The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6 (part 5 of 6)

The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6 (part 5 of 6)

“On reaching Longford, Miss Wingfield received more writing from John Longland, who described himself as anxious to confess how faithless he had been to his intimate friendship with Thomas Bullen (Anne’s father); that he had been instrumental in persuading Henry VIII. to divorce Catherine and to marry Anne, thus advancing his friend’s daughter, and that afterwards--entirely from motives of personal pique against his former friend--he had influenced Henry against Anne, and fostered suspicions which led to her execution. He again said that he was buried in Eton College Chapel.

“Anxious to verify these statements, Mr. Wingfield (Coldstream Guards) purposely went to Eton to search for the tomb of John Longland, and nowhere could it be found. The Radnors and Miss Wingfield then thought that John Longland must be a ‘lying spirit,’ and not finding any record of his being Dean of Salisbury either, they tore up his writings.

“After Mr. Barnby had left Longford, John Longland came again, but no one would listen to him. He was, however, so persistent, that the Radnors decided to have a hunt for a list of officers of the cathedral. In a lobby cupboard they discovered some old volumes of county history, uncut and covered with dust. In one of these they found that John Longland had been Dean of Salisbury at the date mentioned, and that he was translated to Lincoln in 1521. Turning to ‘Britton’s Lincolnshire,’ equally covered with dust, showing it had not been moved for months (so that there was no possibility of Miss Wingfield having seen the statement), it was found that Bishop John Longland was a person of great learning and piety, &c., that he was confessor to Henry VIII., and suspected of having unduly influenced the King with regard to Catherine and Anne, &c. He died at Woburn, and was privately buried in Eton College Chapel, of which he was ‘visitor,’ his heart being sent to Lincoln.[511] The Radnors afterwards learnt that the tombstone of Longland was removed from Eton College Chapel during a ‘restoration.’

“Some time after, when Miss Wingfield went for the first time to the Palace at Salisbury with Lady Radnor, she exclaimed, ‘There is my Bishop that I saw!’ and went straight up to a portrait on which the name of Brian Duppa was found to be inscribed in very small characters.

“The day after I came was Sunday--thick snow without, with bright sunshine, which together threw a glorious light on the pictures. Lady Radnor showed them all delightfully. Amongst those which remain in one’s mind are a delightful full-length of his boy by Rubens in the Long Parlour, which the family chiefly inhabit, and the ‘Child Feeding Chickens,’ and Mrs. Edward Bouverie and her child, by Reynolds, in the great saloon. In the Long Gallery are two grand Claudes and a steel chair of enormous value, the delicate work of one Thomas Ruker, given by the city of Augsburg to Rudolph II. in 1577. This gallery opens on one side toward the chapel, with the font in which little Lucius Hare, son of Lord Coleraine, who once lived here, was baptized; and on the other to a sort of ‘Tribune’ with the choicest pictures--the Egidius of Quentin Matsys, the Erasmus of Holbein, a fine Sebastian del Piombo, and a glorious Paris Bordone of a scornful beauty--‘Violante’--in a red velvet dress. In a passage is the curious portrait of Mrs. Honeywood, aged ninety-three, who had 367 descendants at the time of her death. She is represented with a glass goblet. In her great age she was sure she was doomed to eternal damnation. ‘I am as certain to be lost,’ she said, ‘as that goblet is to be broken to pieces,’ and she dashed it to the ground, and it rolled away quite unhurt. So after that she remained perfectly satisfied that all would be well with her. But the pictures which interested me most personally were the noble Vandyke of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Margaret Carey, Countess of Monmouth, and the Holbein of Mary Boleyn, who married William Carey, and was also my grandmother by just ten removes.

“The house is built in a triangle, with three round towers at the angles, known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Lord Radnor told me how, when he walked out with his father every summer evening, as they neared the house he always saw his father take off his hat, look up at the windows, and bow three times. When his father died he often regretted that he had never liked to ask him why he did this. But now he had asked his father’s spirit through a medium, and the spirit answered that he had always repented not having told him the cause, in an old distich, which he wrote:--

‘Owner of Longford, whoe’er you be, Turn and bow with bends full three, And call on the name of the Trinitie, Or castle and lands will pass from thee.’

And since that he had always done the same.

“In one of the round towers is a pleasant room with ancient panelling of white and gold. This is now Lady Radnor’s boudoir, and here she has often sung to us delightfully. The grounds, with their two rivers, and the garden with its terraces and vases and yew-hedges, are enchanting. The younger son, Stuart Bouverie, called ‘Toby’ in the family, is, at fourteen, a clever mechanician.”

* * * * *

On the 17th of February 1893, my dear old cousin Charlotte Leycester died peacefully at her house in London. For months past she had been failing in her great age (ninety-five) as to physical powers, but her mind was as much alive as ever, and her affection and sympathy as warm and ready. “She seemed,” as I have read in the novel “Diana Tempest,” to “have reached a quiet backwater in the river of life, where the pressure of the current could no longer reach her, would never reach her again.” In the last days of her own life, my dearest mother begged me always to be all I possibly could to this dear cousin and friend of her whole life, and I believe that I have been able to fulfil her wishes. She has had a home at Holmhurst every summer, and I have never allowed a week, generally not three days, to pass without writing to her. She carries away with her my closest link with the past, but no one could wish to keep her here. Better that she should go in her great age before the suffering of age came.

Just when her gentle life flickered out in sleep, I read in Grinnell’s “Pawnee Hero Stories”--“The sun was glad. He gave them great age. They were never sick. When they were very old, one morning their children said, ‘Awake, rise and eat.’ They did not move. In the night, in sleep, without pain, their shadows had departed for the sandhills.”

* * * * *

To HUGH BRYANS.

“June 20, 1893.--I was in London a long time, but saw and heard little of interest. At Mr. Knowles’s one day I met the honest sturdy Miss Octavia Hill, and another day Bret Harte, a young-old man, with white hair and an unwrinkled rosy face. It was odd to hear him called ‘Mr. Harte.’ After luncheon Mr. Knowles read Tennyson’s ‘Boadicea’ in a weird monotonous kind of chaunt, imitating him exactly, I should think. He said that was the way Tennyson always wished his poems to be read--straight on, without emphasis or any change of voice. One day I went with the Lowthers to draw at Fulham, and we had tea delightfully in the open air with the Bishop and Mrs. Temple, he helping his boy meanwhile to do Latin verses. George Lefevre had a great pleasant party at the old palace at Kew, to which we went by the river, and where we saw the Tecks with their daughter and the Duke of York a very little while before their marriage. For this I saw the picturesque procession capitally.”

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“October 20, 1893.--I have been little away from home all summer, being so busy with my Waterford Memorial, at which I have certainly worked con amore.

“One little frisk I have had to Montacute, whence Mrs. Phelips took me to see two fine old houses, Barrington, and Wolferton near Dorchester. Then I was three pleasant days with Lord Arthur Hervey, the delightful old Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his moated fortified palace, as picturesque and as beautiful as it could possibly be. How attractive is all the apple-filled neighbourhood of Avalon--‘the Apple Island’--and how delightful its legends of Arthur if one seeks them.

“‘As Arthur ever still in British memory lives,’ says the inscription at Cardeña on the tomb of the Cid, but I fear few think of him where he lived. The Bishop took me to Cheddar. How very grand it is! We mounted by a coombe into the hills, and so descended upon the gorge. ‘Imagine yourself a river working its way down,’ said the Bishop, as the narrow ravine opened beneath us with its great purple rocks in labyrinthine windings of inexpressible beauty. Very lovely, too, I thought the little lake at the bottom, covered with a kind of ranunculus unknown elsewhere.

“The Bishop talks freely on all subjects with perfect ease and simplicity, in the repose of a mind at rest and the humility of real knowledge. He was much occupied with the question as to whether the children of Israel were 200 or 400 years in the wilderness, all depending upon where a stop ought to be placed. He was also full of derivations of names, and mentioned several interesting ones--Bevan, ap Evan; Bethel, ap Ithil; Coblentz, confluence; and Snowdon and Ben Nevis, meaning the same thing. He talked of having known Madame de Gontaut long ago, and how, when Louis XVIII. did something she could not approve, she always turned his portrait to the wall. The last time he went to see her, the servant said, ‘Depuis qu’elle est en enfance, Madame la Duchesse ne reçoit pas.’ He told of having been in his childhood at the ball which George IV. gave to children, and how a little girl being asked there what she would like to have, said, ‘I should like to have too much.’ In his room hung a beautiful engraving from Millet’s ‘Angelus,’ which he aptly called ‘the picture of the good lout’[512]

“Later, for my little ‘Sussex’ book, I was four days wandering about the deep sandy lanes and semi-forest tracts in the central part of the county. One of the prettiest places was Broadhurst, near Horsted Keynes, where the saintly Archbishop Leighton passed the last years of his life, and taught his sister’s children and grandchildren under the old oaks. I slept two nights at Groombridge Place, a delightful house, little altered since it was built in James I.’s time, and with three terraced gardens, and peacocks innumerable sunning themselves on the grey parapet of the wall above the moat.

“At Holmhurst I have been much alone, and I feel, with Carlyle, that ‘the memory of many things which it is not at all good to forget rises with strange clearness on me in these solitudes, very touching, very sad, out of the depths of old dead years.’”

* * * * *

The only incidents of my autumn were visits to Sir Raymond and Lady Burrell at Knepp Castle, containing one of the finest collections of portraits to be found at any small place in England; and to the Palace at Chichester, where the noble old Bishop Durnford seemed at ninety-one more full of tireless energy than ever, and whence I was taken to visit the site of the original bishopric, Selsey, with its lichen-covered walls and storm-beaten gravestones.

In December, whilst staying at ever-pleasant Thorncombe with my cousin Victoria Rowe, I sat for my portrait to Mr. Eddis.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Dec. 5, 1893.--I had a delightful morning with Mr. Eddis, now eighty-three, but full of vigour and vivacity, and still more of reminiscence. He said, ‘You would not have been here now having your portrait painted if it had not been for the Athenaeum. When I was a very young man, one Magrath, who was secretary there, told me he wanted a sketch made of himself, and that he would give me £5 for one. So I did it, and it was such a success, that no fewer than sixty members of the club put their names down to be drawn by me. I was doubtful if I should do them, for I wanted to study, and I had not studied enough, but I asked Hilton, who was a very good artist then, and he told me it would be folly to refuse what came so easily; and so I did the portraits, and from that time orders have poured in all through my long life, and so I have never had time for real study since: I have only learnt through my work.’

“‘What one learns most by experience is the value of reflected light. I once had a discussion with Gladstone about what was the brightest colour in Nature. He maintained red was: he was perfectly certain, and very determined in his opinion. I said blue was. I told him how, in the evening, when all was mysterious, the red flowers in the garden disappeared, but the blue remained visible. But he was unconvinced. Then I showed him how, in a photograph of a flower-bed, the red flowers remained dead, undetached from the leaves, but the blue flowers were light and visible in all their forms. Then--“Good night, Mr. Eddis,” he said.’

“‘Did you know D’Israeli?’ said Mr. Eddis. ‘No, he must have been before your time, but I used to meet him often. He always struck me as lying in wait for points: to make a point was what he cared for most.

“‘James Croker had much to do with the building of the Athenaeum. They wanted him--the members did--to make an icehouse for them, but he wouldn’t. Afterwards some one found in a waste-paper basket a couplet he had written--

‘My name is James Croker, I’ll do as I please; You wish for an ice-house, I’ll give you a frieze.’

“‘Sydney Smith did not make at the time all the jokes which were attributed to him: he thought of them afterwards, and circulated them. He told me once, for instance, that Landseer had asked him to sit for his portrait, and that he had answered, “How could I possibly refuse a chance of immortality,” which was perhaps a very natural thing to say. But it was reported afterwards in London, and reported with at least his consent, that he had answered, “Is thy servant a dog, that I should do this thing?”

“‘One of his best real sayings was of Dr. Whewell--“Science is his forte, omniscience his passion.”

“‘Macaulay, it is true, talked incessantly--talked like a machine, but he had his attractive points. I found this out especially when he brought the present Lady Knutsford, as a very little girl, to me to be painted, and talked nonsense to her the whole time, but it was always nonsense which had a lesson in it.

“‘Lady Waterford was the most glorious specimen of womanhood I ever saw. She came in with Lady Canning when I was drawing the Archbishop of Armagh[515]--“the Beauty of Holiness,” as he was called. Lady Canning had the lovelier face and the more beautiful eyes, but Lady Waterford was always the more striking from the grand pose of her head and her majestic mien. In seeing her, one felt as if one looked upon a goddess.’

“This afternoon Victoria took me to see Mr. Watts.[516] A drive through wooded lanes and water-meadows; then the carriage stopped at the foot of a wooded knoll, and we walked up little winding paths through the bracken and Scotch firs to the house--a rustic hermitage. You enter directly upon the principal dwelling apartment--two low rooms, with old carved furniture and deep windows, and much colour and many pictures. The ceiling is in panels, decorated in stucco by Mrs. Watts (née Fraser Tytler). At least she has finished one room, and is going to do the other with an epitome of the religion of all the nations of the earth--‘A work,’ she said, ‘which gives me much study.’

“Soon Mr. Watts came in, like a pilgrim, like a mediaeval hermit-saint, in a brown blouse and slippers, with a skull-cap above his white hair and beard, and his sharp eager features, in which there is also boundless tenderness and refinement. He sat by me on the window-sill, and began at once to talk of Lady Waterford--of her wonderful inspirations, her unrivalled colouring, her utter unconsciousness of self, and her majestic beauty--how, when he first saw her out walking at Blickling, with her grand mien, he could not but exclaim--‘It is Pallas Athene herself!’

“He regretted that she should never have been painted in later life. ‘When she came into a studio, it was like a glorious vision.’ His wife said how often he spoke of Lady Waterford, and that to herself it was a lifelong regret that she should never have looked upon one who so occupied his thoughts and admiration.

“Mr. Watts took us into his studio, an immense and beautiful room added to the cottage. Here were many of his pictures, the work of years, on which, from time to time, he adds a few touches. He likes to have many of his works around him, and to add to them thus.

“At the end of the room hangs his vast ‘Court of Death,’ which can be lowered by pulleys whenever he wishes to add to it. He was greatly pleased with a photograph of it, which has the effect of a Tintoretto, and which, while preserving the grand masses, blots out the detail. ‘Death’ is throned in the upper part of the picture. ‘I have given her wings,” said Mr. Watts, ‘that she may not seem like a Madonna. In her arms nestles a child--a child unborn, perhaps, who has taken refuge there. By her side the angels of silence guard the portals of the unseen. Beneath is the altar of Death, to which many worshippers are hastening: the old mendicant comes to beg; the noble offers his coronet; the warrior does not offer--but surrenders--his sword; the sick girl clings for refuge to the feet of Death. I have wished to paint Death entirely without terrors.

“‘You wonder what that is, that other picture of a figure of a rich man in Eastern dress whose face is half-hidden, buried away in the folds of his garment. I meant that for the man who was “very sorry, for he had great possessions.” He cannot give them up. He has tried, but he cannot. He is going out into the world again, and yet--and yet he is very sorry. I have only got to give him a number of rings and to put a gold chain round him, and I think his story will be told.’

“‘And that great picture?’ we asked. ‘Oh, that is the Angel of Rest. He has come to that old man, by whom all the instruments of music and science are lying, that weary old man, and he is touching his hand and bidding him come with him and rest.’

“Besides these, Mr. Watts produced from a corner a grand chalk portrait of Lady De Vesci--a most noble picture, giving all the dignity and all the sympathy and pity of her expression. Mr. Watts said he was going to give it to her little girl.

“He said, ‘I am within two years of eighty, and I have worked all my life, but I do not feel old or feeble. I do not even use a maul-stick, and I intend to do my best work yet.’

“On the walls were photographs from Lady Waterford’s drawings, placed beside Titians, and in their ideas as fine.

“Mr. Watts took me to the window of the other room to look out into ‘the half-clothed trees of the winter world.’ In the foreground, a number of cocoa-nuts, open at the ends, were hung up, and wrens and other tiny birds were fluttering in and out of them. ‘They like cocoa-nut,’ he said, ‘and I like to see them enjoy it.’

“He said he had no wish to go into the world again. Living was outliving. Holland House, the second home of many years, was swept away for him, and all its intimates were passing away, and its memories perishing. Nothing else in London could attract him.

“He had wished to make large pictures of Hope, Charity, and Faith. With the two first he had no difficulty, but he lingered long over the third. He showed us the picture he had done--of a woman seated, looking upwards, an Amazonian woman, sheathing her sword, and bathing her blood-stained feet in a brook of clear water. ‘She had found out that all that was no use--no use at all.’ His words, his thoughts, his works, all seemed imbued with the truest spirit of religion. ‘With theology,’ he said, ‘I have nothing to do.’

“He said he had no models. ‘Models are well as studies to draw from, but they check inspiration.’ He rejoiced in Lady Waterford’s using no models for her smaller pictures, and said she would not have been so truly great had she done so.”

* * * * *

“Dec. 7.--Another delightful sitting with Mr. Eddis. I told him of our visit to Watts, and he said how he felt, on seeing his pictures and those of Alma Tadema, that Watts was the head, while Tadema was only the hand.

“He talked of his own early life as a student. At that time, Fuseli[517] had recently been the head of the Academy--the very fierce head. He used to say to his pupils, ‘You may be very good buttermen, you may be very good cheesemen, but students of Art you will never be; and now, give me my umbrella, and I’ll go and look at Constable’s pictures.’

“‘Turner[518] often used to come in and look at us and our work. There was a student amongst us who had painted in a red background, and he painted it the crudest, brightest red he could manage. Turner came in and said, “Come now, this will never do; give me your palette and brush,” and in a few minutes he had toned and mellowed it down with a hundred delicate gradations of tint. “Well now, don’t you think it’s improved?” said Turner. “No, I don’t,” answered the man; “I think it was much better before,” which annoyed Turner rather.

“‘I remember that he came to me that day. I was copying a Vandyke, and he looked at my work. “Part of that is very good,” he said; “why isn’t all the rest as good?”--“Because,” I said, “all the rest is me, and that part is an accident.”--“Well, let that accident to-day become principle to-morrow,” said Turner, and we were always rather friends afterwards.

“‘Turner was proud of his picture of Carthage. He had received many mortifications about his pictures, and people had haggled about the prices--very small prices too--that he asked for them. When Lord Francis Egerton came and told him that a subscription was on foot to buy that picture from him and present it to the National Gallery, he burst into tears, he was so moved. But he said, “No, I will not sell it, but I will leave it to the National Gallery.”

“‘Afterwards, however, he changed his mind, and wished to be buried in that picture. He spoke of it to Chantrey, who was his executor, and begged that he would see that it was done, urging him to promise that it should be done. “Yes, since you wish it, I’ll see you buried in that picture,” said Chantrey, “but, as sure as you’re alive now, I’ll see you dug up again.”

“‘Eventually the picture was left to the National Gallery.

“‘I was very near becoming an Academician,’ said Mr. Eddis, ‘but I never did. I had painted a picture of the “Raising of Jairus’s Daughter,” which was considered a good thing, and my election was thought certain. I was advised to call upon some of the principal members, not to ask them to vote for me, but to conciliate them by the attention. It went rather against the grain with me, and I asked Stanfield about it. “Your election is as certain,” said Stanfield, “as that I am sitting upon this sofa, but you may perhaps hasten it a little if you call as you’ve been advised.” I never did, however; I let it slip, and I was never elected. Then younger men cropped up, and I was forgotten: it was all as well, perhaps.’

“In the afternoon Victoria took me to Lady Sligo’s new house, to which, instead of the suitable name of Altamont,[519] she has insisted on giving that of Mount Brown. It is beautifully situated on a wooded platform above the town of Guildford. I thought the inside of the house very charming, but Frank Thomas, the architect, who was with us, objected because ‘there was too little of the architect, and too much of Lady Sligo in it,’ which seemed to me just its greatest recommendation.

“‘May I tum in?’ said a little boy, knocking at his little sister’s door. ‘No, oo mayn’t,’ answered the little sister. ‘May I tum in now?’ said the little boy. ‘Yes, oo may,’ answered the little sister. ‘And why mightn’t I tum in before?’ said the little boy. ‘Because Mammy said oo wasn’t to see me in my chemise, and now I’ve taken it off,’ answered the little sister.”

* * * * *

“Dec. 8.--‘I see some pictures by amateurs,’ said Mr. Eddis this morning, ‘which produce the same effect that we was does in conversation: it is because they have never studied the grammar of art.

“‘You would scarcely remember Chantrey, I think. He was always a kind friend to me. He rose quite from the ranks, and began as a carver of wood. Rogers was always said to have a table which had been carved by Chantrey.

“‘Lord Eldon sat to me three times, and, while he sat, told me all the story of his life, so when that Life was published, it was all familiar to me: he had told it all. He was unsuccessful as a lawyer in early life, had no practice whatever, and his friends advised him to throw up the profession altogether. Only two friends urged him to wait just a little longer, and he took their advice, and in that “little longer” the tide turned, and carried him on to the Chancellorship: “And then,” said Lord Eldon, “I was able to provide those two friends with very good places.’”

* * * * *

In December 1893 my “Story of Two Noble Lives” appeared, and was warmly welcomed by the upper classes of society--“the public” for whom it was especially written. The last time I had gone out with Lady Waterford, we walked up and down the little ilex avenue by the churchyard at Highcliffe. She spoke then of the great and increasing desolation of her life, and said, “If I survive Charles Stuart, there will not be any one left who would even put up a monument to me.” At the time I inwardly said, “I will,” and held firm to that resolution; and from what people say of the book, I feel that I may venture to regard it, though very unworthy, as a memorial of my dear Lady and her so-beloved sister. Lady Canning’s is the better portrait, for her letters remained; the destruction of all Lady Waterford’s best letters has prevented an equally good picture of her life being produced. General Stuart and many other of Lady Waterford’s friends assured me that a detailed memoir of her was impossible; but no good work was ever successfully carried through which has not at one time seemed impossible.

