American Ideas For English Readers.

He thought that they in America had done quite their share of work in their short life, although he was[Pg 2] always inclined to question the statement that they were a young people. It was supposed, somehow or other, that they were autochthonic; that they had sprung from the earth of America, as the Athenians were said to have done from the soil of Attica. But it was nothing of the kind. If he might be allowed to say so, they began where those in this country left off. It must be remembered that they took with them all the traditions of English freedom and of English civilization, and that they not only maintained them, but, in his humble judgment, carried them further. (Cheers.)

America in a certain sense performed the office of posterity to England and Scotland. Their authors were first recognized across the Atlantic. (Cheers.) He would not say it was owing to quicker perception, but rather to their clearness of atmosphere (laughter) that they had this luck sometimes. He remembered particularly a book which was published while he was still at college, and which produced in his young mind as great a ferment as it did among all his contemporaries. That book was “Sartor Resartus.” (Cheers.) It was first collected and published in[Pg 4] the year 1836 in the city of Boston, in the United States of America (cheers); and it there received its first approbation. Their chairman, Dr. Smith, had told him during the course of the evening that when “Sartor Resartus” first began to appear in Fraser’s Magazine the editor received two letters, one from an Irishman, if he was not mistaken, saying that if that particular kind of stuff—describing it with what usually began with a “d” (laughter)—was to be continued he wished his subscription to be stopped. The other letter was from an American, saying that if the writer of “Sartor Resartus” in Fraser’s Magazine had written anything else he wished it all to[Pg 5] be sent to him. (Laughter.) The second writer was a man he knew well—Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Cheers.) He remembered being very much struck many years ago with something which Thackeray said to him. It was that Carlyle was his master. That was said nearly thirty years ago. The other day he took up a number of the Nineteenth Century, and in an article by Mr. Ruskin he observed that he said Carlyle was his master. This coincidence, the difference between Thackeray and Ruskin being remembered, only showed, he thought, the universality of Carlyle’s influence. (Cheers.) He meant to say that Carlyle approached different men on different sides, which[Pg 6] was one of the strongest marks that could be mentioned of genius. Carlyle had found an approach to their intellects and to their hearts, to the intellects and hearts of a great variety of men of different nations. He had introduced a new style—a peculiarly English style—of looking at things, quite as much as Sir Walter Scott introduced a new style of novel-writing. Sir Walter Scott, he considered, was the greatest story-teller of the age. (Cheers.) Carlyle had the surprising gift of expressing poetic thought in prose. (Cheers.) It was particularly their gratitude to him on the moral and human side that they would feel in drinking, not only with enthusiasm, but with a sort[Pg 7] of reverence, the health of Mr. Carlyle.

Mr. Chairman, my Lords and Gentlemen,—I was a few moments ago discussing with my excellent[Pg 10] friend upon the left what a diplomatist might be permitted to say, and I think the result of the discussion was that he was left to his choice between saying nothing that had any meaning or saying something that had several—(laughter); and as one of those diplomatists to whom the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs alluded a short time ago I should rather choose the latter course, because it gives one afterwards a selection when the time for explanation comes round. (Laughter.) I shall not detain you long, for I know that there are speakers both on the right and on the left of me who are impatient to burst the bud; and I know that I have not[Pg 11] been selected for the pleasant duty that has been assigned to me for any merits of my own. (Cries of dissent.) You will allow me to choose my own reason, gentlemen. I repeat, I have not been chosen so much for my own merits as for the opportunity afforded you of giving expression to your kindness and good feeling towards the country I represent—(cheers)—a country which exemplifies what the colonies of England may come to if they are not wisely treated. (Laughter and cheers.) Speaking for myself and for one or two of my compatriots whom I see here present, I should certainly say that that was no unpleasant destiny in itself. But I do not, nor do my countrymen, desire[Pg 12] that those great commonwealths which are now joined to England by so many filial ties should ever be separated from her.

I am asked to-night to propose the “Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom and of the World,” and I might, if the clock did not warn me against it—(“Go on”)—if my own temperament did not stand a little in the way—I might say to you something very solemn on the subject of commerce. I might say how commerce, if not a great civilizer in itself, had always been a great intermediary and vehicle of civilization. I might say that all the great commercial States have been centres of civilization, and centres of those[Pg 13] forces which keep civilization from becoming stupid. I do not say which is the post and which the propter in this inference; but I do say that the two things have been almost invariably associated.

One word as to commerce in another relation which touches me more nearly. Commerce and the rights and advantages of commerce, ill understood and ignorantly interpreted, have often been the cause of animosities between nations. But commerce rightly understood is a great pacificator; it brings men face to face for barter. It is the great corrector of the eccentricities and enormities of nature and of the seasons, so that a bad harvest and a bad season in England[Pg 14] is a good season for Minnesota, Kansas and Manitoba.

But, gentlemen, I will not detain you longer. It gives me great pleasure to propose, as the representative of the United States, the toast of “The Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom and of the Whole World,” with which I associate the names of Mr. C. M. Norwood, M. P., vice-president of the Associated Chambers of the United Kingdom, and the Hon. F. Strutt, president of the Derby Chamber. (Cheers.)

