e was restricted within the narrowest limits. But he loved,
and was honestly proud of, his beautiful home--St. Giles's House, near
Cranbourne; and when he received his guests, gentle or simple, at "The
Saint," as he affectionately called it, the mixture of stateliness and
geniality in his bearing and address was an object-lesson in high
breeding. Once Lord Beaconsfield, who was staying with Lord Alington at
Crichel, was driven over to call on Lord Shaftesbury at St. Giles's.
When he rose to take his leave, he said, with characteristic
magniloquence, but not without an element of truth, "Good-bye, my dear
Lord. You have given me the privilege of seeing one of the most
impressive of all spectacles--a great English nobleman living in
patriarchal state in his own hereditary halls."

IV.

CARDINAL MANNING.

I have described a great philanthropist and a great statesman. My
present subject is a man who combined in singular harmony the qualities
of philanthropy and of statesmanship--Henry Edward, Cardinal Manning,
and titular Archbishop of Westminster.

My acquaintance with Cardinal Manning began in 1833. Early in the
Parliamentary session of that year he intimated, through a common
friend, a desire to make my acquaintance. He wished to get an
independent Member of Parliament, and especially, if possible, a Liberal
and a Churchman, to take up in the House of Commons the cause of
Denominational Education. His scheme was much the same as that now[3]
adopted by the Government--the concurrent endowment of all
denominational schools; which, as he remarked, would practically come to
mean those of the Anglicans, the Romans, and the Wesleyans. In
compliance with his request, I presented myself at that barrack-like
building off the Vauxhall Bridge Road, which was formerly the Guards'
Institute, and is now the Archbishop's House. Of course, I had long been
familiar with the Cardinal's shrunken form and finely-cut features, and
that extraordinary dignity of bearing which gave him, though in reality
below the middle height, the air and aspect of a tall man. But I only
knew him as a conspicuous and impressive figure in society, on public
platforms, and (where he specially loved to be) in the precincts of the
House of Commons. I had never exchanged a word with him, and it was with
a feeling of very special interest that I entered his presence.

We had little in common. I was still a young man, and the Cardinal was
already old. I