THE CENTENARY OF THE `„` SPECTATOR "

Pages 1 to 20 are occupied by remiitikericek of the SPECTATOR. General articles, specially written for the .Centenary number appear from p. 20 to pt. -46. full index will 14 found on p. 626. the-Page before "News Of the Week."

The Story of the `` Spectator "

TN the . year 1828 Robert Rintoul, a • Scotkinin from 1- Dundee, brought out' the first number" 'of the Spectator. For several years' he had edited • the Dundee Akertiser, and before that he had printed it. During . those early editorial "days he had made a provincial news-sheet into a journal 4 intellectual consequence, and incidentally had Made his own mime.'

' The - famous Edin- burgh society of the time had beedine aware of him. • The country gentlenian, and laWyers, and men of letters and of art, .who made Scot: land delightful, began to talk- of him. He was to be met from tinie to time at the farrious dinners of Lord Pan- mure,. the " generous sportsman " of eonvivial. fame, and three years before the Spectator was born he had left Dundee, and tried his hand, un- successfully, 'upon an Edinburgh newspaper- which liardly:surviVed its He cannot have remained very long among the Scotch giants, Perhaps, not more than two years,, but they f set their stamp: upon, him for life. We do not know . how far- he was happy among them. As a new-confer who had- lreitily bettered - his original; position, and who struck his acquain- tance as " gaunt, dour and peremptory," he-can hardly have felt at home- Such new-comers were, according to the memoirs of the tine, listed among

. -

" strangers and inferiors " to be, " shook up.. With" or.. shook out.. as .-the (ASV might .be. He must, however, ; have been at least an acceptable listener among the hard-thinking, right-judging, loose-tongued Ten and brilliant women in whose company he found He made -friends . with William Blackwood, and Chris- topher North, Douglas Kinnaird and Joseph Hume, and through them no doubt with the fierce old Judges whose, dining-rooms were almost as' terrific, if less sober, than their Courts. From such Men as these • Rintoul learned the power to correlate calm judgment, profound insight, and nbusi)T.utteranc.e. He learned &St, for he had nothing to unlearn. He had never rightly belonged to the highly., scripturaliied;portiOn of Scotch society-.which has alwayS been the middle ehiss. From the printing house to Panmure he had, so to speak, stepped over their heads. The great Chalmers, who was later on to be their prophet, found him refreshing : " after earnest efforts to accommodate himself to the conversational tone of the religious circles, he would at times seek relief in con- versation with his older associates," and Rintoul was often resorted to for this purpose.

CCM Tao

WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, JULY 5, IN&

pertator

The Regent of Portend is endetaromtin to cover his usurpa- tion of royalty by such forma as are within his reach. Oa the question being put to the General Assembly of the Cortes whe- ther Don Pedro retained his rnhte as Prism Royal of Portend, ever ....Ming a foreign amen. the Codes cowered in the nega- tive; and solimted- Don Miguel to assume the reins of government as king. Tbey ern to meet on Monday hat to proclaim hien The Constitutional army is es Oa nunek towarda Lisbon. accompanied by pert of the Prodoiooel Junta ; but in progress is net distinctly known. The British navel oficere do not appear le be treating the blockede of Oporto with that respect which wee paid to il by Ministers at home.

The Irish Collo:Bee en disputing On se-electient of Mr. Vesey Ihtegeraid far the Comity of Clare. Oa Mosiday the candidates ewe pot in nomination. end on Toinday it *peeved likely that Mr. O'Coenell would be tattooed by large maim*. • Mr. Ptiegersld addremed the freeholders➢ in an animals] and - eloquent noted, well calculated to mac soy hostile intone- einem that might have been rash againH him as an I/Midden]; and he appessedsopported by 11 the wealth end landed inlays' of the county. The pal:demi:nem of the forty-shilling freelsoldera mod soon. honed, decide the nutter in the first indenes.

