144 Si* Poets at a Wedding [1894 



He can drive a coach and four. 

 Where shall we his merits fix? 

 He can drive a coach and six. 



' 13^/1 June. — Dr. Leitner called to talk over Egyptian and Moham- 

 medan affairs. He is gloomy about prospects as I am in the East, 

 where the old sympathy for Eastern things amongst Englishmen is fast 

 dying out, and a reign of Western intolerance is taking its place. 

 There is danger of a partition of the Ottoman dominions, for there is 

 nowhere the smallest wish in Europe to see reform in them, and all 

 Powers alike are in arms in Africa against the Mohammedan Arabs. 

 This is for England and Germany a new feature and a dangerous one 

 for Islam. 



" 18^ June. — Miss Violet Maxse's wedding, an omnium gatherum, 

 social, political, and literary. The bridegroom, Lord Salisbury's third 

 son, brought the Tories ; Maxse, the Liberal Unionists, with Chamber- 

 lain and the rest ; the young lady, her friends. I counted six poets in 

 the church, including myself, Alfred Austin, George Meredith, Alfred 

 Lyall, Oscar Wilde, and Edwin Arnold. I found myself next to Lyall, 

 who told me the latest joke about the Laureateship. ' If one must have 

 a Laureate, choose the least of evils, choose Austin.' At the bride's 

 house the crowd was immense, and I found myself for ten minutes 

 flattened like a herring between Lord Salisbury and a tall Dutch clock. 

 Truly matrimony makes strange pew fellows. 



" 22nd June. — Gave a dinner at Mount Street to Lady Granby, Lucy 

 Smith, d'Estournelles, Alfred Lyall, and Godfrey Webb, all of us more 

 or less poets. After dinner we read and recited poetry, d'Estournelles 

 being by far the most effective, having an admirable manner. 



" I hear that Edward Malet is going to resign his Embassy at Berlin 

 because he was not consulted on the Congo arrangement. 



" 26th June. — Received a visit from M. Ducroix, Editor of the Paris 

 ' Matin.' He asked me my opinion of the situation in Egypt, and I 

 gave it him very frankly, and of French policy there. ' French diplo- 

 macy,' I said, ' had made two capital mistakes, first in not supporting 

 native as opposed to European interests, and, secondly, in making the 

 perpetual opposition it does to our English policy without being pre- 

 pared to fight.' He said they were his own views. Reverseaux had 

 to his own knowledge promised the Khedive to back him in the Spring 

 of 1893 with a French fleet at Alexandria, and then had left him in the 

 lurch. It was the fault of the home Government more than Rever- 

 seaux's. 



" 30th June and 1st July. — Our Annual Crabbet Club Meeting. The 

 members present were : 