It was curious, on going to London, to see how opinions differed about the book--how one heard, “Oh, all the interest is confined to Lady Canning,” or, “Of course all one’s sympathies are with Lady Waterford; it is only Lady Waterford one cares for,” or, “The old French history is the only point of interest.” The Reviews were just the same, wishing that the first, or the second, or the third volume were excluded--“the general public would have been sure to welcome the book if it had been much shorter.” But that was exactly the welcome I did not care that it should receive. The general public had no interest in, could not understand, and was not constituted to benefit by such “noble lives,” while the inner circle for whom they were intended could always skip--skip a whole volume if it pleased, just as suited the reader. “Le plus grand malheur d’un homme de lettres n’est peut-être pas d’être l’objet de la jalousie de ses confrères, la victime de la cabale, le mépris des puissants du monde; c’est d’être jugé par des sots.” I was, however, very grateful for the letter of “a Radical,” well known, though quite unknown to me, who wrote that the book had shown him that he had often talked and written of what he had known nothing about, of a class he had misjudged or judged only from individuals, and that “the Story” had taught him what noble, devoted, unselfish lives might belong to the class he had maligned, and that he would never speak against it--in generalities--again. Lady Cork was furious because the married life of Lord and Lady Canning had not been painted as cloudlessly, beatifically happy. But how could I do this with all the written evidence before me? And, after all, what made Lady Canning’s so perfectly “noble” a life was that, however much she suffered, she allowed her mother and sister to live and die under the impression that she was the happiest of wives.

A very large first edition--5300 copies--was produced. I felt these would be called for, and that such an edition would probably cover the very heavy expenses. But the sale of the book is not likely to go on; the generation contemporary with the two sisters will have passed away. For myself, if I like a book, I prefer that it should be very long. It enables you to make a real acquaintance with the people described, to learn to love them perhaps, and to be very sorry to part with them. I wonder if it will be so if some of these--very long--journals are ever made public.

XXIX

WRITING THE GURNEY MEMOIRS

“O thou wealthy Past, Thine are our treasures!--thine and ours alone Through thee: the Present doth in fear rejoice; The Future, but in fantasy: but thou Holdest secure for ever and for ever The bliss that has been ours; nor present woe, Nor future dread, can touch that heritage Of joy gone by--the only joy we own.” --FANNY ANNE KEMBLE.

“The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us: we may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed: whether rough or smooth, the river hastens towards its home, till the roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our keel, and the lands lessen from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and the earth loses sight of us, and we take our last leave of earth and its inhabitants, and of our further voyage there is no witness, but the Infinite and the Eternal.”--REGINALD HEBER, Farewell Sermon at Hodnet.

I had frequently been urged by my friend Madame E. de Bunsen to write the lives and edit the letters of her family--the Gurneys of Earlham; but I had long declined. Much as I honoured the life-work and character of the Gurneys, I felt that I was so little in sympathy with their outward forms of religion, with their peculiar expression of it--with their religious talking, in fact--that I doubted if I could do them justice. Others seemed much better fitted for the task.

But towards the close of 1893 it was again urged upon me--urged with great persistency; and when I had taken many of the Gurney journals and letters home, a memoir seemed gradually to unravel itself in my mind, and at length I promised to do my best. I know, however, how true it is that “in a whole imbroglio of capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and very often clutch the wrong one.”[521]

In many respects the work soon brought its own reward--inwardly, in being led to enter into the spiritual life and difficulties of so many holy departed ones: outwardly, in many visits to still living members of the family, whose life is a constant example, and has often an intellectual as well as a spiritual charm. Especially charming were some winter days at Colne House, the delightful home of Catherine, Lady Buxton, second daughter of Samuel Gurney; and a lovely spring day with Mrs. Ripley at Earlham, in the old-fashioned rooms, and on the green lawns, fragrant to the family--but also to thousands of others--with endless sacred memories.

* * * * *

To the HON. G. HYLTON JOLLIFFE.

“London, April 1894.--I have had a pleasant time here, and as usual have found that there is more to be learnt by enduring the ups and downs of social pleasures than by withdrawing from them, while in the mornings I have been very busy at the Athenaeum with a new edition of ‘Walks in London’ and the production of my little ‘Sussex.’ At Lady Wynford’s I met Miss Harynden, the authoress of ‘Ships that Pass in the Night,’ a very delicate-looking brown ‘Girton girl’--only her degree was not taken at Girton, but at the London University. She was very simple and nice, but seems to feel her books too much. She said she was generally ill and fretful because she was writing, but more ill and more fretful if she was not. She did not find her lodging at Hampstead quiet enough to write in, but shut herself up by day in a desolate cottage on the Heath. She said she had received hundreds of letters about her ‘Ships that Pass.’ That very morning she had a very kind one from an unknown gentleman, saying he liked her book very much, but was disappointed because--in spite of the title--he found no information about shipping in it!

“A little Gould child said the other day, ‘Can God Almighty do everything, mother?’--‘Yes, my dear, God is omnipotent.’--‘I know one thing He couldn’t do, mother.’--‘Quite impossible, my dear.’--‘Yes, mother; God couldn’t make a stone so big that He couldn’t carry it,’--deep unconscious theology.

” ...There is no place where Death makes a stranger impression than at the Athenaeum. You become so accustomed to many men you do not know, to their comings and goings, that they become almost a part of your daily life. You watch them growing older, the dapper young man becoming grizzled, first too careful and then too neglectful of his dress: you see his face become furrowed, his hair grow grey, then white, and at last he is lame and bent. You become worried by his coughs, and hems, and little peculiarities. And--suddenly--you are aware that he is not there, and all your little annoyances immediately seem to have been absurd. For a time you miss him. He never comes. He will cough no more, no longer creak across the floor. He has passed into the unseen; gradually he is forgotten. His place knows him no more. But the wheel goes on turning; it is others; it is oneself perhaps, who is waning away.”

* * * * *

To the HON. MRS. W. LOWTHER.

“Holmhurst, May 21, 1894.--You said you would like to hear about Belvoir.

“I went with Henry Maxwell-Lyte. At Grantham was a quantity of red cloth, and crowds of people to see the Princess (Louise), and a string of carriages from the castle, and George Manners to show us which we were to go in. In mine I found a young man, who turned out to be Cecil Hanbury of La Mortola, with whom I made great friends, and found, as I always do, that it makes all the difference if one has one special friend in a large party. The Princess was already at tea when we arrived, and very gracious and kind. But though she is such a really charming person, the conversation had the effect of muffled drums, which always accompanies the presence of royalty. Lord Lorne is much improved in appearance by age--a good Rubens, as his uncle, Ronald Gower--also at Belvoir--is a bad Bronzino. The Duke, as always, was most delightful, so courteous, considerate, and full of interesting information. In the mornings we walked, drew, or sat in the gardens--a many-hued carpet of spring glories. In the evenings most of the company danced. The last day we drove, all the way through the property, to Croxton Old Park, where there was once a monastery, but nothing is left of it now. There is a quaint little house, where the Duchess Mary-Isabella, whoever she may have been, died, and in its succursale we had tea, with all possible ‘ameliorations.’ ...

“Holmhurst is now a nest of spring blossoms, the azaleas glorious, and the gold of the laburnums quite hiding the leaves.

‘A tout oiseau Son nid semble beau:’

But my nest really is ‘beau.’ I am sometimes blamed for caring so much about it, so that it was a comfort to read somewhere (I cannot remember where), ‘Every man’s proper mansion-house and home, being the theater of his hospitality, the seate of self-fruition, the comfortablest part of his own life, a kind of private princedome, nay, to the possessor thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be decently and delightfully adorned.’”

* * * * *

It had weighed upon my mind for the last two years that my “France” remained unfinished. There was still another volume which could not be written without personally visiting all the places of interest in Normandy and Brittany, and my publishers were constantly urging its completion. The book has always been utterly unremunerative, very much the contrary, which is very depressing in its way, but “on ne vit dans le mémoire du monde que par ses travaux pour le monde.’[522] So I determined to give up London and home pleasures this summer, and to set about it, taking my young cousin Theodore Chambers as my companion and guest.

We left Holmhurst together on the first of June, and spent June in Normandy and July in Brittany. It was one of the most laborious journeys I ever made--eight or nine hours a day of walking, standing, collating, correcting, simmering in the relaxing western heat, and constantly soaked by the Scotch mist which pervades that district five days out of seven. For the latter month young Inverurie, Lady Kintore’s eldest boy, was also with me, a most kind and pleasant fellow-traveller, but, though eager about drawing, neither of my companions had any more interest in architecture or history than a stone. Thus my associations with North-Western France are not transcendent. Places, even the most beautiful, are innutritious to the mind in the long run; one needs people with mental life, and enthusiasm to see them with.

To the cloudiest days, however, come gleams of sunshine. I remember with great pleasure the Abbey of S. Waudrille near Caudebec, restored once more to the Benedictines, ejected at the Revolution. We were cordially pressed to go and stay there, and shown the charming rooms we might have, and I should really have liked it. Then five days at Mont S. Michel were enchanting, and the invigorating air, which the hundred and thirty steps to our bedrooms gave us full opportunity of benefiting by. And then from Brittany come recollections of many wonderful calvaries; of Tregastel and its golden rocks; of S. Jean du Doigt in its deep hollow, lovely in spite of soaking rain; and of Carnac and its wild moorland, redolent of sweet basil and thyme. We also saw two stately well-kept houses, Josselin of the Duc de Rohan, and Maintenon of the Duc de Noailles; but, after all, seeing houses without their owners is like seeing frames without portraits. More living to me, because I felt already so familiar with the place, was Les Rochers, pervaded by the spirit of Madame de Sévigné, and even more fragrant from the memories she has bequeathed to it than from the blossoms with which the glorious old orange-trees in its garden are covered now as in her day. It was enchanting to reach home again at the end of July. My companions said the journey had turned my hair grey, and so it really had--rather.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“August 16.--Most delightful has been the return to Holmhurst with its freedom and peace. The shades in my life now are seldom troubles, only uncongenialities, and the ‘small fretting fretfulnesses’ which accompany them: still, when these are past, the relief is enormous, and visits from such delightful young friends as Herbert Vaughan, Cecil Hanbury, and George Cockerton have been a great enjoyment. The last is indeed, in every respect, a dear and true friend. No rules of friendship, I feel, are better than those inculcated by Buddhism:--

“‘An honourable man should minister to his friends and companions by giving presents, by courteous speech, by promoting their interests, by treating them as his equals, by sharing with them his prosperity.

“‘They, in return, should show attachment, by watching over him when he is off his guard, by guarding his property when he is careless, by offering him a refuge in danger, by adhering to him in misfortune, by showing kindness to his family.’

“The natural beauty of the garden here is a never-failing delight to me. Most people seem to be so full of expectations from the future that they do not allow themselves to enjoy the present; but when I am at home, I am sure that is not the case with me. On the prettiest site in the grounds I have just finished putting up the statues of Queen Anne and her four satellites by Bird, which formerly stood in front of St. Paul’s. They were taken away four years ago, and disappeared altogether till last spring, when my friend Lewis Gilbertson discovered them in a stonemason’s yard on the point of being broken up for the sake of the marble. I found they belonged to three people--the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Lord Mayor, and all these were persuaded to resign their claims to me. The statues were brought down to Holmhurst at great expense, and put up, at much greater, on a home-made pedestal like their old one; and now I hope they are enjoying the verdure and sea-breezes after the smoke of the City.”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN, and JOURNAL.

“Alderley Rectory, Oct. 5, 1894.--I left home on September 29, to visit the Townshend Marshams at Frognal--the place I have so often heard of and thought of, from Lord and Lady Canning having been there so frequently as the guests of Lord and Lady Sydney, who left it to the Marshams. No wonder they loved it, and that it was one of the places poor Lady Canning most looked forward to seeing again on her return from her long Indian exile. It is an enchanting old house!--its endless succession of small sitting-rooms, all lived in, all full of pictures, books, and flowers, and opening on to a sunny terrace and broad expanse of lawn, with pine-trees beyond it. In one of the rooms Lady Sydney still presides from her picture, but as few alive now can remember her, radiant in loveliness, with a coronet surmounting her abundant and beautiful hair. Upstairs there is an oak gallery, half library, half passage, but deliciously pleasant and quaint. The boy of the family is named Ferdinand, from Ferdinando Marsham, Charles I.’s esquire, upon whose tombstone it is said that ‘he was lamented by all gentlemen.’ Amongst the many curious pamphlets in the house is an account of Charles I.’s execution, printed whilst the king’s body was still lying at Whitehall, and mentioning his famous word, ‘Remember,’ as referring to his ‘George,’ which he had desired might be given to his eldest son. A sketch by Lady Sydney represents the drawing-room at Frognal, with both the Cannings and many other habitués of the house introduced, and easily recognisable as portraits.

“Through a most picturesque and lovely bit of primeval chase belonging to Frognal we walked to Chislehurst, to see the fine tomb of Lord Sydney by Boehm, surrounded by memorials of his family, and, on the common, the Prince Imperial’s Memorial Cross. Mr. Marsham Townshend, who recollected having seen the Empress in all her splendour at Paris, happened once to come upon her here, a widowed and lonely exile, in her deep mourning, attended by a single servant, sobbing alone before this memorial of her murdered son. Often, in the years she was at Chislehurst, while the family at Frognal were sitting at tea in the hall, a carriage would dash up, and the Empress Eugénie come in to stay for two hours. She loved the Sydneys.

“It was most delightful at Frognal having old Mrs. Sackville of Drayton there--‘still constant in a wondrous excellence.’

“A longish journey took me to Bromsgrove, where a carriage met me and an old Mrs. Laurence, who is apparently ‘a power’ in American society, with her nephew, Mr. Mercer, and brought us to Hewell, the great modern house which Bodley has built for the Windsors. It has an immense hall, with open galleries round it, never a comfortable arrangement, I think, but it is handsome, has two beautiful Italian chimney-pieces, and is divided by arches into compartments at the two ends. Lady Windsor is quite as beautiful and fascinating as before she married, and her mother, Lady Paget, is rather additionally embellished than otherwise by added years. Lady De Vesci was at Hewell also, supremely beautiful in her own--a poetical way.

“I have enjoyed being in this familiar place, where the Rector of Alderley, Mr. Bell, and his daughters, are very kind. He has just been driving me to see the Ernest Leycesters at Mobberley. Passing beneath a field on the way to Chorley, he said, ‘A curious thing happened there when I was a little boy. A farmer went out very early to look over his land, and in that field he found a place where the soil had been recently upturned. ‘Oh, poachers must have been here,’ he said to himself, ‘and have buried their game;’ so he dug, and very soon came upon a sack. ‘Here it is,’ he said, when behold! from the sack emerged the long tresses of a young woman! Pale as death, he rushed across the field to Ellen Baskerville’s house, and told what had happened. It was the body of a young woman, buried in Alderley Churchyard a few days before. Resurrection-men had dug it up, and being suddenly surprised, had hastily buried it here.

“‘When I was living as chaplain in the Infirmary at Norwich,’ said Mr. Bell, ‘I was startled by hearing what seemed to be loud and furious imprecations overhead. They did not stop, and at last I ran upstairs to see. There, in bed, was the old fat swarthy cook, screaming with all her might, and a huge monkey was sitting on the bed grinning at her. I seized a newspaper which lay there, rolled it up, and hit out at the monkey. But the beast knew better than to be afraid of that, seized it, tore it up, and made at me. Then I caught up a large ruler, which was happily lying near, to defend myself with. The monkey did not like that, and bounded across the room and out at the window, and I heard a scream from the people upon whom it had descended in the street.

“‘The woman told me how the monkey had come in at the window, and jumped straight on to her bed, where it had found the pot of ointment used for her bad leg, and eaten it all up directly. Having finished that, it made for the table, where it found her wig-box, pulled it open and began to demolish her wig. That she could not stand. “Oh, ye varmint! ye varmint!” she shouted, and continued shouting till I came to the rescue.’”

* * * * *

“Temple Newsam, Oct. 9.--This grand old house in the Black Country has been receiving the Duke and Duchess of York. They were just gone when I arrived, but the Duchess’s pleasant brother, Prince Adolphus, is here, and his future bride, Lady Sybil Grosvenor, with Lady Grosvenor and her daughter, also the William Lowthers and the beloved Halifax’s. With the Lowthers I have been two excursions--to Swillerton, Sir C. Lowther’s rather fine house, and to the beautiful old house of Ledstone, a very picturesque place.”

* * * * *

“Ravenstone, Oct. 14.--This lovely little place of Mrs. Howard is above Lake Bassenthwayte, not considered a beautiful lake, but infinitely lovely at the spot to which she has taken me, through the garden of Sir H. Vane, where a richly wooded promontory embossed upon the still evening sky was reflected in every detail in the calm limpid waters.

“We have been for service to the most delightfully primitive little church--a Dalesman’s church--such as Wordsworth has described. At Greystoke we have spent a day, received by the little girl, daughter of the house, with the manners of a princess. Little of the old castle remains.”

* * * * *

“Bishopthorpe, Oct. 16.--‘That is a portrait of Bishop Willmer of Louisiana,’ said the Archbishop, showing his study. ‘He was at one of the conferences at Lambeth in Archbishop Tait’s time. When he went away Mrs. Tait said to him, “Well, good-bye, Bishop; I hope you’ll come again at the next conference.”--“No, Mrs. Tait, neither you nor I will be at the next conference.”--“Oh, Bishop, but I hope we shall see you again.”--“No, Mrs. Tait,” said the Bishop very solemnly, “neither you nor I shall be at the next conference, but we shall meet again very soon.” Three months after that--one in America, the other at Edinburgh--the Bishop and Mrs. Tait died on the very same day.

“‘Bishop Willmer had the utmost simplicity of character, but he was a true apostle. One day, crossing a green at Boston, he found a little boy playing pitch-and-toss. He was very fond of little boys, and he stopped and spoke to this one--spoke to him very kindly. “Now, are you a good little boy?” he said at length. “Well, I sometimes say cuss words,” answered the boy. “Oh, I’m sorry for that,” said the Bishop; “but at any rate, I see you speak the truth.”--“Oh, only dogs tell lies,” said the boy. “Well, now,” said the Bishop, “would you like to do me a kindness?”--“Yes,” said the boy. “Well, I expect a parcel at the railway station, and I want you to go for it, and bring it to a particular house. There will be seven dollars to pay for that parcel, and here are the seven dollars, and there are fifty cents for yourself.” The boy took the $7.50 and went off.

“‘When the Bishop reached the house, he told what he had done, and was heartily jeered at--that he should trust a Boston waif like that. There was a very large party, and they all went in to dinner. Before it was over, a servant came in and said that there was a boy there who wanted to speak to the Bishop. The Bishop went out, and the whole company followed him--they followed him into the hall, and there was the boy at the door. He was not the least abashed, but, when he saw the Bishop, said, “Well, I’ve brought the parcel, but it cost seven dollars fifty cents: you did not see the fifty cents marked in the corner.”--“Well, how did you get the parcel, then?”--” Oh, I paid the fifty cents you gave me.”--“And how did you know you’d get the fifty cents again?”--“ Well, I thought as a chap as would trust me with seven dollars would never make a trouble for fifty cents.”

“‘Well,’ said the Bishop, before they parted, ‘now I should like to give you my blessing;’ and the boy knelt on the door-mat, and solemnly and episcopally, before all the company, the Bishop gave the poor boy his blessing.’

“The chapel here in the palace is thirteenth-century, and has been restored by Archbishop Maclagan. The stained windows by Kempe are beautiful, representing the Crucifixion, and the saints connected with York. ‘I wished that the Saviour should be represented without any appearance of suffering,’ said the Archbishop--‘as the offering of humanity, not the sacrifice for sin. The suffering crucifixes only grew up in mediaeval times with ideas of purgatory. The early artists wished to excite faith, not pity, and represented the Saviour’s triumph over death, even while enduring it. The earliest crucifix, in the Catacomb of Pope Julius, given by Mrs. Jameson, but which totally disappeared a few years since, represents on the cross a beautiful youth, draped from head to foot, and without suffering.’

“I have had a delightful long drive with Augusta to Bramham. The old house was burnt down sixty years ago, and has never been rebuilt. But its glorious old gardens are kept up. There is nothing like them in England. They were laid out by Le Nôtre when he laid out Versailles, and are more like that than any other place. Eighty acres are intersected by grand avenues with immense walls of clipped beech, ending in summer-houses, statues, vases, or tanks walled in with stone and surrounded by statues and vases of flowers. Mr. Fox, a most grand old man, showed me everything, and talked of the change from the old times of his youth, when Yorkshire country visits were so cheery, and the chief dissipation of the county people was a ball at York. ‘Now every man with three hundred a year and a daughter thinks he must go to London.’ He talked of the degeneracy of Temple Newsam from the time when three litters of cubs were regularly brought up in the woods near the house. His sitting-room is full of hunting pictures and caricatures of his old friends--a great enjoyment to him.

“I asked Augusta much about Mrs. (Adelaide) Sartoris, whom she had known well. She said: ‘Edward Sartoris did not go with Adelaide when she went to Vichy. Leighton, who was always as a slave to her, went with her, took her lodgings, and did everything for her. Then he said, “You will be very dull, knowing no one here; I know some young men here, and I will introduce them to you. They are Burton and Swinburne, but you know one is a believer in Buddhism, the other in nothing; so you must not mind what they say.” Then Leighton left.

“‘The next evening Adelaide was having her coffee in the gardens, when the two young men came up and sat down by her. At first they made themselves very agreeable. Then at length they began to air their opinions, and to say things evidently intended to shock. Adelaide laid down her cup, looked at Burton, and said very slowly, “You believe, I think, in Juggernaut, therefore, with regard to Juggernaut, I shall be very careful not to hurt your feelings. And you, Mr. Swinburne (turning to him), believe, I think, in nothing, but if anything is mentioned in which you do believe, I shall be very careful not to hurt your feelings either, by abusing it: now I expect that you will show the same courtesy to me.”

“‘The young men laughed, and for some days all went well. Then the impression passed, and one day they began to talk as before. Adelaide again laid down her cup, and began again in the same slow tones--“You believe, Mr. Burton, I think, in Juggernaut”.... Then they burst out laughing, and they always behaved themselves in future.’

“‘When I was a girl,’ said Augusta, ‘I was with Mary at Madame de l’Aigle’s near Compiègne. There was to be a little function in the village, and some music was got up for it. We assisted at the practices, and Leighton also, who was there as a beautiful young man. But before the day of the function came he had to go. “Oh, Fay, why should you desert us? what can we do without our tenor?” said Madame de l’Aigle. But she implored him in vain; he said he must go. We all continued, however, to urge him, and at last he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I must go, but I’ll come back.”--“What! all the way from London?” “Yes.” And he did. It was not long after that we found out why he thought himself obliged to go: it was because the sale of the pictures of that poor artist, Mason, who had died leaving his wife and children terribly unprovided for, was going to take place, and Leighton thought that if he were present at the sale, and seen bidding for the pictures, they would fetch higher prices. It was only one of a thousand kindnesses Leighton has done.... People have sometimes called him affected, but he was not. His manners were perfectly natural: he could not help being the spoiled darling of society.

“‘George IV., as Prince Regent, was very charming when he was not drunk, but he generally was. Do you remember how he asked Curran to dinner to amuse him--only for that? Curran was up to it, and sat silent all through dinner. This irritated the Prince, and at last, after dinner, when he had had a good deal too much, he filled a glass with wine and threw it in Curran’s face, with “Say something funny, can’t you!” Curran, without moving a muscle, threw his own glass of wine in his neighbour’s face, saying, “Pass his Royal Highness’s joke.”

“‘That story reminds me of the old Queen of Sweden. She was furious at the appointment of Bernadotte, and would have nothing to do with him; at which people congratulated him rather, because if she had seen him, they said, she would certainly have killed him. But at last she seemed to get tired of her estrangement, and she invited Bernadotte to a banquet. He was delighted--so glad to be friends; but as he was going to her palace, a paper was put into his hands inscribed--by whom he never knew--with the words, “If she offers you food or drink, as you value your life, refuse it.” He arrived, and the Queen was most affable, courtesy and kindness itself. After dinner a cup of coffee was brought on a golden salver, and, with the most exquisite grace, the Queen offered it to Bernadotte. He was just about to drink it when he remembered the warning, and he returned it to her, saying, “Après vous, Madame.” The Queen turned deadly pale, looked him full in the face, and--drank it. Next day Stockholm was agitated by terrible news. The Queen-Dowager had died in the night.’

“The dining-room here is hung with Archbishops, a very fine set of portraits. Sir Joshua painted Archbishop Harcourt, and came down with the picture to Bishopthorpe. At dinner, the chaplain, who was afterwards Archbishop Markham, said, ‘Who is the fellow who has painted that vile picture of the Archbishop?’--‘The fellow is me,’ said Sir Joshua, who was sitting by him; but he was so struck by what Markham said that he insisted on taking the picture back with him to London, and repainted it as it is now. Talking of the portraits led to Sir T. Lawrence, who was an endless time over his pictures. That was the case with his portrait of Lady Mexborough and her child. Lord Mexborough asked to have it home again and again, but it was no use. At last he said he must have the picture. ‘Well,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I’ve been a long time, I allow; but I’ve got well forward with Lady Mexborough: it’s the baby wants finishing. Now if Lady Mexborough would kindly bring the baby and give me another sitting, I really will finish.’--‘Well, Sir Thomas,’ said Lord Mexborough, ‘my wife will be happy to give you another sitting whenever you like, but the baby’s in the Guards!’”

* * * * *

“Lincoln, Oct. 18.--Between York and this, I turned aside to visit Howden, a most grand church. In the vicarage garden I saw an old lady feeding chickens, and I could not help going up to her and saying, ‘Were you not once a Miss Dixon?’ She was so exactly like her sister, who was with Miss Dixon, the miniature-painter, at the little Holmhurst hospice last year. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, showed me all the relics, the remains of the shrine of S. John of Howden, bearing a statue of the Virgin with the dove whispering into her ear, as S. Gregory is so often represented at Rome: the Saltmarshe Chapel, with its old tombs and its stone altar with five crosses: and the lovely ruined choir, with exquisite chantry chapels opening from it. Then, in the vicarage garden, are remains of an old palace of the Bishops of Durham, with a beautiful old gateway.

“I also saw Selby, a very fine church with a Norman nave, but less interesting than Howden.

“Lincoln is altogether delightful, with its crown of yellow-grey towers rising high above the red roofs of the town. And it is most pleasant in staying with the beloved Precentor Venables to go back into the old Hurstmonceaux days, which he, and almost no one else, remembers, even though I could not join in his loyal reverence for Uncle Julius, when it was extended to Aunt Esther also. Time seems to have stood still with him and Mrs. Venables more than with any one I know, and it is difficult to believe that it is more than half a century since they came to Hurstmonceaux as bride and bridegroom--half a century of such entirely happy married life, that one cannot contemplate one surviving the other.[528]

“We visited the delightful and beautiful old Bishop King, who now has fitted up the ruins of the old palace, and lives appropriately in the heart of the cathedral society--‘very rightly placed,’ he says, ‘below the church, and far above the world.’ He has an expression of gentle benignity which I never saw equalled except by Pius IX., and a manner in which the greatest dignity of office and the most perfect personal humility are marvellously blended. He was sitting in what I thought was a purple dressing-gown, but was told it was a cassock: a jewelled cross was on his breast. I hoped to have seen him mitred in the cathedral, but he only appears thus on great festivals. He talked of the Church in France, and I urged him to visit Ars and enjoy its atmosphere of spiritual love and blessing: he said he should go there. We also visited Dean Wickham and his delightful wife, who is Gladstone’s daughter, thinking her father’s principles always right, but so full of goodness, gentleness, and beneficence herself, that it is impossible to connect her with his practice.”

* * * * *

“Nov. 16.--At Letton, the pleasant house of the Gurdons in Suffolk, I have met a large party, including the Hamonds of Westacre, into whose courtyard an invisible horse and rider clatter whenever any death is about to occur in their family. I have been taken to see Hingham, where the church contains the very fine tomb of Thomas, Lord Morley, of 1435. Another day we went to Dereham. S. Werburga was the great saint of the place, and was stolen by the Abbot of Ely, that her body might be venerated there with her two sainted sisters. By her empty grave a miraculous spring gushed forth to console the people of Dereham. So many children died from being bathed in it, that it is now shut off by a railing. In the church is the feeble monument of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin.

“Several curious stories were told:--

“Some young men once determined to frighten the famous naturalist Cuvier. One of them got horns, hoofs, and a tail, and appeared by Cuvier’s bedside. ‘I am the devil,’ he said, ‘and I am come to eat you.’ Cuvier looked at him. ‘Carnivorous! horns--hoofs--impossible! Good-night;’ and he turned over and went to sleep.

“Mrs. Hall Dare had told of a young girl friend of hers. She was with a number of other girls, foolish and frivolous, who went to consult an old woman who had the reputation of being a witch, and who was supposed to have the power of making them see their future husbands. She said they must say their prayers backwards, perform certain incantations with water, lock their doors when they went to bed, and then they would see whom they were to marry, but they would find their doors locked in the morning.

“The girl followed all the witch’s directions. Then she locked her door, went to bed, and waited. Gradually, by the firelight, a young man seemed to come in--to come straight through the locked door--a young man in uniform; she saw him distinctly.

“He went to the end of the room and returned. As he passed the bed his sword caught in the curtain and fell upon the floor. Then he seemed to pass out. The girl fainted.

“In the morning at first she thought it was a dream, but there, though her door was still locked, lay the actual sword upon the floor! Greatly aghast, she told no one, but put it away and kept it hidden. It was a terrible possession to her.

“The following year, at a country-house, she met the very young man she had seen. They fell violently in love and were married. For one year they were intensely--perfectly--happy.

“Then her husband’s regiment had to change its quarters. As she was packing up, with horror which was an instinct, she came upon the sword put away among her things. Just then, before she could hide it, her husband came in. He saw the sword, turned deadly pale, and in a stern voice said, ‘How did you come by that?’ She confessed the whole truth.

“He was rigid. He said, ‘I can never forgive it; I can never see you again;’ and nothing she could say or do could move him. ‘Do you know where I passed that terrible night?’ he said; ‘I passed it in hell!’ He has given up three-quarters of his income to her, but she has never seen him since.

“A Miss Broke, a niece of our host, told me even a more curious story.

“A few years ago there was a lady living in Ireland--a Mrs. Butler--clever, handsome, popular, prosperous, and perfectly happy. One morning she said to her husband, and to any one who was staying there, ‘Last night I had the most wonderful night. I seemed to be spending hours in the most delightful place, in the most enchanting house I ever saw--not large, you know, but just the sort of house one might live in one’s-self, and oh! so perfectly, so deliciously comfortable. Then there was the loveliest conservatory, and the garden was so enchanting! I wonder if anything half so perfect can really exist.’

“And the next morning she said, ‘Well, I have been to my house again. I must have been there for hours. I sat in the library: I walked on the terrace; I examined all the bedrooms: and it is simply the most perfect house in the world.’ So it grew to be quite a joke in the family. People would ask Mrs. Butler in the morning if she had been to her house in the night, and often she had, and always with more intense enjoyment. She would say, ‘I count the hours till bedtime, that I may get back to my house!’ Then gradually the current of outside life flowed in, and gave a turn to their thoughts: the house ceased to be talked about.

“Two years ago the Butlers grew very weary of their life in Ireland. The district was wild and disturbed. The people were insolent and ungrateful. At last they said, ‘We are well off, we have no children, there’s no reason why we should put up with this, and we’ll go and live altogether in England.’

“So they came to London, and sent for all the house-agents’ lists of places within forty miles of London, and many were the places they went to see. At last they heard of a house in Hampshire. They went to it by rail; and drove from the station. As they came to the lodge, Mrs. Butler said, ‘Do you know, this is the lodge of my house.’ They drove down an avenue--‘But this is my house!’ she said.

“When the housekeeper came, she said, ‘You will think it very odd, but do you mind my showing you the house: that passage leads to the library, and through that there is a conservatory, and then through a window you enter the drawing-room,’ &c., and it was all so. At last, in an upstairs passage, they came upon a baize door. Mrs. Butler, for the first time, looked puzzled. ‘But that door is not in my house,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand about your house, ma’am,’ said the housekeeper, ‘but that door has only been there six weeks.’

“Well, the house was for sale, and the price asked was very small, and they decided at once to buy it. But when it was bought and paid for, the price had been so extraordinarily small, that they could not help a misgiving that there must be something wrong with the place. So they went to the agent of the people who had sold it and said, ‘Well, now the purchase is made and the deeds are signed, will you mind telling us why the price asked was so small?’

“The agent had started violently when they came in, but recovered himself. Then he said to Mrs. Butler, ‘Yes, it is quite true the matter is quite settled, so there can be no harm in telling now. The fact is that the house has had a great reputation for being haunted; but you, madam, need be under no apprehensions, for you are yourself the ghost!’

“On the nights when Mrs. Butler had dreamt she was at her house, she--her ‘astral body’--had been seen there.”

* * * * *

“Ashridge, Nov. 19.--I arrived here by tea-time, passing in the beech woods Lady Lothian, who reminded me of Lady Waterford, as I saw her in her long black dress and black hat, backed by the leafless trees against the golden sunset. Then Lady Brownlow came in, still radiant in her marvellous Bronzino-like beauty. There is much charm too in the guests--Mrs. Dallas Yorke, with her subtle refinement, Mrs. Norman Grosvenor, the Jerseys, pleasant Jack Cator, and many others. Before dark, Lady Lothian took me to the drawing-room, built entirely from designs of Lord Brownlow, and thoroughly Italian in its marble pillars, green hangings, and many fine pictures, a Mona Lisa which disputes originality with that at Paris, a beautiful Lo Spagna of a saint, and the sketch for the Tintoret of the Presentation of the Virgin. The dinner was lighted from brilliant sconces on old boiserie from a Flemish sacristy. In the evening ‘Critic’ was acted as a charade, led by Lady Jersey.

“Breakfast was at small tables. Lord Brownlow, at ours, talked of a neighbouring house where a Lady Ferrers, a freebooter, used to steal out at night and rob the pilgrims coming from St. Albans. She had a passage from her room to the stables. In the morning one of the horses was often found tired out and covered with foam: no one could tell why. At last the poor lady was found dead on her doorstep in her suit of Lincoln green. She constantly haunts the place. Mr. Ady, who lives there now, meets her on the stairs and wishes her good-night. Once, seeing her with her arms stretched out in the doorway, he called out to his wife who was outside, ‘Now we’ve caught her!’ and they rushed upon her from both sides, but caught--nothing.

“Lady Brownlow came over to our table. ‘I’ve come to join in your conversation.’--‘Well, you’ve stopped it,’ said Lord B. ‘However, I bring you this story. A man in a foreign hotel took a loaded pistol to bed with him. By-and-by he saw a terrible deformed hand brandished at the foot of the bed. “If you don’t go, I’ll fire,” he shouted. It did not go and he fired. It was at his own foot.’

“It was Sunday, but I did not go to church, and walked with Lady Lothian through the sunlit green glades and russet woods of autumn. The house is of immense length of frontage, and behind it rises the chapel like a great church. ‘Can you tell me in what part of this village Lord Brownlow lives?’ asked an American when he came to Ashridge. In the evening we went to service in the chapel through the splendid conservatory, with long falling festoons of Ipomea. There was a full congregation and singing. Two panes of Holbein glass recall that Ashridge was the palace of Edward VI. and Elizabeth when young, but she hated it.

“We knew what you would say if you found Lady Waterford’s drawings all lying about,’ said Lady Brownlow, ‘so we worked hard to hang them up the day before you came.’ And they looked grand together, and such a variety--the supreme desolation of the Hagar, the self-abandonment of the Prodigal’s repentance, the proud Othello, the lovely springing, leaping children.”

* * * * *

“Middleton, Dec. 9.--A very agreeable visit to Lord and Lady Jersey. The country is hideous, but the house pleasant and comfortable, and a large new ball-room is hung with many fine portraits--the first Duke of Buckingham by Mytens and by Van Somer; Frances, Countess of Jersey, beloved by George IV., who was sent to meet Queen Caroline and persuaded her to eat onions--‘There is nothing the king likes so much as the smell of onions’--and Sarah, Countess of Jersey, the queen of Almack’s, a huge noble picture by Lawrence. Joining the village church is the mortuary chapel which she built, with her tomb, a copy of the Scipio tomb at Rome, and lovely medallions of her daughters, Sarah, Princess Esterhazy, and Lady Clementina Villiers. The font is said to have been that of Edward the Confessor at Islip, but is of Gothic, not Saxon date.

“Conversation fell on Christine, Lady Saye and Sele, who had three husbands. When she married the first surreptitiously, she took the bull by the horns, and said to her father at dinner, ‘Father, I’m married!’--‘Well, my dear, but at least wait till Thomas has left the room.’--‘No, father, Thomas need not leave the room, for Thomas is the man I’ve married.’”

My home life this year was very quiet and uneventful, only marked by my books. The Edgeworth family had placed Maria Edgeworth’s letters in the hands of Lionel Holland, now a publisher, and desired him to find an editor. He asked me to accept the office--certainly not a remunerative one, as I only received fifty pounds for it, the whole large profits of the book falling to the publishers. I demurred at first, but eventually undertook it, and became interested in the work, and the simple, high-toned, unselfish character of the lady whose letters I was selecting; and the book at once became popular, and had a very large circulation.

But “The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth” was rather a by-play. Most of my time was given to “The Gurneys of Earlham,” which gave me plenty of very hard and anxious work. I could not help feeling, as I attacked the mines and mountains of self-introspection in the form of religious journals which each one of the Gurney brothers and sisters left behind them, how unsuited I was for the task, how little I could enter into their feelings. Indeed Catherine Vaughan had written to me--“You are unworthy even to unfasten the shoe-latchets of those saints,” and I quite agreed with her. Still, into the beauty of their actions, of their devoted and unselfish lives, I could fully enter, and when the peculiar shibboleth of those times is sifted from their words, they said a great deal that was most beautiful and touching. The work has brought me into contact with many good people. And the Gurneys are still, as they were in the early days of Earlham, most liberal to all who do not agree with them, if only they are trying to follow the same Lord and Saviour--the dearest friend of the Gurneys of old time, and I think of most of those of present date.

At Christmas I was with the Halifaxes.

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“Hickleton, Dec. 28, 1894.--Can it be I? I say to myself, when I am called in pitch darkness in these winter mornings, and hurry in the dawn through the still dark shrubberies to the brilliantly lighted church, where, amid clouds of incense and the chanted salutation of the Blessed Sacrament, I receive ‘the mass,’ kneeling under the shadow of a great crucifix. Then, after breakfast, there is matins, what we should call early morning service, at which there are few worshippers; but when it is over, and you think you are going away, not a bit of it; there is a sound like the sea rushing in, and instantly the church is filled--thronged with people--and these come, not to receive the Sacrament, but to adore it! Charlie Halifax says, ‘How strangely things come round. My uncle, a lawyer--who had his home here with my father and mother, and died when I was five years old--used to be a great friend of Newman and Lord Devon, and others who thought as they did, and his beautiful spiritual letters and his religious sonnets remain to us. He longed for what he thought was the impossible; he longed to have it here, and now here it is. At that time there was only celebration here four times in a year; he never hoped it could be otherwise, and yet what he so longed for--what I, too, so longed for as a boy--has been all realised.

“‘Do you know that when Miss Margot Tennant (Mrs. Asquith) said to Jowett, “What do you really think of God?” he said nothing for a moment, and then answered, “I think all that signifies is what God really thinks of me.”’

“I have had many delightful talks with Charlie. When I am with him I feel imperceptibly lifted heavenwards. I do not agree with him in everything, but oh! I love him always. With him, as indeed with every one else, even where I most disagree, I am careful never to speak slightingly of anything he holds sacred. If it made any difference at all, it would only cause him to hold the cloak tighter.”

* * * * *

“Hatfield, Jan. 30.--After a visit to Lord and Lady Knightley at Fawsley, in bitter cold and snow, I came here to meet a huge party--Cadogans, Iveaghs, Hampdens, and very many others. Most of the company have skated in the morning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the equably warm passages and rooms of this immense house. Arthur Balfour is here, with charming manners, quite unspoilt. He stays in his room and does not appear till luncheon-time, so getting many quiet hours for work. Lord Warkworth was here for one night, a most promising youth, who breaks the silence of the Percies. Lord Rowton also is here, and most agreeable in his natural ripple of pleasant talk. He says that he once asked Disraeli what was the most remarkable, the most self-sustained and powerful sentence he knew. Dizzy paused for a moment, and then said, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

“Disraeli used to say that, apropos of history, he should always remember going to a breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, and, as the door opened, hearing the loud voice of Bunsen exclaim, ‘Modern history! why, modern history begins with Abraham!’

“He described how the Duke of Wellington would always arrange everything for a battle--he did before Waterloo--and then would sleep soundly for an hour. ‘How could you sleep so soundly?’--‘Why, I had arranged everything.’

“Lady Salisbury said that her masseuse went constantly to the Queen. She told Lady Salisbury that what appeared to be lameness in the Queen was merely that her feet were too small to support the weight of her body. Her hands are those of a little child.

“She gave the most graphic description of an awful storm she encountered in going to S. Tropez. ‘The rivers, you know, generally flow into the sea, but then the sea flowed into the rivers: it was such a reversion of things.’

“Describing his great-grandfather, Lord Salisbury said he swore so horribly that he used to be called ‘Blastus, the king’s chamberlain.’

“I said how one of the things I most wished to see, Lady Anne Grimston’s[529] tomb, was in Hertfordshire. ‘Oh,’ said Lady Salisbury, ‘I will drive you there in my sledge;’ and so she did, across the snow-laden roads. It is the most extraordinary sight. Lady Anne Grimston was a sceptic, and when she lay upon her deathbed in 1717, her family were most anxious to make her believe in a future state, but she wouldn’t. ‘It is as likely,’ she said, ‘that I should rise again as that a tree should grow out of my body when I’m dead.’

“Lady Anne Grimston died, and was buried in Tewin churchyard, and over her grave was placed a great altar-tomb, with a huge massive stone slab on the top of it. In a year or two, this slab showed signs of internal combustion, and out of the middle of it--out of the very middle of it--grew a tree (some say six different trees, but one could not see in winter), and increased, till, in the time which has elapsed, it has become one of the largest trees in Hertfordshire. Not only that, but the branches of the tree have writhed about the tomb like the feelers of an octopus, have seized it, and lifted it into the air, so that the very base of the tomb is high up now, one with the tree or trees, so are they welded together. Then a railing was put round the tomb, and the tree has seized upon it in the same way, has twisted the strong iron rails like pack-thread, and they are to be seen tangled and twirled high in the branches of the tree. Another railing has now been put, and the tree will behave to it just as before.

“If this tree were abroad, it would become the most popular place of pilgrimage in the world. As it is, thousands visit it--even across the snow a regular path was worn to it. Tewin churchyard preaches more sermons than a thousand clergymen.

“‘I have brought back Mr. Hare a most firm believer in a future state,’ said Lady Salisbury as we re-entered the Golden Gallery at Hatfield, where all the guests were sitting.”

