SD2880. Connop Thirlwall to Unidentified Correspondent
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 358 (in part).
1, Regent Street
St. David’s Day 1 March, 1867
I was not able yesterday even to open your letter—which I reserved to refresh me after the morning’s work—before post time, as I lost the whole forenoon for practical purposes, though otherwise by no means unpleasantly, and what remained was barely sufficient for the most indispensable despatches. Did you ever breakfast in London? or, in other words, go out to a London breakfast? Very few ladies do, and therefore it is not unlikely that you never did. In fact, the number of people who give them is very small, and has in my own time been sadly reduced by the departure of Rogers, Hallam, and Macaulay. But Milnes still continues to give breakfasts, and his were always among the pleasantest, partly from his knowing everybody, and partly from his fancy for bringing the apparently most incongruous people together—as I once met an officer in the Egyptian service who was a French renegade. It was with him I spent my forenoon. The party consisted entirely of men, all more or less of mark. I am grieved to find that the shock from the fire at Crewe has permanently affected Lady Houghton’s health, so as to cause the greatest uneasiness. Among the party were two Americans, both agreeable, and one, whose name you may have heard—Bayard Taylor—of some distinction as a traveller and a poet. There was also a young peer, Lord Wentworth, who possesses the interest of being Lord Byron’s grandson. … I had seen very little of him before, and I did not hear him say anything at breakfast; but, as we were leaving the house at the same time and going the same way, we walked together as far as my hotel, engaged in the most earnest conversation of the subject of Ritualism, which he opened almost the moment we set out, and pursued with great eagerness, not without ability, though many of his notions needed correction. I wonder what his grandfather would have thought if he could have heard it!
… To-morrow I go by appointment with Mr. Vaux to the British Museum, to see the Blacas collection of gems—one of the very few subjects on which Gladstone and Disraeli were unanimous. That reminds me that on the 25th ult. I worked my way through the most fearful crush, perhaps, ever known in the lobby of the House of Commons, to a seat under the gallery, and heard Disraeli, Lowe, Bright, and Gladstone. Disraeli spoke as from an uneasy conciousness, and received no encouragement from his friends. Lowe’s speech was sparkling with no doubt carefully prepared but happy points, which provoked much laughter; but he certainly did not sit down, as the Times reported, amid loud cheers. They were few and faint, and, I imagine, presented a strong contrast to the enthusiasm with which he was greeted last year. Bright’s voice appeared to be out of order, but his speech was a fair sample of his style of eloquence. I was struck by one thing: that during Lowe’s speech, and before, when Disraeli said several things with which the House was much amused, Bright never for a moment relaxed his severe features into a smile. … There is an evident beginning of divergence between him and Gladstone, which must go on widening. …
Landseer’s lions are very splendid creatures—real, not conventional. They improve the whole aspect of the square immensely. It is said there is to be another Reform gathering there to-morrow. I hope no damage will be done to the lions. They are too good not to provoke attacks, and hardly seem to be sufficiently protected. …
One of the persons I met last night was the poet Browning. I was amused to find that he has a pet owl who is inseparable from him. He gave a very entertaining description of his struggles to reach his own house after dining out on the night when every street in London was a sheet of the smoothest ice, and only four cabs, as the drivers asserted, in circulation. …
Text: Letters to a Friend by Connop Thirlwall, ed. A.P. Stanley (London, 1881), pp. 97–99.
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