Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/137

 wonderful city which I was about to quit, perhaps for ever. The National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum occupied much of my leisure. Tristram Kennedy gave me a mount, and brought me to Rotten Row; Edward Whitty introduced me behind the scenes in the opera; I dined with a friend or two at the "Star and Garter," and ate indigestible fish dinners at Greenwich; visited all the political clubs with members, and accepted more invitations in a month than during many previous sessions. "Breakfasted at the Stafford Club with Richard Doyle and his brother Henry, and Wallis (afterwards editor of the Tablet): I was surprised to note how familiar they were with the Nation and the work of the Young Irelanders, the Doyles being sons of a Unionist, and Wallis an Englishman. Dick Doyle speaks in a slow, rather drawling tone, but always admirably ad rem. Of Thackeray he said he could not get over the impression that he despised the finest of his own creations. He looked down even on Colonel Newcome because he was not a man about town. He declared that the only Parliamentary news he read or wanted to read, was Edward Whitty's 'Stranger in Parliament' in the Leader. It contained the essential oil of public transactions skilfully expressed. Henry, speaking of Cardinal Wiseman, declares that he is the tenderest and most considerate of sick nurses; he had tended him in illness like the best of fathers. Wallis referred to the insolence of James, who said Dr. Wiseman was an English gentleman, if being born in Spain of Irish parents could make him so. I said I accepted the insolence as an eloge. Dr. Wiseman was, in fact, strikingly Irish; he looked, as some one said, like a strong parish priest with the key of the county in his pocket.

"I asked the Doyles about their father, the famous H. B. He was still living, Richard said, and was soon coming to see them. Originally he distrusted O'Connell very much, as might be seen in his work, but latterly he came to think better of him. I spoke of Punch and Henry said his brother could not put up with the Exeter Hall clique into whose hands it had fallen."

"Cobden introduced me the other evening to Lindsey, the shipowner the virtual leader, I believe, of the Civil Service