the Continent, and are very successful. It is only conservatism that prevents the banks from aiding in this work of reviving our most ancient industry and raising for themselves potential new customers all round.

Much also can be done to help foreign trade, but care must be used in the doing. The kind of institution required for this work is more in the nature of a financial house as a supplier of capital; and for this purpose our banks in their individual capacity are quite unfitted. New institutions are required, having at their command a large fixed capital rather than a mass of deposits subject to withdrawal at call. They ought also to gather a first-hand knowledge of local circumstances and keep in close touch with importers using their services. Collectively the banks could find at least a third of the money to start these institutions, since a fair proportion of their resources is already in investments, and an investment of this kind would not only bring in interest but eventually business also. The Government and the public might jointly find the rest; and, if precedents for Government participation be demanded, one has only to point to hundreds of munition works and British Dyes. Care is needed in selecting the areas to be covered, and there should be no overlapping. These institutions would of course receive every assistance from a reconstituted diplomatic and consular service. One of the strongest factors in the success of German foreign trade has been the realisation that a consular body is in reality an important part of a country's trade system, and not merely a series of flags under which fees were receivable for technical services more or less perfunctorily rendered. No half-measures will suffice. The new consuls should be well-paid, capable, hard-headed men, ready to devote the whole of their career to the countries they will live in. If the conditions are good and the position well recognised, there will be no lack of suitable men. But neither banks, capital, consuls nor governments can create trade; they are merely factors in its rise and fall. Success is decided by the human element-its skill in production, its ability in marketing; and for both these commercial attributes we need more of the German qualities of push, patience, technical skill and efficient commercial education. Already patriotism has taught

us to work harder, to use our skill more effectively; perhaps, after the war is over, self-interest will prove no weaker incentive.

There is much to be done in our own small island. The war has shown us how near we have come to destruction by our careless disregard of basic and vital industries. For the first time in our fiscal squabbles the necessity to live is shearing clean through the wordspinning of the schools. Theories must go; we have to face facts. If the assistance of the banks is needed for erecting and maintaining these basic industries, as it must be, the money of depositors cannot fairly be risked unless the loan is secured by a reasonable protection against unfair foreign competition. Not unnaturally the close military connexion between ourselves, our colonies, and our allies, engenders a strong hope that peace may bring closer economic alliance. The achievement will be difficult, and can only be successful by give-and-take on all sides. So far, in England, we have chosen principally the method of direct imposts while our colonies and allies have rather preferred the collection of revenue at their ports. The difference can be bridged over. The Paris Conference has made it certain that we shall at any rate meet our friends with free hands.

The foregoing article was already in type when the report of Lord Faringdon's Committee was published. The Committee recommend the establishment of a 'Chartered British Trade Bank.' Briefly, its features are, a central institution with a capital of ten millions, concerning itself mainly with credits to facilitate foreign trade, foreign exchanges, the working of a Foreign Information Bureau, and incidentally discount and acceptance. Apparently the issue of capital will be open, Government assistance being recommended for 'Key industries through the medium of the Bank. No suggestion is offered as to the actual promotion of the Bank, so presumably the enterprise will be, at any rate in theory, quite unofficial.

Art. 13.-MRS HUGHES (OF UFFINGTON) AND HER

CIRCLE.

Letters and Recollections of Sir Walter Scott.
Horace G. Hutchinson. Smith, Elder, 1904.

Edited by

SINCE the rediscovery of the Memoirs of the now immortal though once forgotten Mr Creevey, it is no longer possible to be surprised at the banishment from the page of history of any name that was of contemporary note; but, if there were still scope for such astonishment, it might well be devoted to the personality of a lady, Mrs Hughes (of Uffington, as they were wont to call her), who was the centre for a good many years of a rather brilliant literary circle.

If you will look in the Dictionary of National Biography you may read that Hughes, John (1790-1857), author, born 2nd January, 1790, was the only son of Thomas Hughes, D.D., clerk of the closet to George III and George IV, Vicar of Uffington, Berkshire, and Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, by his wife, Mary Anne, daughter · of the Rev. George Watts, Vicar of Uffington.' This John Hughes, the son, wrote 'An Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone,' highly commended by Sir Walter Scott in his Preface to Quentin Durward,' besides many other trifles of literature which are seldom read; and, if you wish a further account of him, you may study the character of the Squire, as portrayed by Thomas Hughes in 'Tom Brown's Schooldays;' for the author of that best of school books was one of John Hughes's numerous family, and it was largely from his father that he sketched the Squire's character.