The ion in the county was immense ; the primts-me to have exerted their mance. in conjunction with the Amocis. bon. and le are led the freeholders up to the mend in drove. The election of a Roman Catholic to wove in Parham:cm is ace of the most extraorthaary tensor. thal Ma ever In adapted by a party; and the rmgulsoty of it it net.dieninishel by the rumour. that it is held by distingrusheel lawyem (Kr. Charles gals ant Mr. Valentine Blake) hod a Raman Catholic may legally sit Partiansent. The dad ion. up to Wednesday. was eoducted with perfect good-humour altnnuth a them of opposition eras got up /mend Mr. Pingernkfe conduct. it wu perfedly manifest thal the measure proceeded upon a syttem which diaregerded the indivi- deal In the respect Ihe personal selection WeIllt tO see Leen unfortunate; for Kr. Fdegerald received entitles of private respect Ost 1Il bends i and the ',bole body of gentry in the county seem T,. %mien, are advancing anal, in their inmoion of Bulgaria: the mmy has mined the Danube at several points, and throsm a bridge ors the river. The fort of Intera Ms ridded. mod the lawn is born& ; but the more important therms of Braker, or Bra obit maids; al keit time is no malminly tbat it has Wks. 1.1. MOW= Niclinlai Co.. pitched hie camp at Batadagis • tows .1 Bonged.. lying behrem twenty and thirty miles hem the math bank of the Danube Count Wittgenstein hes issued • roam. tion terthe Balgarims, intiting them to receive the Rowsimas friends; notwithanriding which. they have. it is mid been driven into the hinder by the Turks. A 120074 of Turkish hoops has made

• demonstration of mom vigorous emitting.. Crossing the Da- nube at Wallies they lime fallen epee the right of General Roth'.

• which was about le invest °rowans • strong fertrem en the WI bank of that Tilt". Though the .tempt the &m- aims are said to bare maned considerably. The somemente of the Revisit army indicate an intention of crossing the Bathes. After dewing before theca the foam:sem in their front They mud make haste ; for W who know the ccesatry dwell upon the fatal effects of the loot season in them district. Trut prindpal *hied of • Rammer is too:sive, isleffigenee. It is proposed in the Brocemon m Mee this, the tint and 2000.1 pro- minent place. to s report of ak the leuthog mammon of the soda In thn department. the reader may always expect a anrocoary account of mery public promerting, w tronswation of interest, whether the scene may lie at home or abroad, that has taken plan within the seven days mending tin ternainaliee of am labours;

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1828.

When next we see the printer-journalist he is in London. Douglas Kinnaird has made him Editor of the Atlas, and once more he is unfor- tunate. He cannot get on with his proprietors who want him to " be- twaddle " the paper. It must have taken some self-confidence to try again, but he was backed by powerful men. Hume and Douglas Kinnaird raised sufficient money for a fresh start, many of the Atlas contributors stuck by their Editor, and with their help he latinched the Spectator, in very much the same form it still preserves and costing ninepenee. It began with short articles designed to give " an impartial exhibition of the leading politics of the day," went on to a discussion " of interest- ing topics of a general nature with a view to instruction and enter- tainment," and ended with " reviews of books, musical and dramatic criticism, scientific and miscellaneous informa- tion." .

At first the paper ran at a considerable loss, but its supporters were substantial men. They held on their way, and though later on the price had to be changed to one shilling, it was not very long in obtaining advertisements and producing an income. The actual production of the paper apart from payments of contributors cannot, one would think, have cost much. The whole thing was done at the small house in Wellington Street, Strand, which until the year 1920 continued to be the Spectator Office. In later days, when only used as an office, there was little space to spare. In Rintoul's time, however, the paper was printed on the premises, and lie and his whole family lived within those narrow four walls, whose windows looked eastward upon Somerset House, and westward upon the Churchyard of Savoy Chapel. The racket of children and printers, the constant coming and going of contributors, the smell of cooking, together with the hum and stir of an active household, must constantly have impeded Rintoul's work.

VISITORS TO TILE " SPECTATOR."

Possibly his printing experience made him tolerant of the clank of the press, always metaphorically within ear- shot of the journalist, but literally so in the old Spectator Office. The dull peace and cold dinner of an old-world Sunday must indeed have been welcome to the family at the top of the house. According, however, to the meagre tradition which has survived, the Rintouls were exceed- ingly happy people. The present writer as a child used occasionally to find herself in company with the last survivor of the household—Miss Henrietta Rintoul. She talked of the years spent in the office as ideally gay, and of her later life, by comparison, as an arid desert of disappointment. A delightful literary society, probably much glorified in the golden mist of the past, surged up and down the narrow stairs of the office. Rather a Bohemian crowd one -Fould imagine, since William Wakefield, the hero of Colonial Reform and The Double Abduction Case, Leigh and Thornton Hunt, and the Rossetti brothers loomed very large in it. One does not know if the Hunts in later days brought Lewis or Mrs. Lewis, or George Eliot, in their train.

MISS RINTOUL AND TOWNSEND.