He also regretted with the Vice-Chancellor, both on his own account and on theirs, the absence of the[Pg 16] French Ambassador, who could have spoken on archæological subjects from the position of a master. He had been asked to say a few words, and with sincerity he could say that it always gave him great pleasure to be the herald that brought to the old home a message from the new. That scarlet gown, which had suddenly converted him into a flaming minister (laughter), reminded him that Cambridge had adopted him as one of her children. (Cheers.) He therefore felt charged to bring a message from the new Cambridge in the New World—a message of filial respect—to the old Cambridge in the Old World. There was also a propriety in his being there, from the fact that[Pg 17] a great deal of the interest which had been felt in this undertaking had been stimulated by the lectures and the labors of a countryman of his own. Having said this, he might naturally be expected to take his seat, but he knew he was not expected to do so. He was compelled, like the Ancient Mariner, to go on with his story, whether he would or not. He often thought of the African and the monkey. The African had a notion that the monkey could speak if he would, but that he would not let anybody know he could, for fear he should be made to work. Now, he had to acknowledge a sort of prophylactic taciturnity. He had only one word which had some bearing on the subject. He[Pg 18] was exceedingly interested in going through the museum, under the able guidance of Professor Colvin. The whole arrangement of it interested him. Each cast, almost from the rude fetish to the highest conception of the human brain and the human hand, was very striking. It was more than striking; it was most hopeful and encouraging. As he walked through the museum he could not help remembering that 60 years ago he saw in the museum at Boston some casts from the antique, and the ignorant delight which they first gave to his eye; he remembered also the education they gave to his eye as he grew older, and he should never forget that debt. These impressions[Pg 19] were of greater value and much more operative when made early. He was struck, in going through the museum with Professor Colvin, with the vital relation between æsthetic archæology (if they would allow him to call it so), as represented in the museum, and Greek literature. It seemed to him that what one felt always when brought into contact with the work of Grecian hands or the production of the Grecian brain was its powerful vitality. By powerful vitality he did not mean merely the life in itself, but the vitality which it communicated. Here, it seemed to him, was the great value of being brought into more intimate relation with the Greeks. When he was looking that[Pg 20] morning on the statue of Nikê, the original of which stands at the head of the great staircase in the Louvre, it seemed to him that it ought to be the figure of one who stood on the prow of the ship which brought the news of the victory of Salamis. It was not by any means certain, mixed race that we were, that the existence of a museum like that at Cambridge would not stir in some one an ancestral vigor, some hereditary quality or faculty that should make him into an artist.

The fashion of this world passed away, but the fashion of those things which belonged to the world of imagination—and it was most emphatically in that world that Mr. Browning had worked—endured and never passed. In 1848 Mr. Browning said in a preface to a collection of his poems that many of them were out of print and of the rest a great number had been withdrawn from circulation, which implied that even at that time the size of his public was very small. But he had fully demonstrated that he stood in no need of a Browning Society to reinforce his[Pg 22] native vigor, for, in spite of the indifference of the public, he had constantly gone on, from that time to this, producing and deepening the impression which he had made upon all thinking minds. It had been said that he had no sense of form, but this question depended upon the meaning to be attached to that word. One thing he thought was certain, and that was that men who had discussed form most, as for instance Goethe, had not always been the most successful in producing examples of it. Certainly no one with any sense of form could call “Faust” other than formless. If form meant the use of adequate and harmonious means to produce a certain artistic[Pg 23] end, then he knew no one who had given truer examples of it than the great poet after whom that society took its name. He thought there was one danger in a Browning Society, which was that it might lead them to be partisans, and he thought he had seen some symptoms of it. They might be apt to insist upon people admiring the inferior work of the artist with his better work, and this he thought would be an evil. Every one who read Browning with attention, and who loved him, must at the same time admit that he was occasionally whirled away by the sweep and torrent of his own abundance. But after making these deductions, there was no poet who had given us[Pg 24] a greater variety or who had shown more originality. Mr. Browning abided with them. He was not a fashion, nor did he belong to any one period of their lives. What they felt more clearly than anything else was his strength. He was of all others a masculine, a virile poet.

I have been asked to say a few words, but they must be very few, as the train is waiting for me that takes me back to keep an engagement. Mr. Gosse has told you he has been present at many memorial unveilings, and the newspapers inform me that I also have been present at the unveiling of perhaps too many. But never have I been present on any occasion with more pleasure than on this. You have now, in the[Pg 26] words which Lord Houghton quoted, and which I would extend in a wider sense than he did, a beautiful memorial to Gray in permanent form. We also, thanks to Mr. Gosse, possess a photograph of this memorial in permanent form. But we have in our hearts and memories, I think, a memorial to the man quite as true and quite as permanent—that is, permanent for us. Very few words are fitting on an occasion which commemorates the one of the English poets who has written less and pleased more perhaps than any other. There is a certain appropriateness in my speaking here to-day. I come here to speak simply as the representative of several countrymen and[Pg 27] countrywomen of mine who have renewed that affirmation, which I like always to renew, of the unity of our English race by giving something more solid than words in commemoration of the poet they loved. And, I think there is another claim which I perhaps have for speaking here to-day, and that is that the most picturesque anecdote relative to the life of Gray—perhaps the most picturesque related of the life of any poet, certainly of any English poet—belongs to the Western hemisphere; I mean the anecdote which connects the name of Wolfe with that of Gray. Nothing could have been more picturesque than the surroundings of that saying of Wolfe’s—of that[Pg 28] English hero—and nothing could have been more momentous than the action and the consequence that followed from it, and which made the United States, which I have lately represented, possible. That, I think, gives me a certain right also to speak here.

