Battle of the Standard, in which he had for his
rival Michael Angelo. The citizens of Florence,
desiring to decorate the walls of the great council
chambers, had offered the work for competition,
and any subject might be chosen from the Florentine
wars of the fifteenth century. Michael Angelo
chose for his cartoon an incident of the war with
Pisa, in which the Florentine soldiers, bathing in
the Arno, are surprised by the sound of trumpets,
and run to arms. His design has reached us only
in an old engraving, which perhaps would help

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LEONARDO DA VINCI

us less than what we remember of the background
of his Holy Family in the Uffizi to imagine
in what superhuman form, such as might have
beguiled the heart of an earlier world, those figures
may have risen from the water. Leonardo chose
an incident from the battle of Anghiari, in which
two parties of soldiers fight for a standard. Like
Michael Angelo's, his cartoon is lost, and has come
to us only in sketches and a fragment of Rubens.
Through the accounts given we may discern some
lust of terrible things in it, so that even the horses
tore each other with their teeth; and yet one
fragment of it, in a drawing of his at Florence, is
far different — a waving field of lovely armour, the
chased edgings running like lines of sunlight from
side to side. Michael Angelo was twenty-seven
years old; Leonardo more than fifty; and Raffaelle,
then nineteen years old, visiting Florence for the
first time, came and watched them as they worked.
We catch a glimpse of him again at Rome in
1 5 14, surrounded by his mirrors and vials and
furnaces, making strange toys that seemed alive of
wax and quicksilver. The hesitation which had
haunted him all through life, and made him like
one under a spell, was on him now with double
force. No one had ever carried political indiffer-
entism farther; it had always been his philosophy
to "fly before the storm"; he is out with the
Sforzas and in with the Sforzas as the tide of fortune
turns. Yet now he was suspected by the anti-
Gallican, Medicean societv at Rome, of French

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WALTER PATER

leanings. It paralysed him to find himself among
enemies; and he turned wholly to France, which
had long courted him.

France was going to be an Italy more Italian
than Italy itself. Francis I., like Louis XII.
before him, was attracted by the finesse of Leo-
nardo's work. La Gioconda was already in his
cabinet, and he offered Leonardo the little Chateau
de Clou, with its vineyards and meadows, in the
soft valley of the Masse — not too far from the
great outer sea. M. Arsene Houssaye has succeeded
in giving a pensive local colour to this part of his
subject, with which, as a Frenchman, he could
best deal. " A Monsieur Lvonard, peinteur du
Roy pour Amboyse," so the letter of Francis I.
is headed. It opens a prospect — one of the most
attractive in the history of art — where, under a
strange mixture of lights, Italian art dies away as
a French exotic. M. Houssaye does but touch it
lightly, and it would carry us beyond the present
essay if we allowed ourselves to be seduced by
its interest.

Two questions remain, after all busy antiquarian-
ism, concerning Leonardo's death — the question
of his religion, and the question whether Francis I.
was present at the time. They are of about equally
little importance in the estimate of Leonardo's
genius. The directions in his will about the thirty
masses and the great candles for the church of St.
Florentin are things of course — their real purpose
being immediate and practical; and on no theory

' i88



LEONARDO DA VINCI

of religion could such hurried candle-burning be
of much consequence. We forget them in specu-
lating how one who had been always so desirous
of beauty, but desired it always in such precise and
definite forms, as hands or flowers or hair, looked
forward now into the vague land, and experienced
the last curiosity.



189



THE ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE
By Frederic Harrison

Nosse omnia haec salus esset senioribus.

The rest of his dress — a dress always sufficiently
tawdry — was overcharged with lace, embroidery,
and ornament of every kind ;: and the plume of
feathers which he wore was so high, as if intended
to sweep the roof of the hall. In short, the usual
gaudy splendour of the heraldic attire was caricatured
and overdone.

{See Walter Scott's " Quentin Durward " —
Hayraddin, the Gipsy, goes to the Court
of Charles the Bold, disguised as Rotige
Sanglier, the herald.)

On the eve of the great Revolution in France,
when society was in its most rickety, but not its
most corrupt stage, a man of genius painted it to
the Hfe in a very diverting play. It was one of the
most curious features of that unconscious age, that
it delighted in pleasant caricatures of itself As
Carlyle tells us in the opening of his history, " Beau-
marchais (or De Beaumarchais, for he got en-
nobled) had been born poor, but aspiring, esurient;
with talents, audacity, adroitness; above all, with
a talent for intrigue; a lean, but also a tough in-
domitable man." The theme of his plays was

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ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

Fashion, his hero a valet; and being a sort of
inspired valet, or factotum, himself, he hit off with
art the great world as seen from the valet point of
view. Figaro, the adventurer, the factotum, the
prince of rascals, became quite the rage; and
the delicious impudence which he threw into
his servility, exactly caught the public ear. Men
laughed to see the fatuous pomp of the ancien regime
treated with a kind of fawning mockery by one of
its own creatures. But the loudest laughter came
from the great people, in whose faces the witty
Barber was snapping his fingers.

In the midst of it all the Revolution burst, and
swept away play and player, stage, company,
scenery, dresses, and all the gorgeous accessories;
and our poor friend saw his comedy end in a very
grim catastrophe — which he had done not a little
to hasten.

History, for all that they say, does not reproduce
itself. In the first place, we have no Revolution,
nor indeed, with our admirable constitution, are
we likely to have. And most certainly we have no
Beaumarchais. The humour and the grace of the
delightful Sevillard are as much a thing of the
past as the ancienne Jiohlesse. Still we have, even in
our day, a society luxurious and absurd enough,
although sadly turned into prose. And we have a
man of wit who has studied it from life — one-half
Jester, one-half Grand Master of the Ceremonies.

Lothair is not a mere novel; and its appearance
is not simply a fact for Mr. Mudie. It is a political

191



FREDERIC HARRISON

event. When a man whose Hfe has been passed in
Parliament, who for a generation has been the real
head of a great party, sits down, as he approaches
the age of seventy, to embody his view of modern
life, it is a matter of interest to the politician, the
historian, nay, almost the philosopher. The literary
qualities of the book need detain no man. Premiers
not uncommonly do write sad stuff. And we should
be thankful if the stuff only be amusing. But the
mature thoughts on life of one who has governed
an empire on which the sun never sets, have an
inner meaning to the thoughtful mind. Marcus
Aurelius, amidst his imperial eagles, thought right
to give us his Reflections. The sayings of Napoleon
at St. Helena have a strange interest to all men.
And Solomon in all his glory was induced to publish
some amazing rhapsodies on human nature and
the society of his own time.

Lothair is indeed amusing. Though our grave
Editor warns us that these pages are more fitted
for what he calls " the social and political signifi-
cance " of the book, we cannot resist one word of
admiration for the brilliance, and indeed rare wit,
of much in the writing. There are epigrams in
showers, some of them really delicious. That
phrase about the critics is perfect, and as true as it
is amusing. The Duke who, as he gives the finishing
touch to his consummate toilette, each day thanks
Providence that his family are not unworthy of
him; St. Aldegonde, a Duke's son and a Duke's
son-in-law, proposing to abolish all orders of men

192



ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

but Dukes, and calling for cold meat at Lord —
we mean Mr. — Brancepeth's dinner-party; the
professor who during a stroll gives more than one
receipt for saving the aristocracy; the comparing
our young nobles to the ancient Greeks, who were
good athletes, knew no language but their own,
and never read ; the Hansom cab, " the gondola
of London," are the touches of a master. For our
author, when not in court dress, is before every-
thing a wit.

Then the dialogue is quick, bright, and easy.
The scenes follow with vivacious variety. St.
Aldegonde himself might read it without being
bored. Nothing lingers. Our author receives his
ideal company like an accomplished host. A word
for this one; a happy saying to that; a skilful
selection of guests; the mind diverted now with
this, now with that, entertainment. The characters
even have merit. Not that they are characters in
the creative sense, but they are happy satirettes.
The fatuous Duke, the goose Lothair, the spiritual
Cardinal, are portraits not perhaps of true humour,
but of a caustic, albeit rather personal, wit. And
all this, which is so rare in an English book, is
exceedingly pleasant to find. The wit, the light
touch, the movement, are those of an accomplished
foreigner — a sort of Mr. Pinto surveying British
society from without, and trying to amuse it. The
colouring often rises to a high point of art; and
society is analysed with something of almost poetic
instinct. Not that we wish to exaggerate. We do
I 193 o



FREDERIC HARRISON

not pretend that the art is that of Balzac or Sand,
or the wit that of the true children of Voltaire.
But it is quite as good as that of a first-rate Parisian
feuilleton — and there are few things better.