In an introduction contributed to the collection placed at the head of this article, Mr W. H. Hughes, her grandson, says of this lady:

'She was born about 1770 at Uffington, a little village two miles north of King Alfred's White Horse Hill, in the "royal county of Berks," the only child of the last of a line of clergymen who had, for several generations, succeeded one another in the cure of souls at that little place. One of these parsons [he was Master of the Temple], whose ministry fell in the time of George II, must have been well known as a preacher in his day, for he was appointed one of the chaplains whose

duty it was, from time to time, to preach in the Chapel Royal. He was not, however, called upon for a second sermon in that capacity; for (the King attending the service in doubtful company) he took the seventh commandment as the subject of his first discourse, and as his text, "Thou art the man.'

'With such forbears, it is perhaps natural that Mary Anne Watts was markedly independent and fearless; also that, not being able to hold the family living in her own right, she should manage to attain to it through the Rev. Thomas Hughes, D.D., whom she married when she was still quite young, and he verging on middle age. She had no difficulty, it may be supposed, in inducing the clergyman who had now become Vicar of her paternal parish to exchange that living for the much more valuable one which her husband held, in virtue of his canonry of St Paul's Cathedral, the reward of his earnest endeavours to bring up the younger sons of George III as Christian gentlemen. And so a great part of every year was spent at the Uffington parsonage by the Canon and his wife, she continuing the benevolent despotism begun by her there in the days of her father.'

6

Amongst the varied gifts of this remarkable lady was a beautiful and cultivated voice. Her grandson records that she brought tears to the eyes of Sir Walter Scott and her other friends by her rendering of the old English and Scotch ballads.' Her introduction to the 'Wizard of the North' is related in her own diary, and is curious enough to be worth transcribing. The Mrs Hayman referred to was a Lady-in-Waiting to the ill-fated Princess Caroline of Wales, and though complimented, after the manner of the day, with the title of Mrs,' was a spinster.

'My first introduction to Sir Walter Scott,' says Mrs Hughes, 'was given me by my friend, Mrs Hayman, in the year 1806, when Sir W. S. was in town enjoying his first fame after the publication of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel.”

'Queen Caroline invited him, immediately on his arrival in the Metropolis, to visit her at Blackheath; by which means he became intimately acquainted with Mrs Hayman, who was a very superior person both in intellect and information, and singularly agreeable. When not in immediate attendance on the Queen, Mrs Hayman lodged in Berkeley Square. Behind her house there was a mews, which opened into Hay Hill, at the entrance of which mews I always saw a half-starved dog-a facsimile of that in Hogarth's 6th print. I had such

a feeling of compassion for the poor, forlorn, half-starved creature, that I always carried in my muff a parcel of bones in a newspaper for him, and, as I visited Mrs Hayman generally twice a week, the dog was by my gifts kept alive. His gratitude was extreme; I always found him watching for me, and his expression of delight on seeing me is not to be described; but my friend Mrs Hayman, whose only fault was a dislike to dogs, always quizzed me unmercifully, and told everybody to whom she introduced me of my folly and greasiness, as she called it.

'On the morning when I went to meet Sir Walter Scott he had arrived and was sitting with her, and immediately on my entrance, she cried out, "Well! have you been pampering your nasty, mangy cur!" and when I answered in the affirmative, she turned to Sir Walter and said, "I don't know, Mr Scott, whether you will thank me for the introduction, unless she wins you over by her singing, but I must tell you that this simpleton lives in the cloisters of Westminster and comes twice or thrice a week, bringing with her a parcel of dirty bones, with which she fills her nice new muff, for a nasty half-starved cur, and feeds the creature with them.” He made no reply for a minute or two, but leaned back in his chair, gazing hard at me under his shaggy brows, but with the most benevolent smile-then thrusting out his hand, he caught hold of mine with a grip which I can only compare to a blacksmith's vice, exclaiming, "You and I must be friends!" which, during his remaining life, he verified.'

From all the accounts that we can gather of Dr Hughes and his talented wife we may draw the inference that hers was the more vital and vigorous, as it was by many years the younger, spirit. He is represented to us as a very worthy divine, most kindly of heart and of solid but not exceptionally brilliant intellect. The lady's correspondents sent their compliments to the husband, but it was merely as preface or postscript to letters of which the body was for her. Fellow Canons of St Paul's with Dr Hughes were Sydney Smith and Richard Barham, the latter better known by his pen name of 'Thomas Ingoldsby.' At Amen Corner,

'during the canonical part of the year,' writes Mr Hughes, 'with such a good foundation as her husband and his colleagues, she came as near holding a "salon" as was possible in the smoky surroundings of St Paul's Churchyard in the early part of last century. She sang, as I have said, very