* * * * *

“London, Feb. 2.--I dined with my two friends, Lewis Gilbertson and Frank Cookson, who live so happily together in the charming little canonical house of the former in Amen Court. Gilbertson told me how Mr. Spooner of Oxford, celebrated for his absence of mind, was one evening found wandering disconsolately about the streets of Greenwich. ‘I’ve been here hours,’ he said. ‘I had an important appointment to meet some one at “The Dull Man, Greenwich,” and I can’t find it anywhere; and the odd thing is no one seems to have heard of it.’ Late at night he went back to Oxford. ‘You idiot!’ exclaimed his wife; ‘why, it was the Green Man, Dulwich, you had to go to.’”

* * * * *

To HERBERT VAUGHAN OF LLANGOEDMORE.

“April 21.--My visit at Elton has been most pleasant, Lord and Lady Carysfort so kind, the house a climax of comfort, and the party one of old friends, Knightleys, Peels, Lady Tollemache, and beautiful Lady Claude Hamilton the elder. Then the gardens and groves are quite beautiful, especially at this time--

‘When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight.’[530]

But what I really cared for most was that I accomplished my long-wished-for pilgrimage to Little Gidding.

“It is a most attractive spot, a bosky hollow in the uplands, with a pool and an oak-wood. The monastic house is gone, but probably stood where a farmhouse stands now, and whence the raised path which led to the still existing chapel is yet visible in the turf. An ancient box-tree with a stem like an oak, contemporary with the old house, stands on the grass. An old contemporary book in the library at Elton had made me even more familiar than ‘John Inglesant’ had done with Nicholas Ferrar, his sister--‘a tall ancient gentlewoman about eighty years of age, she being matron of the house’--and with Mrs. Collet and her sixteen children, including the seven sisters named after the Christian virtues--the Patient, the Cheerful, the Affectionate, the Submiss, the Moderate, and the Charitable--who spent their home hours in making such wonderful books of Christian Harmonies.

“To me the chapel was of most touching interest, backed by the oak-wood--‘the fine grove and sweet walks’ which the little book describes. A broad paved path leads to the door, but in the midst of the path rises a high grey altar-tomb--Nicholas Ferrar’s, I suppose--and on its paving-stones are inscriptions over graves, in which you may still make out the oft-repeated names of Ferrar and Collet. Inside, the chapel is lined by stalls of Charles I. date, with round-headed canopies and divided by oak pillars. Below is the open space where the sisterhood, who kept the six canonical hours, ‘prayed publicly three times a day after the order of the Booke of Common Prayer,’ and where the writer of my little book himself saw ‘the mother-matron with all her traine, which were her daughters and daughters’ daughters, who, with four sonnes, kneeled all the while in the body of the half-space, all being in black gownes and round Monmouth capps, save one of the daughters, who was in a friar’s grey gowne.’ There are brasses on one side of the chancel arch to John Ferrar, 1637, and John Ferrar, 1719; and on the other side to Susanna Collet, daughter of Nicholas Ferrar, who ‘had eight sons and eight daughters, and who died at the age of 76;’ below this is a brass to ‘Amy, wife of John Ferrar, 1702.’ And within is the chancel, where, with the sacrament, Inglesant received stillness and peace unspeakable, and life and light and sweetness filled his mind; where in the misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind, heaven itself seemed to have opened to him.’

“There were many minor relics of those who did not wish it, but were called ‘the Nuns of Gidding’--an embossed book-cover of their gold-thread work, and tapestry cases to hold the sacred books; and in the farmhouse some old church plate, given to Nicholas Ferrar, and a chalice inscribed ‘What Sir Edmund Sandys bequeathed to the remembrance of friendship, his friende hath consecrated to the honour of God’s service,’ and on the handle--‘For the church of Little Gidding of Huntington Shire.’

“The owner of the property came to dinner at Elton, and told me that Charles Fitzwilliam, Lord Fitzwilliam’s brother, was lost many years ago in the wilds of America. When at the very last gasp, he saw the lights of a farmhouse, to which he made his way. The woman of the house received him most kindly, warmed and dried him, and made him some tea. ‘It will do you good; it’s Gidding tea: I had it over from Gidding.’--‘What! Gidding in Huntingdonshire.’--‘Yes.’--‘Why, that’s where I come from: I’m a Fitzwilliam!’”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“July 20, 1895.--I have come away from London because all that was interesting in the season seemed to be at an end; but I enjoyed it to the last, though certainly what I find to delight in would not please many others. Most of all I have liked my quiet writing-table at the Athenæum, and the silence, not the society, of the club, where no one, except Lord Acton and myself, seems to work in the mornings. Then, after two o’clock, I never go back, but see people for the rest of the day. The garden-parties make this delightful, and I had charming afternoons at Osterley, at Roehampton, and at Sion, where the brilliant groups of people are so picturesque under the great cedar-trees. It was a great pleasure once more, to be welcomed to Holland House, and to find how much those who possess it appreciate its great interest and charm. Once a week the writing-time was broken into, and I went with drawing-parties to the garden at Lambeth, to Waltham Abbey, and to the roof of the Record Office, whence we tried to paint St. Paul’s and all the satellite City churches reared up against an opal sky. In the evenings there was less of interest, and a great party at Devonshire House left more to recollect than the daily dinners, with little real conversation. I think it is Bacon who says, ‘A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is not love.’ The last day, however, a dinner at Lady Audrey Buller’s was most pleasant. It was in honour of her cousin Captain Townshend, the hero of Chitral, who gave me a most graphic description of lying all day smoking behind a barrier of earth, with a spyhole through which he could fire at any man who showed himself, hearing the thud of the return shot against his barrier afterwards. Returning to England, he was shocked to find no one but boys at the balls--‘boys who shake hands with a movement like that of kangaroos.’ I sat by ---- the widow of the historian, who talked of other historians, especially of Mr. Freeman--how he had the head of a Jupiter on the body of a gorilla: how he did not eat, but devour; it was no use to put anything less than a joint before him: how scenery never gave him the power of realising an event which he could not read of. One day at dinner Mr. Parker was within one of him. To him Freeman talked incessantly across the lady who was next him. At last there was a pause. The lady thought she would have her innings. ‘It has been very hot weather lately, Mr. Freeman,’ she said. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Freeman. ‘Parker, you were saying,’ &c. His biographer misses all his characteristics, but errs most in speaking of him as a typical Teuton, when he was undoubtedly a typical Celt.

“I grumbled very much at being engaged to spend a Sunday in the country during my London time, but never enjoyed a visit more than that to Mr. and Mrs. Tower at the Weald, in Essex. It is only seventeen miles from London, but wild and most beautiful, with glorious trees, a delightful old house, and a still more delightful walled garden, with the curious brick chapel of Mary I., a long tank, and an acre of splendid roses. We ate rather too much and long, but the company was charming. I went and came back with young Lord Abinger, whom I like particularly.

‘How delightful the elections are, and the blatant, self-seeking hypocritical Radicals getting the worst of it. Do you know Luttrell’s lines?--

‘Oh, that there might in England be A duty on Hypocrisy, A tax on humbug, an excise On solemn plausibilities.”’

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Penrhyn Castle, Sept. 22, 1895.--I left home in the case of one

‘Chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco,’[531] and have much enjoyed my holiday talking-time. How many delightful people there are in the world. I so seldom see any one I cannot care in the least about. One side, one aspect, seems unprepossessing, but then, if one takes the trouble to go round on the other side, one is sure to find something. Was it not Socrates who said, ‘It is impossible to lead a quiet life, for that would be to disobey the Deity.’ And I am sure no one can carry their eyes about with them through a variety of people as I do, without learning fresh lessons of compensating qualities to be traced in most, and the uniform case of all in the fight to be fought, however different the enemies with which each has to contend. I saw no end of people in Shropshire when I was at Buntingsdale--so familiar in my long-ago--for Gertrude Percy’s wedding at Hodnet. After that I was in quieter scenes, but oh! how lovely, on Wenlock Edge, that eighteen-mile long strip of craggy wooded hill which stretches from Wenlock to Craven Arms, with such fine views over the rich plain below. Wenlock Abbey I saw the evening I arrived, with its grand ruin, and the curious cloistered abbot’s house, so well restored as a residence by the Milnes-Gaskells. Lutwyche, which Lord and Lady Chetwynd have hired, is a charming old house in the very centre of all the beauty, and each day we went to some wonderful old grange, manor, or mansion--Langley, Shipton, Stokesay, Wilderhope, but I think you would have liked best of all Pitchford, the gem of old black and white houses, though you would not have enjoyed as I did the untouched pews of the church, where there is a gigantic oaken effigy of a thirteenth-century De Pitchford. At Condover we saw Miss Mary Cholmondeley the authoress,[532] who looks a genius, which most authoresses I have met do not. Even in conversation, ‘les gens d’esprit sont bêtes’ is usually as true as possible.

“Penrhyn Castle has been delightful, and my room, with its exquisite views over sea and mountains, the most delightful thing in it. Lady Penrhyn presides over the great place with the calm of perpetual moonlight: sunlight is left to her beautiful and impulsive step-daughter Miss Alice (Pennant), who orders out no end of carriages to take guests up into the hills or wherever they want to go. And of course I longed to go to Ogwen Bank and Capel Curig, connected with my mother’s childhood, and more than ever admired these rude savage purple mountains, which have so much individual character that height is quite a secondary consideration. Then yesterday we went to that island in the Menai Straits, where there is an old chapel of great sanctity, to which Welsh funerals still wind along a narrow causeway, singing their beautiful hymns as they go.

“Do you know that ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is out? You will not like it, I think, and indeed I feel myself, that Carlyle would be justified in saying it was ‘a very superfluous book.’ Still, I will anticipate your asking me, and tell you that, up to its lights, it is not a bad piece of work. The whole family are a singular instance of unity without uniformity. While I have worked at the book, I have become irresistibly and most strongly attracted by such characters as Catherine Gurney and Richenda Cunningham, though for the great fetish of the family, the self-opinionated, self-parading, egotistical Joseph John, I never could have any warm feeling. Yet a descendant of one of his cousins (Lady Fry) assures me that she was so distressed on hearing of his death in her childhood, that she pulled down all the blinds of her doll’s house. So he must have had his attractive points.

“The book is certainly better reading than the earlier memoirs of those it concerns. Of those memoirs I heard an amusing story the other day. Mr. Parke of Andover, a great American philosopher and thinker, at one time quite lost the power of sleep. He said he had long tried all remedies in vain, but at last found a remedy which never failed. It was to have a book read to him, the story of a woman’s life. It always took effect at once, and soothed him into the sweetest slumbers. If he was nervous, his wife would take the book and begin--‘Elizabeth Fry was born’--‘But,’ said Mr. Parke, ‘she has begun that book constantly for two years, and I have never found out where she was born yet, for with the first words I am in dreamland.’

“Here are two little stories for you. Miss R. told me how the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Windsor were walking together down the street of Windsor, when they saw a little boy struggling to reach a bell. ‘Why, you’re not tall enough, my little man; let me ring the bell for you,’ said the Bishop. ‘Yes, if you please, sir,’ said the boy modestly. So the Bishop gave the bell a good pull. ‘Now then, sir, run like the devil,’ shrieked the boy, as he made off as hard as he could.

“Little E. L. was very naughty indeed the other day, and not only scratched her governess, but spit at her. ‘How can you have been so naughty?’ said her mother, ‘it can only have been the devil who made you do such a thing.’ ‘Well, perhaps it was the devil who told me to scratch her,’ replied little E----, ‘but, as for the spitting, it was entirely my own idea.’”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“Garrowby, Yorkshire, Oct. 4.--The glorious weather which illuminated Wales continued at Lyme, which was still in the full splendour of summer flowers. I drew with Lady Newton each day, one day at Prestbury, where there is a wonderful old Norman mortuary chapel, like those in Brittany. Mrs. Mitford was at Lyme, and it was a pleasure to talk with her of the dear Lady Egerton, whom we both so much appreciated, and who preserved her sunny nature to the last. ‘How sad to see you suffering so!’ said Mrs. M. to her in her last terrible illness. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but then, you know, I have enjoyed every day of my life.’ Thinking of her, it is a difficult endeavour to be ‘doux envers la mort,’ as Bossuet said after Henrietta Maria’s death.

“I went on to flattest Lincolnshire, to Revesby Abbey, to visit my distant cousin, dear Edward Stanhope’s widow. It is delightful to see how, by making the effort at once, it is no effort to her now to talk of him, and indeed he is so often spoken of, that he seems to have a part still in the family life, and his cheerful grave, like a little garden, under the east window of the church which he built, has nothing sad. It is as if he had gone from this room into the next. Yet how delightful he was, how truly lovable! I was taken, by my urgent desire, to Mavis Enderby; but it is a little inland village with an insignificant church, which could by no possibility have given any tidal warning; so I suppose Jean Ingelow only took the name[533] because of its musical sound. On the way we passed some grassy mounds. ‘What are those?’--‘The remains of Bolingbroke--of the castle of Bolingbroke.’ How Arthur Stanley would have loved them; yet they are amongst the things which are worth seeing but not worth going to see. Another day we went by the remains of the old house of Eresby, which gave its name to Willoughby d’Eresby, to visit the grand tombs of the Willoughbys at Spilsby. They are all of alabaster, the last representing a mother who died in childbirth, with the infant which cost her life by her side in its cradle. Sir John Franklin was born at Spilsby, and he and his two brothers have monuments in the church. Their father was a small farmer close by, and when his farm failed, he settled in the village itself, and kept its shop, grocery on one side the door, drapery on the other. And, coming from thence, John Franklin became the most famous of those Arctic travellers whom Wilkie Collins aptly describes as ‘the men who go nowhere and find nothing.’ In this drive we passed by Keil, where the church tower had suddenly collapsed. ‘Well, now, how was it? was it a hurricane, or did the soil give way, or what?’ said Mrs. Egerton to the sexton, who for a minute answered nothing, and then, ‘Well, mum, ‘twere this way; her just squatted and settled.’

“The house at Revesby was full of interesting objects. Amongst them was a magnificent repeater watch which belonged to the old Lord Stanhope.[534] One night, when he was out late, a man pounced upon him with pistols and ‘Your money or your life.’ Always imperturbable, Lord Stanhope replied very slowly, ‘My friend, I have no money with me.’--‘No,’ said the robber, ‘but you have your watch; I must have your watch.’--‘My friend, this watch was given to me by one very dear to me, and I value it extremely. It is considered to be worth £100. Now, if you will trust me, I will this evening place a hundred-pound note in the hollow of that tree.’ And the highwayman trusted him and Lord Stanhope placed the note there.

“Very many years after, Lord Stanhope was at a public dinner in London, and opposite him sat a City magnate of great wealth and influence. They conversed pleasantly. Next day Lord Stanhope received a letter from him, enclosing a hundred-pound note, and saying, ‘It was your Lordship’s kind loan of that sum many years ago that started me in life, and enabled me to rise to have the honour of sitting opposite your Lordship at dinner.’

“When I was a child, ‘Marmion’ made me long passionately to see Whitby, and ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’ afterwards increased the longing. Now I have been there, and what a wonderful place it is. I think nothing on the English, or French, or Spanish, or German coasts is equal to it. The first morning was a thick fog--a most blessed fog. I felt a presentiment of what would happen. I was certain where the abbey was, and through the dim streets, up the slippery steps, and between the gravestones of the churchyard dripping with wet, I made my way to a certain field, which I was sure was the right place, and there I waited. Soon out of the thick mists rose, bathed in sudden sunlight, the grand ruin of an abbey, all glorious in the heavens, but no earth visible. It was as the summit of Mont Blanc is sometimes seen, but a New Jerusalem, in splendour beyond words--‘And the building of the wall of it was of pure gold.’ And then suddenly the fog came down again and it vanished, and in a few minutes, when the veil drew up the second time, a noble ruined abbey stood there, every arch and pillar reflected in the waters of a lonely tarn, but it was only the bones of the glorious vision which had been.

“The old courthouse of the Cholmondeleys was the abbot’s house, and in it was ‘Lady Anne’s Chamber,’ terribly haunted. A figure used to come down from a picture over the chimney, and was seen by many still living. Close by was a passage with an oubliette, down which ‘the nuns used to throw their babies.’ All, except the offices, has been cleared away by Sir C. Strickland, and a hideous modern house built. Down the steep way below the house Sir Nicholas Cholmondeley used to drive his four-in-hand furiously.

“The fog was fainter all the rest of that day, and oh! how I luxuriated in the winding ways upon the cliffs, in the dark red roofs piled one upon another, and the delicate grey distances of buildings or sea.

“Here, at Garrowby, I have been very happy with the Halifaxes. I always feel better for the life with them, and I have especially liked the spiritual part of it here, where there is no chaplain, as at Hickleton, and where the services in the beautiful little chapel are led by Charlie Halifax himself. Everybody joins, and a footman sings gloriously at the very pitch of his voice. In everything Charlie recalls to me something which I have read with a higher reference--‘Not by his doctrines has Christ laid hold upon the heart of men, but by the story of his life.’[535] He has ‘under all circumstances that just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity’ which Marcus Aurelius speaks of. Unlike everything else is the simplicity and singleness of heart and purpose written so distinctly on everything he says and does. Action is easy and natural where faith is so absolute. ‘At all times a man who would do faithfully must believe firmly,’ was a saying of Carlyle. And though religion pervades everything, no house was ever so gay as that of which Charlie is master. What merriment we have had over our games in the evening: what fun over the mysterious disappearances by day into the four secret chambers which make this house so curious: what admirably good stories have been told; and while the loss of the dear boys who are gone ever leaves a blank in the parents’ hearts, how happy life is made for the children who remain! ‘La joie est très bonne pour la santé: ce qui est sot, c’est d’être triste’[536]--this seems to be one of the minor guides of action. The place is not very interesting, but the house delightfully full of books and pictures. In the park are African cows, Japanese deer, emus, and kangaroos. Lady Ernestine Edgecumbe and Lady Beauchamp are here. It is a little society of those who feel that ‘we may not only know the truth, but may live even in this life in the very household and court of God.’”[537]

* * * * *

To GEORGE COCKERTON.

“Holmhurst, Oct. 9.--My return home was saddened by finding dear old Harriet Rogers--Lea’s niece--in a dying state at her little cottage in the grounds. She was just able to recognise me, and whispered touchingly, ‘I thank you! I thank you!’ As in the many other people I have now seen enter the shadow of death, there was no fear and no joy; the power of mental emotion seemed past. Yesterday, whilst I was with her, she died, passing the barrier quite painlessly. Yet what a change for her! There is always something very awe-striking in it.

‘And her smooth face sharpened slowly,’

is a line of the ‘Lady of Shalott’ which Tennyson afterwards removed, as giving too painful an image of death; but it is exactly what happens. To-day I feel it--yes, odd to see the same farm and garden life, in which she was interested and had a share, going on the same, and that her part in it should be so suddenly over--snapped. How she must be longing to tell one now what she felt at that momentous moment. I am exactly like the person in ‘Hitherto’--‘I can’t get over expectin’ her to come in and talk it all over. It seems as though she couldn’t do nothin’ without tellin’ folk how!--But there, I dare say,--if ‘tain’t wicked to think of it,--it’s half over heaven by this time.’

“‘Il faut mourir et rendre compte de sa vie, voilà dans toute sa simplicité le grand enseignement de la maladie. Fais au plus tôt ce que tu as à faire; rentre dans l’ordre, songe à ton devoir; prépare-toi au départ; voilà ce que crient la conscience et la raison.’[538]

“My ‘North-Western France’ is now ready to appear. It has been an immense labour, one compared with which ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is as a drop to a river; but I have no doubt the latter will be more read, and certainly more reviewed, for scarcely any Englishmen know enough of France to be critical about descriptions of it. I have another little book ready too--‘Biographical Essays’--which is sure to meet with plenty of abuse, but does not deserve much, all the same. In it I have tried to give such a picture of Arthur Stanley as may make people love him as a friend, whilst they shrink from following him as a guide.”

XXX

IN MANY PLACES

“The whole value and meaning of life lies in the single sense of conscience--duty.”--FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.

“Do weel and dread nought though thou be espyit; He is little gude worth that is not envyit: Take thou nae heed what tales man tells; If thou would’st live undeemed, gang where nae man dwells.” --SIR WALTER SCOTT in Orloff Davydoff’s Album.

“True happiness is only to be obtained by devotedness to the will of God. Seeking the universal good--the highest good of all. Life can only be truly happy, not when we are in ecstasy, but when we are doing right.”--THOMAS COOPER, Thoughts at Fourscore.

“Let nothing disturb thee, Let nothing affright thee-- All passeth: God only remaineth. Patience wins all things; Who hath God lacketh nothing: Alone God supplieth.” --ST. THERESA’S Bookmark.

Greatly as I always enjoy my little home of Holmhurst, dear as every corner of it is to me, I never feel as if it was well to stay there too long in winter alone. In summer, Nature itself can give sufficient companionship; but when earth is dead and frost-bound, the silence in the long hours after sunset becomes almost terrible, and I increasingly feel that late autumn and winter are the best time for visits.

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Holmhurst, Nov. 25.--I have much enjoyed a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Cummings, the Americans who were so kind to us on our terrible return journey from Italy in 1860, and of whom the wife, at least, is so clever, that she is suffering--as Mrs. Kemble said once of some one--from a constipation of her talents. They came here fresh from a visit to Haworth, much impressed with its severe desolation,--‘that any one should be able to have any hope, or look forward to a future life, on the top of Haworth hill is nothing short of a miracle.’ They have made a Brontë museum there now, chiefly full of Branwell’s drawings, of great interest, chiefly military. Did you know that Mr. Nichols hoped to have been rector when Mr. Brontë died? But it was given by election, and he was unpopular, and it went against him. He is still living in Ireland, whither he took all the Brontë memorials he cared for. The rest were sold by auction, and the butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker of Haworth bought them. The sexton showed Mrs. Cummings some of Charlotte’s underclothing, delicately marked by herself with her C. B., and her wedding shoes, of some grey material to match her dress. He had often seen her and her sister come out of the house, and go through the little gate at the back to the moors, which at Haworth are grass, not heather. After Charlotte married, Mr. Nichols would not let her write. His mind was of the very narrowest, and he disapproved of novels, and when she was pent up in that solitude, and all her secret thoughts were pent up too, and never allowed to come out in writing, she--died.

