H. G. Wells.

C. H. Shannon.

Bernard Shaw.

Thomas Hardy.

Lord Northcliffe.

Edmund Gosse.

Andrew Lang.

Oliver Lodge.

Dom Gasquet.

Reginald Turner.

Mine, of course, is the choice of a recluse:  a scholar without scholarship, one who lives remote from politics, newspapers, society, and the merry-go-round of modern life.  Its two chief interests lie in showing, first how far off I was from getting the prize (a vellum copy of poems, by our hostess), and secondly, that one name only, that of Lord Northcliffe, should have touched both the popular and the private imagination!  I regret to say that none of the guests knew the names of Dom Gasquet or Sir Oliver Lodge.  Every one, except the artist, thought C. H. Shannon was J. J. Shannon, and some of the voters were hardly convinced that Mr. Lang was still an ornament to contemporary literature.  The prize was awarded to a lady whose list most nearly corresponded to the result of the general plebiscite.  I need not say she was the wife of the publisher.  After some suitable expressions from Lord Lyonesse, it was suggested that we should poll the servants’ hall.  Pencils and paper were provided and the butler was sent for.  An hour was given for the election, and at half-past eleven the ballot papers were brought in on a massive silver tray discreetly covered with a red silk pocket-handkerchief, and here is the result: 

Frank Richardson.

Marie Corelli.

John Roberts.

C. B. Fry.

Eustace Miles.

Robert Hichens.

T. P. O’Connor.

Lord Lyonesse.

Dr. Williams (Pink Pills for Pale People).

Hall Caine.

The prize (and this is another odd coincidence) was won by the butler himself, to whom, very generously, the publisher’s wife resigned the vellum copy of our hostess’s poems.  From a literary point of view, it is interesting to note that Mr. Frank Richardson is the only master of belles lettres who is appreciated in the servants’ hall!  The other names we associate, rightly or wrongly, with something other than literature.

The following evening I suggested choosing the greatest English names in the nineteenth century (twentieth-century life being strictly excluded).  Every one by this time had caught the suck-pencil fever.  By general consent the suffrage was extended to the domestics:  the electorate being thus one hundred.  And what, you will ask, came of it all?  I suggest that readers should guess.  Any one interested should fill up, cut out, and send this coupon to my own publisher on April the first.

I think the Ten Greatest Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century were: