Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: Oswald Hunter Blair] A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES BY THE RIGHT REV. SIR DAVID HUNTER-BLAIR BT., O.S.B., M.A. TITULAR ABBOT OF DUNFERMLINE WITH PORTRAIT LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD & CO. 1922 [_All rights reserved_] TO THE MASTER AND SCHOLARS OF SAINT BENET'S HALL, OXFORD, IN MEMORY OF TEN HAPPY YEARS. {vii} FOREWORD Some kindly critics of my _Medley of Memories_, and not a few private correspondents (most of them unknown to me) have been good enough to express a lively hope that I would continue my reminiscences down to a later date than the year 1903, when I closed the volume with my jubilee birthday. It is in response to this wish that I have here set down some of my recollections of the succeeding decade, concluding with the outbreak of the Great War. One is rather "treading on eggshells" when printing impressions of events and persons so near our own time. But I trust that there is nothing unkind in these more recent memories, any more than in the former. There should not be; for I have experienced little but kindness during a now long life; and I approach the Psalmist's limit of days with only grateful sentiments towards the many friends who have helped to make that life a happy as well as a varied one. DAVID O. HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B. S. Paulo, Brazil, _March_, 1922. {ix} CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I.--1903-1904. The Premier Duke--Oxford Chancellorship--A Silver Jubilee--In Canterbury Close--Hyde Park Oratory--Oxford under Water--"Twopence each" at Christ Church--Church Music--Gregorian Centenary in Rome--Pope Pius X.--Pilgrims and Autograph--Cradle of the Benedictine Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 CHAPTER II.--1904. "Sermons from Stones"--_Alcestis_ at Bradfield--Whimsical Texts--Old Masters at Ushaw--A Mozart-Wagner Festival--Bismarck and William II.--"Longest Word" Competition--Medal-week at St. Andrews--Oxford Rhodes Scholars--Liddell and Scott--Lord Rosebery at the Union--Oxford Portraits--Wytham Abbey--Christmas in Bute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 CHAPTER III.--1905. A "Catholic Demonstration"--Boy-prodigies--Spring Days in Naples--"C.-B." at Oxford--Medical Sceptics--Blenheim Hospitality--A Scoto-Irish Wedding--Dunskey Transformed--Lunatics up-to-date--Eton War Memorial--Four Thousand Guests at Arundel--At Exton Park--Abbotsford and Blairquhan--Lothair's Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 CHAPTER IV.--1905-1906. Modern Gothic--Contrasts in South Wales--Chamberlain's Last Speech--A Catholic Dining-club--Lovat Scouts' Memorial--A Tory _débâcle_--Hampshire Marriages--On the _Côte d'Azur_--Three Weddings--An Old Irish Peer--Guernsey in June--A Coming of Age on the Cotswolds--The Warwick Pageant--Bank Holiday at Scarborough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56