I know that sometimes criticisms are made upon Gray. I think I have often heard him called by some of our juniors “commonplace.” Upon my word, I think it a compliment. I think it shows a certain generality of application in what Gray has done, for if there is one thing more than another—I say this to the young men whom I see seated around both sides of the hall—which[Pg 29] insures the lead in life, it is the commonplace. I have to measure my poets, my authors, by their lasting power, and I find Gray has a great deal of it. He not only pleases my youth and my age, but he pleases other people’s youth and age; and I cannot help thinking this is a proof that he touches on human nature at a great many periods and at a great many levels, and, perhaps, that is as high a compliment as can be paid to the poet. There is, I admit, a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in his most famous poem, but I think there is also a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in some verses that have been famous for more than 3000 years. I think that when Homer[Pg 30] saw somebody smiling through her tears he said, on the whole, a commonplace thing, but it touched our feelings for a great many centuries; and I think that in the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” Gray has expressed a simple sentiment, and as long as there are young men and middle-aged men, Gray’s poem will continue to be read and loved as in the days when it was written. There is a Spanish proverb which rebukes those people who ask something better than bread. Let those who ask for something better get something better than what Gray produced. For my own part I ask nothing better. He was, perhaps, the greatest artist in words that English[Pg 31] literature has possessed. In conclusion, let me say one word for myself. This will probably be the last occasion on which I shall have the opportunity of addressing Englishmen in public; and I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for the kindness which has surrounded me both in my official and private life, and to say that while I came here as a far-off cousin, I feel you are sending me away as something like a brother.

Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,—While I cannot but feel highly honored by the beautiful proof you have just given me that I am not forgotten by the ever-faithful city, I value even more the kindly sentiment which prompted it, and to which you have given such graceful expression. I am well aware that it is to what I[Pg 34] represent far more than to any merit of my own that I owe this distinction, and that consciousness makes it doubly grateful to me. They who endured exile and danger and every form of hardship to found the great kindred commonwealth beyond the sea—and what that exile must have been they only can feel who know how beautiful and how justly dear was the land they left—took with them, not only such seeds as would bear good fruit for the body, but those also of many a familiar flower that could serve only as food for sentiment and affection. Yet the most precious gems of all were those of memory and tradition, that had the gift of fern-seed to go with them invisibly.

[Pg 35]

They could not forget the land of their birth, nor can we, their descendants, forget the land of our ancestry. They fondly gave the old names to the new hamlets they were planting in the wilderness. The central county of my native State is a namesake of yours. It calls itself proudly the heart of the Commonwealth, and its beautiful chief city is Worcester. You knew how to touch a chord of tenderest association when, four years ago, you claimed me as of Worcestershire because my forefathers (the Lowells) had been so. You have been pleased, Sir, to say that I have done something to strengthen the good feeling between the two great households of the[Pg 36] English family. I am glad to think that I in any way deserve this praise, for I look upon that good feeling as of vital interest to the best hopes and aspirations of mankind. I am sure that you will find my excellent successor animated by the same sentiment, and as happy as I have always been, while warmly loyal to the country that is and should be the dearest of all, to recognize ties of blood, of language, and of kindred institutions which make England the next dearest.

As for me, Sir, the precious gift you have brought me, truly illuminated by its charming picture of buildings, some of them dear for their beauty, some because they recall your kindness or that of friends who have[Pg 37] made me feel as if, when I went to Worcester, I was going home, is only another witness of that universal kindness (may I not say affection?) by which the land of my fathers has gone near to make me fancy that I was a son rather than a far-off cousin. As such it will always be justly dear to me and mine.

Wishing continued prosperity to the city of Worcester, I remain, etc.,

J. R. Lowell.

I have been exceedingly touched latterly by the kindness which I have received here in England from all classes, but never have I been more profoundly touched than by the deputation that has now waited upon me to express the kind wishes of the English Workingmen. I have twice had the pleasure of addressing working men since I have been in England,[Pg 40] and I have been gratified to find that, among all the audiences to whom I have spoken, there were none more intelligent. They were exceedingly quick to catch all points and exceedingly agreeable to talk to.

