MR. GLADSTONE, MR. BROWNING, AND LORD BEACONSFIELD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR, — Mr. Tollemache's "authentic and characteristic example" of Mr. Gladstone's " severity " towards Lord Beaconsfield (Spectator, November 19th) is entirely apocryphal, and is an excellent example of the value of hearsay evidence. I was present, and I can certify that Mr. Gladstone never used the words attributed to him, or any words that could by possibility bear such meaning. The incident happened in the summer of 1878 at Mr. Gladstone's breakfast-table. I hap- pened to sit next Browning and opposite Mr. Gladstone, and I remember the whole scene and conversation in all their details. Mr. Tollemache is also wrong in thinking that he is the first to publish the anecdote, with the exception of what he calls Mr. "Gladstone's uncompromising and, so to say, hanging summing-up." Sir W. Fraser published it some years ago. and I contradicted it then without going into details. The main part of Sir W. Fraser's version was, I think, accurate. I have not got a copy to refer to. Mr. Tollemache's version is altogether wrong in the details. Bat the curious thing is that Browning, in repeating the story years afterwards, should have exactly reversed, by some lapse of memory, his own and Mr. Gladstone's parts respectively. It was Browning who was exceedingly indig- nant, and Mr. Gladstone who was greatly amused. If any- body who was present were to tell me that Mr. Browning said, "Do you call that amusing ? I call it devilish," I should have no difficulty in believing it, though I have no recollection of it; for it would have been quite in keeping with Browning's mood at the time. It was quite out of harmony with Mr. Gladstone's, and I am quite certain that he did not say it, or anything at all in that vein. I need not occupy your space with details, but perhaps you may like to have the following summary of what passed.
Some reference having been made to the Jingo song, "We don't want to fight," Sze., Browning said, "I'm dead sick of that doggerel Besides, I have composed a better version of my own," which be proceeded to recite. It was an amusing parody, improvised, I believe, on the spur of the moment. For, when I asked him for a copy some time afterwards, wishing to have it as an amusing jeu d'esprit in his own hand- writing, he told me he had not written it down, and could not remember it. Having recited his parody, he declaimed against Lord Beaconsfield—to whose political character and Eastern policy he had great antipathy—as "the greatest liar living," which he illustrated by the now historic incident at the Royal Academy dinner two years previously. Having in his speech extolled "the extraordinary display of the imaginative faculty" in the pictures of the year, Mr. Disraeli, as he then was, asked Browning, after dinner, what he thought of the pictures. Browning, who had never spoken to Disraeli before, was surprised at being suddenly accosted. "I was so taken aback," he said in relating the story, "that, like a fool, instead of giving my opinion, I asked his, forgetting that I had heard him give it in his speech half-an-hour before. Stroking his chin, he replied : 'Well, Mr. Browning, if I had to make any special criticism, it would be to say how woefully lacking the pictures are in the imaginative faculty.'" Browning described himself as being dumbfounded and linable to utter a word. Next year also he met Disraeli, who had meanwhile become Lord Beaconsfield. "How do you, Mr. Browning ?" said the Earl. "You remember that you introduced yourself to me at the Academy dinner last year." I beg your pardon," replied Browning, "it was you who introduced yourself to me."—" Oh, yes ; now I remember," was the reply ; "and I also remember your telling me that you were much struck with the unusual display of the
imaginative faculty in the pictures."—" I beg your pardon again," retorted Browning ; "it was you who said that in you speech." "He has evidently heard," added Browning, " tha, I have been telling this story against him, and now the rase, is determined to father it upon me." And he repeated hi: opinion of Lord Beaconsfield's unveracity.
We all laughed except Browning; none more than Mr. Gladstone, who then offered a half-serious, half-satiric vindication of Lord Beaconsfield's veracity, distinguishing untrue statements from "lies," and illustrating his argument by a curious anecdote of a violent attack on himself by Disraeli in the House of Commons, based on an accusation which Disraeli spontaneously, the following evening, acknowledged to be entirely unfounded. Any one who waa present would have seen that Mr. Gladstone was greatly tickled by Browning's vehemence, and evidently realised that Lord Beaconsfield had been poking fun at the poet, probably in revenge for Browning's undisguised antipathy to him, But, not wishing to hurt Browning's feelings, Mr. Gladstone, with a twinkle in his eye, took the line of arguing that Lord Beaconsfield's inaccuracies were not necessarily "lies." Mr. Gladstone was himself an admirable raconteur, and no mean mimic, and could, on occasion, be decidedly and intentionally humorous under the veil of a serious manner. Browning had a keen sense of humour ; but it was sometimes overpowered by strong feeling. The reversal of parts in the current version of the Academy dinner story is one of the oddest things I know in the curiosities of literature. I have sometimes felt tempted to follow the fashion and publish my own reminiscences, mainly for the purpose of giving the true version of a large number current myths within my own knowledge.—I am, Sir, Scc.,
MALCOLM MAC COIL.
Members' Mansions, November 20th.
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