Thomas Chamberlain

“ In 1527 he painted Sir Thomas’s portrait, the picture now in the possession of Mr. Edward Huth. In the same year he painted William Wareham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Two examples of this portrait exist, both by Holbein, at Lambeth Palace and in the Louvre, and two fine drawings, in the British Museum and at Windsor. Other portraits of 1527 are those of Sir Henry Guildford, the Lord Chamberlain (Windsor) ; his wife, Lady Guildford (Mr. Frewen’s collection) ”

“ The Poet himself to whom criticism was quite a new operation, (being wholly unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashmere,) felt the shock as it is generally felt at first, till use has made it more tolerable to the patient;--the Ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what FADLADEEN said from its having set them all so soundly to sleep;--while the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having for the hundred and fiftieth time in his life extinguished a Poet. ”

“ In this debate the fear and hatred with which many of the best friends of the Government regarded Sunderland were unequivocally manifested. "It is easy," such was the language of several members, "it is easy to guess by whom that unhappy sentence was inserted in the speech from the Throne. No person well acquainted with the disastrous and disgraceful history of the last two reigns can doubt who the minister is, who is now whispering evil counsel in the ear of a third master." The Chamberlain, thus fiercely attacked, was very feebly defended. ”

“ Winn in every one of his conclusions, which would necessitate the belief that Holbein himself painted no less than three versions of the Family Group—the one in distemper, which was sold by the artist to De Loo, and afterwards purchased by Giles Heron, now so injured that “it is impossible to judge of its authenticity”; the one in oil painted for Sir Thomas, which remained at Barnborough in the possession of John More and his descendants, and has been cut down and subjected to “unpardonable neglect”; and the Roper picture now at Nostell Priory. ”

“ Schnadhorst, there can be no question as to Mr. Chamberlain's prescience in judging of the capabilities of men, and his quick appreciation of Mr. Schnadhorst's attributes is a case in point. The pre-eminence this latter-named gentleman attained in the political world was somewhat of a surprise to many of his old friends, and probably not least of all to himself. Doubtless at the beginning of his career he little dreamt that owing to his being taken in hand by men of influence ”

“ Among the first-named we have Jane Seymour, Catherine 255Howard, the Prince of Wales, Sir Thomas More, Warham, Guldeford, Southwell, John Godsalve, Reskimer, Simon George, Lady Vaux, Lady Rich, Lady Butts, Lady Audley (miniature only) , and one or two others; in the second class the More Family Group is the most important, there being no less than seven studies for this great work at Windsor, including the one of Sir Thomas himself.
There still remain more than fifty drawings in England alone of which no paintings are known. ”

“ Some such fate seems also to have befallen the great portrait group of Sir Thomas More’s Family. The great wall-painting in the Privy Chamber in Whitehall was also destroyed by fire. Gone, too, is The Battle of Spurs, which, if Mr. Nicholls is right, was painted by our artist. Finally, death cut short the painting of the picture in the Barber Surgeons’ Hall. Such a list of lost or ruined masterpieces is, unhappily, not uncommon in the history of art, but Holbein has suffered more than most men ”

“ These steeds are led by four finely designed female figures, Moderatio, with a whip, Diligentia, Solicitudo, and Labor, the last carrying a heavy spade. Behind Labor walks a young man with a basket of carpenter’s tools, and a flail over his shoulder. On a tree in the left background hangs a large wooden tablet with a long Latin inscription, also attributed to Sir Thomas More, beginning:
“Mortalivm jvcvnditas volvcris et pendvla
Movetvr instar tvrbinis quam nix agit sedvla,” &c. [65]
65. The lines are quoted in full by Wornum, p. 265, and Woltmann, i. p. ”

“ At the same time, Mont, who was accompanied by Thomas Paynell, took with him private instructions from Cromwell, which included a secret message to Francis Burgartus, [368] the Duke of Saxony’s vice-chancellor, with respect to a marriage between the young Duke of Cleves and the Princess Mary, which he and Cromwell had discussed in London in the previous year. If, the instructions ran, Burgartus desire “the picture of her face,” Mont is to remind him that she is a 173King’s daughter, and that it was not the custom to send the picture of persons of such degree abroad. ”

“ The supposition that this picture is a copy after a lost original by Holbein is probably correct; it is quite in his manner, though in workmanship it in no way reaches to his mastery, the landscape background in particular showing an indecisive touch quite unlike his firm handling. A copy of the head, evidently taken from this picture, a small panel, 131⁄8 in. × 93⁄4 in., was lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909 (No. 34) , [436] by the Duke of Devonshire, which is inscribed across the brown background, in an eighteenth-century hand, “Sir Thomas Moore.” ”

“ Then he questioned him of what had betided him and he told him, whereat he admired and returned to companionship with him; but the youth ceased to have regard for him and gave him nor solde nor ration as was his wont, neither discovered to him aught of his secrets. When the tutor saw that there was no profit from him he returned to the king, the ravisher of the slave-girl, and recounted to him what the Chamberlain had done and counselled him to slay that official and egged him on to recover the damsel, promising to give his friend a poison-draught and return. ”

“ And he said to the youth, "In whatsoever stead thou seest the damsel, speak not a syllable, but acquaint me with her place and thou shalt owe her deliverance to none save to me." The youth thanked him and went with the old woman in such fashion as the Chamberlain bade him. She fared on with him till they entered the city, and walked all about it; after which she went up to the palace of the king and fell to saying, "O fortune's favourites, look on a youth whom the devils take twice in the day and pray to be preserved from such affliction!" ”

“ Towards the end of 1869 he accompanied the Duke of Edinburgh, by Queen Victoria's wish, on his visit to India. He was promoted lieutenant-general on 1 May 1872, G.C.S.I. on 24 May 1873, and G.C.B. on 29 May 1875. Chamberlain returned to India in February 1876, to take command of the Madras army. When it was decided, in August 1878, to send a British mission to Kabul, he consented to go as envoy, being personally known to Shere Ali ”

“ He enter'd afterwards into the Service of the late King; who being sensible of his Merit, raised him to the greatest Dignities of his Court, and married him to one of the Daughters that he had by the Countess of Cosel. The Great Chamberlain, who has the Looks and Behaviour of a Man of Quality, thinks and acts too like a Nobleman. Few Persons surpass him in Politeness and Learning: He is perfect Master of several Languages, and of every thing that forms the Minister and the General. ”

“ In France the office of grand chambrier was early overshadowed by the chamberlains (cubicularii, cambellani, but sometimes also camerarii) , officials in close personal attendance on the king, men at first of low rank, but of great and ever-increasing influence. ”

“ Chamberlain's power springs from the concentration of a nature which is singularly free from complexity. The range of his mind is narrow, but up to its horizon the whole is illuminated by the same strong and rather garish light. The absoluteness of his convictions is never shaded or softened by any play of imagination or sympathetic insight. It is not in virtue of any exceptionally fine or attractive quality, either of intellect or of character, that Mr. Chamberlain has become a dominant figure. ”

“ Mr Chamberlain had a very difficult part to play, in a situation dominated by suspicion on both sides, and while he firmly insisted on the rights of Great Britain and of British subjects in the Transvaal, he was the continual object of Radical criticism at home. Never has a statesman’s personality been more bitterly associated by his political opponents with the developments they deplored. ”

“ When he spoke, it was to counsel the Dutch in Cape Colony to warn their kinsmen in the Transvaal against any fatal rashness. Henceforth, though Chamberlain was always ready to interfere if necessary, British policy was mainly directed by the man on the spot. It was the fashion amongst a certain school of radicals to regard Chamberlain as a firebrand, who was only kept in order by the influence of his more moderate colleagues. ”