You must not think that I have forgotten the part taken by the working men of England during our civil war—I won’t say on behalf of the North, because now we are a united people—on the side of good order and freedom; and on the only occasion when I had an opportunity of saying so—that was when speaking to the provincial press in London—I alluded to the subject. I agree with you entirely on the importance of a good understanding and much more[Pg 41] between England and the United States, and between the two chief branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. I think you exaggerate a good deal of my own merit in relation to anything of that sort, but I have always had a feeling about me that a war between the two countries would be a civil war, and I believe a cordial understanding between them to be absolutely essential, not only to the progress of reasonable liberty, but its preservation and its extension to other races. (Hear, hear.)

It is a particular pleasure to me on another account to meet English workmen. I notice that, however ardent they may be in their aspirations and however theoretical on[Pg 42] some points, they are always reasonable. The individual man may set the impossible before him as something to be obtained, but I think those communities of men have prospered the best who have aimed at what is possible. We see daily illustrations of that, and anybody who has studied the history of France would be convinced that, though England has a form of Government not so free as that country, yet you have made a greater advance towards good will among men and towards peace than France has done. I do not wish you to suppose that I am out of sympathy with what I call the French Revolution—although I consider it an enormous misfortune,[Pg 43] which might have been prevented, and France saved from many evil consequences that followed—but the manner in which it took place we ought all to regard.

Since I have been in England I have done something, I trust, to promote a cordial feeling between this country and the United States. That has been my earnest desire always, and I hope I have to some extent succeeded. You will allow me to thank you warmly for this address, which I shall always feel to be among my most precious possessions, and I shall carry to the workmen on the other side of the Atlantic the message expressive of your sympathy and hope. I hope the occasion will[Pg 44] not ever arise even for arbitration. I think if we can talk together face to face we shall be able to settle all differences. I am certain that the relations between the two countries are now of a most amicable and friendly kind, and I am sure that my successor is as strongly impressed as I could be with the necessity of strengthening those friendly relations. I trust the necessity for arbitration may never arise between us; I do not think it will.

You will again allow me to give you my most hearty and profound thanks for the kindness you have done me and to wish you all manner of prosperity. I trust also that that reign of peace to which you allude may come soon and[Pg 45] last long. I appreciate extremely what Mr. Cremer said as to your sympathy with the Northern States in the Civil War, with whom no one could help sympathizing if they went to the root of the matter. I believe in peace as strongly as any man can do, but I believe also that there are occasions when war is less disastrous than peace; that there are times when one must resort to what goes before all law, and what, indeed, forms the foundation of it—the law of the strongest; and that, as a general rule, the strongest deserve to get the best of the struggle. They say satirically that God is on the side of the strong battalions, but I think they[Pg 46] are sometimes in the right, and my experience goes to prove that.

Your Royal Highnesses, My Lords, and Gentlemen,—I think I can explain who the artist might have been who painted the reversed rainbow of which the professor has just spoken. I think, after hearing the too friendly[Pg 48] remarks made about myself, that he was probably some artist who was to answer for his art at a dinner of the Royal Society (laughter); and, naturally, instead of painting the bow of hope, he painted the reverse, the bow of despair. (Laughter.) When I received your invitation, Mr. President, to answer for “Literature,” I was too well aware of the difficulties of your position not to know that your choice of speakers must be guided much more by the necessities of the occasion than by the laws of natural selection. (Laughter and cheers.) I remembered that the dictionaries give a secondary meaning to the phrase “to answer for,” and that is the meaning which implies[Pg 49] some expedient for an immediate necessity, as for example, when one takes shelter under a tree from a shower one is said to make the tree answer for an umbrella. (Laughter.) I think even an umbrella in the form of a tree has certainly one very great advantage over its artificial namesake—viz., that it cannot be borrowed (laughter), not even for the exigencies for which the instrument made of twilled silk is made use of, as those certainly will admit who have ever tried it during one of those passionate paroxysms of weather to which the Italian climate is unhappily subject. (Laughter.) I shall not attempt to answer for literature, for it appears to me that literature, of all other things,[Pg 50] is the one which is most naturally expected to answer for itself. It seems to me that the old English phrase with regard to a man in difficulties, which asks “What is he going to do about it?” perhaps should be replaced in this period of ours, when the foundations of everything are being sapped by universal discussion, with the more pertinent question, “What is he going to say about it?” (“Hear, hear,” and laughter.) I suppose that every man sent into the world with something to say to his fellow men could say it better than anyone else if he could only find out what it was. (Laughter.) I am sure that the ideal after-dinner speech is waiting for me somewhere with my address[Pg 51] upon it, if I could only be so lucky as to come across it. (Laughter.) I confess that hard necessity, or perhaps, I may say, too soft good nature, has compelled me to make so many unideal ones that I have almost exhausted my natural stock of universally applicable sentiment and my acquired provision of anecdote and allusion. (Laughter.) I find myself somewhat in the position of Heine, who had prepared an elaborate oration for his first interview with Goethe, and when the awful moment arrived could only stammer out that the cherries on the road to Weimar were uncommonly fine. (Laughter.)

