Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/91

 "Jack" Taylor can pair off with "Jack" Warner. The parson excelled his friend in possessing that natural gaiety of disposition which bubbles up at every moment. The journalist on the other hand had less flow of humour, but he could draw on his memory for a more abundant wealth of anecdote. They had in common the gift of attracting to themselves crowds of friends and acquaintances. Only one person in that age could rival them in the field of friendship. This was James Hare, the Whig politician known as, "the Hare and many friends." His associates were found among the fashionable set of London or the Whigs of high life who sat in the House of Commons. Warner's friends were chiefly in the ranks of the less exclusive and more advanced reformers of the period. The Sun was a Tory journal and "Jack" Taylor was reckoned among the adherents of that party in the State. Not many political personages cross the pages of his reminiscences, but he does record with pride that old Eldon—a canny and not unkindly old gentleman who knew the value of a newspaper on his side—often "favoured him with his arm when we happened to be walking the same way," and that in the tea-room, after "the last celebration in 1829, of Mr. Pitt's birthday," the ex-lord-chancellor greeted him with marked favour. Taylor's friends were mostly among the celebrities who trod the boards of the London theatres. He knew them all and had written something as an extra attraction for all their benefit-nights. With them he gathered around him many a veteran in letters.