“Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian: 
     We are but mortals, and must sing of Man.”

My theme is not Sir William Harcourt the politician, but Sir William Harcourt the man, the member of society—­above all, the talker.  And, although I have thus deliberately put politics on one side, it is strictly relevant to my purpose to observe that Sir William is essentially and typically a Whig.  For Whiggery, rightly understood, is not a political creed but a social caste.  The Whig, like the poet, is born, not made.  It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a Jew.  Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated its spirit.  The Whigs, indeed, as a body have held certain opinions and pursued certain tactics which have been analyzed in chapters xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated Book of Snobs.  But those opinions and those tactics have been mere accidents, though perhaps inseparable accidents, of Whiggery.  Its substance has been relationship.

When Lord John Russell formed his first Administration his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed of his cousins, and one of his younger brothers was charged with the impossible task of rebutting the accusation in a public speech.  Mr. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made excellent fun of what he called “the sacred circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood.”  He showed—­what, indeed, the Whigs themselves knew uncommonly well—­that from a certain Earl Gower, who flourished in the eighteenth century, and was great-great-great-grandfather of the present Duke of Sutherland, are descended all the Levesons,[20] Gowers, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Russells, and Harcourts, who walk on the face of the earth.  Truly a noble and a highly favoured progeny.  “They are our superiors,” said Thackeray; “and that’s the fact.  I am not a Whig myself (perhaps it is as unnecessary to say so as to say I’m not King Pippin in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts).  I’m not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!”

From this illustrious stock Sir William Harcourt is descended through his grandmother, Lady Anne Harcourt—­born Leveson-Gower, and wife of the last Prince-Archbishop of York (whom, by the way, Sir William strikingly resembles both in figure and in feature).  When one meets Sir William Harcourt for the first time in society, perhaps one is first struck by the fact that he is in aspect and bearing a great gentleman of the old school, and then that he is an admirable talker.  He is a true Whig in culture as well as in blood.  Though his conversation is never pedantic, it rests on a wide and strong basis of generous learning.  Even those who most cordially admire his political ability do not always remember that he is an excellent scholar, and graduated as eighth in the First Class of the Classical Tripos in the year when Bishop Lightfoot was Senior Classic.