But, fortunately, the duty which is[Pg 52] given to me to-night is not so onerous as might be implied in the sentiment which has called me up. I am consoled not only by the lexicographer as to the meaning of the phrase “to answer for,” but also by an observation of mine, which is that speakers on an occasion like this are not always expected to allude except in distant and vague terms to the subject on which they are specially supposed to talk. Now, I have a more pleasing and personal duty, it appears to me, on this my first appearance before an English audience on my return to England. It gives me great pleasure to think that in calling upon me, you call upon me as representing two things which are exceedingly[Pg 53] dear to me, and which are very near to my heart. One is that I represent in some sense the unity of English literature under whatever sky it may be produced (cheers); and the other is that I represent also that growing friendliness of feeling, based on a better understanding of each other, which is growing up between the two branches of the British stock. (Cheers.) I could wish that my excellent successor here as American Minister could fill my place to-night, for I am sure that he is as fully inspired as I ever was with a desire to draw closer the ties of friendship between the mother and daughter, and could express it in a more eloquent and more emphatic manner than even[Pg 54] I myself could do,—at any rate in a more authoritative manner.

For myself I have only to say that I come back from my native land confirmed in my love of it and in my faith in it. I come back also full of warm gratitude for the feeling that I find in England; I find in the old home a guest chamber prepared for me and a warm welcome. (Cheers.) Repeating what his Royal Highness the commander-in-chief has said, that every man is bound in duty if he were not bound in affection and loyalty to put his own country first, I may be allowed to steal a leaf out of the book of my adopted fellow-citizens in America; and while I love my native country first, as is natural, I may be[Pg 55] allowed to say I love the country next best which I cannot say has adopted me, but which I will say has treated me with such kindness, where I have met with such universal kindness from all classes and degrees of people, that I must put that country at least next in my affection. (Cheers.) I will not detain you longer. I know that the essence of speaking here is to be brief, but I trust I shall not lay myself open to the reproach that in my desire to be brief I have resulted in making myself obscure. (Laughter.) I hope I have expressed myself explicitly enough; but I would venture to give another translation of Horace’s words, and say that I desire to be brief, and[Pg 56] therefore I efface myself. (Laughter and cheers.)

I should more deeply regret my inability to be present at the interesting ceremonial of the 17th were it not that my countrymen will be more fitly and adequately represented there by their accomplished Minister, Mr. Phelps. The occasion is certainly a most interesting one. The monument which you accept to-day in behalf of your townsmen commemorates at once the most marvellous of Englishmen[Pg 58] and the jubilee year of the august lady whose name is honored wherever the language is spoken, of which he was the greatest master. No symbol could more aptly serve this double purpose than a fountain, for surely no poet ever poured forth so broad a river of speech as he, whether he was the author of the “Novum Organum” also or not. Nor could the purity of her character and example be better typified than by the current that shall flow forever from the sources opened here to-day. It was Washington Irving who first embodied in his delightful English the emotion which Stratford-on-Avon awakes in the heart of the pilgrim, and especially of the American pilgrim,[Pg 59] who visits it. I am glad to think that this memorial should be the gift of an American and thus serve to recall the kindred blood of two great nations, joint heirs of the same noble language and of the genius that has given it a cosmopolitan significance. I am glad of it because it is one of the multiplying signs that those two nations are beginning to think more and more of the things in which they sympathize and less and less of those in which they differ. A common language is not indeed, the surest bond of amity, for this enables each country to understand whatever unpleasant thing the other may chance to say about it.

As I am one of those who believe[Pg 60] that an honest friendship between England and America is a most desirable thing, I trust that we shall on both sides think it equally desirable in our intercourse one with another to make our mother tongue search her coffers round for the polished rather than the sharp-cornered epithets she has stored there. Let us by all means speak the truth to each other, for there is no one else who can speak it to either of us with such a fraternal instinct for the weak point of the other; but let us do it in such wise as to show that it is the truth we love and not the discomfort we can inflict by means of it. Let us say agreeable things to each other and of each other whenever we conscientiously[Pg 61] can. My friend, Mr. Childs, has said one of these agreeable things in a very solid and durable way. A common literature and a common respect for certain qualities of character and ways of thinking supply a neutral ground where we may meet in the assurance that we shall find something amiable in each other, and from being less than kind become more than kin.

In old maps the line which outlined British possessions in America included the greater part of what is now territory of the United States. The possessions of the American in England are laid down on no map, yet he holds them in memory and imagination by a title such as no conquest ever established and no revolution[Pg 62] can ever overthrow. The dust that is sacred to you is sacred to him. The annals which Shakspeare makes walk before us in flesh and blood are his no less than yours. These are the ties which we recognize, and are glad to recognize, on occasions like this. They will be yearly drawn closer as science goes on with her work of abolishing time and space, and thus render more easy that peaceful commerce ’twixt dividable shores which is so potent to clear away whatever is exclusive in nationality or savors of barbarism in patriotism.

