New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-08-30
LORD HoUGHToN.
NOTES ON HIS CHARACTER, HIS CAREER
AND HIS FRIENDSHIPS.

NOTES ON HIS CHARACTER HIS CAREER
AND HIS FRIENDSHIPS.
rFRoM REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUNg.1
LONDON, August 10.
Lord Houghtons death. though coming Suddenly
at last. had long been expected It was thought
that the stroke of paralysis which fell upon him at
Athens two years ago would be final. He surprised
everybody by ralIying from it and reappeariDg in
London. He has had at least three serious attacks
of illness during the last Eve years which his
derful constitution enabled him to survive. He
dies at seventysix having got as much out of life
during every year of that long period as it was
possible to get. Few men had more various inter-
ests. Literature occupied him in early lfe politics
were one of the things to which he gave attention
early and late. He had travelled widely; east as
far as the Ganges, and west beyond the Mississippi
But during all this period what he really cared for
was the company of his fellow-creatures and their
applause. He collected books some of them what
the catalogues call very curious, and many things
beside books. Fryston Hall, his Yorkshire homo,
was IN way museum, and the most interesting
object in it was its owner Among all the accuinu-
latons of his life. tho most entertaining to him, no
Doubt, and to us when we could get at them, was
his store OF personal recolectlons Of men and
women.
Disraeli said of him that he had dined with Louis
Philippe and recei we'd Louis Blanc at dinner. 1t
was bTuc, JnOugn tne an titue5iS may sccil W al
American less sharp than it was meant to be, for
LOUIS Blanc remained parsonage in France long
after Louis Philippe and the sons of Louis
Philippe had ceased to have serious
professions to power. But Lord Houghton had
known everybody and he had the secret Of making
every body with whom he came in coutac Il give HIM
OF his best. Perhaps no man of any age was to be
seen at go many London parties, or in so many
different couutryhouses during the year. The con-
fdence Of demeanOr which earned for him very
early in life Sydney Smiths sobriquet, the cool Of
the evening"" remained with him, but it meowed
with age. he was not only admired, he was liked,
and the liking mingled with much affection.
II lattery he had peculiarities which annoyed
people, his beautiful qualities never lost their
attention. | once heard him criticized by one or
two young men who were impatient at some mark Of
increasing years which he had shown. There sat by
another young man, himself one of the most critical
of his species with tue right To be difficult which
comes Of character. position, brilliant gifts and
brilliant success. Ho listened to the TRADE and
when il WAS remarked: "You may say what
you like shall always keep warm corner in my
heart for Houghton.' And he did, and whether in
town or country this young patrician showed his
senior that considerate friendship and unfaling
courtesy which belong perhaps. more to ilonghton's
time than to thls.
Thorough Englishman as he was, there il sense
in which Lord Iloughton was not English at all he
was not insular He came nearer than most OF his
countrymen TO rating Frcnchmsn at his true
value. and may add to being rated ut his true
value by Frenchmen. He was ut homo in Paris;
there were few European capitals where he was not
at home He wntered in Rome, in Florence, in
Athens; whereyor fancy or health took him. and
was everywhere n citizen Of that great republic of
,voll nrad viii 10 ia
national league that has yet been organized.
There are stories of his last s)ourn IN Rome which
might impyihat ho even felt too much at home,
and sometimes omitted TO examine his engagement
book carefully enough to impress on bis mind tue
broad distinction between those houses to which
he had been invited and those TO which lie had not
And as Roman society il not merely exclusive but
sharply divided into black and white, or clerical
and on clerical in politics, this amiabe readiness
of Lord Houghton to visit IN houses OF both colors
and 10 carry his impressions fIom one to the other,
was pcrLaps somstImas misunderstood. ,Bnt ms,
faculties were not then what they bad once been,
and n man who for fifty years has been used to
being asked everywhere may no excused 1T lie
credited some of tho Roman nobility with remem-
bering claims to attention which they had tor the
moment forgotten. No sort OF Importance belongs
10 such gossip whether true or false
Lord boughtons freedom IN nero insularity
showed itself in his culture quite much IN the
range of his acquaintancoshp. For the purposes OF
the man of the world. what he knew was more than
sufficient. lie met scholars and statesmen, men OF
science and men of letters, artists and poets, ON
even terms. Tho difusencss, tho want of concen
tratiou. which was fatal to his hope of permanent
fame as al author, was invaluable to him In the
many worlds amid which no moved easily His
independent fortune relieved him from all thought
of money-maklng by his pen. aud his ambition
never ran decsiycy IN a single channel along
which he might have poured tho full stream OF
those rare and delicate gifts which went meander-
ing each its own way through Towering meadows
and pastures ever fresh.
His literary work it is true. stretched over long
period of his life. Palm Leaves by Richard
Moncktou Mines was published In ls4f.
Poems Legendary and Historical belong to the
same date. "Poems of Many Years" had preceded
this in 1910, whilo the " Memorials OF Tour in
Greece goes back to 1891, and other volumes OF
poetry and prose between these dates-ali by
an author who all this last season was to be met
wherever O candle was lighted IN London. Since
1914 he has published various political pamphlets.
an essay or two, and volume OF personal sketches
under the title Monographs" He edited Keats
and wrote critical biography of hun which
remains classic. OF other miscellaneous work there
is n good deal but it Is hard to believe that any
thing which bears Lord IIoughtons name will live.
Emerson in his "Parnassus" has not found room
for single line of Mness verse, and few Americans
or Englishmen either IL challenged could readily
supply quotation from HIM. What no wrote had
finish. grace, often feeling. but nothing supreme
nothing Of such excellence as to keep its place
amid tho tremendous competition to which every
new aspirant for fame in literature is subjected IL,
in a word Lord Houghton bad been man of
letters, and that only. his death would have
been mourned not by the world Of letters and other
worlds as now but by his personal friends only.
He wrote occasional verses. may add, down to