“Mrs. Cummings says we should not like America; ‘it is a country utterly without perspective; one must go up to the Indians and the Jesuit missionaries for that.’ She has been describing Miss Louisa Alcott,[539] the well-known authoress. ‘She lived with her old father and her beautiful mother and her three sisters. They used to write little stories. One day her sisters said, “Louisa, you must write something more than these.”--“I would, but I can’t do it here,” she answered. So the sisters clubbed their little savings together, and they sold a few things, and Louisa went to Boston. There she called upon Roberts, the publisher of all American good things, and said, “I want to write a story.”--“Very well,” he answered; “what kind will you take?”--“Oh, I can’t make up anything,” said Louisa; “I can only just write what I know.”--“Oh, you can just write what you know,” said Roberts; “then don’t stay talking here; go away at once and begin.” So she went and lived by herself and wrote, and in five weeks she brought him her “Little Women.” He took it and said, “Come again to-morrow.” And when she went next day he said, “Well, I will take your story, and I will offer you one of two things; either you can take two hundred dollars down for it, or you can take your chance.”--“But what would you do if you were me?” asked Miss Alcott. Roberts said he had never been placed in such an awkward predicament in his life, but he spoke the truth and said, “I would take my chance.” She did, and soon after he had to pay her 10,000 dollars.[540] She wrote “Little Men” afterwards, but it did not answer as well; boys do not take books to their pillows as girls do.’

“‘I love crying,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but then I must have somebody to cry to. I cried as a little girl because I thought my mother might die, but I cried most because I thought that then I should have no one to cry to.’ Miss Alcott said to her, ‘My dear, I shouldn’t mind dying if it wasn’t for the funeral.’

“‘Mr. Tennyson was very rude and coarse,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but he died well--reading his little book in the moonlight: he really couldn’t have done it better.’

“‘Louisa Payson, who wrote “The Pastor’s Daughter” and many other books,[541] would not say “thank you” when she was a little girl. Her father, the stern minister, punished her in various ways, but it was no good--she said she couldn’t. So at last, at five years old, he turned her out of doors late on a winter’s evening. He went to his affairs, forgot her, I suppose; but her mother was in an agony, and she prayed for her child with all the spirit that was in her. At last she could bear it no longer, and she opened the door a little way, and then she heard a little wail of “I can’t say thank you: I can’t say thank you.” What was the end I do not know, but at any rate Louisa did not die, and lived to write books.’

“These are some snatches from the Holmhurst tea-table.”

* * * * *

To HERBERT VAUGHAN.

“Kingston Vicarage, Wareham, Nov. 10.--You would have liked going with us to Wool, on a ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ pilgrimage, for there, rising by the reedy river-side, is the old gabled house to which Tess was taken after her marriage. It is exactly as Hardy describes it;[542] even the plank bridge remains across which Angel carried her in his sleep to the stone coffin at Bindon Abbey. The two old pictures mentioned in the book really hang at the top of the staircase, and the lady in one of them is supposed to blow out the candle of any one who ventures up the stairs after midnight. The whole country-side is full of memories of the D’Urbervilles, and there are many still living who depose to having met their phantom coach and four with outriders. The family still exists at Kingston as--Tollerfield!

“We had an awful storm last night, but such hurricanes are the fashion in Purbeck. A Mr. Bellasye, returning home, met, not his bathing-machine, but his bathing-house coming to meet him across the hedges and ditches. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had a huge hole blown into their roof by one gust; but that did not much signify, as the next gust blew a haystack on to the roof and filled the hole up. All the cabbages and other vegetables in the kitchen-garden are frequently blown out of the earth and into a heap in a corner, and on one occasion those in the rectory-garden were all blown into the church porch.”

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Elvedon, Thetford, Nov. 14.--All the way back from Dorsetshire did I come for the pleasure of meeting the Duchess of York here (at Lord and Lady Iveagh’s); but that was not to be, as an impending event is considered too near for her to travel with safety. The Duke is here, and very unaffected and pleasant, really a very nice prince, and quite good-looking. He never fails to be punctual to the moment--a grand quality for a prince, and due, probably, to naval discipline. He talks a great deal, and talks well, but in reality princes have no chance--no chance at all--conversationally, as no one ever contradicts them, however much they disagree; no subjects are aired but those which they choose for themselves, and the merest commonplaces from royal lips are listened to as if they were oracles.

“Anything more odious or annoying than being a prince certainly cannot be imagined. Such a wearisome round of dullest duties and painful ‘pleasures’ as it is their life’s-work to live in like a tread-mill. Then, every fault of manner, far more of conduct and character, is commented, dwelt on, and exaggerated. I should be sorry for any prince, but am really dreadfully sorry for this one, as he would have been charming, and might have been extremely happy if the misfortune of his birth had not condemned him to the severe and miserable existence of princedom, in which all minor faults are uncorrected because unsuggested, though I believe such a true friend and fine character as, for instance, Lord Carrington, would always notice any sufficiently grave to be of consequence either to the country or the royal family.

“I floated here in the luxurious saloon carriage of a special train, but felt rather shy, because whereas all the rest of the party were on terms of christian-name intimacy, I knew none of them before except Lord Rowton, who is, however, always very kind and pleasant. But I was interested to see those who are so frequently part of the royal circle, and liked them all, especially and extremely Lord and Lady Carrington; but then--everyone does!

“I wonder if you know this house of Elvedon. It was Duleep Singh’s, and he tried to make it like an Indian palace inside. Much of his decoration still remains, and the delicate white stucco-work has a pretty effect when mingled with groups of tall palms and flowering plants. Otherwise the house (with the kindest of hosts), is almost appallingly luxurious, such masses of orchids, electric light everywhere, &c. However, a set-off the other way is an electric piano, which goes on pounding away by itself with a pertinacity which is perfectly distracting. In the evenings singing men and dancing women are brought down from London, and are supposed to enliven the royal guest.

“You know, probably, how this place is the most wonderful shooting in England. The soil is so bad that it is not worth cultivating, and agriculture has been abandoned as a bad business. Game is found to be far more profitable. The sterile stony fields are intersected at intervals by belts of fir; the hedges, where they exist, are of Scotch fir kept low; and acres of thick broom are planted. Each day I have gone out with the luncheon party, and we have met the shooters at tents pitched at different parts of the wilderness, where boarded floors are laid down, and a luxurious banquet is prepared, with plate and flowers. The quantity of game killed is almost incredible, and the Royal Duke shot more than any one, really, I believe, owing to his being a very good shot, and not, as so often is the case in royal battues, from the birds being driven his way.

“A great feature of the party is Admiral Keppel, kindest, most courteous, and most engaging of old gentlemen, so captivating that there is always a rivalry amongst the ladies as to who shall walk with him, and amongst the men to get hold of his stories. He told me of how his father first started him on his naval career, and, while he talked it over at Holcombe, made him sit in the same chair in which he had talked the same subject over with Nelson when he was starting him.

“He described the prayers at Holcombe on Sunday evening in his boyhood. After dinner the men were allowed an hour or two over their wine. Then the prayer-bell rang, and they all went in. Afterwards an old servant stayed to take up those who could not get up from their knees, and carry them to bed by turns when they were too drunk to go by themselves.

“He remembered Charles James Fox reeling down the corridor at Holcombe, falling helplessly from side to side. His father followed him, and he followed his father, who kept exclaiming, ‘Good God! drunk! Good God! drunk again!’ for the expression had not gone out then.

“He said that the present Lord Leicester and his father had married at exactly a hundred years apart.”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN and JOURNAL.

“Nov. 27, Hornby Castle, Bedale.--I came here yesterday. Several people were in the castle omnibus when I got into it at the station, of whom a grand lion-like old man turned out to be Mr. Bayard, the American Ambassador. It was dark when we arrived. We found the Duchess (of Leeds), tall, gracious, and most winning in manner, and indeed all the family, in a noble hall, coved at the top, with busts in the upper niches, like the halls of Roman palaces, and looking (by daylight) into a courtyard, which is very picturesque and curious.

“Lady Harewood is here, sweet-looking and very white, with a pleasant daughter, Mr. and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart, and several young men. Mr. Bayard came down to dinner much delighted with a book he had found in his room--the ‘Life of Agrippina’--in which ‘What news from Armenia?’ is anxiously asked, showing how the same subject occupied conversation then as now, at a distance of nineteen centuries. He said, ‘When bad men conspire, good men ought to confederate.’

“This morning, in the library, I had much and delightful talk with Mr. Bayard. He gave an interesting account of the allotment of land in America: how a reserve was left to the Indians, but they were dying out, chiefly because of their catching all the vices of Europeans, especially their love of alcohol. He said they were like the buffaloes. These used to come down and swoop through the country in vast herds, and devour all the spring produce; and later, in their vast battalions they would swoop back again; but now, fettered and shut in by barriers and fences, they pined, starved, and died; and so it was with the Indians. He described how, after an unjust woman had published a libel on her country,[543] the greatest suffering had resulted to the slaves, who would follow their former masters to suffering, wounds, imprisonment, and death. A Southern lady, when ‘the army of liberation’ approached, had entrusted all her silver and jewels to her slaves, and they had brought it all back safely after the army had passed.

“He talked of the Banco di S. Giorgio at Genoa--‘one of the most interesting buildings in the world;’ that whereas the Bank of London had lasted two centuries, that of Genoa had lasted five: that the Bank was the greatest evidence of the philosophy of nations. No aspersion was ever cast upon it, and this was because those who administered it had never derived any profit from it, only honour. An instance of its usefulness as a record-office occurred lately, when a man in America offered Mr. H. an autograph letter of Columbus. To all appearance it was genuine, but Mr. H. asked leave, which was readily granted, to have a photograph facsimile made of it before purchasing. In the Banco di Giorgio the original letter was found, and, when compared with the facsimile, proved that the copy was false. This was especially fortunate, as, after Napoleon I., ‘that great collector of other people’s property,’ took away the archives of Genoa, though most were restored, all were not.

“The library at Hornby is full of interest, but I can only remember a fifteenth-century ‘Roman de la Rose;’ a first edition of Shakspeare, which came to its present owners through Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, who inherited it from William Congreve; and a copy of ‘Dionysius the Areopagite,’ by Beghir, ‘the one-eyed scribe of Brabant’--most delightful name--with notes by Dean Colet.

“The Duchess has shown us the house minutely and delightfully. The family portraits were full of interest, beginning with that of Sir William Hewitt, whose daughter married William Osborne, the apprentice who saved her when she fell over London Bridge, and who founded the Leeds family. In a curious Hogarth of ‘The Beggar’s Opera,’ the Duke of Bolton is represented watching the acting of Polly Peachum, whom he afterwards married: the picture is here because Sir Conyers d’Arcy, an ancestor of the house, is also represented. Mr. Bayard was delighted to find portraits of the wife of the seventh Duke, who was Miss Caton, one of four beautiful American sisters.[544] The Duchess was amused that I had never heard of ‘Godolphin Arabian,’ the ancestor of a succession of famous racehorses.[545] In one of the rooms is the miniature spinning-wheel of Madame de Pompadour; in another, a bed of such glorious embroidery that when Lady Marian Alford was here, she could not get up for looking at it.”

* * * * *

“Nov. 29.--At breakfast, at one of several little round tables, Mr. Bayard talked pleasantly of a grave in the cemetery at Nuremberg. It is one of Adam Kraft’s iron tombstones, and it bears no name. Affixed to it is a human skull, exquisitely modelled, with a jaw which opens and shuts. In the forehead--the bronze forehead--is a white patch of some other metal. The story is that the owner of that skull was very unhappily married. His misery drove him from home, drove him into very bad company, and he sank lower and lower. One day he suddenly died and was buried; but soon afterwards his family began to suspect foul play, and he was exhumed. At first his body seemed to bear no witness, but then, in his forehead, under his hair, a large nail was found, buried up to the hilt, hammered in so accurately that no blood had come. Every one believed that it was his wife who had done it, but it could not be brought home to her; his associates were too bad for their evidence to be trusted. But the model of his skull was laid upon his grave, and his wife left the place; she could not continue to exist near it.

“We went to luncheon at Thorp-Perrow with Sir Frederick and Lady Milbank, who have a glorious garden. He is full of antiquarian lore and interests, and has a precious collection of old locks and keys. She knows sixteen languages well, and is learning a seventeenth. Hungarian she acquired for the sake of its literature. A despatch came to the Foreign Office in Hungarian, and no one there could read it, but Austen Lee sent it to Lady Milbank, who translated it at once. The Milbanks were very intimate with Madame Goldschmidt, whom they lived next door to in London. One day in a church--a country church--they saw her go out of her pew and shake a woman by her shoulders. ‘What on earth had that unfortunate woman done?’ they asked when they came out. ‘Why, didn’t you hear she was singing a false second.’”

* * * * *

“Hams, Birmingham, Nov. 30.--This is a large house of extreme comfort, and its owner, Lord Norton, who looks sixty, though he is eighty-two, is one of the most agreeable hosts in England. Walking on the terrace this morning, he said he ought to put up a slab to record how the whole constitution of New Zealand was settled on that terrace: that which was arranged while walking up and down there had never been altered. The view of the pretty windings of the Thame recalled the exclamation of a famous landscape-gardener when he saw it--‘Clever!’ ‘It was not made, it is natural,’ said Lord Norton. But no, his friend could not regard it except from the gardening point of view, and ‘clever’ was all he could say. The river was terribly polluted by Birmingham, and Lord Norton went to law about it. ‘Should the convenience of one man be considered before that of millions?’ exclaimed the Birmingham advocate at the trial. ‘Yes,’ shouted the opposition, ‘for the grandeur of English law is that millions may not interfere with the comfort and well-being of a single individual. Now the pollution is partially diverted into a sewage farm five miles in extent.

“The clergyman here has only the care of three hundred souls, so he keeps three hundred chickens, and is often able to supplement his income by getting fifty pounds for a cock.

“An oak avenue leads to the church, being a remnant probably of the Forest of Arden, of which there are many traces still, but such an avenue is very rare. The late storm had blown down several fine trees. ‘How strange it is,’ said Lord Norton, ‘that amid the thousand--the million--theories that science has put forth, there should be none about the wind: it is one of the many incidental proofs of the truths of the Bible, that our Saviour saw this when he spoke of--“The wind bloweth where it listeth,” &c.

“‘Those who say that as to religion we know nothing, do not recognise that half religion is instinct (every one has the instinct that there is a God), and the other half what Pascal calls “the submission of reason.”’

“Lord Norton used to know very well Ellis the shoemaker, who devoted himself to the reformation of boys. He said, ‘I do not take them to make shoes only; I take them to give them a conscience.’ He said, ‘Many people say that the boys are fools, but they are philosophers. They reason at night. I overhear them; I hear them reasoning as to whether there is a God.’ There was one boy especially who denied this, who laughed at all who believed. One day this boy was given a parcel to take to Sir Moses Montefiore. Now the boys may steal, but however much they do that, when they are entrusted with anything, they are most tenacious to fulfil their trust. This boy only knew of Sir Moses by his popular name of ‘the King of the Jews,’ and all day long he asked his way to him in vain. He could not find him anywhere. Evening closed in, and he was faint with hunger and fatigue. He was quite sinking, but at the last gasp cried, ‘O God, if there be a God, help me.’

“Immediately a policeman rushed at him. ‘What have you got there, you young rascal? What’s in that parcel?--something you’ve been stealing, I suppose?’--‘No, ‘taint; it’s a parcel for the King of the Jews, and I can’t find him.’--‘Why, you young fool,’ said the policeman, shaking him, ‘it’s Sir Moses Montefiore you mean: I can show you where to find him.’

“That night the boys were philosophising as usual, declaring that there was no God, there couldn’t be, when the boy who had taken the parcel shouted, ‘Stop that rubbish, you fellows; there is a God, and I know it: and as for you, you’re just as much able to judge of God as a worm is to judge of me.’”

* * * * *

“Dec. 2.--A walk amidst the remnants of the Forest of Arden led to much talk about trees. ‘When Gladstone meets any one new,’ said Lord Norton, ‘his first thought is, “What does he know? what can I get out of him?” When he met Lord Leigh, he had heard of Stoneleigh, that it possessed some of the finest oaks in England; so, when he sat down by him, he began at once, “Lord Leigh, have you any theory as to the age of oaks?”--“Yes, certainly I have; I possess several myself that are above a thousand years old.”--“And how do you know that is so?” said Gladstone. “Well,” said Lord Leigh, “I have several that are called ‘Gospel Oaks,’ because the old Saxon missionaries used to preach under them more than eight hundred years ago, and they would not be likely to choose a young oak to preach under: we may suppose that they chose an oak at least two hundred years old.”--“Well, that is a very good reason,” said Gladstone.’

“Lord Norton had lately been with Gladstone to Drayton, full of Peel relics, and with the wonderful collection of portraits which Sir Robert brought together. All the heads of Government, from Walpole to the Peel Administration, are represented. The pistols are preserved with which Peel intended to fight O’Connell at Calais, but O’Connell’s wife prevented it by giving notice and getting him arrested at Dover.

“While talking of hunting as conducive to the manliness of Englishmen, Lord Norton said, ‘When I was hunting with Charlie Newdigate, a boy almost naked, not quite, came out of a coal-pit, and on a donkey, without saddle or bridle, hunted with us all day, not going over the hedges, but through them. Newdigate was delighted. “That’s the stuff English heroes are made of,” he said, and he had a long talk with the boy afterwards, and explained to him all about the field, &c.... In Northumberland there was a boy who would ride one of his father’s bulls. His father cut him off at last, and would have nothing more to do with him. ‘I’m not a bad father,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind his riding my bull, but when he takes him out with the hounds it’s too much.’”

* * * * *

“The Deanery, Llandaff, Dec. 7.--Lord Robert Bruce told me the facts of Lord Llanover’s ghost story. As Sir Benjamin Hall and he were riding in the Park in London, Sir Benjamin distinctly saw Lord Rivers, who was an intimate friend of his, and he saw him vanish. He went to his club immediately afterwards, and told what he had seen, and before he left the club a telegram was brought in announcing that Lord Rivers was dead. Afterwards Sir Benjamin Hall went to Mrs. Hanbury Leigh, and told her what had happened, adding, ‘You know this must mean something; it must mean that I am myself to die within the year;’ and so he did.

“I have enjoyed being again with the cousin so deeply loved in my childhood, and also seeing the really beautiful work of the gentle and, I am sure, holy Dean amongst the young men preparing for orders, who hover reveringly around him.’

“Catherine Vaughan has told me how, after Augusta Stanley’s death, she said to Mrs. Drummond (of Megginch), who was living at the Deanery, ‘Augusta’s presence so seems to fill this place, that I quite wonder she never appears here;’ and was startled by the way in which Mrs. Drummond said, ‘She does.’ Augusta used on her death-bed to say to Arthur, ‘I shall always be near you when you give the Benediction.’ One day in the Abbey, between the arches, but quite near Arthur, Mrs. Drummond most distinctly saw Augusta--a vaporous figure, wrapped in folds of vaporous white drapery, but with every feature as distinctly visible as in life. This was just before the Benediction, and as its last tones died away the appearance vanished. Mrs. Drummond had no doubt about it at all.”

* * * * *

To GEORGE COCKERTON.

“Burwarton, Shropshire, Dec. 12.--This is a charming place in the high Clee Hills, and Lord and Lady Boyne, who live in it, are quite delightful. I have been working for a great part of several days in the library at a little book on ‘Shropshire,’ which I hope to be able to finish another year. You would have been amused by the quaint sayings of an old clergyman who came to dinner. Speaking of an unusually stupid neighbour he said, ‘His folly is incredible, but even he has his lucid intervals, for the other day he told me he knew he was an ass.’

“I would give up, if I were you, taking the extra work you speak of. There is an old Swedish proverb which says--‘You cannot get more out of an ox than beef,’ and there is no use, none, in trying to do, or to be, two things at once.”

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Rome, April 23, 1896.--I wonder if you know that I have been abroad since the first of February. At first, for a month, I was on ‘the Rivieras,’ finishing up a little volume which will be so called, and which will appear before next winter. Some new places are opened up now by a railway--a most beautiful miniature railway--from Hyères to S. Raphael, and amongst them is S. Maxime, a quiet scene of tranquil beauty, where the pension is still only six francs, in a charming little hotel with a garden which comes down to a sea-cove, where you look across transparent shallows of emerald-green water into mountain distances, not grand, but supremely lovely, and where, in our long-ago days, you and I should have been in a fever of romantic interest over the old castle of Grimaud, which was the cradle of the princely Grimaldis.

“At Nice, I was not in the town, but at the old Villa Arson, which you will remember. It is now a hotel, though its wonderful garden, full of statues, staircases, fountains, and grottoes amongst the flowers and palm-trees, is quite untouched. It was all beautiful, and the sky was cloudlessly blue for a month; and I lingered at Bordighera with the Strathmores and my dear old friend Emilia de Bunsen, and then at Alassio with my cousin Lady Paul, and at beautiful Rapallo. But oh! the difference on entering real Italy, and finding oneself in the delightful old-world streets of Lucca, with their clean pavements and brown green-shuttered houses, with the air so much more bracing, the sky so much more soft, and the pleasant manner and winning tongue of the Italian people.

“At the Florence station I had an unpleasant experience, in being robbed of £100 by two roughly-jostling men at the entrance of the carriage. It was a great loss, but I could not help admiring the cleverness with which they contrived to extract my pocket-book out of the inner breast pocket of my coat with a greatcoat over it. They were taken up afterwards--Frenchmen, I am glad to say, not Italians--and immense booty of watches, purses, &c., found upon them, all taken at Florence station; but I have no chance of recovering my notes. I have had to appear against them already six times and to identify them in prison.