I remain, dear Mr. Mayor,

Faithfully yours,

J. R. Lowell.

I confess that I rise under a certain oppression. There was a time when I went to make an after-dinner speech with a light heart, and when on my way to the dinner I could think over my exordium in my cab and trust to the spur of the moment for the rest of my speech. But I find as I grow older a certain aphasia overtakes me, a certain inability to find the right word precisely when I want it; and I[Pg 64] find also that my flank becomes less sensitive to the exhilarating influences of that spur to which I have just alluded. I had pretty well made up my mind not to make any more after-dinner speeches. I had an impression that I had made quite enough of them for a wise man to speak, and perhaps more than it was profitable for other wise men to listen to. I confess that it was with some reluctance that I consented to speak at all to-night. I had been bethinking me of the old proverb of the pitcher and well which is mentioned, as you remember, in the proverb; and it was not altogether a consolation to me to think that that pitcher, which goes once too often to the well, belongs to[Pg 65] the class which is taxed by another proverb with too great length of ears. But I could not resist. I certainly felt that it was my duty not to refuse myself to an occasion like this—an occasion which deliberately emphasizes, as well as expresses, that good feeling between our two countries which, I think, every good man in both of them is desirous to deepen and to increase. If I look back to anything in my life with satisfaction, it is to the fact that I myself have, in some degree, contributed—and I hope I may believe the saying to be true—to this good feeling. You alluded, Mr. Chairman, to a date which gave me, I must confess, what we call on the other side of the water[Pg 66] “a rather large contract.” I am to reply, I am to answer to literature, and I must confess that a person like myself, who first appeared in print fifty years ago, would hardly wish to be answerable for all his own literature, not to speak of the literature of other people. But your allusion to sixty years ago reminded me of something which struck me as I looked down these tables.

Sixty years ago the two authors you mentioned, Irving and Cooper, were the only two American authors of whom anything was known in Europe, and the knowledge of them in Europe was mainly confined to England. It is true that Bryant’s “Water-Fowl” had already begun its[Pg 67] flight in immortal air, but these were the only two American authors that could be said to be known in England. And what is even more remarkable, they were the only American authors at that time—there were, and had been, others known to us at home—who were capable of earning their bread by their pens. Another singular change is suggested to me as I look down these tables, and that is the singular contrast they afford between the time when Johnson wrote his famous lines about those ills that assail the life of the scholar, and by the scholar he meant the author—

And I confess when I remember that verse it strikes me as a singular contrast[Pg 68] that I should meet with a body of authors who are able to offer a dinner instead of begging one; that I have sat here and seen “forty feeding like one,” when one hundred years ago the one fed like forty when he had the chance. You have alluded also, in terms which I shall not qualify, to my own merits. You have made me feel a little as if I were a ghost revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon, and reading with considerable wonder my own epitaph. But you have done me more than justice in attributing so much to me with regard to International Copyright. You are quite right in alluding to Mr. Putnam, who, I think, wrote the best pamphlet that has been written on[Pg 69] the subject; and there are others you did not name who also deserve far more than I do for the labor they have expended and the zeal they have shown on behalf of International Copyright, particularly the secretaries of our international society—Mr. Lathrop and Mr. G. W. Green. And since I could not very well avoid touching upon the subject of International Copyright, I must say that all American authors without exception have been in favor of it on the moral ground, on the ground of simple justice to English authors. But there were a great many local, topical considerations, as our ancestors used to call them, that we were obliged to take into account, and which, perhaps,[Pg 70] you do not feel as keenly here as we did. But I think we may say that the almost unanimous conclusion of American authors latterly has been that we should be thankful to get any bill that recognized the principle of international copyright, being confident that its practical application would so recommend it to the American people that we should get afterwards, if not every amendment of it that we desire, at least every one that is humanly possible. I think that perhaps a little injustice has been done to our side of the question; I think a little more heat has been imported into it than was altogether wise. I am not so sure that our American publishers were so much[Pg 71] more wicked than their English brethren would have been if they had had the chance. I cannot, I confess, accept with patience any imputation that implies that there is anything in our climate or in our form of government that tends to produce a lower standard of morality than in other countries. The fact is that it has been partly due to a certain—may I speak of our ancestors as having been qualified by a certain dulness? I mean no disrespect, but I think it is due to the stupidity of our ancestors in making a distinction between literary property and other property. That has been at the root of the whole evil.

