his public career. The great . Dcke of Wellington was the first man whom be tver heard speak in tha English Parliament. The House of. Lords was in Committee, aod the Duke was opposing a bill. Another.lord rose, and asserted that the illustrious Duke did not understand the bill. Wellington got up angrily, thumped the table with heavy bands, and soid : "My Lords, I read thi« bill once, twice, and thrice, and if "I do not comprehend it, then I must ba a stupid fellow " The audience' must fill io the blank. Times'had changed, andpo . ;JlUßfriou« duke would bo cow allowed, without rebuke, to addcess,tb.6Peers with such djictive. He' saw Palmeretdn when over 80. ■nouut- his hone in Palace Yard without putting his foot into the stirrup. A conversation ho ou;e had with that statesman showed to what, secret Palmeratan ascribed hi» extreme, yonth. P.tlmerstnn eaid, " I nover take my work to bed with me." The moment he bad done his werk of the day he put it away without thioliiog of it again. Orer and over again Palmerston assured him that when he hid to mike a dfCMion on come great policy—perhaps some foreign question involving the possibility of a European war—he gave his best attention to t&e subject, then released his mind from it, and waited lor- eveuis to take their course. There was »•' great colleague, and sometimes rival, of Palmerston, whom he had the extreme happiness of knowing. This was Lord John, afterward' Eatl, Russell.' Lord John impressed him more than any man before or sine* with the Btrange connection between: on» generation aßd another. In giving hia rpmioitcences, Eusseil once told him how he had talked to the first Napoleon ofc Elba, and how Bonaparte had asked him whether it wag ni,t likely that the Duke of Wellington, having conquered all hi* enemies, would not seize the Crown in London and put it on ,bis own head. Lord John told him he h»d great difficulty in making Napoleon understand that th&b was not exactly the way in which great soldiers behaved in this country.—(Laughter.) ' Of Carlyle be knew little. He met him in Ireland in 1848, and many times afterwards in this country, but never quite took to him. . The truth was that C*rlyle rather frightened him, aud they had not a siugle opinion in common on any Bubjeet whatsover, except iv perfect adoration of the-great .German author Goethe. Whatever one eaid to Cariyle he blazed out, ■ nd one was naturally overborne by the force of his expression, so for many years be kept out of Carlyle's way, though meetiug him ia the street and living for ■ eoms time in the same quarter. Of Dickens he was still old-fashioned enough to be a devoted admirer, and would rather be old-fashioned with him than UKW-fasbioned with certain other novelists. Dickens wat by far tbe beat amateur actor he had ever seen, and if he had chosen the stage wonld have become one of the greatest exponents of the dramatic art that tad ever had. He waa also the greatest after-dinner speaker be bad ever heard,, and it had been further xaid of Dickens that he was the greatest reporter that had ever sat in the gallery of tho Home of Commons. Comparing the styles of Dickens and Thtckemy on the platform, Mr M'Carthy confessed himrelf ranch more taken with the delivery of Thackeray, whose lectures on the Georges be considered ono of the most pathetic and eloquent he had ever listened to. Of Mattbow Arnold it could truthfully be ssid that he never talked a platitude, aiid, so far from being the prig that' some had described him, Mr M'Oartby had always found him the mudel of a perfect gentleman and scholar. Browning displayed nothing of the manner of the profe.mional poet, unlike some whom the lecturer had known, and whose attitude wm, " Look here, lo and behold, I am a great poet, so noneof yoar familiarity with me."

■Seio Slorg by the Svthor cf "Jacobig. Wife."