May, 1887.

FRIENDSHIP.

The memoirs that are now poured into the book-market certainly tend to breed cynicism in the minds of susceptible persons, for it appears that to many eminent men and women of our generation friendship was almost an unknown sentiment.  As we read one spiteful paragraph after another, we begin to wonder whether the living men around us resemble the dead purveyors of scandal.  The fashionable mode of proceeding nowadays is to leave diaries crammed with sarcasm, give some unhappy friend orders to wait until you are settled in the grave, and then confound your friends and foes by attacks which come to the light long after your ears are deaf to praise and blame.  Samuel Wilberforce went into the choicest society that Britain could show; he was the confidant of many people, and he contrived to charm all but a few cross-grained critics.  His good humour seemed inexhaustible; and those who saw his cherubic face beaming sweetly on the company at banquets or assemblies fancied that so delightful a man was never known before.  But this suave, unctuous gentleman, who fascinated every one, from Queen to cottager, spent a pretty fair share of his life in writing vicious witticisms and scandals concerning the folk with whom he seemed to be on affectionate terms.  At nights, after spending his days in working and bowing and smiling and winning the hearts of men, he went home and poured out all the venom that was in his heart.  When his memoirs appeared, all the most select social circles in the country were driven into a serious flutter.  No one was spared; and, as some of the statements made by Wilberforce were, to say the least, a little sweeping, a violent paper warfare began, which has hardly ceased raging even now.  Happy and contented men who believed that the Bishop loved and admired them were surprised to find that he had disliked and despised them.  Moreover, the naughty diarist had an ugly habit of recording men’s private conversations; and thus a good many sayings which should have been kept secret became public property.  A very irreverent wag wrote—­

     How blest was he who’d ne’er consent
       With Wilberforce to walk,
     Nor dined with Soapy Sam, nor let
       The Bishop hear him talk!

and this crude epigram expressed the feelings of numbers of enraged and scandalized individuals.  The wretched book gave us an ugly picture of a hollow society where kindness seemed non-existent, and where every man walked with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies.  As more memoirs appeared, it was most funny to observe that, while Wilberforce was occupied in scarifying his dear friends, some of his dear friends were occupied in scarifying him.  Thus we find Abraham Hayward, a polished leader of society, writing in the following way of Wilberforce, with whom ostensibly his relations were of the most affectionate description—­“Wilberforce is really a low fellow.  Again and again the committee of the Athenaeum Club have been obliged to reprove him for his vulgar selfishness.”  This is dreadful!  No wonder that petty cynics snarl and rejoice; they say, “Look at your great men, and see what mean backbiters they are!” Alas!