John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (1847-1900) Part 18

A rumour had been widely current, in the year of Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, that Bute was to be created "Jubilee" Duke of Glamorgan. It is permissible to question whether his patriotism would have allowed him to consent to the merging of his historic Scottish t.i.tle in a brand-new one derived from a Welsh county; but his only written reference to the matter appears in a letter to a friend who had sent him a newspaper-cutting on the subject:

I cannot believe that there is anything in the report to which you have called my attention. Were it so, I imagine that I should have heard of it before now through some other channel than the Society columns of a halfpenny newspaper.

In the spring of 1890 the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Glamorgans.h.i.+re, then vacant, was offered to him {173} by the Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury), but he did not see his way to accept it. A single line in his diary records the fact; but there is a brief further mention of it in a letter written at the time:

I have little or no acquaintance with the county, or with "them that dwell therein" beyond the limits of Cardiff and of my own property.

For this and other more personal reasons, I have--in, I hope, a not unbecoming letter--begged leave to decline the honour.

[Sidenote: 1890, Mayor of Cardiff]

With another offer made to him a little later in the same year Bute found himself able to comply, much to the satisfaction of all concerned. This was a requisition that he should allow himself to be nominated as Mayor of Cardiff for 1890-91. It is a point of considerable interest, and one certainly ill.u.s.trative of the strong sense of duty which always animated him, that the first peer to hold the highest munic.i.p.al office in any English or Welsh borough for several generations--certainly since the Reform Bill--should have been one whom his natural love of retirement, and aversion from public display, might have prompted to refuse any office of the kind. Once elected, he attended with sedulous care to such duties as devolved on him in virtue of his office; and early in 1891 he wrote to his old friend Miss Skene, giving a cheerful account of his stewards.h.i.+p. The last part of this letter, in which some of his deeper feelings are touchingly disclosed, would have appealed with very special force to his correspondent, one of the chief works of whose life at Oxford was the rescue of girls and women; and for that reason a portion of her reply is appended:

{174}

Cardiff, _January_ 23, 1891.

MY DEAR MISS SKENE,

This gorgeous paper[11] is that which the town of Cardiff supplies for the use of its mayors. As I have had nothing to do personally with originating it, I may freely say that I think it very pretty. And the arms of the town are certainly interesting historically, as a memorial of the De Clares, Lords of Glamorgan, of whom the last male representative fell at Bannockburn in 1314.

I get on pretty well with my civic government here. My official confidants are nearly all Radical Dissenters, but we manage in quite a friendly way. They only elected me as a kind of figure-head; and although they are good enough to be glad whenever I take part in details, I am willing to leave these in the hands of people with more experience than myself, as far as I properly and conscientiously can do so.

I have, however, felt it to be my duty (owing to some terrible facts) to insist upon the enforcement of the laws for the protection of little girls; and here I find unanimous and hearty support from quite a majority of the officials, who differ from one another as widely as possible upon every religious, political, and social question. I learned yesterday of a certain lot of children whom I have been honoured to be the instrument of getting out of a bad house of the worst kind. This will cheer me on my death-bed--or beyond, for I shall have forgotten, but Another will not.

Sincerely yours, BUTE.

{175}

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE MARQUESS OF BUTE TO MISS SKENE]

{176}

Miss Skene replied a few days later:

I cannot tell you what immense pleasure it gave me to receive your kind letter, and I think you were indeed most good, in the midst of all your work, to write to me yourself.... I am most deeply interested in what you have been able to do for the rescue of the poor little victims of evil-doers. I wish with all my heart that the mayors of other towns would take the same view of their duty in these matters; but alas! this is not always the case.... I am sure it will always be a happiness to yourself to feel that you have saved the poor children of whom you speak. These things are not forgotten in heaven.

Ever your faithful old friend, FELICIA SKENE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Marquess of Bute, Mayor of Cardiff, 1890-1891_]

Bute gave his mayoral banquet in the Drill Hall at Cardiff on February 4, 1891, wearing the beautiful chain which he had had specially designed and made for the chief magistrate of the borough. Some alarm was caused, in the middle of the dinner, by the sudden breaking out of fire in the decorations of the roof; but no one was injured, and (largely owing to Bute's own coolness) there was no panic of any kind.

