"NEVER did I expect to hear the Provost of Eton congratulate one of his past pupils on the prospect of winning the Derby." So said Lord Rosebery at the Fourth of June celebration in 1894, when all England was wildly excited over Ladas. Enthusiastic sportsmen had declared when the Earl accepted the Premiership, "Let him win the Derby and dissolve upon it; the General Election will be a gift for the Liberal party." In his own view it was perhaps rather an awkward coincidence that fortune should present him in the same year with the Blue Ribbon of politics and of sport. He knew that by He knew that by winning the Derby he must alienate some of his warmest admirers. Day by day appeals and remonstrances filled his letter-bag, and he was well aware that the entreaties came in many cases from the men who loved him best, and were prepared to follow him most unquestioningly on the path of progress. But Lord Rosebery possesses in full measure that Scotch dourness of character which leads a man to refuse any other guide than his own conscience, and he told his Eton audience that he "felt no vestige of shame in possessing a good horse." The Anti-Gambling League corresponded with him, and its officials must have been startled when he justified himself

by the example of Oliver Cromwell. Like the Great Protector, who occupied a much more responsible position: "I own a few race-horses, and am glad when one of them happens to be a good one."

Admirers of Mr. Gladstone may be interested to note that one of his first acts, when the doctors allowed him to read and write after his operation for cataract in May, was to send a letter to Lord Rosebery congratulating him on his Derby triumph.

Epsom week was the Premier's one interval of rest throughout this arduous session. session. In September he visited the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Dunrobin Castle. In the course of a fortnight he received the freedoms of Dingwall, Inverness, Tain, and Dornoch. These honours he described as "a mental tonic, as the Highland breezes are a tonic for physical depression." According to ancient custom, the burgess-ship of Inverness was conferred by the placing of a ring on his finger. He has always derived benefit from these autumn holidays at Dunrobin. Deerstalking is the principal amusement, and in order to enjoy it, the Duke of Sutherland and his guest live for days at shooting lodges in the wildest parts of the Highlands, rising soon after dawn,

and spending many hours in the open air. Of late years Lord Rosebery has given up attending the Doncaster races, because of the superior attractions of Highland glens and hills. Some artist ought to paint him in his shooting dress of Scottish homespun, for he never looks so well as on these mountain expeditions. This brief September holiday was the prelude to a difficult and anxious recess. For the Prime Minister it was a time of worry rather than of rest, and when he appeared in the House of Lords at the beginning of the session of 1895, it was noticed that a tinge of silver-grey had shown itself for the first time in his hair. On October 25th he spoke at the Cutlers' Feast in Sheffield, when he made one of his most eloquent pronouncements on the Foreign Policy which should guide our Empire. "I believe," he said, "that the party of a small England, of a shrunk England, of a degraded, a neutral, a submissive England, has died." a glowing passage he reminded his audience that this was St. Crispin's night, the anniversary of Agincourt. The democracy of the future would not be less imperial than their forefathers. Every student of Lord Rosebery's speeches-very many of which cannot even be mentioned in the limited space of this biography-must have noticed how the same thread runs through them from the beginning of his career.

In

On Saturday, October 27th, he opened the party campaign by his speech at Bradford on the Reform of the House of Lords. He was the guest of Mr. Henry Illingworth, at Ladye Royde. St. George's Hall holds 5,000, but Hall holds 5,000, but multitudes for whom no place could be

found thronged the doors, and gave the Prime Minister an enthusiastic welcome. Perhaps I ought not to say that the Bradford speech ranks amongst his greatest, for a statesman's admirers can never agree as to when and where he shone with the most dazzling lustre. If one says, "At Bradford," another will retort, "You should have heard him at Rochdale"; and a third, "You missed his speech at St. James's Hall." On two occasions, as we have seen-in 1884 and 1888-Lord Rosebery had made powerful appeals for reform in the House of Lords itself. In his speeches in the country he was constantly pressing the subject on the electorate. Then the Irish question came and swamped everything. The first Home Rule Bill was defeated in the Commons, and the task of Liberals between 1886 and 1892 was to turn their minority into a majority. The House of Lords was left in peace till it threw out the second Home Rule Bill in 1893. To a shortlived weekly paper, The Scottish Liberal, Lord Rosebery contributed in 1888 an article on Reform of the Upper House. The Liberal leader who came to the House of Lords with his measures was, he said, like a general who approached a hostile capital without his army. Bradford he proposed to attack the House of Lords by resolution of the House of Commons. The People's Chamber, at the instance and on the responsibility of the Government, would declare itself the predominant partner. This would be virtually a demand for the revision of the Constitution, and even if the verdict of the country went the other way, the resolution would stand for ever on the Journals of the

At

[H. M. Paget.