Did Carlyle ever come into the office ? He wrote for the paper, so did Charles Lamb at one time (letters at any rate), and where a man's home is also his workshop he is likely to know his official acquaintance privately. Anyhow, Miss Rintoul could not bear to leave the scenes of past glory, and she remained at 1 Wellington Street, by arrangement, until after Meredith Townsend bought the paper. He rather weakly consented to her remaining in her attics, found her presence intolerable, and offered her a sum to go away. She accepted the offer, left in hysterics, and never forgave the new Editor. A strange old figure she looked in the 'eighties, still dressed in a manner to please Dante Gabriel, her grey hair hanging down her back in a coloured net, and resting upon loose- flowing robes of brilliant green.

THE TIDE OF REFORM.

The new weekly came into the world in an atmosphere of Reform, and Rintoul took up his cudgels with zest. The power of the world outside Parliament, on the eve of the Great Reform Bill, is almost impossible to explain. Perhaps the fear of Revolution was more acute than found expression. The Duke of Wellington Aid that the test of a great man was knowing when to give in and daring to do it. Judging by this criterion, the various Reform Bills were responsible for much official greatness. They were made law by men who refused to die hard, and for this strange ennoblement they certainly owed a great deal to the Spectator. Acting in character, Rintoul judged calmly and fought with violence,. using as a rule the minds and pens of others, but exciting, controlling, and easing his team as a born journalistic coachman knows bow. Probably he himself was responsible for the historically effectual slogan, " The Bill, the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill." Certainly it was first used in the Spectator. The following sentence is hardly less memorable and is again probably Rintoul's own : " The writers of the opposition Press talk of restraining the people by an Anti Reform Ministry. Restrain the whirl- wind with my lady's fan " During all the great Reform years, suffrage struggles, and Corn Law riots, Rintoul would throw in his lot with no party, holding himself at liberty to attack any person or group who was at the moment impeding the rate of progress. More than once he puzzled his public, by sudden changes of front, with regard both to Government and individual statesmen. He supported, as he said, " the best instrument to hand " and dropped it when it blunted. His diatribes against the House of Lords seem truly ridiculous nowadays, but the only way to get past their obstruction was by belittling their Order : " An antique and mouldering mass, an efflorescence of taxa- tion," he roared. With all his force he worked to get it into the mind of his readers that the people as a whole meant Reform this time.

THE YOUNG QUEEN AND RryrouL.

In bludgeoning his way to better times Rintoul went consciously too far. Occasionally the paper paused and seemed to gasp for breath. On one occasion the Editor, with no bad grace, asked pardon of Lord Grey, and on another assured the public that come what might the Spectator would stand always for the sanctity of property. This needed saying, considering that he had encouraged those who in the event of defeat had threatened to with- hold the taxes. Such threats, it is true, were not so un- common then as now. Peel himself said, when h° an- nounced his conversion to Free Trade, that if the Corn Laws were not repealed " a proud aristocracy and an ancient monarchy might be found incompatible with a reformed House of Commons." Still Rintoul evidently saw the necessity of stepping back and rather anxiously belittled his fulminations in retrospect. His readers, however, played the game for the most part, and did not look up back numbers, realizing that last month': news- paper, like yesterday's talk, is a thing to be remembered in effect rather than referred to in detail. This very sincere profession of faith about property, however, by no means stayed Rintoul's hand. He had no feeling for the monarchy. " An honest man for a King," and such- like stabs, did not seem to him to be unfair, and even the charms of the young Queen made little appeal to the unsentimental Spectator, which expended much acid ink in ridiculing the glories of the Coronation and the wonders of the Great Exhibition. One is apt to forget how late in her reign Victoria's unparalleled popularity began. Perhaps it was never to men like Rintoul that such popularity made appeal. It was the typical middle class which conceived and upheld it, seeing in her dOmestic Court (to quote Mr. Lytton Strachey), as in some re- splendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led themselves. • LORD MELBOURNE.

Melbourne, needless to say, got short shrift from the Spectator. Had he not said that the sole duty of Govern- ment was " to prevent crime, and preserve contracts " ? Did he not regard all Reform as a sort of dishonesty, a breach of contract with the men who were trading on a tacit understanding of preferential treatment always ? That such a man should -be all-powerful with an un- formed girl drove the paper wild with apprehension—and small wonder. Of the romantic figure—charming, gay, and humorous—whom we know as Melbourne, a man of the world not wholly disillusioned, in spite of Lady Caroline Lamb, a man of pleasure yet " possessed by a deep disquietude of heart," Rintoul knew nothing, and had he known would have cared nothing. Causes, not men, appealed to this first Editor of the Spectator. Pas- sionately humane in the sense of passionately desiring to alleviate the sufferings of the mass, the human drama did not interest him at all. But when one thinks of the hungry populace and realizes that the repeal of the Corn Laws meant food for the people one can forgive the single- minded rage of the Radicals. To see corn grown for the benefit of the grower and know that none could be imported till the home-grown grain had reached 80s. a quarter must have been maddening to a man who had begun life in the class to whom the price of food is of vital importance. Ireland, of course, could not be ignored by so deter- mined a reformer as Rintoul, and seeing how intense his sympathy for the " men whose perennial hunger was becoming too sharp even for Irish nerves," and how unsparingly he calls attention to England's mistakes in regard to them, it is strange that he should have not only mistrusted O'Connell's honesty but actually have accused him of being " in the market." To this unjust innuendo he had, however, the good feeling to publish O'Connell's reply—a model of good sense and good temper. In so doing he began the Spectator's honest practice of publishing letters whose purport was to its own disadvantage. After O'Connell's death the Spectator summed up his character very brilliantly : " He was large in person, in voice, in the scope of his cordial friendship ; his physical strength was immense ; so was his industry. He was truly Irish in the laxity of his choice of means to an end. He fortified a real case with humbug and rounded off genuine eloquence with cajolery. In fine he was in all things an Irishman, a very big Irishman."

AN EARLY. IMPERIALIST.

Certainly the Spectator before the days. of Townsend and Hutton could 'boast no special scrupulosity where means to an end were concerned, yet Rintoul was a very true and far-sighted patriot whose patriotism did not consist in " a conviction that his country was always in the right, but in a passion that she should be " He was indeed an early Imperialist at a date when too great an interest in the Colonies was regarded as parochial and " the Great Game " concerned Europe only. He recog- nized that the time had come when Continental prestige was no lasting ground of greatness, which was destined finally to rest upon new world power rather than old world precedence. It was this piece of prescience which led to his opening his columns to Edward Gibbon Wake- field, who found in the Spectator a means of utterance which, owing to the extraordinary circumstances of his early life would otherwise have been denied him. Three years in Newgate is not easily forgiven to any man, least of all where the punishment is deserved. A man of good .birth, in the Diplomatic Service, a widower with children, he carried off from school upon a false plea of saving her father from ruin an heiress of sixteen, travelled with her to Gretna Green, married her, brought her down to the South of England, and was about to embark with her to France, when he was caught. Once his escape was cut off, Wakefield behaved fairly well, ad- mitted his guilt, swore that the marriage had not been consummated, and declared that had a man behaved so to his daughter he would have shot him. The girl's relatives got the marriage annulled by Act of Parliament, and the case became in consequence a nine-days' wonder. In prison he turned his mind to the possibilities of Colonial life, coming to the conclusion that the country was wasting a vast opportunity. As soon as he was released, and .perhaps sooner, he began writing (chiefly in the Spectator) about Colonial Reform.

\%AKEFIELD AND LORD DURHAM.

John Stuart Mill and various other economists were impressed by his originality and mental grasp ; soon he became a leading though not a conspicuous member of the South Australian Company. His greatest work, however, was done as private secretary to Lord Durham in Canada. The Durham Report, " the Charter of Consti- tutional Government in the Colonies," embodied the ideas of Wakefield. Lord Durham made no secret of his indebtedness to his private secretary, whose help he was not allowed. officially to acknowledge. It is impossible to .exaggerate• the debt which. the Empire owes to this man of genius. But for his action, and that action could well be described as a trick on the Government, New Zealand would not have been ours. It was owing to his representations that transportation was prevented, emigration systematized, and the country aroused to what seems now the obvious truth, that a good class of emigrant must know that he will upon his arrival in a strange country, find the essential amenities of civilization. In this tremendous undertaking Rintoul gave him at least some of the opportunities for making himself heard which a seat in the House of Commons would have afforded him. In the end most of Wakefield's friends deserted him, but never Rintoul. Measures, not men, was not his watchword for nothing.

MEREDITH TOWNSEND.

The next chapter in the history of the paper begins with Meredith Townsend, though there was an interval of nearly two years between Rintoul's retirement and Townsend's purchase, during which Thornton Hunt edited, and which may be regarded as a blank page— providentially blank for the new proprietor. The cir- culation had gone down with a run and he was able to buy it cheap. Townsend was no novice as a journalist. Though hardly thirty, he had been for eight years editor of The Friend of India, a Calcutta paper of no account when first as a young man of twenty-one it fell into his hands. He made it a power in India. The whole English population read it. Even Lord Dalhousie counted with " the little man at Calcutta," and wrote to him thanking him for the fairness " with which you have always set your judgment of my public acts before the community, whose opinions are largely subject to your influence."

Having made what was there considered a brilliant success, and made it very young, he came back to England to find himself wholly unknown. The fact in no way dismayed him, though it came as a surprise. He was, and knew that he was, a born journalist, in whom the urge to journalism was as strong as the urge to poetry in a poet. To make a passing criticism upon the passing show, and give the criticism publicity was, he believed, his vocation. The show was of, deep or, more truly, of des- perate interest, for he was inclined to believe it a tragedy.

RICHARD HUTTON.

No sooner had the circulation risen under his manage- ment than it sunk again, because during the American War of the North and South the paper ardently espoused the unpopular side. Such temporary recuperation, how- ever, as had taken place was not due to one man. Mere- dith Townsend had taken a partner. During the first weeks of his sole proprietorship a man called at the Office about whom the Editor knew nothing but his name, and that he was a friend of Walter Bagheot, the essayist, economist, and banker. The two men were instantly attracted to one another, and talked together for a long hour. Hardly had Richard Hutton left the room, and while he was still groping his short-sighted way down the narrow staircase, Townsend made one of his instant decisions. He called over the banisters and offered him a partnership. Hutton turned to come up again, Townsend went down to meet him, and then and there upon the stairs began the equal partnership, close collaboration, and closer friendship, which was to last nearly forty years, and end with Hutton's death. " Dear Townsend, God bless you ! " were the last words he wrote.

Two more widely diverse characters could hardly have been found among good Victorians. By wholly different paths they had arrived at similar conclusions, perhaps the. best foundation for a lasting friendship, certainly the best for a joint editorship. Together the two men faced week by week the American news and the figures of the Spectator's circulation. Townsend had no doubt more (Continued on page 5.) -We publish apposite and on p. 6, a reproduction from an early issue of the SPECTATOR.

strongly than Hutton the feeling that the breaking up of the American Republic would -set back the world's clock, but the source of his championship of the' North, like Hutton's, was hatred of slavery, a hatred aroused as the writer has often heard him say; by reading Uncle Tain's Cabin, a book which,. in defiance of all the canons of criticism, he regarded as one of the greatest novels of the world. When he grew old and the past became more definite than the present, the scenes in that story and the scenic -effects of the actual history were wound together in his mind. As he paced up and down his garden or his library he would.declaim (he could never get hold of even the most elementary tune) " John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave."

THE. AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

The revulsion of feeling which brought the British public round to the side of the North after their first spontaneous ebullition of feeling is not easy to account for. The people, always more sentimental than the politicians, sympathized with the South as being the weaker side and a better hand at peace-time soldiering and showy gallantry. The less scrupulous politicians had simply desired. a split, .as tending to weaken a rival, and so cheered the South out of a sort of pseudo-patriotism. But anyhow the wheel of sympathy, once it began to mote, soon came full circle, and the paper, which had only lost favour on the ground that it was wrong headed, soon recovered it on the assumption that it was " right minded."

Meanwhile the editors were becoming " known," though as yet few men of note—indeed, few men of any kind—wrote for the paper. A little later on they attracted more and more distinguished contributors, among whom Lord Oxford-wrote most constantly and at greatest length. But in those early days the partners prCduced .the paper themselves with very little help. It was perhaps this practice -which started the tradition of its--complete intellectual solidity, the impression it gave of hiving' been written by " one man." Most readers gave the supposed " one man " a name, and associated the Spectator entirely with -Richard Hutton. It is true that, a, i.e* PCwerful personages .recognized the ability of Meredith Townsend's political articles, and for a while, chiefly through Lord Carnarvon, he had the entrée into some close political circles, but the sort of position which Lord Dalhousie's appreciation had given him in India he' never. got back in London. More and more his colleague unintentionally overshadowed him.

A CELESTIAL " SI,ECTATOR.".

