H4 Swinburne and the Laureateship \_ l ^9Z 



visits ; to the Glen, Lochnaw, and Cumloden, but there is nothing in my 

 diary of any public interest. On our way back, I find : 



; ' 10th Oct. — At Saighton. Spencer Lyttleton came to-day from 

 Hawarden to luncheon and we had a great discussion about the Poet 

 Laureateship. He declares that Gladstone will in all probability not 

 make any appointment to the office. The general sense of the Govern- 

 ment is in favour of Swinburne, and it has been ascertained that Swin- 

 burne would like to be appointed, but the Queen is opposed on account 

 of the immorality of his early songs, and also on account of his having 

 written against the Russian Emperor (he had suggested his assassina- 

 tion many years before, and the Queen, who regarded the Laureateship 

 as an office in her personal household, considered that this made him 

 absolutely impossible as a candidate). 'The one thing we are afraid 

 of,' Lyttleton said, ' is having Lewis Morris thrust on us. William 

 Morris will not take it, and so no appointment will be made." 



" 2yd Oct. — Once more at Crabbet. Yesterday we had a visit from 

 Baron de Nolde, a Russian traveller, who has just come back from 

 Nejd, where he has seen Ibn Rashid. He carried a letter of introduc- 

 tion with him from the Sultan Abdul Hamid who, he said, made use of 

 him as an informal envoy to bring him word of the exact state of 

 affairs in Arabia. Mohammed Ibn Aruk (our old travelling companion 

 in 1878) went with him, and they followed the same route as we did 

 from Damascus to Hail except that they crossed the Nefud at a point 

 farther to the east. At Hail Nolde found Hamoud Ibn Rashid acting 

 as Regent, and was forwarded on by him to the Emir Ibn Rashid by 

 way of Bereyda and Shaggra to his camp near Riad. The Emir enter- 

 tained him there for ten days, then sent him back with a present of a 

 mare and two deluls to Meshed AH. Nolde says his journey cost him 

 £6,000, ours cost us about £200. He is a very clever man with a very 

 forbidding face, not unlike Burton's. He stayed the whole day with 

 us and showed some knowledge of Arab horses. 



" 4th Nov. — I have been much occupied during this week about the 

 Matabele War, which has at last come to fighting and much slaughter of 

 black men by white. I took counsel on the subject with the good 

 Evelyn, who was for two nights at Crabbet, and we agreed to make 

 some demonstration of our disapproval. In the meanwhile I have writ- 

 ten strongly to T. P. O'Connor on the subject, upbraiding him and the 

 other Irish members for their silence. 



" $th Nov. — To London early, and called upon Lady Harcourt, with 

 whom was Lord Spencer, a worthy, ponderous man, who complained of 

 the calls made on him at the Admiralty from all parts of the Empire. 



" Lady Lytton sends me a letter she received two months ago from 

 Sir Henry Loch (the High Commissioner at the Cape) giving his view 

 of the coming Matabele difficulty. ' It began,' he said, ' by Lobengula, 



