A GUIDE TO THE BEST HOUSES.*

To most people an autobiography in six stout volumes by a living writer of moderate reputation and no striking achieve- ments will seem to be a monument of self-adulation. Mr. Hare, however, protests that he does not write for "most people," but only for the "upper classes," his own particular Mends and cousins ; ordinary people may read it or not, as they please, but he rather hopes they will buy it in sufficient quantities to cover the expense of publication. We must say that it is a little cool to expect us to buy and read the book, and never express an opinion about it Yet that is what Mr. Hare's frequent diatribes against reviewers come to. He cannot make out why the reviews of his books are nearly always unfavourable, and ascribes them to personal malice or sheer ignorance. He solemnly believes that no reviewer reads more than the first chapter of a book, and he quotes the old slander about those who have failed in literature. An to the first point, we do not pretend to any exceptional virtue when we affirm with equal solemnity that we have read these three volumes right through,—and with considerable pleasure and amusement; whilst as to the second, if all the writers who have criticised Mr. Hare's books were to publish their names in a round-robin, he would probably be surprised to recog- nise many of the best-known and most successful authors of the day. We do not live in the times of the old Edinburgh, and the motive of "bitter personal malignity against myself" does not obtain in any respectable review. The truth is, there is no malice about the notices of which he complains, but only that ridicule and " chaff " which nobody can help discharging at such a monument of unconscious conceit and obsequiousness as The Story of my Life must appear to any one with the smallest sense of humour. It is Mr. Hare's own fault. When he writes only for and about the "upper classes," when all his Dukes are archangels and his Countesses seraphs, when nobody (or scarcely any one) under the son of a Baronet is tolerated in his aristocratic pages, when we are always being told of his "cordial reception" at this or that great house, of his amusing his Royal or ducal hosts with his stories, of the delightful conversation of dear Lady This, or that fine old nobleman Lord the Other, with any quantity of frivolous details about these choice specimens of the purest and best society in the world,—is it surprising that we vote Mr. Hare conceited and little better than the "literary valet" of one of his reviews? Yet we are free to admit that, when we look deeper, we find these little foibles and affectations are very much on the surface, and beneath lie a whole heartful of high ideals, warm affections, staunch friendships, wholesome views of life and duty, sincere appre- ciation of what is best in human nature (for even Mr. Hare does not deny that a Peer may be human), and a real though easily misconstrued modesty about his own talents and per- formances. The real Mr. Hare comes out in absolute frank- ness in this marvellously candid autobiography,—not in the whirl of the Season of a constant diner-out, but in the quiet talks with close friends (not the less close because titled) at Ford, or Highcliffe, or Powderham, and most of all in the long months of lonely seclusion and industrious work in his beautiful Holmhurst, endeared by the memories of his never for a moment forgotten mother, surrounded by the familiar flowers and trees, the old servants and the old books, that bind the present to a beloved past. Mr. Hare is charm- ing at home, and never more dignified in heart than in the dread momenta When the friendly faces fade away and another link is broken with the bygone days on which he loves to dwell. This is one side to his "Story,"—by far the larger side in time and in its influence on character. It is the side in which he appears most natural and sympathetic, the true biography of his soul.

The other side, however, fills much the greater share of

'The Story of nay Life. By Augustus J. C. Hare. Vols. Lyndon:

George Allen. [ale. 6d.]

these volumes,—the side of the man of the world, the admir- able adorner of the afternoon tea-table, the well-known

raconteur, welcome at "the best houses," the persevering subal- tern of those autumn manceuvres which exercise and refresh the victims of a crowded Season. Mr. Hare may be trusted to take us to none but the most eligible country seats, almost invariably Conservative in politics—he only went twice to a

Radical house, and felt very queer there—and unexceptionally

aristocratic in personnel. We shall meet nobody who is not charming, and quite "delightful to live with," except, perhaps,

'the Comptons," for "I do not like the Comptons." We shall walk on the terrace with Lady A. of a morning, and she will tell us of the mysterious haunted room, or how Lord B. saw the spirit of Sir C. D. at the moment of dissolution ; or we shall sit in the huge gallery, cosily huddled round the fire, like a bivouac in the desert, with great dark distances all around, and Mr. Hare will keep us enthralled with the creepy story of Croglin Grange, and the way Lord Bridport's ghost guarded the secrecy of the locked casket. What wonderful stories they all tell, these delightful people who seem to be always encountering the marvellous ! There is Lady Marion Alford (the exception to "the Comptons ") with her fertile reminiscences, and her famous ghostly experience at Belvoir. There is Lady Salisbury and the phantom coach at Hatfield, and many another curdling tale. There is Lord Houghton, again and again, and never without a story, a recollection, or an epigram. It is he who tells the prettiest of ghost stories about "Die Weisse Frau" at Frankfort. There is Sir Philip

Egerton's brother, the parson who saw an old lady in his study chair, and summoning all his resolution boldly sat down through her. There is the bloody hand on the pillow in the bedroom that was always kept locked. " Ghostes and

ghostesses " simply abound in these veracious pages,—some- times really useful ghosts, who save people from assassina- tion or (as in Dr. Pereira's story) point the way to the recovery of a lost will. Everybody has seen something,— except Mr. Hare. He has slept in countless haunted rooms, even "Wild Darrell's " own, but he has never been disturbed. Or is it that he is too shy to confess, and did he really receive a telegram on important business which took him away next morning before breakfast? Does he believe in these wonderful tales ? He seems to agree with Dr. Johnson—as who does not ?—that "the beginning and the end of ghost stories is this : all argument is against them, all belief is for them."

We shall quote none. Firelight on Hallow E'en is the proper scene for such tales.

But these delightful people to live with do not always talk about apparitions, and telepathy, and weirdnesses in general.

Sometimes they relate family history and explain the portrait gallery,—and here it is that Mr. Hare shines as a guide to the best houses. Sometimes their stories are frankly humorous, as when the lady was wooed for the sake of her wooden leg, which sweetly recalled a widower's reminiscences of two pre- ceding wooden legs of his bosom ; or when Lord Houghton remarks :—

" Miss Coutts likes me because I never proposed to her. Almost all the young men of good family did; those who did their duty by their family always did. Mrs. Browne (Miss Coutts's companion) used to see it coming, and took herself out of the way for ten minutes; but she only went into the next room and left the door open ; and then the proposal took place, and immediately it was done Miss Coutts coughed, and Mrs. Browne came in again."

The Rev. Hugh Pearson described how it befell one day when driving from Monreale to Palermo in company with

Dean Stanley, with their bags on the seat in front of them

Arthur suddenly complained of the cold. 'Well, you had better put something on,' said H. P. 'I will,' said Arthur. H. P. went on with his book, till aftir some time, suddenly looking up, he saw Arthur, who was also busily reading, entirely clothed in white raiment. He had put on his nightshirt over all his other clothes, without thinking what he - was doing, and they were just driving into the streets of Palermo ! "

Mr. Hare's friends are not all talking-machines, though. For example, there are the silent Cavendishes, but he did not visit much with them,—perhaps for that reason. Lady Chesham said their taciturnity— "Was supposed to be the result of their ancestor's marriage with Rachel, Lady Russell's daughter ; that after her father's death she ha& always been silent and sad, and that her descendants had been silent and sad ever since. Lord earlisle and his brother were also silent Once they travelled abroad together, and at an inn in Germany slept in the same room, in which there was also a third bed, with the curtains drawn round it. Two days after, one brother said to the other, "Did you see what was in that bed in our room the other night P" and the other answered "Yes." That was all that passed, but they had both seen a dead body in the bed."

Mr. Hare is sometimes happy in touching off characters and persons, but at others we must say he is a little unkind. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol may not object to being described merely as "a dapper little man in a violet coat," and the late "dear Lady Ruthven," who was "stone-deaf, almost blind, and her voice like waggon-wheels," redeemed matters by being "as kind and good and truly witty as ever." Lord Lyons was "like a pumpkin with an apple on the top," and Jowett is certainly not flattered, nor is "the eccentric" Professor Freeman. The charm of these volumes lies partly in the recurrence of well-known faces. The same people come forward every year—for Mr. Hare sticks to his friends—and say clever things, or nothing at all, but still we get used to them and fond of them. And then they die ; and that is the sad part of the "Story,"—so many of the characters have faded out. Whilst they are with us they amuse us, and we like them, and are inclined to thank their chronicler for his recollections of them. If he has recorded a vast deal of nothings and mere trivialities, he has also collected a quantity of most entertaining anecdotes, and his gallery of portraits is a great deal more interesting than many in the great houses he delights to visit.