My left-hand
neighbor was Colonel Campbell of the Artillery; my right-hand one was Mr.
Picton, of the Library Committee; and I found them both companionable
men, especially the Colonel, who had served in China and in the Crimea,
and owned that he hated the French. We did not make a very long business
of the eatables, and then came the usual toasts of ceremony, and
afterwards those more peculiar to the occasion, one of the first of which
was "The House of Stanley," to which Lord ------ responded. It was a
noble subject, giving scope for as much eloquence as any man could have
brought to bear upon it, and capable of being so wrought out as to
develop and illustrate any sort of conservative or liberal tendencies
which the speaker might entertain. There could not be a richer
opportunity for reconciling and making friends betwixt the old system of
society and the new; but Lord ------ did not seem to make anything of it.
I remember nothing that he said excepting his statement that the family
had been five hundred years connected with the town of Liverpool. I wish
I could have responded to "The House of Stanley," and his Lordship could
have spoken in my behalf. None of the speeches were remarkably good; the
Bishop of Chester's perhaps the best, though he is but a little man in
aspect, not at all filling up one's idea of a bishop, and the rest were
on an indistinguishable level, though, being all practised speakers, they
were less hum-y and ha-y than English orators ordinarily are.
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