Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/230

 the effect was diminished by fantastic manners, and overshadowed by a self-esteem so prodigious that it cast an air of ridicule on whatever he proposed. An extract from a diary which I kept in those days may give the reader some idea of this strange phenomenon:—

"I called on Mr. Urquhart at Morrisson's Hotel. He received me, arrayed in Orange silk trousers, and a caftan of some green material, and looked like an Oriental Pasha condescending to mate for a moment with the dullards of the West. A magnificent portfolio lay before him worthy of a Secretary of State. I congratulated him on the probability of his entering Parliament.

"'Yes,' he said, 'if he could form a solid English party who, in addition to performing important services to the Empire, could repeal the Union, it would repay him for diverting a brief space from the serious business of his life.'

"'You have graver business than Parliament?' I queried, in some surprise.

"'Yes,' he said, 'my business is in the generous, simple, noble East, not among the mean intrigues and cabals called Parliamentary Government.'

"'You don't approve,' I said, 'of English liberty as embodied in the will of the people?'

"'I approve of English liberty,' he replied, 'as embodied in the will of the Sovereign. My late illustrious friend, William IV., contemplated, if he had been happily spared, certain changes in the system, which would re?*ore true liberty, protected by its natural guardian, the only safe, reliable, and disinterested friend of the people, their king. It was the right of Parliament to present its opinions to the king, and it was his right to weigh them and decide.'

"I laughed, and suggested that the king would not decide, one might presume, without a colloquy with his mistresses, like some of his predecessors. What a gorgeous Council of State Charles II. might consult without quitting his salon? Or if he followed the guidance of his own noble, unaided wisdom, George III. taught us what results might be expected. His late illustrious friend was not a Solomon, but he could not fail to know by what method of government England lost the American Colonies.