had been bone of our bone and flesh or our flesh, if on this occasion Edinburgh does not show itself worthy of its associations with Mr. Gladstone. On December 7th, 1896, Sir Walter Besant delivered a lecture at the Queen's Hall, London. Most appropriately, Lord Rosebery was in the chair, since the subject-London-was one in which he has always taken a great interest. Has he not been Chairman of the London County Council? Sir Walter Besant delivered his lecture first, and Lord Rosebery's Appreciation was delivered afterwards by way of comment on what the lecturer had said. LONDON I SHOULD have been glad had it been possible for me to-night to confine myself to the duties - the inane and luxurious duties of chairman of such a meeting as this, but I have been asked to express in your name our thanks to Sir Walter Besant for his lecture to-night-that is to move a vote of thanks, because it will be seconded with more authority. I came with the greatest pleasure to his lecture. It was my privilege to submit Sir Walter Besant's name to the Queen for the honour of knighthood, and I did so for this reason. There are, of course, many literary men in London, as he has reminded us-and I will break a lance with him on that point in a moment-there are many men of letters in London who have distin guished themselves by the brilliancy of their works, but I doubt if there is any man of letters in London or elsewhere whose works have produced so practical and beneficent a result as those of Sir Walter Besant. But for him the People's Palace would not, I believe, have been built, and since that time he has enriched our literature in various ways, but in no respect, in my judgment, more usefully than in those two fascinating books in which he has dealt with London and with Westminster. London, in spite of all he may say to-night, has wanted a little interest to be attracted to it. I confess I have never felt that, in proportion to the interest which provincial towns and places feel in themselves, London has ever received an adequate notice either from the antiquary or the historian. Think what pregnant interests invest the streets of London ! You cannot touch the railings of St. James's Square-hideous as those railings are, and dull as are the houses that surround them-without thinking that Johnson and Savage, hungry boys, starved by their kind mother London |