1897] H. M. Hyndman 279 



a great deal and told me many curious things, among others the genesis 

 of the English connection with the Suez canal. He assures me that 

 it was not Beaconsfield's idea, but Greenwood's, who was at that time 

 Editor of the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' and on whose staff Hyndman was. 

 Greenwood conceived the plan of the Government buying the shares, and 

 after consulting with his colleagues on the paper went to Lord Derby to 

 suggest it. Derby approved and sent him on to Beaconsfield, who at 

 first was much disinclined, but eventually agreed, giving the job to 

 the Rothschilds, a quite unnecessary waste of commission as the 

 shares could have been bought with Treasury Bonds in the ordinary 

 way. He told me much, too, of his dealings with Lord Salisbury at 

 election times, and about French and German socialism. He stayed 

 two hours with me. 



"20th June (Jubilee Sunday). — The streets decked out with scaf- 

 folding and red cloth. London architecture lends itself to these dis- 

 guisements, as there is nothing to lose by being hidden. 



"21st June. — Alfred Austin's 'Jubilee Ode' is published in the 

 ' Times,' and as good as a thing of the kind can be, and I have written 

 to tell him so. When he was first made Laureate 1 did not write, be- 

 cause I really could not have said anything about his poetry that would 

 have pleased him, but to-day I am able to do so with a good conscience. 

 We are old acquaintances of something like forty years' standing, and 

 personally I am pleased at his success. 



" 22nd June. — The Queen's Jubilee Day — the evening and night 

 of which I spent on Chanclebury Down, camped among the thorn 

 bushes near the top of the Ridge, a beautiful but rather hazy evening, 

 quite warm, no moon, little parties of country people out on foot, 

 others in vans, but not enough of them to injure the solitude. At half- 

 past nine rockets began to be fired away at Shoreham, and a light ap- 

 peared on Leith Hill, then illuminations at Shoreham and Brighton, 

 and precisely at ten bonfires were lit up. I counted ninety-seven of 

 them, and there were probably more, for the clump hid part of the 

 horizon. It was an inspiriting sight, and we tried to make out our 

 own bonfire at Newbuildings, which lies in a straight line between 

 Chanclebury and Leith Hill. 



"26th June. — The day of the Jubilee Review at Portsmouth. A 

 Jingo apotheosis which contrasts strangely with my recollection of 

 Portsmouth seventeen years ago, when our military and naval glory 

 was at so low an ebb that even I felt humiliated. 



"27th June (Sunday). — I am at Swinford on a visit to Austin. 

 Austin is naive about his position and dignity as Poet Laureate. He 

 assured me that he had made it a condition in accepting the post that 

 he was not to write Odes to order. I asked him how he had written 

 his Jubilee performance, suggesting that it must have been troublesome 



