s he did
from the florid East, he found English eloquence more plain and
businesslike than he left it. He used to declare that he never spoke
impromptu if he could possibly help doing so, and he made great fun of
the statesmen who say, "Little did I think when I came down to this
House to-day that I should be called upon to speak," and then pour out
by heart a Corinthian discourse. Lord Cromer always openly and frankly
prepared his speeches, and I have seen him entranced in the process. As
he always had a classical reference for everything he did, he was in the
habit of mentioning that Demosthenes also was unwilling to "put his
faculty at the mercy of Fortune."

He became an habitual attendant at the House of Lords, and, while it was
sitting, he usually appeared in the Library about an hour before the
House met. He took a very lively interest in what was going on,
examining new books, and making a thousand suggestions. If the Lords'
Library contains to-day one of the most complete collections of Latin
and Greek literature in the country, this is largely due to the zeal of
Lord Cromer, who was always egging me on to the purchase of fresh
rarities. He was indefatigable in kindness, sending me booksellers'
catalogues in which curious texts were recorded, and scouring even Paris
and Leipzig in our behalf. When I entered into this sport so heartily as
to provide the Greek and Latin Fathers also for their Lordships, Lord
Cromer became unsympathetic. He had no interest whatever in Origen or
Tertullian, and I think it rather annoyed him to recall that several of
these oracles of the early Church had written in Greek. Nothing in
history or philosophy or poetry which the ancient world had handed down
to us came amiss to Lord Cromer, but I think he considered it rather
impertinent of the Fathers to have presumed to use the language of
Attica. He had not an ecclesiastical mind.

Lord Cromer's familiar preoccupation with the classics was a point in
his mental habits which deserves particular attention. I have always
supposed that he inherited it from his mother, the Hon. Mrs. Baring, who
was a Windham. She was a woman of learning; and she is said to have
discomfited Sir William Harcourt at a dinner-table by quoting Lucan in
direct disproof of a statement about the Druids which he had been rash
enough to advance. She sang the odes of Anacreon to her son in his
infancy, and we may conjecture that she sowed in his bosom the seeds of