we should have entered on the first act of a great drama, the end of which would be in the hands of the next

which the Yorkshire audience responded with enthusiasm. "In this contest there lie behind you, to inspire you, all the

great reforms, all the great aspirations, and all the great measures on which you have set your hearts. Before you lie the forces of prejudice and privilege; before you lie the sullen ramparts behind which are concealed the enemies you long to fight. And I would ask you if you are prepared to go into this fight and fight it as your old Puritan ancestors fought-with their stubborn, persistent, indomitable will, to fight as those old Ironsides fought in Yorkshire, never knowing when they were beaten and determined not to be beaten; to fight, not with the arm of the flesh, but with the arm of the spirit." This important address, which is still believed by some constitutional authorities to foreshadow the reforming method of the future, occupied little over an hour in delivery. At overflow meeting, the Premier asked his audience whether they wished him to imitate Hugh Peters, the famous preacher of the Commonwealth, who, after talking for an hour, would turn the sand-glass and say, "What think you, my masters? Shall we have another turn?" Rosebery is the last man to wear out his welcome by undue verbosity.

an

Lord

His Guildhall speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet was chiefly remarkable for its touching allusion to the young Tsar of Russia,“ upon whose head has descended the weight of that awful crown." Before Christmas he spoke at Glasgow, Devonport, and Stratford in East London. In January he addressed the National Liberal Federation at Cardiff on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, which the Government had put first among the measures for the session. He pleaded the cause with an eloquence

"To contend that material supplies or the privilege of seats in the House of Lords are necessary to the life and vigour of a church is to make a fatal confusion between the essence and the incidents of a church. The essence of a church is spiritual; the inspiration, the tradition, the gracious message, the divine mission, the faith that guides us through the mystery of life to the mystery of death-all these were produced in poverty, in a manger, in the cot of a carpenter. under presecution.

They flourished Nothing can be so remote from their essence and their spirit as the wealth and power and dignities of this world. Establishment and endowment at most represent the gifts of the laity to the temple, the ornaments, the rich essences, the corn and wine and oil, which depend for their merit on the willingness and enthusiasm of the offerers, but which lose all value. and all significance when they are wrung out against the will of the people."

At the close of the meeting, at the Premier's request," Mabon" led one of those wildly beautiful Welsh choruses, of which the full passion can never be reproduced in words. Lord Rosebery admired it so much that he said on his next visit to Wales he must come as a listener only.

At Stratford and Cardiff it was noticed that he looked far from well. Hard work

has always suited him, but the worry inseparable from a most difficult position was telling upon his health, and the sleeplessness which so seriously aggravated his attack of influenza in February and March began weeks before his illness. Stories of divisions in the Cabinet, of secret treachery and open mutiny among Liberal members, were repeated almost from day to day in the papers. When the Premier was attacked in the House of Commons, not one of his colleagues rose to defend him. The public watched these things and wondered, and many must have longed to put in force the Spectator's old suggestion of an Earl of Rosebery's Disabilities Relief Bill.

Scoffers and detractors would not have dared to face him in the House of Commons. He learned at this time by bitter experience the difficulties in the way of a Peer who leads the Liberal party.

When it was known that his illness was serious, rumours of his approaching retirement began to circulate. His visit to the Queen on March 12th was seized upon by the quidnuncs as a proof that he intended to resign. There was never any truth in these resignation stories, which were spread almost as freely during the session about Sir William Harcourt, but they were a sign of the electrical state of the party atmosphere This long and painful illness, from which the Premier did not fully recover till midsummer, had its humorous side in the extraordinary number of letters. which reached him from all parts of the world, suggesting remedies for sleeplessness. Often, in hours of depression, he would be stirred to hearty laughter by some of the mnemonic and literary

puzzles which his correspondents recommended as infallible cures. He must have learned at this time, if never before, how strong was his hold on the affections of his countrymen.

Lord Rosebery's first act, when he went out of doors after his illness, was to visit his old friend Mr. Rogers, who was then fast failing. It was one of their last meetings in the Bishopsgate Rectory. Prebendary Rogers died soon. afterwards in his country home at Mickleham. Surrey villagers used often to see the Earl riding between The Durdans and Mickleham, for there was no society he valued more than that of the City rector.

The speeches he made on

Mr. Rogers' seventieth birthday and in unveiling his portrait at the Guildhall are still fresh in memory. Twice Mr. Rogers presented him with a Bible, and we have his testimony that the statesman used it well. Another old friend, Professor Blackie, died in March, 1895. The Prime Minister was the first to send a message of sympathy to the bereaved relatives, and on the funeral day his wreath was laid at the head of the coffin.

After his visit to the Queen, the Premier went to The Durdans for change of air. His progress was for some weeks very slow, as it was not till the Easter recess that he was able to secure even partial respite from work. "Before he left his sick-room," Mr. Lucy says, "he was engaged with his secretaries, breasting again the boundless sea of work that environs the first Minister of the Crown." gested that he should go to Deal Castle, to Walmer Castle, to Poppyland near Cromer, but each of these places was too far from London, and he preferred to

It was sug