I, of course, understand, as everybody[Pg 72] understands, that all property is the creature of municipal law. But you must remember that it is the conquest of civilization, that when property passes beyond the boundaries of that municipium it is still sacred. It is not even yet sacred in all respects and conditions. Literature, the property in an idea, has been something that it is very difficult for the average man to comprehend. It is not difficult for the average man to comprehend that there may be property in a form which genius or talent gives to an idea. He can see it. It is visible and palpable, this property in an idea when it is exemplified in a machine, but it is hardly so apprehensible when it is subtly interfused[Pg 73] in literature. Books have always been looked on somewhat as feræ naturæ, and if you have ever preserved pheasants you know that when they fly over your neighbor’s boundaries he may take a pot shot at them. I remember that something more than thirty years ago Longfellow, my friend and neighbor, asked me to come and eat a game pie with him. Longfellow’s books had been sold in England by the tens of thousands, and that game pie—and you will observe the felicity of its being a game pie, feræ naturæ always you see—was the only honorarium he had ever received from this country for reprinting his works. I cannot help feeling as I stand here that there[Pg 74] is something especially—I might almost use a cant word and say monumentally—interesting in a meeting like this. It is the first time that English and American authors, so far as I know, have come together in any numbers, I was going to say to fraternize when I remembered that I ought perhaps to add to “sororize.” We, of course, have no desire, no sensible man in England or America has any desire, to enforce this fraternization at the point of the bayonet. Let us go on criticising each other; it is good for both of us. We Americans have been sometimes charged with being a little too sensitive; but perhaps a little indulgence may be due to those who always have their faults[Pg 75] told to them, and the reference to whose virtues perhaps is sometimes conveyed in a foot-note in small print. I think that both countries have a sufficiently good opinion of themselves to have a fairly good opinion of each other. They can afford it; and if difficulties arise between the two countries, as they unhappily may,—and when you alluded just now to what De Tocqueville said in 1828 you must remember that it was only thirteen years after our war,—you must remember how long it has been to get in the thin end of the wedge of International Copyright; you must remember it took our diplomacy nearly one hundred years to enforce its generous principle of the alienable[Pg 76] allegiance, and that the greater part of the bitterness which De Tocqueville found in 1828 was due to the impressment of American seamen, of whom something like fifteen hundred were serving on board English ships when at last they were delivered. These things should be remembered, not with resentment but for enlightenment. But whatever difficulties occurred between the two countries, and there may be difficulties that are serious, I do not think there will be any which good sense and good feeling cannot settle. I think I have been told often enough to remember that my countrymen are apt to think that they are in the right, that they are always in the right; that they are[Pg 77] apt to look at their side of the question only. Now, this conduces certainly to peace of mind and imperturbability of judgment, whatever other merits it may have. I am sure I do not know where we got it. Do you? I also sympathize most heartily with what has been said by the chairman with regard to the increasing love for England among my countrymen. I find on inquiry that they stop longer and in greater numbers every year in the old home, and feel more deeply its manifold charms. They also are beginning to feel that London is the centre of the races that speak English, very much in the sense that Rome was the centre of the ancient world. And I confess that I never[Pg 78] think of London, which I also confess that I love, without thinking of that palace which David built, sitting in hearing of a hundred streams—streams of thought, of intelligence, of activity. And one other thing about London, if I may be allowed to refer to myself, impresses me beyond any other sound I have ever heard, and that is the low, unceasing roar that one hears always in the air. It is not a mere accident, like the tempest or the cataract, but it is impressive because it always indicates human will and impulse and conscious movement, and I confess that when I hear it I almost feel that I am listening to the roaring loom of time. A few words more. I will only say this, that we,[Pg 79] as well as you, have inherited a common trust in the noble language which, in its subtle compositiveness, is perhaps the most admirable instrument of human thought and human feeling and cunning that has ever been unconsciously devised by man. May our rivalries be in fidelity to that trust. We have also inherited certain traditions political and moral, and in doing our duty towards these it seems to me that we shall find quite enough occupation for our united thought and feeling.

It is connected, with the first volume which introduced me to the English public. It was not the “Bigelow Papers” or “Biglow Papers”—I beg pardon—(laughter), but it was a little volume of rather[Pg 82] immature poetry which some enthusiast on this side of the water reprinted privately. He was good enough to send me a copy. Perhaps it is known to you that we have a protective system. (Laughter.) The book was accordingly liable to duty as coming to its author, and for the information of whomsoever it might concern there had been written on the outside “Value 6d.” (Laughter.) I laid it to heart at once, and I said to myself, “Here is a piece of criticism you can appreciate, and which, perhaps, may do you a great deal of good.” (Laughter.)

As I was saying, I do not intend to make you any formal speech, and I should not have come here had it[Pg 83] not been that I think it the duty of every man who can say anything that affects the people, whether by his pen or by his tongue, to go anywhere where expression is given to the friendly feeling which it is the desire of all wise and all honest men, I think, to deepen between the two countries which you and I represent. You have been good enough, Mr. President, also to refer to my career as a diplomatist in England, and you were quite right in saying that it was my endeavor to maintain those relations—those friendly relations—and I hope not without some success. (Cheers.) But I cannot listen to this compliment, I cannot accept it, without saying that I was followed by an[Pg 84] American representative who has the same feeling, and who has represented America as ably in my judgment as she was ever represented in England. (Cheers.) That reminds me that we have been rather remarkably represented here in England. If you look over the list of our Ministers you will find that we have had three Adamses, one after the other, grandfather, father and son—one of the most really striking instances of heredity I know of (laughter); and the last Mr. Adams wore at the Court of Queen Victoria, as he told me, the regalia in which his grandfather was robed when he made his bow before George III. as the first American Minister in England, and was, I am bound to[Pg 85] say, very civilly received by His Majesty. (Laughter.) Those are only three illustrations, but we have many others. We have had Galitz, for instance, a prominent American diplomatist—though he was not an American by birth, but was a naturalized Swiss.