Richard- Hutton's intellectual reputation was enor- mously enhanced by his talent for friendship. He was sincerely ,beloved and revered. In the reverence as _well as the love Townsend shared. The present writer remem- beirS -his saying, after Hutton's death, that he hoped his work in the next World would be to co-edit with Hutton a better Spectator,. adding sadly, " but it can't happen; Hutted will be 'so much above me there." Hutton's membership of the. Metaphysical SOcietY_ and his many friends - at the Devonshire Club brought his name before the literary, philoiophic, and scientific world, so much smaller then than , now.. His personality was as con-. spicuous as it was delightful, and if one• may say such a thing. without offence was a very great advertisement for the SpectatOr. WithoUt ToWnsend's incisiveness, dra- Matic power, or gift of style, he was able when he wrote, either of 'religion or literature, to speak to the heart. Men: felt intimate with him who had never -seen. him. He did not rely on argument ; he dared to say, " the true answer to agnosticism is revelation." He threw a light for men on their own conviction, and he awed those who had none.

LATE REVIEWS. AND BRIGHT " SUB-LEADERS:" It has been most wittily said that for the old Spectator, the Spectator of • Townsend and Hutton, Art was a sub- department of morals. There was a good deal of truth in it even in the matter of literature ; but here again Hutton spoke from the heart and spoke in the spirit of the time. Where ethics are concerned every thinking Man is an intellectual. He knew this, and so much were his criticisms enjoyed that he was freely forgiven a fault now regarded as unforgivable. Where current literatitre was in question he was invariably a week after the fair, and not seldom six months. The indulgence shown him by the public proved beyond doubt that his criticisms were not copies of those he had read. They were late, but they were fresh. • In those days polities did not command the universal interest that they do now, unless at great crises. So far as women were concerned a keen interest in politics was confined to a few great ladies. Other women accepted their husbands' and fathers' conclusions in a cut-and-dried form and hardly gave politics a thought. In. the smaller country houses and rectories, as in the professional man's London home, 'the Spectator was largely bought' for what were called its sub-leaders. These had no reference to politics and were chiefly written by Meredith Townsend. They covered every conceivable subject looked at from its more popular side. Topical, terse, often witty, always eminently readable, they varied greatly in weight, colour, and substance. A small bit of scientific news, any odd case in the police courts,. such universally interesting abstractions as " The Purpose of Pain," or some Indian happening not of sufficient moment to deserve a " leader," served the turn of the less known Editor. The articles put many sixpences into the capacious pockets of the pair, but the subscribers had made the habit of returning thanks to Hutton for what they most enjoyed, and he got most of the credit. It was not unnatural ; it certainly was not his fault. - ART CRITICISM.

Neither Editor knew very much about painting. Hutton's sight was too bad, though he had for all that a nice taste in water-colour drawings. Harry Quilter, in whose artistic flair they both trusted, was at least an extraordinarily good writer, and if his criticisms would not pass muster now, they were so wonderfully well expressed as to deceive the very elect then. The critic who followed him has become celebrated. When he was very young=a tall, clever boy—his articles used to delight Meredith' Townsend, - who alternately chuckled and groaned because he felt it necessary to write " delete " against the best bits, on the ground that the writer " cut too deep," ae,- for instance, when lie wrote of the prudish J.' C. Horsley, R.A., that ", his representations of nude faces were saved from impropriety by the obvious fact that they were not drawn from the life."

One. of the effects of the Great War has been to dwarf all events for . nearly half-a-century behind it. They seem sometimes in modern journalistic allusions to be all summed up under the heading, " Much ado about nothing." When the French and German War is men- tioned someone murmurs almost contemptuously, " six weeks ! " YoUnk people' *Mild not find it easy to say - much about `.` Majuba,".and the Boer War, near as it is, we -have agreed to forget. - As to the minor cataclysms which- shoOk. Society, -dramatic as they were, they arc now only remembered as illustrations of character in biographical memoirs. They will make good material - • (Continued'on page 7.) We: publish opposite and on p. 4, a .leprad,actiorr from' an early issue: Of the SrEctAtitiu.

kr the hiStorieal novels of the future, nnti:they: were,' of course, a God•ierid to the weekly johinaliSi; • • • _ • BRADLAUGH AND THE "SPECTATOR.'' _ • ' • Take the scenes which took place in the House of Commons when Bradlatigh first refused to take the Oath. and then' declared that he could, and would,' take it, though he did not attach any meaning to the concluding words of ttip declaration, " SO help me God:" He rushed-- up the floor of the House and caught hold of the Testa- ment lying in front of the Speaker's. chair. He Was brought back by the officials.-.Again and again he made a dash for the Bible and-was again and again prevented, No one was amused, passions were running far too high. In the end a fierce struggle took place between the hefty atheist . and ten policemen, who at last succeeded in dragging him dowriitairs to the Palace Yard. There was a piece of copy ready to the hand of such a writer as Meredith Townsend ! An . interesting article could. be written on every moment. It covers the Relation of Religion to the State, it brings in The Excuse of Sincerity, The Patience of the Police, The Social Angle of Cleavage, which indeed Bradlaugh had hit, for women became politicians for the nonce ; one-half of London was not on speaking terms with the other.