In one of his letters he makes this curious comment on the mishap:

I should have been prepared for the misadventure, for I was suffering at the time under an evil direction of [Symbol: Mercury], who was just then in [Symbol: Mars] with [Symbol: Ura.n.u.s], so that I was almost bound to antic.i.p.ate some untoward happening.[12]

{177}

On his return from Teneriffe, Bute spent several months at Cardiff, where, as already mentioned, he entertained the Royal a.s.sociation at their meeting there, and read his paper on the ancient language of the islanders. He attended the corporation-meetings regularly between April and November, and was able to note in his diary in the latter month that his year of munic.i.p.al office had been a success. He was particularly gratified by a letter from the Duke of Norfolk, himself the mayor-elect for Sheffield, asking his advice on various points connected with the office--"advice," added the Duke, "which your most successful tenure of the mayoralty of Cardiff renders you so admirably qualified to give." Bute showed this letter to a friend, remarking in his quiet way: "The local press has spoken very kindly of my conduct as mayor, but I value this letter more than any number of newspaper articles."

Bute went up from Cardiff in May to attend the Royal Academy dinner, as he did on several subsequent occasions. It was of a later one of these entertainments that he noted: "The Academy was bad, and the dinner the dullest I have been at, only redeemed by Rosebery's very witty speech, which was, however, obviously the result of long toil. The Lord Chancellor's [Halsbury] seemed much more spontaneous." Bute does not seem to have spoken at any of these functions, as he did occasionally at the dinners of the Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.

{178}

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff records in his diary the impression made on Sir Alexander Grant, at one of these dinners, by Bute's oration.

I met Sir A. Grant, who was full of the speech which Lord Bute delivered the other night at the Scottish Academy dinner, in which he said that "Athens and a.s.sisi had spoilt him for everything else."[13]

[1] Froude makes the same remark ("Oceana," Chap. XIV.) about the Chinamen on board the steamer by which he travelled from Australia to New Zealand. "I suppose," he adds, "that to Chinamen the separate personalities are as easily recognised as ours. To me they seemed only what Schopenhauer says that all individual existences are--'accidental ill.u.s.trations of a single idea under the conditions of s.p.a.ce and time.'"

[2] A friend of J. H. Newman, referring to some papers contributed by him, under the t.i.tle of "Home Thoughts Abroad," to the _British Magazine_, after his memorable tour in Italy and Sicily in 1833, says: "These papers were the first to turn people's thoughts from the cla.s.sical antiquities and fine arts of Rome to its Christian a.s.sociations. It was a new idea to me when I read the papers, and, I really think, to everybody else. Now (1885) any one would say it never was otherwise; the fact was, however, that no one then thought of Rome in connection with St. Peter and Paul, much less St. Leo and St.

Gregory, or of sumptuous wors.h.i.+p as anything but a kind of theatrical sight." This paper was reprinted in 1872, in the volume called "Discussions and Arguments," under the new t.i.tle of "How to Accomplish it."

[3] "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

[4] The original German text (of which Bute's letter contained a copy) ran as follows: "Got sei Dank, das ist wahr; aber es ware nicht so, wenn wir die vielen Anerbieten, das Pa.s.sionspiel in verschiedenen Stadten Europas aufzufuhren, annehmen wurden. Es ist auch gut fur unsere Bevolkerung, da.s.s das Spiel nur alle zehn Jahre gegeben wird, denn in der Zwischenzeit fuhren wir unser gewohntes und ruhiges Leben in diesen Tale, und ein neues Geschlecht von Kindern hat Zeit heranzuwachsen in den alten Ueberlieferungen unseres Ortes."

[5] Bute was only in his thirty-fifth year when he wrote these words.

[6] He had made the ascent of the Pyramids before--in 1865, when in his eighteenth year, and again in 1879.

[7] The eminent astronomer was, of course, himself a man of science rather than a man of letters, and as such must be pardoned the use of the uncouth word "scientist," which disfigures his otherwise eloquent tribute to his friend.

[8] Bute was interested in the longevity of parrots, and had many talks on the subject with the intelligent parrot-keeper at the Zoological Gardens. "The parrot they had longest," he notes, "lived with them fifty-four years; but they do not know how old it was when they got it."

[9] This article, published in the _Scottish Review_ in April, 1892, was in substance a reproduction of a lecture given by Bute in January, 1872, to the a.s.sociated Societies of Edinburgh University, of which he was honorary president.

[10] Sir William Huggins.

[11] Emblazoned with the scarlet and gold arms of Cardiff--or three chevronels gules. Since 1906 this charming and historic coat-armorial has unfortunately given place to one described by a respected citizen of Cardiff as "an abomination"--a s.h.i.+eld bespattered with red dragons and leeks, and other Welsh emblems, and surmounted by three ostrich feathers. The last-named a.s.sumption is particularly indefensible, the ostrich plume being, of course, the badge of the King's son and heir, and not of the Prince of Wales as such.

[12] Bute's interest in astrology has been already noted (_ante_, p.