“My last six weeks have been spent in Rome,--spoilt, destroyed, from the old Rome of our many winters here, but settling down now into the inferior mediocrity to which the Sardinian occupation has reduced it. And, though one does not see them every hour as one used to do, there are still many lovely and attractive corners to be hunted up. The Italian archaeologists (so called) are also finding out that they have made a great mistake in tearing away all the plants and shrubs which protected the tops of the ruins, and are comically occupied in planting little roots of grass and chickweed on their barren summits. There are very few capable or interested winter visitors now. They mostly belong to the class of the first of the three audience-seekers to whom Pius IX. addressed his usual question of ‘How long have you been in Rome, and how much have you seen?’ and who answered, ‘I have been here three days, and have seen everything.’[546]

“Good old Dr. Gason has died lately (the man of whom Pius IX. said--‘un certo pagano, chi si chiama Jasone’), the leader of the Evangelical party here--one of a class who seemed to me ‘every one’ when I was a boy, and when the dreary desert of Sunday was only enlivened by Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ and ‘Josephus,’ and almost everything pleasant was a ‘carnal indulgence.’ How few there are who think like that now--no one who has a real part in my life since dear Charlotte Leycester passed away. Certainly, there is no one now to think one--well, much worse than a pagan for taking one’s sketch-book on Sundays to the Palace of the Caesars, where I have spent many quiet hours meditating on my past and its past. I am often oppressed, however, by my great loneliness, by the want of any relation who has a real interest in me, by the constant feeling--however kind people are--of signifying nothing to anybody. And those who remember our old life--the old life with the mother and Lea which was so different from this--are becoming very, very few. I can only try to say--

‘Call me, silent voices, Forward to the starry track Glimmering in the heights beyond me, On, and always on.’[547]

“The ruin of the great families here is depressing. There has been a sale at the old historic Orsini palace, at which a marble statue holding a baton behind the auctioneer seemed to repeat his action and to preside coldly over the ruin of his house and dispersion of its treasures. And on the floor of the hall, appropriately surrounded by overthrown marble pedestals, lay the great bust of the Orsini Pope, with a look of unutterable disgust upon his face at having been just sold for £6. I bought a little Madonna, which will adorn Holmhurst, if I can get it out of the country.

“There is a new line to Viterbo now, which brings many places, formerly difficult of access, within easy reach. With the Gordons from Salisbury I went to Anguillara, splendid in colour from the orange roofs of its quaint houses rising high above the broad, still lake in which Bracciano and other towns on the farther shore were reflected. We wandered afterwards in the beautiful gardens of an old ‘Ser Vincenzo,’ with woods--real trees--of camelias in fullest bloom, and larks singing, and carpets of violets. Then another day, a large party of us went to Segni in the purple recesses of the Volscian mountains, and saw that wonderful arch whose origin is lost in pre-historic mystery. We took our luncheon with us, and ate it on the down above the huge stones of the wall. But generally we have something odd at the village inns. ‘How I like topographical gastronomy!’ said old Mrs. Blackburn of Moidart on one of these tourettes.

“Few interesting visitors have been at Rome this year, but having Lady Airlie and Lady Kenmare here has been very pleasant, and dear old Miss Garden--even in her great feebleness, which, alas! is constant now--always ripples with wit and wisdom. At Mrs. Terry’s I met Miss Paterson, the martyr-bishop’s sister, who told me how her old father, when he first learnt his son’s determination to go out, began to say, ‘Oh, I cannot let him go,’ and then broke in with, ‘But oh! I cannot deny him to God.’ He parted with him knowing they could never meet again, but, after a time, in his letters found interest and consolation. To-day--a desperately wet day--has been enlivened by a summons to luncheon with the Crown Princess of Sweden, whom I think one of the most charming, natural, and attractive of human beings; and oh! how simple, how utterly without affectation is that sort of person who can have nothing to pretend to. It is that, I suppose, which makes such people so much the easiest to talk to, which makes one feel so far more at rest with them than with persons of another, even of one’s own class. The Princess’s health obliges her to winter in Italy, away from her husband and her little sons, but she will hurry back to them with the warm weather. There was no one else at luncheon but the lady and gentleman in waiting, and the conversation was chiefly about ghost stories, the Princess declaring that ‘every hair of her head had curled up’ from one I had told her at Eastbourne.

“There is a sort of homely amusement in seeing--I cannot help sometimes counting them!--the great number of people who go about here with the familiar little red and black volumes of ‘Walks in Rome.’ Sometimes also I am touched by a kind note from an unknown hand saying that one of my other books has been helpful to them. I am so glad when this happens. As to any other feeling about my books, I think I gradually get to realise how ... ‘there is one glory of the terrestrial, another glory of the celestial,’ and how one has to keep that in one’s heart.”

* * * * *

To MISS GARDEN at Rome.

“Viterbo, May 1, 1896.--Yesterday I went to Toscanella. The landlord of the hotel was to engage a little carriage for me, which I found at the door when I went down, but with a horse which was an absolute skeleton. Still they declared it could go, and it could. How it rushed, and tore, and swung us down the rose-fringed descent to the great Etruscan plain, where the faint dome of Montefiascone rose in the blue haze against the heavens, beyond the aërial distances of burnt grass, broken here and there by Etruscan caves and ruins. Then how the skeleton horse still galloped into the uplands, till great towers appeared grouped like ninepins, or rather like S. Gemignano. It is yet a long circuit to the town, a descent into a rocky gorge, then a steep ascent winding round the hill outside the walls, a sort of Calvary to this Jerusalem, where the great churches stand, S. Pietro like the most magnificent cathedral, girdled by huge walls and towers, with a ruined episcopal palace beside it, and a triumphal arch, like those of Brittany, in front of the east end. The church was locked and the key was away, but a little girl snatched a sick bambino from its cradle, and carried it, and guided me to S. Maria in the depth below--even far lovelier and more refined in the delicate sculpture of its roseate stone than the great church above. All its great western doors were open to the brilliant sunshine, yet it was terribly damp, the font and all the lower part of the pillars green as the grass outside. But the exquisite pulpit and bishop’s throne were unhurt, and the lovely frescoes--even more beautiful in effect than detail--with which the walls were covered. Having secured the key, we returned to S. Pietro, entering it by the crypt--l’incolonnata--a perfect maze of little columns like the mosque at Cordova in extreme miniature. Most grand is the upper church in its orange-grey desolation; mass there only once a year. But our bambino was worse for the damp, so we did not stay long, and indeed it was cheering to emerge on the breezy uplands, where the whole air was embalmed with sweet-basil, as one trod it down.

“The city of Toscanella scrambles, a mass of brown towers, golden roofs, and grey houses, along the opposite hill, and has a thousand corners which are enough to drive an artist frantic--such gothic windows; such dark entries; such arcaded streets, with glints of brilliant foliage and flowers breaking in upon their solemn shadows. At a little inn I had luncheon--a dish of poached eggs, excellent bread, cheese, and wine, and all for forty centimes, so living is not dear in Toscanella.

“Then oh! how the skeleton horse galloped home under the serene loveliness of the pellucid sky, over the plain where all the little grasses and flowers were quivering and shimmering in golden sunset ecstasy.

“I cannot say the food here is delicious; it would be an exaggeration. All the little somethings and nothings a butchered calf is capable of, and vegetables lost in garlic and oil. The host’s name is Zefferino; he is a very substantial zephyr. He arranged for my going this morning to S. Martino, which I was most anxious to visit, for love--or was it hate?--of Donna Olimpia Pamfili. I so longed to see where the great ‘papessa’ died; and how the plague got hold of her on that most grand height, overlooking seventy miles of pink and blue distances, one cannot imagine. Rocky honeysuckle-hung lanes lead up to it--a little brown-walled town, with gates and fountain, and just one street--the steepest street in the world, up which the great white oxen can only just struggle--leading up to the palace and church. Before the high altar of the latter is Olimpia’s tomb, providently placed in her lifetime, with, I thought, a rather touching inscription, saying that she had really tried to do all the good she could; and in the palace are her full-length portrait and furniture of her time, and two pictures of Innocent X. The great cool halls are let in the summer months, and have, oh! such a view from their terrace; while close behind the palace is another gate of the walled town, from which glorious forest--the great Ciminian oak forest--begins at once, and stretches away to infinity. I drew there, and five little swineherds in peaked hats and about a hundred pigs grouped themselves around me. How human the latter are! They all had names, to which, when their masters called them, they responded from a great distance, grunting loud, and running up as hard as they could.

“Then this afternoon--oh! wealthy Viterbo!--I have been again to the glorious Villa Lante. Surely never was there so beautiful a garden; never one so poetical out of nymph-and faun-land--the green glades, the moss-grown staircases, the fountains and vases, the foaming waterfalls, the orange-trees and flowers!”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“Abbazia di S. Gregorio, Venice, May 17.--On arriving here, I was persuaded to go to one of the principal hotels, sumptuously luxurious, and consequently intensely unsympathetic and unattractive. The mass of Americans, travelling like their own trunks, and with as much understanding of the place, drove me away at last, and I was enchanted to find a refuge in this dear little abbey, with its venerable court full of flowers and beautiful decorated gateway, outside which the green waves of the Grand Canal sparkle and dance. Walter Townley and his charming bride have the other rooms, and we go together for our dinner to a restaurant, and close by are Lady Airlie and Lady Kenmare, and, just opposite, Basil and Lady Margaret Levett, all as perfect types of high-bred excellence as can be found anywhere. I have enjoyed Venice more than any other part of this time abroad--have had very happy times with these friends in the afternoons, and in the mornings by myself drawing in desolate but lovely corners, unknown places, quite overlooked in what Symonds calls ‘Ruskin’s paint-box of delirious words.’ Yet I find colouring here very difficult, and quite a new style necessary, where every shadow is transparent. Miss Clara Montalba thoroughly understands this, and the delicate drawings which come from her fairy brush have as much of the most refined poetry of the place as mine have of its most unimaginative prose. But, with the love which I suppose every one has of seeking what is unusual, she paints rather the dull and foggy than the bright days. From the windows of the old house in the Zattere, where she lives with her mother and two sisters, she has the most glorious subjects, in which shipping is the great feature. Her sister Hilda has also a studio in the top of the house--such a quaint and picturesque place, with two tame doves flying about in it. She described an old palace in which they had lived near Vicenza, where the immense dining-room table had a central leg, with a fireplace in it to keep the dinner hot.

“Two sets of people ought always to live in Venice: those who have heart complaints and those who are afraid of horses; the peaceful floating gondola life would be so suited to them. Lord Houghton’s sister, old Lady Galway, spent many winters here for the former reason. But no one ought to come here unless they at least intend to see the best of it, and to enjoy it.”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“August 1, 1896.--I have enjoyed my six weeks in London with their much people-seeing. People laugh at me for liking it all so much, and still more for expressing my liking for it; but I believe I shall never turn out to be ‘one of those whom Dante found in hell-border because they had been sad under the blessed sun.’[548] How many people in ‘the world,’ so called, are perfectly charming! Surely if there are many like the Woods, Jerseys, William Lowthers, Pennants, Ilchesters, and oh! how many others, good must far predominate over evil in society.

“You know how I have always said I hated leaving London for Sundays, but I did leave it for three of them. The first was spent at Reigate Manor--Lady Henry Somerset’s charming old house, with an oak panelled hall and staircase, such as one is surprised to find near London. Lady Henry is a delightful hostess, and though so enthusiastically interested in all her good works, keeps them quite in the background. I was so glad to find George Curzon at Reigate, as pleasant as ever, and his American wife; and he has so much to say on all subjects that one does not wonder he has been spoken of as the man who ‘had seen everything, known everything, read all books, and written most of them.’ But yet the ‘feature’ of the party was Lord Carlisle’s son, Hubert Howard, who jumped upon the donkeys browsing in the park, and was kicked off by them; then upon a stray long-haired pony, and was kicked off by it; and who finally would go out to sea on the lake in a barrel in his Sunday clothes, and of course the barrel upset in the midst, and the nails with which it was studded left him with very few clothes at all.[549]

“Then I was two days at Hatfield--days of brilliant sunshine, glowing gardens, scent of lime-flowers, great kindness from host and hostess, and much pleasant companionship. The rooms have names of trees: I was in the hornbeam room, whence S. Alban’s Abbey was visible. I drew hard on Sunday amid the brilliant flowers of the garden: oh! how wicked it would have been thought when I was younger; but now no one thought it so. Most of the guests did nothing but talk and enjoy the summer beauty. Madame Ignatieff, coming to Hatfield, said, ‘Ah, I see what your life in great country-houses is--eat and doddle (dawdle), doddle and eat.’ Dear Sir Augustus Paget, of many pleasant Roman memories, sat out by me part of the time, and on the Monday morning kept me after breakfast talking of how very happy he was, how many enjoyments in his life. I could not help feeling afterwards what characteristic ‘last words’ those were. I went into the drawing-room to take leave of Lady Salisbury, and in an instant Lady Cranborne ran in saying that Sir Augustus had fallen in the hall. He scarcely spoke again, and on Saturday his bright spirit had departed. I was very sorry. I had known him so long, and--I am again quoting George Eliot, whom I have just been reading--‘how unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears one’s old friends.’

“Lady Salisbury is delightful, not only to listen to but to watch. She is so young in her spirit. ‘On a l’age de son cœur.’ All she does, as all she says, is so clever, and her relation to her many daughters-in-law, to the great variety of her visitors, to her vast household, is so unfailingly sagacious. Even ‘to know her is a liberal education,’ as Steele said of a lady he admired. She is a great contrast to Lord Salisbury: as I watched him solemnly and slowly walking up and down the rooms with his hand on the head of his great dog Pharaoh, I was always reminded of Henry Vaughan’s lines--

‘The darksome statesman, hung with weight and woe, Like to thick midnight fog, mov’d there so slow, He did not stay, nor go.’

“The next Sunday I was at Osterley, in intensely hot weather. Sir E. Burne Jones was there (as well as at Hatfield), the painter of morbid and unlovely women, who has given an apotheosis to ennui--the Botticelli of the nineteenth century. He is very agreeable naturally, and made infinitely more so by his seductively captivating voice. He spoke much of Mr. Pepys’ ‘Diaries,’ and what a pity it was he became blind, ‘we might have had so many more volumes.’ He described going to dine with the Blumenthals, where the footman at the door presented him with a gilt apple, and informed him that he was Paris, and would go down to dinner with whichever of the Graces he presented it to. ‘I knew I must make two deadly enemies,’ said Sir Edward, ‘so I shut my eyes and stretched out the apple into space; some one took it.’ He said peacocks made their shrill cry because they were afraid a thief might come and steal their beauty away, and then he talked of the Talmud--‘that great repository of interesting stories.’ The Grand-Vizier, he said, was terribly afraid Solomon would marry the Queen of Sheba, so he told the king her legs were hairy. Then, in his wisdom, Solomon surrounded his throne with running water, and covered it with glass. And when the queen came to him and saw the water, she lifted up her trailing robe, and he beheld her legs reflected in the glass, and they were not hairy, and he said, ‘The Grand-Vizier is a liar,’ and he put him to death. The beloved Halifaxes were at Osterley, quite delightful always--

‘Bright sparklings of all human excellence, To which the silver wands of saints in heaven Might point in rapturous joy.’[550]

“After leaving London finally I went to Oxton Hall in Nottinghamshire for my dear Hugh Bryan’s wedding with Miss Violet Sherbrooke--such a pretty wedding--and thence to Wollaton Hall, Lord Middleton’s glorious old house near Nottingham. On the way I stayed to draw Nottingham Castle, which I had drawn as a boy, but they have quite spoilt it by tearing up its fine old plateau of grey flagstones, and putting down asphalt, only, of course, in the drawing I left that out. Wollaton is a beautiful old grey stone building full of varied ornaments--niches, pinnacles, and busts, with a central tower and huge central hall. It was built by John of Padua with stone from Ancaster, all brought on donkeys, and for which nothing was paid, coal being taken and given in exchange for it from a pit already open in Elizabeth’s time. In the church, to which we went on Sunday morning, is the tomb of John of Padua’s clerk of the works, also the monument of Lady Anne Willoughby, née Grey, aunt of Lady Jane, and a beautiful tomb of a Willoughby who was Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, with little effigies of his four wives, one of whom was mother of the Arctic voyager. The afternoon was wet, and amongst other relics we saw the clothes of this Willoughby hero, left behind when he went to the North Pole, and preserved with many other old dresses in a vast deserted upper chamber called ‘Bedlam,’ probably because the ‘gentlemen’s gentlemen’ slept there in old times, as in a dormitory. There is much else to see in the house, which was strongly fortified against the Nottingham rioters, and a number of handcuffs are hanging up which were prepared for them. The first evening I was alone with my delightfully genial host and hostess, but on Saturday many guests came, including the exceedingly pleasant young Lord Deramore.

“The late Lord Middleton lived in this palace in most primitive fashion. He used to have dinner-parties, but the dinner consisted in a haunch of venison at one end and a haunch of venison at the other, and currant-jelly in the middle, and then two apple-pies to match.

“Here is a delightful story of the present Bishop of London for you, which is molto ben trovato, at any rate. One day, he took a cab home to Fulham from the City, and wishing to be liberal, gave the man sixpence beyond the full fare. The man looked at it. ‘What, aren’t you satisfied?’ said the Bishop. ‘Oh yes, I’m satisfied,’ said the man; ‘but if I might, I should like to ask you a question.’ ‘Oh certainly,’ said the Bishop, ‘ask whatever you like.’ ‘Well, then, if St. Paul had come back to earth and was Bishop, do you suppose he’d be living in this here palace?’ ‘Certainly not,’ replied the Bishop promptly, ‘for he’d be living at Lambeth, and it would be a shilling fare.’

“And now, after all these luxurious fine houses, I am in what, to me, is the tenfold luxury of Holmhurst.

‘My green and silent spot amid the hills, Oh, ’tis a quiet spirit-healing nook.’[551]

I should not like to live in a bare or commonplace house, but then I don’t; and oh! the luxury of absolute independence. I should rather like a carriage and horse perhaps, but I don’t in the least want them. Certainly, in words I have been reading of Bishop Fraser, ‘living in comfort is a phrase entirely depending for its meaning on the ideas of him who uses it.’”

* * * * *

To FRANCIS COOKSON.

“Sept. 7.--Is it a sign of old age coming on, I wonder, when one has the distaste for leaving home by which I am now possessed? I simply hate it. When one has all one wants and exactly what one likes, why should one set off on a round of visits, in which one may, and probably will, have many pleasant hours, but as certainly many bare and dull ones, often in dreary rooms, sometimes with wooden-headed people, and without the possibility of the familiar associations which habit makes such a pleasure? Then, in most country-houses, ‘l’anglais s’amuse moult tristement,’ as Froissart says. I cannot say how delightful I always find my home life--the ever-fresh morning glories of the familiar view of brilliant flowers, green lawns, and oak woods; and then the sea, which to me is so much more beautiful in its morning whiteness with faint grey cloud-shadows, or smiling under the tremulous sun-rays,[552] than in the evening light, which brings a lovely but monotonous blueness with it: the joyous companionship of my little black spitz Nero (‘Black,’ not the wicked emperor): the regularity of my proof-sheet work, and other work, till luncheon-dinner, after which there are generally visitors to be attended to; and then quiet work again, or meditation on the long-ago and the future, when

‘Silent musings urge the mind to seek Something too high for syllables to speak.’[553]

Then there is always my library, in which 6000 agreeable friends are always ready to converse with me at any moment, and ‘vingt-sept années d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des livres,’ as Catherine II. said in her epitaph on herself, might certainly be applied to me. Only I can imagine, if eyes and limbs failed, the winter evenings becoming long and monotonous. ‘Meglio solo che male accompagnato’ is a good Italian proverb, only it would be pleasant to be ‘ben accompagnato.’ I am beginning to feel with Madame de Staël--‘J’aime la solitude, mais il me faut à qui dire; j’aime la solitude.’

“The neighbours are very kindly beginning to consider me ‘the hermit of Holmhurst,’ and come to visit me in my cell, especially on Tuesdays, without expecting me to go to them. I would not have a bicycle on any account, for then I might be obliged to go, and I am too poor to have a carriage. So, in six weeks, I have only twice been outside the gates--for one day to London for George Jolliffe’s wedding, and for two nights to Battle, whence, to my great joy, the Duchess asked me to ‘mother’ her guests--charming Lady Edward Cavendish, the Vincent Corbets, and Mr. Armstrong, the Oxford history professor--to Hurstmonceaux. How beautiful, how interesting it all looked. No other place ever seems to me half so romantic; but though ‘at each step one treads on a memory,’ as Cicero says, I can go there now without a pang; my affections are too full of Holmhurst to have any room for it, and the old family are almost forgotten there already, ‘so much has happened since they left.’ ‘Lord! to see how the world makes nothing of a man, an houre after he is dead,’ writes Pepys in his Diary.

“I wonder if you ever saw Coventry Patmore here, who died lately. He often came to Holmhurst during the latter part of his residence at Hastings, where he wrote ‘The Angel in the House’ in memory of his first wife, and in memory of his second spent most of the large fortune she had brought him, £60,000, in building a beautiful church, S. Mary Star of the Sea; and whilst building it, though always a devout Catholic, imbibed, from being brought into close contact with them, a hatred of priests which never left him. The existence of ‘In Memoriam’ may be said to be due to Patmore. When young, he and Tennyson lodged together at some house in London, where they had a violent quarrel with their landlady, and left suddenly in a huff. Once well away, they recollected that the MS. of ‘In Memoriam’ was left in the cupboard of their room with the unfinished ham and the half-empty jam-pot. The timid Alfred would not face the wrath of the landlady, but Patmore went back to get it. He found the woman cleaning her doorstep and told her that he was come to get something he had left behind. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there was nothing, and she had seen quite enough of him, he should not go upstairs.’ But the slim Patmore took her by surprise, slipped past her, rushed up to the room, and from the jam cupboard extracted the MS., and made off with it in spite of her imprecations.

