DEC. 17, 1892

VANITY FAIR

391

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for 1892, containing the Fifty-two Portraits published during the year together with the Frontispiece, "Mixed Political Waves." Price Two Guineas.

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The subject of the Cartoon to be given with the next number of "Vanity Fair" (December the 24th) will be

MR. LUKE FILDES, R.A.

VANITY FAIR.

LONDON, DECEMBER 17th, 1892.

STATESMEN.—No. DCVII.

MAJOR-GENERAL LORD METHUEN, C.B., C.M.G.

THE ancient family of Methuen, or Methven, is supposed to be derived, in name at least, from the Barony of Methven in Perthshire; and so far back as in the reign of William and Queen Anne, John Methven, who filled the Offices of Chancellor of Ireland and British Ambassador to Portugal, was responsible for that Methuen Treaty which so greatly benefited us by inducing a flow of port wine into England. His son, Sir Paul Methuen, who was Ambassador to Madrid and many other things beside, rests in Westminster Abbey; and since his time there has been a Paul in every generation of the Methuens down to the present Paul Sandford Methuen, third Baron Methuen, to whom is a six-year-old son named Paul Ayshford. The first Lord had represented Wilts in several Parliaments; and the second, being an Aide-de-Camp to the Queen and a Lord-in-Waiting, was a father to whom the third Lord Methuen, who succeeded him last year, has owed opportunity of which he has been able to take advantage.

Stalwart "Paul" Methuen was born seven-and-forty years ago; but he does not look his age. He went from Eton into the Scots Guards, and grew into a Major and Colonel. Then he went to Ashantee as Brigade-Major of an expeditionary force; after which he was very naturally converted into an Irish Assistant Military Secretary. From Ireland he went to Berlin, where he passed some years as Military Attaché; then proceeded to Egypt with another expeditionary force. He served through the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, and won a medal with clasp of the 3rd Class Osmanieh and a C.B. His next appearance was in Bechuanaland, where he raised and commanded those irregular cavalry which have become known to the world as "Methuen's Horse"; after which he came back to Chatham to command the Thames District. He has now with all his youth upon him been elevated to the command of the Home District; of which eight years ago he was Assistant-Adjutant and Quartermaster-General. He is therefore a man who has seen and done much; yet he is still full of

enterprise and vigour and as ready as he has ever been for any amount of rough work in any part of the world. He is a co-heir to the Earldom of Scarsdale and the Barony of Deincourt and Lucas, besides being a Justice of the Peace for Wilts, Honorary Colonel of the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire) Regiment, and patron of one living in Wiltshire. He is an athlete in build and by taste, and he is supposed to be well able to defend himself, being a good man with the foils and quite an adept at single-stick. He is an all-round sportsman, who is yet fond of cricket and of tennis; but with all his reputation he is an unconceited, popular fellow, with a very gentle temper: as the 1st Life Guards have very lately learned.

He is a man who will go out of his way to do a kindness, and the youngsters swear by him. He is fond of dining out quietly, yet he is not a Society man. He has most of the prowess of one of "Ouida's" Guardsmen without the halo of voluptuous indolence with which that lady generally adorns her heroes.

JEHU JUNIOR.

THE AMATEUR IN POLITICS.

IN an article on "Political Entertaining," in which, on the 3rd instant, we greatly blamed the members of the late Government for that they had taken so scant pains to show courtesy to their chief supporters in Society, we remarked that "it is hardly too much to say that Lord Salisbury's late "Government have themselves to thank for their defeat at the "General Election of a few months ago." And saying so, we bare true record; for the Ladies of Society, Conservative as they are, are full of dormant power of the kind that might well sway elections: dormant because it is never encouraged. Lord Beaconsfield recognised woman's power in Politics; but where is the Tory Minister who has recognised it since with strength enough to act upon his recognition of it? Woman is a potential factor of unlimited power in Politics, just as she has in all ages and in all countries shown herself upon occasion to be; and we maintain that she should be encouraged to exercise her power now; for so England may be saved in time of need. This and much more we made plain enough, as we supposed, a fortnight ago: and the knowledge that we are right has impelled certain newspapers to wilfully misunderstand us, to sneer at *Vanity Fair* as being "supposed to speak the mind of "what Mr. Charles Jeames Yellowplush called the Hupper "Succles" (sic).

"It is a mistake," says *The Newcastle Leader*, after trying to digest what we had said—"it is a mistake to suppose that the "masses dismissed the Conservative Government. The credit "of that achievement belongs solely to the classes. They "were not entertained as they ought to have been." "This pretty irony this; but it is a little stupid too. Society did not turn out the Salisbury Government; but it might very possibly have kept them in: not, of course, by outvoting the masses; but by influencing the masses. To look at individual cases only: We know well how greatly increased is the chance of a "class" candidate for Parliamentary honours when his wife, or his sisters, or his mother goes down into the constituency on his behalf: we know how often the election scale has been turned by the light of a single lady's face. The difference between the individual case and the General Election is that in the one the "classes" are sometimes encouraged to exert their influence—on behalf of a special candidate: in the General Election they are not encouraged to do so. For the individual sometimes does what the Government have steadily neglected to do; with the result that the individual succeeds while the Government fail.