“ Chamberlain was no doubt a marvel of demagogic art. He could say supremely well what the average man felt a difficulty in putting into words. He was intensely sensitive to changes in public feeling, and extraordinarily clever in just anticipating them. He had a great knack of condensing into one sharp and memorable phrase the idea he wanted to sink deep into the public mind. But he was not an orator in the sense that John Bright was, and he lacked the capacity of Lord Randolph Churchill, in his best days, of whipping a popular audience into yelling, laughing, almost hysterical sympathy. ”

“ Chamberlain’s apprenticeship in public speaking was served in the Birmingham and Edgbaston Debating Society. He became in 1869 a member of the city council, and in 1870 of the first school board. Politics appealed to him from the first. An intimate friend has asserted that, at the outset, it was uncertain whether foreign policy would make him a tory, or home affairs a radical; and at the election of 1859 he canvassed on behalf of the opponent of John Bright, because he was opposed to Bright’s pacificism. But very soon the impulse of social reform drove him to radicalism. ”

“ Anyhow, the deputation of distinguished geologists and mineralogists from Paris and Berlin were there in the most magnificent and appropriate dress, for there are no men who like wearing their decorations so much as the men of science—as anybody knows who has ever been to a soiree of the Royal Society. It was a brilliant gathering, but very late, and gradually the Chamberlain—you saw his portrait, too: a man with black eyebrows, serious eyes, and a meaningless sort of smile underneath—the Chamberlain, I say, discovered there was everything there except the Prince himself. ”

“ Chamberlain always kept his visionary schemes within the due bounds of seriousness and reason. Though I think he placed no limits to the capacity of the English people to meet and to overcome dangers and difficulties in the world of politics, and always held them, as, indeed, do I, capable to be of heroic mould, he never inflated himself or his countrymen on any subject, but spoke always weightily and with good sense. To take a concrete example, he, no more than Lord Cromer, would have intoxicated his mind with a fantastic idea like that of the Cape to Cairo railway as did Mr. Rhodes. ”

“ Chamberlain always remained, even when he was in closest co-operation with the Tory leaders. He never lost his first interest in the betterment of the working classes; the sight of preventible misery he hated; and the whole bent of his mind was humanitarian. But, just as a Liberal is not always a democrat, so a democrat is by no means always a Liberal. The idea of Liberalism is giving men freedom to work out their own salvation, with the minimum of State interference with individual liberty ”

“ House of Commons, Monday, July 6.—All heads were bared when the Prime Minister rose to move adjournment of House in sign of sorrow at the passing away of a great Parliament man. To vast majority of present House Joseph Chamberlain is a tradition. His personal presence, its commanding force, its varied and invariable attraction are unknown. Since his final re-election by faithful Birmingham, where, like the Shunamite woman, he dwelt among his own people loving and loved, he only once entered the House. ”

“ Chamberlain is a distinctly ready man. Whatever gifts he has, are always at his command. He is like the shopman who puts all his goods in the window. The goods are not very fine nor very good, but they are showy and cheap, and, above all things, take the eye. Mr. Chamberlain in his day has been a poor attendant in Parliament—a friend of his used to tell him, when he was supposed to have the reversion of the Liberal leadership, that his inability to remain for hours in succession in the House of Commons would always stand in the way of his being the leader of that assembly. ”

“ Chamberlain, the foremost man in the drama of the Transvaal, the originator of the great Colonial movement which has made a united family of the Empire, began life as an advanced Radical. On the principle that extremes meet, he became at last the chief of the Tory Cabinet. That he is well hated as he is well loved, is the natural consequence of his staunchness in friendship as in antagonism. ”

“ CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
Seminole, North Carolina,
May 29.
SIR:
I can but express my intense indignation, as Professor Chamberlain's only daughter, that you should send a sum of money to my distinguished father to hire his services as a nurseryman. I had supposed that my father was known to the entire intelligent American public as an eminent scientist, to be ranked with such men as Dana and Gray and Alexander von Humboldt.
People of our means and social position in the South do not peddle bulbs. ”