SIR HENRY JENKYNS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I have read with great interest your account of the late Sir Henry Jenkyns in the Spectator of December 16th, and I was particularly struck with what you say about the extreme importance of the duties of a Parliamentary draughtsman. A yet stronger opinion to the same effect has been expressed by Sir H. Maine, I think, in his book on "Popular Government." In Jenkyns I lost one of my greatest friends, with whom I had been intimate ever since our Balliol days. We both went up to College in 1856; and each
of us took a First Class in 1860. He had to be known in order to be appreciated. As the memoir-writer in the Times remarks, he was not a brilliant talker. I may add that Jowett, who knew him to be a great friend of mine, once spoke to me of him as lacking in power of expression; he thought that no pains would ever make him "a really good writer.' He probably owed his success at Oxford to his solid abilities kept in motion by unhasting and unresting energy ; and I suspect that his far more remarkable success in after-life was due to these and kindred qualities. On those kindred qualities I will touch very briefly. I sometimes consulted him about private affairs of my own, and there was no one on whose judgment I set greater value. Closely connected with this common-sense of his was his scrupulous discretion in public matters. Sitting next him at a Swiss table d'h6te, I once rallied him on his strong Liberalism. He checked me, and afterwards explained that, being brought into confidential relations with statesmen of both parties, he did not wish his political opinions to be publicly announced ; he voted for the Liberal candidate at elec- tions, but otherwise he maintained an attitude of neutrality. I sometimes called him a Broad Church Puritan. This quasi- Puritanism or Stoicism of his may have been connected with the occasional brusguerie ascribed to him by the writer in the Times. Let me give an example. In 1897 he dined quietly with my wife and me,—a very exceptional favour, as it appears. The conversation turned on the destruction by the Roundheads of the beautiful cross to which Charing Cross owes its name ; and, being in a paradoxical mood, I said that this and similar acts of vandalism inclined my sympathies to the side of the Cavaliers. He took this far more seriously than it was meant, and gave me a lecture on my levity or want of patriotism. The sharpness of his tone fairly took my breath away, contrasting as it did with the singular gentle- ness and courtesy which were habitual with him. But I afterwards reflected that, like Mr. Gladstone, be had no sympathy whatever with the seamy or sceptical side of things, and that this lack of world-humour, so to call it, was probably viz, dc'fccut de ses gualites, a limitation which may have contributed to what he achieved as a thoroughly high-principled man of action. Goethe has observed that the too frequent use either of the microscope or of the telescope interferes with the normal use of the eyes ; and perhaps the eminent success of Jenkyns in his somewhat restricted line may have been partly due to his habit of avoiding the contemplation either of very small or of very distant things, and of concentrating his mental vision on objects suited to the focus of such a practical man as he was. His conversation was especially interesting when it related to the politicians with whom he had to deal. During the " seventies " a great writer expressed surprise that the late Mr. Forster was thought to have a chance of becoming Prime Minister, while the eloquent Lowe had no such chance. On my asking Jenkyns about this, be answered in reference to the aforesaid writer: "He would not have talked in that way if he had ever done business with the two men." My friend sometimes made striking comments on the business capacities of living statesmen. On what he thus told me in confidence I, of course, keep silence, but I may mention that, Liberal though be was, he remarked on the exceptional readiness with which Mr. Balfour could at once see the point of any legal difficulty that was submitted to him. Let me conclude with a, tale which he told me as authentic. An old-fashioned squire recently complained that Conservatives have ceased to exist: "The two parties now are —Liberals and damned Liberals ! "—I am, Sir, &c.,
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