36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [Ch. EL 



used often to meet at Lord Stanhope's house ; and, in discussing 

 various subjects, they would sometimes differ from Macaulay, 

 and formerly they often referred to some book to see who was 

 right ; but latterly, as Lord Stanhope noticed, no historian ever 

 took this trouble, and whatever Macaulay said was final. 



On another occasion I met at Lord Stanhope's house one of 

 his parties of historians and other literary men, and amongst 

 them were Motley and Grote. After luncheon I walked about 

 Chevening Park for nearly an hour with Grote, and was much 

 interested by his conversation and pleased by the simplicity and 

 absence of all pretension in his manners. 



Long ago I dined occasionally with the old Earl, the father 

 of the historian. He was a strange man, but what little I knew 

 of him I liked much. He w r as frank, genial, and pleasant. 

 He had strongly-marked features, with a brown complexion, 

 and his clothes, when I saw him, were all brown. He seemed 

 to believe in everything which was to others utterly incredible. 

 He said one day to me, " Why don't you give up your fiddle- 

 faddle of geology and zoology, and turn to the occult sciences ? " 

 The historian, then Lord Mahon, seemed shocked at such a 

 speech to me, and his charming wife much amused. 



The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me 

 several times at my brother's house and two or three times at 

 my own house. His talk was very racy and interesting, just 

 like his writings, but he sometimes went on too long on tho 

 same subject. I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, 

 where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of 

 whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by 

 haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of 

 silence. After dinner, Babbage, in his grimmest manner, 

 thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence. 



Carlyle sneered at almost every one : One day in my house 

 he called Grote's History "a fetid quagmire, with nothing 

 spiritual about it." I always thought, until his Reminiscences 

 appeared, that his sneers were partly jokes, but this now seems 

 rather doubtful. His expression was that of a depressed, 

 almost despondent, yet benevolent man, and it is notorious how 

 heartily he laughed. I believe that his benevolence was real, 

 though stained by not a little jealousy. No one can doubt 

 about his extraordinary power of drawing pictures of things and 

 men — far more vivid, as it appears to me, than any drawn by 

 Macaulay. Whether his pictures of men were true ones is another 

 question. 



He has been all-powerful in impressing some grand moral 

 truths on the minds of men. On the other hand, his views 