“Tennyson recognised what Patmore had done at the time, and said he should give him the MS. But he never did; he gave it to Sir J. Simeon, who left it to his second wife. When Tennyson’s MSS. rose so much in value, his family asked for it back, and Lady Simeon has promised that it shall go back at her death. In another generation, if Tennyson’s fame lasts so long, it will probably be sold for a large sum.

“Apropos of poets, pleasant old Miss Courtenay was talking to me the other day of how Browning was beyond all things a man of the world rather than a poet. When she saw Mrs. Browning at Naples long ago, and expressed some surprise at his being so much with Lockhart, who was then in his last serious illness, Mrs. Browning said, ‘Yes, and isn’t it delightful that Mr. Lockhart likes him so much; he told me the other day, “I like Robert so much because he is not a damned literary person!’”

“The clergyman in the little iron tabernacle of a church at our gate seemed to some to preach at me last night for not having been at the morning service, at which there was the Sacrament. He was quite right. I really might have gone, for I had no ‘boys’ here, and I was not merely kept away by my detestation of sermons, so seldom, what Spurgeon said they should be, ‘the man in flower;’ but I never thought of it, and was very busy at home about a thousand things. But though I revere the Sacrament as a holy commemorative ordinance, I cannot feel as if it did one the slightest good, except as concentrating one’s thoughts for a few minutes on sacred memories. James Adderley, the monk-preacher, says there are many who regard the Sacrament like a ‘mourning ring;’ and that is exactly how I look upon it. I cannot understand how people can consider such a mere commemorative service ‘a thing to live by,’ as they call it; and all the transubstantiation idea is to me too truly horrible. If I were dying--dying, I mean, in the trembling hope of a near blessed reality--the reception of this mere type would be no comfort to me. Then, also, as I am on the confession tack, I do not believe for one instant in ‘original sin;’ rather, as Solomon--who had much personal knowledge of the subject--says, that ‘God hath made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.’[554] ... And yet, truly, in my own way, I always feel that--

‘Malgré nous, vers le ciel il faut tourner les yeux.’”[555]

* * * * *

JOURNAL and LETTERS.

“Chesters, Northumberland, Oct. 6.--All my dread of visits passed away when they began. Capital indeed is Milton’s advice--

‘Be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils.’

And then I know one ought to go into the world ‘as a fireman on duty,’ which Cardinal Manning said was his only way of visiting it for thirty years. One thing a man who pays a good many visits should always be certain of--never to outstay his welcome. It would be dreadful to see one’s hostess begin to have the fidgets. It is safest--at latest--to go by the eleven o’clock train, but a good and pleasant plan is to take leave overnight, and be gone the next morning. I was full of enjoyment at Penrhyn Castle--the genial and charming family, the great variety of the guests, and the excursions, in spite of furious storms, into the Welsh hills. Then I was with a most kind bachelor host, Fred Swete, at Oswestry, and spent the day at Brogyntyn with Lord Harlech, a perfect example of old-fashioned courtesy and kindness. In his grounds is a long terrace with a glorious view over the plains and hills of Shropshire, including the beloved Hawkestone range of my childhood. The next day, at the Brownlow-Towers’ pleasant house at Ellesmere, a little girl of eight was most amusingly fin de siècle. ‘Now, darling, you must go up to the schoolroom and stay there,’ said her mother after luncheon. ‘No, darling, no,’ answered the child. ‘I must not, darling,’ with an exact imitation of its mother’s manner, ‘for I’ve been listening, and it’s going to be interesting.’

“We made delightful excursions from Lutwyche to draw at Bridgenorth and an old moated grange called Elswick, meeting Lady Boyne and her party, who came from Burwarton as to a half-way house.

“Then I was at Ridley Hall, full of--oh! how many memories of my long-ago. But it was the greatest pleasure to see Frank and Lady Anne Lyon there, and how much they appreciated and cared for the place. Lord and Lady Wantage were at Ridley, and I went with them to Hexham Abbey, once a most grand church, but utterly ruined by an ignorant restoration. And now, wandering still on the footprints of past days, I am at Chesters with the widow and children of my dear old friend George Clayton, he as well as all the earlier generation of his family having passed away, and Miss Annie Ogle, whom I knew so well in those far-away days, here as a delightful old lady, with snow-white hair, but the same winning character and ways as in her youth. A museum has been built now for the immense collection of Roman altars and fragments, &c., from the ‘stations’ of the Roman wall, one of the best of which (Cilurnum) is just in front of the house; while below ‘the riotous rapids of the Tyne,’ as Swinburne calls them, with their rocky shores and bosky banks, are the boundary of the park.”

* * * * *

“Redholm, North Berwick, Oct. 17.--I am staying here with Robert Shaw Stewart, a friend of old Roman days, and his kind wife, who was a daughter of Charles Warner, the well-known statesman-philanthropist of Trinidad,--‘fort comme le diamant, plus tendre qu’une mère’--of whom Froude has given so charming a description. The Dalzells and all my other dear friends of past days here have gone over the border-land, but, in this hospitable house, I have seen quite a diorama of people. A topic has been the three modern Scotch novelists, Crockett,[556] Barrie,[557] and Ian Maclaren (Watson): Crockett such a delightful fellow, so full of sunshine, of real happy enjoyment of people and things: Barrie, a weaver’s boy as to his origin, but simple and straightforward to a degree, though his books have made him rich: Watson just a little spoilt since the great success of his annals of Drumtochty, which, under another name (Logiealmond, near Glenalmond) was the place where he was minister. The Free Kirk minister in this place, Dr. Davidson, told me how when they all were at college together, Barrie and Crockett used to tell stories in class. They sate up in a corner, with a little coterie round them, and held their audience enthralled. No one listened to the lecturer, and some of the students outside the charmed circle used to say, ‘Had not you better send down to the professor and tell him not to make so much noise?’ The lower orders in Scotland seem to read the modern national novelists just as much as the upper, and they read other deeper books too, and think calmly in a way very unlike Englishmen. ‘The Shorter Catechism,’ which they all understand, is a proof of this. When it was published, indeed, there was a far more serious catechism for adults: this one was only intended for ‘those of tender years,’ yet there is much requiring deepest thought in it, though the peasant classes always master it.”

* * * * *

“Airlie Castle, Oct. 18.--Monday was fearfully cold, and it was a pleasure to see the beautiful face of Lady Airlie--more picturesque and distinguished in late middle life than any one else--looking out of a close carriage come to meet me. Her most poetical home is just suited to her--the tiniest castle in the world, with its one noble gate-tower giving access to a little green plateau beneath which the Melgum and the Isla rush through deep wooded gorges to their meeting-place. And into these gorges the castle windows look deep down. Then, to those who know Lady Airlie, I need not say how beautiful the little rooms are, how splendid the few flowers, how much of story clusters round the furniture and pictures--‘only a few; I do not like a room or a wall to be crowded, even with the best things,’ says their mistress.

“In the serene beauty of her age, she herself lends a lustre to her surroundings; quietly, contentedly severing most links with the great world in which she has so long been a star, ‘elle dépose fleur à fleur la couronne de la vie.’[558]

“Lady Maude White is here, returning to an intellectual world with which she has never broken a single link, after many years of privation, solitude, and duty nobly borne, first with her brother, and then with her husband, at a horse-ranch in America.

“The castle of Airlie has never recovered its burning by Argyll and the Covenanters, when

‘It fell on a day, a bonnie summer day, When the corn was brearin’ fairly, That there fell out a great dispute Between Argyll and Airlie.’

The family were always for the King and the Church, indeed too much so, for Maryott Ogilvy was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton, for whom he built several castles, and who was enormously endowed by him. Of their six children, the eldest girl had the richest dower in Scotland, and married the Lord Crawford of that day. It was David, Lord Ogilvy, who was out in the ‘45, who rebuilt a bit of the old castle, just enough to live in by himself after he came home, and added a few rooms for his wife when he married a second time. Behind the castle is a delightful old garden, to which Lady Airlie has added hedges and peacocks in clipped yew, with divers other ‘incidents;’ and all along the ledges of the gorges run wonderful little pathlets--beautiful exceedingly in the crimson and gold of their autumnal glory. But they will be gone directly; for, as Edward Fitzgerald says, ‘The trees in the Highlands give themselves no dying airs, but turn orange in a day, and are swept off in a whirlwind, and winter is come.’

“We drove to Cortachy through woods laid prostrate by the great storm of 1893, which has left the trees piled on one another, like the dead of a vanquished army on a battlefield. Lady Airlie made the whole of the weird desolate country live through her interpretation of it:--

“‘Those are the black hornless cattle of Angus. That is the hill of Clota, on the top of which is the old tower where the last witch was burnt. In the church books there is an entry that on a particular day there was no service, because all the congregation were gone to the burning of the witch. That village in the hollow, which is so red and striking in the sunset, is Kirriemuir: it is the “Thrums” of Barrie’s novel. Now we will leave the carriage at “the Devil’s Stone:” it is just a stone which the devil threw at the kirk, but it missed and fell into the stream: it rests the opposite way to all boulders, and it is of a different formation from all the other stones in the district. Dicky Doyle loved the story and the stone, and used to paint it. And now we will go into the “Garden of Friendship.” I made it when I first married out of an old kitchen-garden, and I cut down a belt of trees and let in the view. The lines in the summer-house are by Robert Lowe. All the trees bear the names of the different friends who planted them. That one was planted by Dr. John Brown. He was often here. He told me that my Clementine was a lassie who had said something she might be proud of. That was because one day when I said to her, “I am so tired; are not you tired, darling?” she answered, “Tired! oh no, not a bit. I have a box of laughter inside me, and the key that unlocks it is ‘fun.’” Over there is our deer-forest. Charlotte, Lady Strathmore, took me up to the tower of Glamis once, and stretched out her hand towards our hills--“You have a deer-forest, and a river, and scenery” she said, “and I have nothing.”

“‘Here is King Charles’s room. Charles II. was here for the gathering of the clans, but they did not gather as they ought, and he went away disappointed. He left a Prayer-book and a Euclid here: he was a great scientist. Under the floor at that corner is a secret room: we have never seen it. Some workmen found it after the great fire here whilst every one was away, and before we came back it was walled up, and it has never been thought worth while to disturb it again. Those are the portraits of the Ogilvy who was out in the ‘45 and his first wife. She was shut up in the Tolbooth for singing Jacobite songs in the Canongate. He was devoted to her, but after they went to St. Germains he was told that he must take a mistress because it was the fashion, and he did. After her death he married again, an extravagant woman, who wheedled him out of £3000 which he had saved to buy the property on the other side of the river at Airlie,[559] and spent it on her own devices. They quarrelled at last, for she would give a ball at Airlie Lodge at Dundee, and he told her if she did he would never forgive it; and she had the ball, and he never saw her again.’

“Lord Airlie is a splendid young man,[560] and has the most delightful of wives in one of the granddaughters of the beloved Lady Jocelyn. He is a consummate soldier. His devotion to his profession only allows him to be six weeks at Cortachy in the year, but in that time he drives about and visits every person on the estate. He has the firm faith and strong religious feeling of his Ogilvy forbears. One day, at the gate of Airlie Castle, with its unprotected precipices, he had mounted a dogcart with his sister Clementine. The horse plunged and backed violently. They were on the very edge of the abyss. ‘Make your peace with God,’ he said to his sister; ‘in an instant we shall be over.’ At the very last moment a man rushed out and caught the horse, but the wheels were half over then.

“To-day we have been to see the Monros at Lindertis--a semi-gothic house, most comfortable inside. Mrs. Munro is a capital portrait-painter in the style of Raeburn, and has done first-rate work. All evening Lady Airlie has talked delightfully:--

“‘We were a very quarrelsome family as children. At Gosport, whilst we were at church, my next sister, Cecilia,[561] who had been left at home, fell out of the window. She lived for some days, very suffering and scarcely conscious, but she used constantly, in her half-delirium, to say, “Oh, don’t quarrel, don’t quarrel;” and it made a very great impression upon me, and afterwards I always tried never to quarrel. My father never let us complain. If anything unpleasant happened and my mother murmured, he would always say, “Oh, don’t; we have so much more than we deserve.” He always thought it so ill-bred--so ill-bred towards God--to murmur. A widow, especially, should never murmur. If one has had a great place and occupied a great position which all vanishes with one’s husband, one ought to be so filled with gratitude for the has-been as to leave no room for complaints. “I have lived my life: I have enjoyed to the utmost,” that should always be the feeling. It is terrible when a widow murmurs, for it is God who gave the husband, who gave the home; and when He takes them away again, how can one doubt that He knows best when one has had enough? For children, leaving an old home is worse than for the widow: she has lived her life, but theirs is to come.

“‘Before I grew up, my mother often took me with her to Miss Berry’s in the evening. My father was away at the House, and she took her work and went there, and Miss Berry liked to see that good and beautiful young woman sitting there. At Miss Berry’s house I saw all the clever men of the day, so I knew them all before I really came out. I shall never forget going down once to Richmond to take leave of Miss Berry before we went into the country, and her saying to me, “Allez vous retremper l’âme à la campagne;” it seemed to me such a beautiful thought. Forty years afterwards my daughter Blanche told it to Schouvaloff, the Russian Minister. “Oui,” he said, and added, “et engourdir l’esprit.” It was as characteristic of him as the first part of the sentence was of Miss Berry.

“‘As soon as I came out, I went with my parents to the Grange, where the first Lady Ashburton was very kind to me, and I passionately adored her. There I first saw Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle, but he had known my mother very well before. Mrs. Carlyle really loved Lady Ashburton, yet she was madly jealous of her. When they were at home, and Carlyle would come in quite tired out with a long day’s work, she would say, “Now just walk down to Bath House and see Lady Ashburton, and that will refresh you.” She meant him to go, but as soon as he was gone her grief was passionate, because she felt it would not have been the same thing to him if he had stayed with her. He was always pleasant, but to a few--to my mother especially--he never failed to show the most intense delicacy of feeling.

“‘I cannot describe what Charles Buller was. Girl as I was, I loved him, but so did every one else; he was so very delightful. I remember as if it were to-day going once into my mother’s room: all her long beautiful hair was down and she was sobbing violently. “Oh,” she said, “Charles Buller is dead.” How I longed to cry too, but I did not dare. I only went to my own room in most bitter grief. Wherever he went, Charles Buller brought sunshine with him. He left me his Coleridge in his will. It surprised people that he should leave anything to a young girl like me, and when I went to the Grange again, many spoke of it. Each had something to show which had belonged to him: we all mourned together.

“‘Oh, how many recollections there are which will always remain with one, which will stay by one at the resurrection. Many of my happiest are of the Grange. Lord Houghton asked me once how long I had been there, and he told me long afterwards that I had answered “Oh, I cannot tell; I only know that it is morning when I come, and night when I go away.” This bookcase is full of the gifts of friends, and recalls much of my past. Here is a volume of Thackeray with an etching by himself, and here are all John Morley’s and Lord Sherbrooke’s books, which they gave me as they came out. Here is Lord Houghton’s “Monographs,” with a touching letter from him after we had had a little coldness; and here are two bound volumes of Mrs. Carlyle’s Letters to me.”

* * * * *

“Balcaskie, Oct. 21.--What a wild country is this ‘low, sea-salted, wind-vexed’ Fife, with its little royal boroughs along the coast, each with its tiny municipality. About them their natives have the same pride, however, as an Aberdonian, who said the other day, ‘Just tak’ awa Aberdeen and twenty mile round her, and where are ye?’ The sea-line is broken by islets, the most important of them being May, where S. Adrian lived in a hermitage, and where the steps at the very difficult landing-place are worn away by the knees of the pilgrims to his shrine. S. Monan lived there after him, but also frequented a little cave on the mainland, where the old church stands to which we went on Sunday, so near the waves that, in rough weather, the roar of the surges mingles with the music.

“Highly picturesque is this house of Balcaskie, and its high-terraced gardens with their vases and statues. The Anstruthers have taken me to Balcarres to spend the afternoon with ever-sunny Lady Crawford. Her husband, weird-looking as an old necromancer, only came in as we were leaving, but several of the handsome sons were at home. The house looks gloomy outside from the black stone of the country, but is bright and cheerful within, and has a beautiful oak-panelled parlour.

“On Sunday afternoon we went to Kellie, a noble stern old castle, with corbie-steps and tourelles. It was neglected and deserted by the Earls of Kellie, but has been restored by Mrs. Lorimer, widow of an Edinburgh professor, who rents it. ‘Two little red shoes’ haunt it, pattering up and down its winding staircases at night. At Crail we saw wonderful old tombs of the Lindsays in the churchyard, and inside the church that of Miss Cunningham, who, said the sacristan, died on the eve of her marriage with some great poet whose name he could not remember: we afterwards found it was Drummond of Hawthornden.”

* * * * *

“Bishopthorpe, Oct. 23.--This house has a charm from the great variety of its styles, even the gingerbread-gothic is important as being of a date anterior to Horace Walpole, who has the reputation of having introduced that style.

“The Archbishop of York says, ‘From sudden death, good Lord deliver us,’ means, ‘From dying unprepared for death, good Lord deliver us.’

“Lord Falkland has been here. He had been lately at Skelton Castle. His hostess, Miss Wharton, took him to his room, down a long passage--a large room, panelled with dark oak and with a great four-post bed with heavy hangings. It was very gloomy and oppressive, Lord Falkland thought, but he said nothing, dressed, and went down to dinner.

“When he came upstairs again, he found the aspect of the room even more oppressive, but he made up a great fire and went to bed. In the night he was awakened by a pattering on the floor as of high-heeled shoes and the rustling of a stiff silk dress. There was still a little fire burning, but he could see nothing. As he distinctly heard the footsteps turn, he thought, ‘Oh, I hope they may not come up to the bed.’ They did. But then they turned away, and he heard them go out at the door.

“With difficulty he composed himself to sleep again, but was soon reawakened by the same sound, the rustling of silk and the footsteps. Then he was thoroughly miserable, got up, lighted candles, made up the fire, and passed a wretched night. In the morning he was glad to find an excuse for going away.

“Afterwards he heard an explanation. An old Wharton, cruel and brutal, had a young wife. One day, coming tipsy into his wife’s room, he found her nursing her baby. He was in a violent temper, and, seizing the baby from her arms, he dashed its head against the wall and killed it on the spot. When he saw it was dead, he softened at once. Even in her grief and horror Mrs. Wharton could not bear to expose him, and together they buried the child under the hearthstone; but she pined away and very soon she died.

“She used to be heard not only rustling, but weeping, wailing, sobbing, crying. At that time the Whartons were Roman Catholics, and when the family were almost driven from their home by its terrors, they got a priest to exorcise the castle and to bury the baby skeleton in consecrated ground. Since then, there have been no sobs and cries, only the rustling and pattering of feet.”

* * * * *

To MISS GARDEN at Rome.

“Oct. 26, 1896.--The first three volumes of the ‘Story of my Life’ are come out, and I send them to you. Even the favourable reviews complain vehemently about their length; and yet, if they were not in a huge type and had not quite half a volume’s space full of woodcuts, they might easily have been two very moderate volumes.[562] Then, say the reviewers, ‘the public would have welcomed the book.’ But after all, it was not written or printed for the public, only for a private inner circle, though I am sure that, in return for having been allowed to read it, ‘the public’ will kindly be willing--well, just to pay for the printing! Then it is funny how each review wants a different part left out--one the childhood, one the youth, one the experiences of later life: there would be nothing left but the little anecdotes about already well-known people, which they all wish to keep, and, in quoting these, they one and all copy each other; it saves trouble. The Saturday had what the world calls ‘a cruel review’ of the book, but what was really an article of nothing but personal vituperation against its author. I know who the review was by, and that it was not, as every one seems to think, by one of the family from whom I suffered in my childhood; certainly, however, if any one cares to know how the members of that family always spoke to and of me in my youth, they have only to read that article. I think there is a good bit about criticism in Matthew Arnold’s Letters. ‘The great thing is to speak without a particle of vice, malice, or rancour.... Even in one’s ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good-humour.... I remember how Voltaire lamented that the “literae humanae,” humane letters, should be so dreadfully inhuman, and determined in print to be always scrupulously polite.’ Then, how truly Ruskin says, ‘The slightest manifestation of jealousy or self-complacency is sufficient to mark a second-rate character of intellect.’

“As you know, I never intended the book, written seventeen and printed two years ago, to appear till after my death, but this year it was so strongly represented to me that then all who would care to read about my earlier years would then be dead too, that I assented to the story up to 1870 being published. To tell the truth, I feel now how sorry I should have been to have missed the amusement of hearing even the most abusive things people say. And certainly, as regards reviews, I feel with Washington Irving, ‘I have one proud reflection to sustain myself with--that I never in any way sought to win the praises nor deprecate the censures of reviewers, but have left my work to rise or fall by its own deserts. If my writings are worth anything, they will outlive temporary criticism; if not, they are not worth caring about.’[563] Yet, yet, just for the sake of variety, I should like some day, as a change to the unknown, to read a really favourable review of something I have written, though I read somewhere, ‘To like to be right is the last weakness of a wise man: to like to be thought right is the inveterate prejudice of fools.’[564]

“One of the things people find fault with is that I have not shown sufficient adoration for Jowett, who was so exceedingly kind to me at Oxford. But I always felt that it was for Arthur Stanley’s sake. Jowett only really cared for three kinds of undergraduate--a pauper, a profligate, or a peer: he was boundlessly good to the first, he tried to reclaim the second, and he adored the third.”

* * * * *

“Blaise Castle, Henbury, Nov. 23.--I came here to charming Mary Harford[565] from Lockinge, where I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and Lady Wantage, meeting a large party. Lady Wantage, beautified by the glory of her snowy hair, was most charming--so thoughtful and kind for every one--‘elle brillait surtout par le caractère,’[566] and though ‘few can understand an argument, all can appreciate a character.’[567] One of the most agreeable guests, a ripple of interesting anecdote, which began even in the omnibus driving up from the station in the dark, was Lord James of Hereford. At dinner he told how Sir Drummond and Lady Wolff had a Spanish dog, who was the best-bred creature in the world. One day its mistress had a visitor who engrossed her so much that she forgot her dog’s dinner. It would not scratch or whine, it was too well conducted, but it went out into the garden and bit off a flower, and came and laid it at its mistress’s feet: the flower was a forget-me-not.