Nor must one omit another great merit. Lothatr
is clean. Not only is it free from offence in language,
but the tone in point of morals is healthy, pure,
and sweet. The society painted is, on the whole,
that of honest husbands and true wives, pure maidens
and ingenuous lads. This is a great point. We hear
nothing of those petit creve vices, those pornerastic
habits in high places, those Diamond-necklace
scandals, those unmentionable gambols of the
Porphvro-geniti, which are too often thrust before
our eyes in fiction, and indeed in fact. Society owes
much to Mr. Disraeli for this. If he is to be believed,
it is a society of real happy and healthy homes; and
he speaks of them almost as one inspired by some
influence that had been the good genius and true
pride of his life.

Not that we are blind in our praise of this book.
The writing, though often brilliant, is curiously
loose and false. To speak the truth, there is hardly
a page without clumsy phrases, misused words,
and even hopelessly bad grammar. Nor is this the
worst. Not only do gross solecisms, but absolute
cockneyisms abound; the high-polite jargon and
the genteel vulgarisms of a hairdresser's man. We
do not for a moment attribute this to Mr. Disraeli
himself, a master alike of the language of letters
and of society; and we believe we are in a position

194



ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

to explain, as we presently shall, this curious phe-
nomenon. But strange as it may sound, the fact
remains. And the style of the ex-Premier's romance
reminds one not seldom of the style in which
ambitious ladv's-maids and literary valets write
romances for the Mirror of Fashion (a publication
read in the highest circles).

We think some bits must have been written for
and refused bv the Mirror. For instance, a young
lady of rank (of course everybody in the book is
of the highest rank; the readers of the Mirror
expect nothing below earls) — a young lady talks
to the hero about their " mutual ancestors." Shade
of Macaulav! One used to think that mutual friend
for common friend was rather a cockneyism. But
mutual ancestors! Oh, right honourable sir! mutual,
as Johnson will tell us, means something reciprocal,
a giving and taking. How could people have mutual
ancestors ? — unless, indeed, their great grand-
parents had exchanged husbands or wives — a
horrid thought!

Then we hear of a " gay and festive and cordial
scene." A festive scene we can understand, and a
cordial host. But what is a " cordial " scene ?
The late Artemus Ward used to speak of " a gay
and festive cuss." But a " gav and festive and
cordial scene " would beat the showman !

A gentleman (by the way, almost the only
commoner in society — but then he is after all but
the family solicitor, a superior sort of " retainer "),
a gentleman is spoken of who " had, in her circles,

195



FREDERIC HARRISON

a celebrated wife." How can a man have a wife
in her circles ? Does it mean a lady of ample skirts
and hoops, or of ample and globular form ? Again,
we hear that " All the ladies of the house were
fond and fine horsewomen." Fine women, we can
understand, and fine horsewomen, but what is a
fond horsewoman ? Of what are these ladies fond ?
Mr. Pinto tells us that the English language con-
sists of only four words, " to which some gram-
marians add fond." We are afraid that Mr. Pinto,
though almost naturalised amongst us, has not yet
mastered the varieties of the English tongue.

Riding parties linger amid a breeze. A lady
makes observations cheapening to her host, meaning
depreciating her host, not, we trust, that she made
them to her host. " Bells of prancing ponies,
lashed by delicate hands, gingle in the laughing air."
We think the poor whipping-boy, the printer,
must have been laughing too when he set up gingle.
" Obstructive dependants impede the convenience
they were purposed to facilitate." A trustee
" guards over an inheritance." Some one considers,
" where he shall go toy Two great ladies " are
the fairies, which do " something. The hero holds
" his groom's horse, who had dismounted." Who
dismounted ? Did the groom dismount off the
horse, or the horse off the groom ? Heroes may do
feats, but can their grooms .? A lady's portrait
" makes a fury." Of two lovers it is said, " Then,
clinging to him, he induced her to resume her
stroll." Who was clinging to whom ? Each, doubt-

196



ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

less, to each " mutually "; but it is horribly suggestive
of a third person, and that person a male.

Oh! Editor of the Mirror of Fashion, lucky,
tua si bona noris, wert thou in a contributor who
had carried the high-polite Euphuism to a point
yet unattained in thy peculiar industry. Let us
cull some flowers from the garden of the Lady
Corisande!

Of a riding party — " Dames and damsels vault
on their barbs and genets with airy majesty." Airy
majesty is good!

