The record-union., 1897-06-27

public an outline of the ceremony at
tending the unveiling of the monument
10 Sir Walter Scott in Westminster Ab-
bey. English papers to hand a feW
days since contain full reports, ana
readers Will be glad of these, and espe-
cially glad to read the several speecheS
in full. The bust Immediately adjoins
the florid monument of the Duke OF
Argyll and is in sight of the monument
TO Shakespeare. 1t is a beautlrully
executed copy of the famous Chantrey
bust at Abbotsford, and is the work or
the eminent Scottish sculptor, Mr.
Hutchinson. The ceremony of unyeil-
ing was intrusted to the head OF the
great Scott clan, the Duke of Buc-
cleuch. Before the ceremony OF un-
yelling the Dean presided over nu-
merous gathering in the Chapter
House.
The Dean said that this 21st day of
May would we'll deserve to be marked
in the annals of the great church where
they were assembled. 1t was more
than three-score years ago since the
great genius whom they were met to
honor first cast its spell on his bOyhood, ,
and it was about a century and quar-
\ r ago since Sir Walter first trod the
floor Of the Abbey, and it was twenty
five years later that he recorded his
own amazement at the accuracy of his
childish recollectiOnS of this noble pile.
1t was from no lack of enthusiasm and
devotion to the memory of Sir Walter
Scott that the inhabitants of Southern
England did not at once raise a monu-
ment to him. But it was felt at the
time of his death that the best tribute
would be to do their best to preserve,
not only for his immediate heirs and
descendants, some of whom they re-
ioiced to see present, but for all future
generations, the whole ground of the
AbbOtsford which he loved so well.
1t was truly said that Sir Walter
needed no memorial; but it was for
our sakes that we to-day We're raising
a monument to him in the place
whence as Washington Irving said
eighty years ago, and as the Embas-
sador's predecessor said a couple of
years ago, Sir Walter drew SO much
inspiration for the creations of his ro
nance Who could look at the monu-
ment Of Caroline, wife of George II,
and fail to remember Jeanie Deans; or
that of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
without recalling The Fortunes of
Niger? - Sir Walters bust had been
placed in the spot destined for it by
Arthur Stanley, by the side of the Duke
Of Argyll whose memory would always
be associated with that of the great
poet and novelist
Mrs. John Sherwood, in her volume
of "reminiscences. AN Epistle to Pos
terty," just published by the Harper's,
Eives a picture of General Grant, which,
though characteristic of his we'll known
modesty and simplicity, represents him
as less reserved and more genial than
he is generally supposed to -haYe been-
General Grants tour around the
world she says, made him so replete
with delightful reminiscence that he
tallIed more when he came home. I
remember dining with him at Gov
ernor ,CorneIPs. in New York, and it
was a very. distinguished dinner. I
told him that an English officer who
had been present at the dinner given
him by the Duke of wellington in the
Waterloo Chamber told me in Lon
don that he thought him a very learned
soldier. We'll. l am not. said Grant.
I had neither the genius of Sherman
nor the learning of Lee or Macpherson.
1 only meant to get there But the
fountain of talk was unsealed on this
occasion, and he told me of his travels
in China and Japan, of the wonderful
men he had met everywhere, and the
dinner with the Queen, of which he
said: / did not sit next to her as
expected to; she had a Prince and
Princess between US, but she was very
agreeable, and talked across Better
than ALL. said he, I had Fred with
me everywhere The affectionate tone
OF this delightful character, the sim
plicity mingled with greatness, made
General Grant the idol of the people
His entrance into a city made a gala
day. Celebrity is the chastisement of
talent and the punishment of genius
think he never liked it."
When NJ. Anatole France was re J..
ceived into the French Academy re-
Gently the address of reception was
made by. NJ. Greard. We quote the fol-
lowing extract from it:
The art of the seventeenth century
believed in virtue: the art of the eight
eenth believed in reason: our own cen
tury for a time believed in passion.
But ii would seem that in this present
Gay there is no faith but in one thing
instinct, the base and brutal instinct
Of which naturalism has declared itself
the apostle. Caught at
its real origin, at the moment of its
primal inspiration. naturalism is found
to have been the legitimate reaction of
the spirit of observation, justified by
reason and knowledge, against the
a ob,,SaS Of sent in1eT1f And indeed how
shall we ignore the riches of those ele-
merits with which this fruitful alluvial
action endowed the exhausted soil OF
literature? Are you NJ. F'rancel not
even YOU. too. a realist? Your descrip
tions, your analyses, all your marvellous
pictures of the physical world and OF
the moral, do they not proceed from the
principles of that very school, If by
naturalism we are TO understand, as
Balzac and Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve and
Taine understood, a direct intuition, a
frank expression of the things of life?
That which ofTends you is the system
attic exaggeration of these principles
which has followed the first impulse
of happy innovations: what offends you
is the error encouraged by far too
easy success, which has produced triv-
iality Of observation, impoverishment
of ideas, and the triumph of workman
ship or process. Your Arctic modera-
ton has never been able to reconcile
itself with this encumbered style of
writing, in which every phrase is some
what like a storehouse for household
furniture; neither this have YOU suf-
fered, nor the vaporous phrasing of
the syInbolists, across which attentive