THE PHOENIX PARK MURDERS: ,

Then again there was Ireland and the whole Parnell business ; what a drama, and how Meredith Townsend enjoyed it, genuinely horrified and distressed as he was by the Phoenix Park murders. The present writer remembers the impression created upon the mind of a child by continual talk of " The . Irish Members,", the villains of the piece who interrupted and shouted . and were altogether too delightfully badly behaved. At home the Editor was always demanding " a subject " of all and sundry. The eager suggestions of young persons were usually, quashed by the formula, " not up to Spectator Jevel,". but ".The Irish Members " could always offer copy:in the last resort. In those dim days their leader appeared' as a real hero of romance. A man, said Meredith Townsend, with " the secret of sove- reignty," " a man of clear, slow thought, a cold sceptic whose word was yet law with all the hot-headed Catholics." The romantic but rather Comic' finale came later when Parnell climbed up the water-pipe and " not only endan- gered his: immortal soul bid incurred Mr. Gladstone's highest displeasure." The glamour was already gone. Townsend was grimly athuiecl... In the paper he belittled the divorce 'case, and spoke of it as " a pretext," but in talk he waxed eloquent about it. "-England survives all her enemies," he declared: " She pursues her great destiny. Parnell stood in lier, way, and Kitty O'Shea swept him out of it. Any instrument will act in the hand of Providence." LoOking back at one's youth' it all seems like -a stage play, of which the Spectator was the libretto. To Townsend the breach with Mr. Gladstone over the Home Rule Bill was a dramatic incident ; to Hutton it was a grievous blow. He had a personal affection for his leader, _and_ nothing, but a conviction that patriotism required the sacrifice .would have led him to make the break. Meredith Townsend knew very little of Gladstone personally. " I never fell, under his fas- eination,". he used to say ; " his `. smiting eyes repel me." 'Nevertheless, all through the long duel between him and the " foreign Jew of _genius, unhampered by English prejudice or tradition,'! and whose principles Townsend- considered to • be " few. and -flexiblei" he backed the Eriglislunan with heart and soul. STRACHEy .414irt 714 OFFICE CAI, , " Everything is calculation ! No ! EVerything is • adventure,". Townsend -would quoting one of Disraeli's novels. The words would have suited him' for a !motto. The taking of St. Loe Strachey into the Spectator to play the part of " heir. apparent was indeed' an adventure: Certainly, he was 'a very striking ' young man; in the year 1885, the glass- of-fashian and the mould of form ; he yet made those:10rd saw him fOr the first time think of ariother century. He had a great deal of:Manner and Was Very eager, " a man of parts • and spirit," one said to oneself. " Tao intich spirit to be c'er at ease " might have been said by a critical acquaint- .

awe, but not by a Map of Meredith Townsend's tempera- ment._ On him Strach'ey had simply the effect of renewing his youth. 'All, the mists of . depression which his older friends tried so hard to disperse cleared in Strachey's presence.' -He into frienclarip from the first moment that he saw .him. The son' of an old acquaintance, he did not Come like Hutton without credentials, but he has told, in The Adventure of Living, how surprised and delighted he was by the reception given to himself and his work at the Spectator office. Townsend had only read ;wo or three of his articles, only listened two or three times to ' his vivacious Conversation, before he realized that " the new young man. " went full tilt to the centre of any subject that was suggested to him, clattering down to it as straight and fast as an electric drill. . Without forethought or afterthOught Townsend came to his decision. Strachey and Strachey alone must edit the paper of the future. Richard Hutton, though hardly less struck with the new-eorner, counselled pause, a piece of advice it was not, in Townsend's nature to take. Almost literally .he threw the Spectatorat the head of a stranger: The office' cat,' who usually. diStruSted umped upon Strachey's shoulder and set a dramatic ' Seal upon a lightning decision.

A GROUP OF FRIENDS. .

For some 'ten Yrears before lie edited, Strachey worked in ostensible subordination to the two editor, but alvirays with the knowledge that he would be sole Editor, and that the priceof the paper would be a matter of arrange- nient., and would not be more, whatever happened, than he could afford to pay for it. It is obvious from his autobiography that he in great measure returned the admiration and affection so impulsively offered to him. Certainly the 'effect Of his presence in. the office was wholly `good. His vital personality acted as a tonic upon meri who were beginning to get' old. and whO had done n great dearof very hard and Strenuous• work. Born a man of the world, he had as much to teach as to learn. He Opened a great many windows and lightened an atmosphere which was threatening to become too bookish. At this time the atmosphere of friendship prevailing in the office was surely unparalleled in the historir of journalism. It embraced the editors and their immediate colleagues, 'the printer, and the clerks.

Although Strachey had a very real love of literature, especially Elizabethan and Restoration literature, his proper study was man—living, acting, talking men and women. His birth, his marriage, and his inclination threw him among .people of distinction, people who brought to the service of the crowd money, thought, or great tradition. In these fields of the powerful he was welcomed as a gleaner, because he could also sow in them. The years went by and the number of his intimate acquaintanees doubled and trebled ; 'a set of people who would not have read the Spectator of Townsend and Hutton. working' alone gradually joined themselves' to the faithful Company Of their adherents, arid when he became completely his. own master another sharp rise in the circulation took place, and he could truly say that he had doubled the number of subscribers. Still the paper maintained a strong individuality, not more changed than changing times could account for on the score of development, and once more the public exag- gerated its one-man character. For long the paper owed immensely to Mr. J. B. Atkins. By the end of the War St. Loe Strachey was attacked by the protracted illness which wholly incapacitated him month after month, and again and again after his seeming recovery laid its cold hand upon him. During those long periods Mr. Atkins played Townsend to his Hutton. A well-meaning public is apt to be indiscriminate in its hasty generaliza- tions. Mr. Charles Graves' part in the " individuality " of the paper during the dual editorship and during Mr. Strachey's sole rule was a very great one. Other achieve- ments have helped to throw his Spectator work into the shadow. One would like to think that the heartfelt blessings of his original chiefs have not been, and will not be, without fortunate effect.

The part the Spectator played in the Great War is known, but only those who knew St. Loe Strachey can realize how immeasurable is the strength of passionate optimism in a patriot of great ability, extraordinary gifts of expression, and means of publicity. Such emotion is very much like enjoyment. It belonged to his perennial youth, and had such emotion had no place during those terrible years we should not have won the War.

Probably, however, Strachey's part in cementing friendship with America will be to him a more lasting memorial than his War work properly so called. His famous American tea-parties must have sown good seed in the prolific ground of American journalism. The story of their inauguration is very characteristic. Early in the War various English journalists were called together by a "Minister of the Crown " to give advice as to how to treat American newspaper correspondents. The Government's policy, acting through the Censor, had been to tell them nothing, but news hunger in America was reaching famine point and something had to be done. St. Loe Strachey suggested that the Prime Minister should give them twenty minutes' talk once a week, The suggestion was flouted. He went straight home and invited the Prime Minister to meet the corre- spondents at his own house. The party was a success. For nearly three years after this these correspondents met together weekly, and Strachey, though he could not always provide a Prime Ministcr to meet them, managed always to get a Cabinet Minister or else some distin- guished general or admiral, whose conversation about the War would be worth having, to be the lion of the occasion. The spirits of Rintoul and Wakefield were surely at the gathering !

St. Loe Strachey's heroic fight with mortal disease could not go on for ever. At first he appeared to have conquered death. After a time of daily danger he came, as he said, out of the " condemned cell," cheerfully remarking that " it was not so bad in there after all." For years though never out of sight he kept the enemy at bay, but in the end he died, the perfectly brave man that be had always been. For some time he had more or less lost control of the paper, and had put no one else in absolute command. His son's Labour views confused its message a little. Subscribers " did not know what to think," and began to fall away. Under the new manage- ment, however, the circulation immediately righted itself, as the published accounts show. The Spectator is now back to something more than its former average, and to a far higher figure, of course, than it ever enjoyed under Townsend and Hutton.

Things have been changing since their time ; above all, ways of thinking and speaking have been changing: There have been moments when they certainly would not have felt at home in the Spectator Office ; when, indeed, their simpler spirits would have been too shy to enter it. But we think they would not feel strangers in the editorial room to-day. We can imagine them coming in at the door together, Hutton first, adjusting his eye- glass, Townsend behind him, grasping his snuff-box, his dark face illuminated by that somewhat startled look of delighted recognition, which always flashed over it when he met a friend for the first, or the five hundredth, time.

C. TOWNSEND.