A gentleman bows — " He made a reverence
of ceremony." Couldst thou do that, Yellowplush?

One college lad goes to see another — " He
becomes a visitor to his domain."

Some servants waiting in a hall — " Half a dozen
powdered gentlemen, glowing in crimson liveries,
indicate the presence of My Lord's footmen."
Prodigious! as Dominie Sampson used to say.

Charity boys are brought out with their school
flags to meet the squire — " Choirs of enthusiastic
children, waving parochial banners, hymned his
auspicious approach."

A man gives a girl some lemonade and a wafer,
and tells her she is looking in good spirits — " He
fed her with cates, as delicate as her lips, and manu-
factured for her dainty beverages which would
not outrage their purity, and at last could not
refrain from intimating his sense of her unusual,
but charming joyousness." (See the Vade-mecum
of Etiquette.)

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FREDERIC HARRISON

Fine rooms are " stately " or " choice saloons."
Footmen are " retainers." Men of rank are
" paladins of high degree." Cut glass is " fanciful
crystal." A dinner-party is a " banquet." A gun-
club are " competing confederates." A ball is a
" sumptuous festival "; the guests are " wassailers."
A carriage is always an " equipage "j and a horse
always a " barb."

All this points to an origin rather to be sought
in the species of male serving-man, or as one should
say, " indicates the presence of My Lord's foot-
men"; but there are traces again which point to
a female coadjutor, as of some lady's-maid, with
whom said lackey was in love. For instance, a
croquet-party " makes up a sparkling and modish
scene." " Modish " is surely a little out of date,
and savours of the housekeeper's room. Of a ball-
room supper we hear, " Never was such an elegant
clatter." A young lady " is the cynosure of the
Empyrean." A youth courting her, " seals, with
an embrace, her speechless form." To seal, it is
true, in Mormon-land is to marry. When the
young lady goes to Court, " Her fair cheek is
sealed with the approbation of Majesty " — sealed
again. When a man speaks of the Court, " He
leads the conversation to the majestic theme."
Stars and Garters!

Have a care, good Editor, and tone down their
style! They are fooling thee with their menial
jargon. Be warned, friend, educated Englishmen
do not write like this:

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ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

" When the stranger who had proved so oppor-
tune an ally to Lothair at the Fenian meeting,
separated from his companion, he proceeded in
the direction of Pentonville, and, after pursuing
his way through a number of obscure streets, but
quiet, decent, and monotonous, he stopped at a
small house in a row of many residences, yet all of
them in form, size, colour, and general character
so identical, that the number on the door could
alone assure the visitor that he was not in error
when he sounded the knocker."

What is all this jumble of words, with its draggled
sentences, and " buts," and " thats," and " yets."
" *9o identical!" "So similar" you mean. "So
identical " is lady's-maid's English; and why
" obscure streets, hut quiet, decent, etc." ? Can
nothing obscure be decent ? Why not write like
a rhan, and say — " When the stranger who had
helped Lothair at the Fenian meeting left his com-
panion, he walked towards Pentonville, making
his way through several obscure streets, which were
quiet, decent, and monotonous. He stopped at a
small house in a long row, where the houses were
so similar in form, size, colour, and general character,
that, but for the number, one might easily knock
at the wrong door."

But as for grand ceremonies, O Editor! thy
contributor out-herods Herod, and beggars all
previous description of haut ton. The Court News-
man grows pale with envy; Jenkyns of the Morning
Plush is awed. Thy hebdomadal competitors do

199



FREDERIC HARRISON

reverence to their peerless rival. Ho! there, a
flourish! Bray forth trumpets, and heralds advance
your haughty blazonry! Make way, ye fellows in
fustian! Stand back, I charge ye!

[yf march!
" Royalty, followed by the imperial presence of
ambassadors, and escorted by a group of
dazzling duchesses and paladins of high degree,
was ushered with courteous pomp by the host
and hostess into a choice saloon, hung with
rose-coloured tapestry and illumined by chan-
deliers of crystal, where they were served
from gold plate."

[Curtain falls, amidst Catharine wheels, red
and blue fire, electric light, etc., etc., etc.

