28 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



We thought it rather a poor show. Mr. Chamber- 

 lain was entertained that evening at a banquet given 

 by the New York Chamber of Commerce, at which 

 some two hundred of the leading merchants of the 

 city were present. Bergne went with him. At this 

 dinner Mr. Chamberlain gave a striking example of 

 his marvellous memory. Mr. Lamar, ex-Secretary 

 of the Interior, over whose appointment to a 

 Supreme Court judgeship there had recently been a 

 good deal of commotion in the Senate, wound up his 

 opening speech by remarking that it had been said 

 by an English poet that '' Commerce is the golden 

 girdle of the globe." Probably few men could say 

 offhand who the poet referred to was, and still fewer 

 give the exact context. Mr. Chamberlain was, how- 

 ever, equal to both, and, on rising to reply, said he 

 could not refrain from completing the quotation, as 

 it seemed to him so especially apposite to the views 

 he was anxious to impress on his audience. The 

 lines, he said, were Cowper's, and were as follows : 



" Again — the band of commerce was designed 

 To associate all the branches of mankind, 

 And if a boundless plenty be the robe, 

 Trade is the golden girdle of the globe." 



They occur in the poem *' Charity," and you may 

 search in vain in Bartlett's and other Dictionaries 