There has been lately—I am not going to say a word about politics; I always rigidly avoid them—but I have seen a number of allusions in the newspapers lately to a certain tension, as the journalists like to call it, between the two countries. I cannot help thinking it is the result of a little irritation on both sides; but I have always felt that nothing was more foolish and that nothing[Pg 86] ought to be more rigidly left to children than the “You’re another.” (Laughter and cheers.) Now, I dare say metaphysically, you are another; but there are occasions when the telling one that he is “another” is apt to have a disastrous effect, and I think we ought to avoid it. (Cheers.) When we look at the enormous extension of the race which speaks English (as we call it, for I am always desirous to avoid confining it to the English race, as we used to term it in our pride); when we consider this growth (though I do not quite agree with the figures of some of my friends, I do not believe we shall be a population of one hundred millions or two hundred millions so soon as is expected);[Pg 87] when we consider this growth we find a remarkable fact, and one which no thoughtful man can help observing and reflecting upon. England is the greatest of colonizing races. This is a great distinction, and ennobles a nation. England has put a girdle of three prosperous and vigorous communities around the globe. Of course, it is not for me to say a word about Imperial federation. I am not sure Imperial federation would be a good thing. I am not sure, even if it were a good thing, it is not a dream. It is not for me to say; but it seems to me nobody who looks far can help seeing that the time may not be far distant when the good understanding among all these[Pg 88] English-speaking people and their enormous resources may have great weight in deciding the destinies of mankind. (Cheers.) Now, I am one of those who believe that civilization and freedom are better married than divided, that they go better together. Nobody who has studied history would say they do not exist apart, but it is in divorce, and each is the worse for it. (Cheers.) The duty which has been laid upon the English-speaking races, so far as we can discover, has been to carry ever the great lessons of liberty combined with order. (Cheers.) That is the great secret of civilization. We may have our different laws and different forms of government; but so long as we[Pg 89] sympathize with any idea that so far transcends all geographical boundaries and all municipal limits as that, I think you will agree with me that nothing can be more important than to preserve the friendliest relations between the two greatest representatives of this conquering and colonizing race. (Cheers.)

I did not intend to detain you so long as I have (cries of “Go on”), but I have also in my experience of after-dinner speeches observed that a speech is like an ill-broken horse; it is apt to take the bit between its teeth and to bolt at the most unexpected moment. A speaker frequently brings up, not where he intended to bring up, but where his[Pg 90] steed chooses to land him. I suppose that before coming here I ought to have studied carefully the history of Liverpool, with which I ought to have appeared to have been familiar from my earliest childhood. (Laughter.) Unfortunately, there was no history of Liverpool in my friend Tom Brown’s library. (Laughter.) There were histories of inferior places—Chester, and so on—but no history of Liverpool; and I therefore cannot give you a great deal of information which I have no doubt would have been new and very interesting to you, and which would make the staple of a proper after-dinner speech. But there is one thing I remember about Liverpool. I have always felt a sort[Pg 91] of literary gratitude to Liverpool, strange as you may think it. In my father’s library I remember very well three quarto volumes stood side by side more years ago than I like to say. Two of these volumes were “Lorenzo the Magnificent,” and the other was “Poggio Bracciolini.” I, of course, when I was a boy, did not know precisely the meaning of those books; but they did to a certain extent afford me an introduction to the “Renaissance in Italy.” I thought—but Sir James Picton corrects me—that it was Roscoe who translated the life of the second Lorenzo; but it was his son, I am informed, who translated another book which gave me my first acquaintance with the[Pg 92] Italian Novelists, and which was a book which I remember buying when I was making a library of my own very early in life.

But to an American Liverpool generally represents the gate by which he enters the Old World; for as our ancestors went across West to find a new world there in that unexplored Atlantic, as they thought it might be, we go back Eastward to find our new world in the old—a new world of continental instruction and freshness. And I am glad, linked as we are in history and speaking, as I am given to understand, a language which at least can be understood the one by the other (laughter)—I am glad to find that my countrymen[Pg 93] linger more and more in the land of their ancestors. Formerly Bristol was the great port through which intercourse with America was kept up, but now certainly Liverpool is one end of the three-thousand-mile loom on which the shuttles which are binding us all in visible ties more and more together are continually shooting to and fro. Liverpool is also the gate by which Americans leave the Old World to go home, and I am to a certain extent, as a person who crosses the seas not infrequently, interested in a discussion which I saw in the newspapers the other day as to the difficulties of embarcation at Liverpool. But I have encountered one which I did not expect, and that[Pg 94] difficulty has been put in my way by the Philomathic Society. You have made it harder to get away from Liverpool than I should have expected or supposed, and I shall carry away with me when I go to-morrow the recollections of this pleasant meeting with you, of its cordiality, of the pleasant things that have been said to me, and that we often accept things that we do not deserve. (Laughter and cheers.)