Shade of the late George Robins of the Hammer,
greatest of auctioneers, here is a greater than thou
in unctuous description of all kinds of upholstery!
Greatest of all Editors of Trans-atlantic news-
papers, here is taller talk than in the wildest of thy
dreams, which is to thy best vein as is thy own
Niagara to a gutter, or thy IVellingtonia gigantea
to a gooseberry bush! O tallest of talkers! canst
thou match " buncombe " like that ? O most
superb of auctioneers, didst thou ever appraise
and bring to the hammer (without any reserve)
the entire British Aristocracy, rose-coloured tap-
estry, gold plate, and all — nay, the Majestic Theme
itself, it would seem — as Lot i ?

As we have said, we do not for a moment pretend

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ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

that jargon of this kind really comes from Mr.
Disraeli. He is a man of genius, a master of lan-
guage, and has passed his life in refined society.
He is incapable of inditing this stuff. Of course,
all sorts of rumours are afloat; but we rather
gather the truth to be this: Mr. Disraeli, a busy
statesman, employed assistance; that assistance he
would naturally find in his " people " in attendance.
The ideas, the wit, the picture of society are his
own, but we strongly suspect that the actual wording
not seldom is that of his valet.

What we imagine to have taken place — we
speak with no authority — is something of this
kind: The great orator returns, say, from a
debate in which he has exterminated the Liberal
party for the twenty-seventh time, and given new
hope to his country and his Sovereign. He has
an hour of relaxation. Robed, doubtless, in some
cashmere dressing-gown which had once graced
the throne of the Great Mogul, shod with the
jewelled slippers that had haply been worked for
him by the daughter of the Emperor of Morocco
(an unhappy attachment, it is whispered), and
smoking his hookah, with its bowl of solid topaz,
and its mouthpiece a single diamond (a trifle from
the Sublime Porte), the wondrous orator throws
off the dazzling fancies of Lothair. Thoughts
crowd so fast on that fervid soul, that three steno-
graphers can but imperfectly record them as he
speaks. And the valet, or one should say, the first
gentleman of the dressing-room, takes forth the

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FREDERIC HARRISON

burning fragments on golden salvers to cast them
into readable volumes for Messrs. Longman,
who are waiting in an ante-room. Thus it is that
we get the ideas of a true wit and the experience
of a profound observer in the language of the
servants' hall, and her ladyship's first gentlewoman.

Now without intruding on private affairs —
the frank Lothair is free from modesty of that
kind — we strongly suspect this first gentleman of
the dressing-room to be a person of foreign birth.
We know not how else to account for the use of
crude Gallicisms, such as no Englishman could
pen. A perplexing use of the word "but"; a
lady's portrait "making a fury"; things "being
on the carpet"; and a reckless use of the word
" distinguished " for fine; phrases like " an alliance
of the highest," " high ceremony of manner,"
" his affairs were great " for his trade, betray the
foreign hand. We have no doubt this great creature,
the first gentleman in question, is a perfect treasure.
But if he continue to be employed as secretary,
the ex-Premier should present him with Lindley
Murray — of course bound in jewelled vellum,
with gilt edges.

But the misplaced confidence which the right
honourable gentleman appears to have reposed in
his " first gentleman," has led to some more serious
errors in taste. We make nothing of a few slips.
" Lancres " is not the right mode of spelling the
painter's name, nor is " monsignores " a correct
form. And the Pope's guard is the guardia (not

202



ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

guarda) nobile. Perhaps these little blunders in
foreign languages are a compliment to the order
" which knows no language but its own," We do
not like to hear of " costly bindings " in a library.
There was an honest man once who cared more
for the inside of books than their " costly " backs.
But in the midst of the praises which we wish to
give to this amusing romance of real life, there is
one serious fault which we condemn.

It seems to us that, elegant as the company are,
they are painted as if the real object of their respect,
their social standard in fact, were, in plain words.
Money. Every one in the book is enormously
rich, and no one beside appears to count as a
member of society at all. The society is a mere
Apotheosis of rich men — the Reign of the Financial
Saints — a perfect Millionairium; One would think
the author were Poet-Laureate to Baron Roths-
child. The very attorney is a Six-and-eightpenny
Sidonia!

Nowhere perhaps is this so marked as when the
Duke himself tells us that he has known Americans
who were very good sort of people, and had no end
of money {sic); that he looks upon one who has
large estates in the South as a real aristocrat, and
should always treat him with respect — more
especially if, like the colonel, his territory is im-
mense, and he has always lived in the highest
style {sic). This may be satire, or it may be fact,
but we venture to think it both gross and untrue.