“George Holford of Westonburt was at Lockinge, and very pleasant. Once he walked from London to Ardington, close to Lockinge, where his grandmother, Mrs. Lindsay, was then living. When he was within a mile and a half of it, he saw a man kneeling on the body of another man on the road. He went up to them, called out, had no answer, and at last struck the kneeling man with his stick. His stick went through the man. His story was received at Lockinge with shouts of derision.

“Three years after, at a tenants’ dinner, Lord Wantage told the story of his nephew’s ‘optical delusion’ to the farmer sitting next, who said, ‘It is a very extraordinary thing, my Lord, but a man was once murdered by his servant on that very spot. The servant knocked him down, knelt upon him, and killed him; and ever since the place has had the reputation of being haunted.’”

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Jan. 9, 1897.--My Christmas was spent very pleasantly at Hewell, where Lord and Lady Windsor had a large party. Most lovely and charming was the hostess, most stately and beautiful the great modern house by Bodley, greatly improved and embellished since I saw it last. How closely, during a week’s visit, one is thrown with people, whom one often does not see again for years, if ever. It is, as Florence Montgomery says--‘People in a country-house play their parts, as it were, before one, and then the curtain falls, and the actors disappear. The play is played out.’[568] How laden with gifts children are nowadays, and how far too luxurious their life is, as much in excess that way as in the privations and penances which I remember in my own childhood.

“Some people are very angry with me for telling the truth in the ‘Story of my Life’[569] about these young years, when I was suffering ‘from an indiscriminate theological education,’ as Mr. Schimmelpennick calls such, and when I was made so constantly to feel how ‘l’ennui n’a pas cessé d’être en Angleterre une institution religeuse.’[570] And it is not merely the ‘canaille of talkers in type’[571] who find fault, but many whose opinion I have a regard for. They think that the portrait of a dead person should never be like a Franz Hals, portraying every ‘projecting peculiarity,’ but all delicately wrought with the smooth enamelling touch of Carlo Dolce. They wonder I can ‘reconcile it to my conscience’ to hold ‘another estimate of the Maurices to that which has been hitherto popular.’ ‘Collect a bag of prejudices and call it conscience, and there you are!’[572] For myself, I believe, and I am sure it is the discipline of years which tells me so, that the rule of after-death praise is a false one to be regulated by. It is true that there is often an enlightenment from death upon sensations and sympathies towards one who is gone, but I cannot feel that a faithful record of words and actions ought to be altered by the mere glamour of death, which so often gives an apotheosis to those who little deserve it. One of my reviewers says he would like to read a truthful word-portrait of Augustus Hare by one of the persons he describes in print: so should I exceedingly, and most appallingly horrible it would be!

‘O wad some power the giftie gi’e us To see oorsels as ithers see us,’[573]

is what I would often say. Lately, a wonder whether I can have misjudged or exaggerated my remembrance of the long-ago has made me give many solitary evenings to old-letter reading; yet contemporary letters only confirm all I have expressed. How interesting they are! It is as Archbishop Magee says, ‘Old letters are like old ghosts, coming often uncalled for and startling us with their old familiar faces--pleasant some of them, and some of them very ugly, but all of them dead and bearing the stamp of death--and yet they will survive ourselves.’

“Most extraordinarily virulent certainly reviews can be! Really, ‘hurricanes of calumny and tornados of abuse’[574] have been hurled at me. As Cardinal Manning said, ‘To write anonymously is always a danger to charity, truth, and justice.’ Blackwood (i.e. the Maurice spirit in Blackwood), in an article which breathes of white lips, after dwelling scornfully upon ‘the sickening honey of the “Memorials,”’ writes:--

“What is Mr. Augustus Hare? He is neither anybody nor nobody--neither male nor female--neither imbecile nor wise.... As we wade through this foam of superannuated wrath ... this vicious and venomous personal onslaught ... Mr. Hare’s paragraphs plump like drops of concentrated venom over the dinted page.... Such a tenacity of ill-feeling, such a cold rage of vituperation, is seldom to be met with.’

“I wonder a little if any one can really from his heart have offered such ‘a genuine tribute of undissembled horror,’ or whether these sentiments were only written to order? And then I look at Dante and read:--

‘Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti; Sta come torre ferma che non crolla Giammai la cima per soffiar de’ venti’[575]

And so--

‘I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame, Or their praise either.’”[576]

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Jan. 31, 1897.--Saw Lady Delawarr, and heard all about her marvellous escape. Lady Mary (Sackville) first heard a crackling noise between two and three in the morning, and, looking out of her room door, saw that the staircase[577] was in flames. She rushed into her sister Margaret’s room, roused her, shrieked to the maids and governess, and finding a fiery gulf separated them from their mother’s room, the sisters flew in their night-dresses down the stairs, already in flames, and into the street. Lady Delawarr, stupefied by smoke, slept on heavily, though for twenty minutes her old servant Vincent, who occupied a room off the garden, threw stones at her window. He dragged his mattress beneath it, and strained it across the garden area. At last he roused her, and she rushed to the door, but closed it again as the flames poured in. Then she threw up the window. ‘Jump, my lady, jump!’ shouted Vincent; ‘there is not a moment to lose.’ There was not time even to throw out her diamonds, but she knotted her sheets firmly together, and sliding down them, dropped upon the mattress. With her it held, but the fat cook, who had not had courage to face the fiery staircase, leapt from the fourth floor, and under her great weight the mattress gave way and she fell into the area, breaking her leg in three places and fracturing her skull, and now she is dead. For a whole hour Lady Delawarr crouched behind the lilac bushes in the ice-bound garden, with the blazing house between her and all else. Then she succeeded in breaking the window of a carpenter’s shop which adjoined the garden, and was dragged through it, and reached a friend’s house in a four-wheel cab.

“This cab she sent back to fetch her daughter Mary, but the horse fell on the ice in Grosvenor Square, and Lady Mary, as she was, had to walk up Upper Brook Street to the house where her mother had taken refuge.”

* * * * *

“Jan. 28.--Dined at Lady Hope’s to meet Dr. Tucker, Bishop of Uganda, who had walked 10,000 miles in his bishopric; there were no other means of locomotion. He said Africa as a whole was more swamp and thicket than desert. ‘Were not the lions alarming?’ ‘Not very; they seldom attacked unless irritated.’ Once he saw five at the same time around him, but ‘they all had their own affairs to attend to.’ Snakes were worse, especially puff-adders, which would attack whenever they could.”

* * * * *

“Feb. 2, 1897.--Dreadful news has come of the terrible murder in the Benin expedition of my dear Kenneth Campbell (of Ardpatrick), than whom no one was better, braver, more attractive to look upon, or more pleasant to live with.

‘I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead, but alive.’[578]

Yet a shadow is thrown over everything, and when even his friend feels as if he could never write or speak of him without tears, what must not it be to his parents! One had felt that he, if any one, had ‘i pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto’ which would ‘go safely over the whole world,’ as Alberto Scipioni said to Sir Henry Wotton, and which the latter recommended to Milton when asked for advice as to his travels.”

* * * * *

To MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“May 8, 1897.--Do you remember the article on my book, or rather on me, headed ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency,’ which amused us both so much? Dining at Lady Margaret Watney’s, I sate opposite to Mr. E. G. who wrote it--a pleasant man and much liked--and longed to make acquaintance with him, but had not the chance. Last night I dined with Lady Ashburton, a quiet party, with all the beautiful Kent House pictures lighted up. Mr. Henschel whistled like a bullfinch at dinner, and sang gloriously ‘Der Kaiser’ afterwards. Mrs. F. Myers, who sate by me, was most agreeable, and is one of those with whom one soon penetrates ‘l’écorce extérieur de la vie,’ as our dear S. Simon calls it. Amongst a thousand interesting things, she told me that, at Cambridge, she found Lord De Rothschild’s son especially difficult to get on with, till one day he startled her by asking, ‘Have you got any fleas?’ She was surprised, but found that special point of Natural History was just the one thing he cared about, knew about, and would talk on for ever; and she was able to get him some rare fleas from a friend in India, with which he was greatly delighted.

“I also sate at dinner by ...whose father was ambassador at Vienna. He rented Prince Clary’s house. One day, as a little girl, she was at the end of the drawing-room with her mother, when they both saw a chasseur--their own chasseur, they supposed--standing in an alcove at the end of the room. ‘Oh, there is Fritz,’ said her mother. ‘What can he be doing there? Run and tell him to go downstairs.’ She ran across the room, but as she came up to the alcove the chasseur seemed to vanish. This happened three times; then the mother said, ‘If we were superstitious we might say we had seen a ghost, but it can be only a question of angles.’ Soon afterwards her father met Prince Clary at dinner and began, ‘Have you ever been troubled by any appearance?’ &c. ‘Oh, don’t speak of it,’ exclaimed Prince Clary; ‘it is a most painful subject: the fact is, that, in a fit of anger, my father killed his chasseur on that spot.’ Sir Augustus Loftus, who succeeded at the Embassy, took the same house, and reproached them much for not warning him of the apparition, on account of which he soon left and went to live in a hotel.

“At Easter I was with the Carysforts at Elton, and was taken to see Castor, with its fine Roman and Norman remains, and Stobbington, a very interesting old house, with a most curious collection of rare living fish, the pets of its owner. Lady Alwyn Compton, who was at Elton, told me a curious story. It was one of the great commentators--Calamy, she thought--who had occasion to go to a market-town in Devonshire, and take a lodging there whilst the assizes were going on. In the evening a servant came to his room and said that the master of the house hoped that he would do him the honour of coming down to supper with him. He said, ‘Oh, pray thank him very much, but say that I never take supper.’ But the servant came three times with the same message, and at last he said to himself, ‘Well, he seems so anxious to have me that it is rather churlish not to go,’ and he went. There were many people in the room, quite a number of guests, and a great supper prepared. But, being a religious man, before sitting down he said grace aloud, and, as he said it, the whole thing vanished.

“Archbishop Benson told Lady Alwyn that two Americans were talking to each other about spiritualism. Said one to the other, ‘You do not believe in ghosts, do you?’--‘No, certainly not!’ ‘You would not believe even if you saw one?’--‘No, certainly not.’ ‘Well, I am one!’ and he vanished on the spot.

“Afterwards I saw Higham Ferrers on my way to stay at Ecton, such a pleasant old house; and the next week I was with the George Drummonds at Swaylands, which has the finest rock-garden in England, and drew with Miss Henniker in the delicious old gardens of Penshurst Place.”

* * * * *

To HUGH BRYAN and JOURNAL.

“Castle Hale, Painswick, June 17.--‘Voici venir les longs crépuscules de juin,’[579] and I will employ one of them in writing to you. I have had a Whitsuntide of visits, beginning with the Deanery of Hereford. Mrs. Leigh[580] was full of her visit to Butler’s Island, from which she was lately returned--her last visit, she thinks, but I expect she will not long be able to keep away from the old home in the rice-swamps which she loves so dearly. Before she left, she had a little feast for all the older negroes, who had been slaves, and whose ancestors had been on the place since her great-grandfather’s time. She thanked them for coming in a little speech, expressing her attachment to them, but saying that as her years were advancing, she might not meet them often again on earth, but that she trusted to see them again hereafter. She was much moved herself, and many of the negroes wept; then, as by a universal impulse, they all sprang up and sang the Doxology! Her daughter Alice had a supper for the younger negroes in another room. One of them, a young man, made a speech, and ended it by saying, ‘I am sure that this festival will be remembered by our offspring long after their forespring are dead and gone.’

“‘Old Sie is my foreman,’ said Mrs. Leigh. ‘His grandfather lived with my great-grandfather, the first of our family who established himself on Butler’s Island. He was a very clever, efficient slave. Once, when all the other slaves were out at another island trying to cultivate it--it is called “Experiment” still--there came on one of those tremendous hurricanes which are, happily, very rare with us. The slaves, who are like sheep, all wanted at once to take to the boats and get home. Had they succeeded in embarking, they would all have been lost, as many other negroes were then, when all boats were swamped. But, at the point of the whip, Sie’s grandfather drove them all back inland to a hut where they could take refuge. Afterwards Sie was offered his freedom, but he would not take it; so my grandfather had a silver cup made for him, with an inscription recording what he had done. Last winter I said to Sie, “I think you had better let me buy that cup from you; you are all free now, and your children are not likely to care for it.” He considered awhile, then he said, “No, Missus, I tink not: I keep cup;” and then he thought a little more and said, “Missus, when I be gone done dead, you have de cup.”’

“I went with the Leighs to see the wonderful old church of ‘Abbeydore in the Golden Valley,’ as romantic as its name, and Kilpeck, a marvellous old Norman building.

“I went next to Madresfield, a first visit in a new reign, and very different it looked in its long grass and flowers, with the lovely Malvern hills behind, from the frost-bound place I remember. Its young master has spent all the time of his possession in beautifying it, planting glorious masses of peonies, iris, and a thousand other flowers in the grass, and making a herbaceous walk--winding--with a background of yew hedge, which is a very dream of loveliness. I was very happy at Madresfield, liking Beauchamp and Lady Mary so much, and all the many guests were charming, especially the Arthur Walronds, genial Dick Somerset, delightful Lady Northcote, the evergreen Duchess of Cleveland--‘Aunt Wilhelmine’--and three pleasant young men, Charlie Harris, Victor Cochran, and Lord Jedburgh. What a pleasure there is in thoroughly well-bred society! There is a capital passage in Ouida’s last book about this--‘You are always telling me that I wear my clothes too long: you’ve often seen me in an old coat--a shockingly old coat; but you never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I like my acquaintance to be like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, but I must have ’em well cut.’

“One afternoon we drove to Eastnor, which was in great beauty, and the castle--hideous outside--a palace of art treasures within, infinitely lovely from the flowers with which Lady Henry Somerset fills it.

“But most I liked the rambles about the inexhaustible gardens of Madresfield itself, with my charming young host and hostess, and one or other of the guests, and the practice inculcated by the oft-repeated questions which they ask so cheerily--‘Is it wise? is it kind? is it true?’ the very thought of which stops so much scandal; yet one has to consider all the three questions together, for the last would so often bring an affirmative where there would be a negative for the two others. The house itself is full of interesting and precious things, old furniture, miniatures, enamels, &c.

“Now I am with Mrs. Baddeley, whom you will remember as Helen Grant, the second of the three beautiful sisters whom all the great artists wanted to paint, but who have been such dear friends of mine from their earliest childhood, and often at Holmhurst, whether I were there or not. Helen’s husband, St. Clair Baddeley, is full of amusing stories, and his adopted father, Mr. Christie, with whom they live, is the dearest of old gentlemen. Just behind this house is the old courthouse where Charles I. lodged in most troublous times, and whence he fled. Many of his Cavaliers took refuge in the church, and numbers of them were afterwards shot in the churchyard, where old helmets are still dug up, and where a row of yews are said to mark their graves. There are ninety-nine yews altogether, and it is said that a mystic power guards this number; if any one tries to plant more, the old yews destroy them. In their shadow are a number of fine tombs, executed by Italian workmen, who left the place because they were not allowed to have their own chapel, but who were brought over when Painswick was a very flourishing town from its cloth factories, now transferred to Yorkshire.

“Just before her marriage, H. went to see Lady Burton at Mortlake, and was taken to Burton’s mausoleum as a natural part of her visit. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote to her saying that she wanted to ask a very great favour. It was that she would never wear again the hat in which she had come down to Mortlake. H. liked her hat very much--a pretty Paris hat in which she fancied herself particularly, but she said she would do as an old friend of her future husband wished, though utterly mystified. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote that when H. had come into the room on her visit, she was horrified to see three black roses in her hat; that they were the mark of a most terrible secret sect in Arabia, mixed up in every possible atrocity, and that--especially as worn by a girl about to be married--they were a presage of every kind of misfortune; that, in another case of the same kind, she had given the same warning, and the girl, who disregarded it, died on the day before her wedding. H. wore her hat again, but took out the black roses.

“Sir Richard Burton died of syncope of the heart--died twenty minutes before Lady Burton’s priest could arrive; so her report of his having been received into the Roman Catholic Church was a complete delusion.

“H. says that Count Herbert Bismarck went lately to a great function in Russia. While he wished to be incognito, he still did not see why he could not have the advantages of his cognito. ‘Stand back; you must keep the line,’ said an official as he was pushing through. ‘You do not know who I am: I am Count Herbert Bismarck.’ ‘Really? Well that quite explains, but it does not excuse your conduct,’ rejoined the officer.

“At the silver wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, a northern town wished to present an address, but there was a great discussion as to its wording; for some time they could not agree at all. ‘Conscious as we are of our own unworthiness,’ was universally condemned, but when some one proposed, ‘Conscious as we are of each other’s unworthiness,’ it was agreed to to a man.

“Mr. P----, Q.C., who has just been here, has called to mind that the Queen’s name is neither Victoria nor Guelf. Her real name is Victorina Wetting (pronounced Vettine). She was christened Victorina, and then there was a little girl called Victorina who played a most unpleasant part in Queen Caroline’s trial, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent changed their child’s name to Victoria, that it might not be the same. And Wetting is her husband’s--the real Saxe-Coburg name.

“H. had been at Oxford when Max Müller one day received a letter which pleased him so much that he insisted on sending a very nice letter in return, though it was evidently only written to get an autograph. It asked if there was any reason, other than coincidence, for meche and mechant: wick, wicked. One day an American was shown in to Max Müller, saying, ‘I have come, sir, four thousand miles to see you,’ &c. The professor was terribly pressed for time, and bored too; but as to the latter, felt that in a quarter of an hour he would be released, as he had a lecture to deliver. So he was civil, and then excused himself, saying that he was afraid he must go to his lecture, but that if his visitor wished to go to hear it, he could. ‘No,’ said the American, ‘I will not go with you, for I am rather deaf; but I can make myself perfectly happy here, and you shall find me here on your return.”

“St. Clair has been talking of Mrs. Procter, whom he knew well, and how she used to say, ‘Never tell anybody how you are, because nobody wants to know.’ All her circle are gone now, Lowell, Matthew Arnold, Browning, Adelaide Sartoris. When she was dying, her nun-daughter came and tried to get a priest in, but she would not have it. She had preserved the letters of Thackeray, Dickens, and others in three tin boxes. Mrs. Procter left Browning and two others her executors, but the nun wanted all the papers to be given to a young Nottingham doctor, to be published just as she wished, and, when they would not have it so, she put the whole of the correspondence on the kitchen-fire: it was her vendetta on her mother for having refused the priest.

* * * * *

To the COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.

“Holmhurst, June 29, 1897.--I said I would tell you about the Jubilee. For the first few days I was with the hospitable Lowthers, and thence, on Sunday, went to the Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s. Going very early, I had perhaps the best place in the choir, and enjoyed seeing the gradual gathering of so much of the bravery, learning, and beauty of England beneath the dusky arches and glistening mosaics. When the long file of clergy went out to meet the royal procession at the west door, the faint distant song was very lovely, gradually swelling, and lost in the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the triumphant shout of welcoming voices as the clergy re-entered the choir. The most important figure was the Bishop of Finland in a white satin train with two gorgeous train-bearers; but the newspapers tell this, and how the lines of royal persons sate on crimson chairs opposite the entrance of the choir, and how the Bishop of London preached touchingly, not effusively, about the Queen and her reign, and officiated at the altar in a gorgeous mitre and cope.

“On Monday Miss Lowther and I went to tea with my friend (minor-canon) Lewis Gilbertson at his lovely little house in Amen Court, and then were taken, by one of the many secret staircases of the cathedral, to emerge over the portico for the rehearsal of the next day’s ceremony. Perhaps, in some ways, this was more impressive than the reality, as none of the vast surrounding space was kept clear; all was one sea of heads, whilst every window, every house-top, even every chimney-pot, was crowded with people. Never was anything more jubilant than the ‘Te Deum,’ more reverent than the solemn Lord’s Prayer in the open air--every hat off. When the appointed programme was over, the crowd very naturally asked for ‘God save the Queen,’ and after some hesitation, and goings to and fro of dean and canons, it was begun by the bands and choristers, and taken up vigorously by the mile of people as far as Temple Bar. How grand it was!

“That evening the dear Queen said to Miss ... ‘To-morrow will be a very happy day for me;’ and I think it must have been. Where are anarchists and socialists before such a universal burst of loyalty--not of respect only, but of heartfelt filial love?--Nowhere! Their very existence seems ridiculous. I saw all from the Beaumonts’ in Piccadilly Terrace, where a most kind hostess managed all most beautifully for us, and, entering through the garden, we had neither heat nor crowd to fear. No small part of the sight was the crowd itself--the unfailing good-humour increased by the extreme kindness of the police towards fainting women and all who needed their help. The Colonial procession was charming--its young representatives rode so well, and were in themselves such splendid specimens of humanity, and so picturesquely equipped. Then the group of old English generals on horseback drew every eye, and the sixteen carriages of princesses, amongst whom the Duchess of Teck was far more cheered than any one except the Queen herself. And lastly came the cream-coloured horses with their golden-coated footmen, and the beloved Lady herself--the ‘Mother of the Land,’--every inch a queen, royal most exceedingly, but with an expression of such love, such gratitude, such devotion, such thankfulness! Oh, no one felt for and with her only as a sovereign; it was a far closer tie than that.

“In the evening, Mrs. Tilt and her sister went with me to the Maxwell-Lytes on the top of the Record Tower, whence we saw the bonfires round London light up one by one, and St. Paul’s in silver light--a glorified spiritual church rising out of the darkness of the city against the deep blue sky. Far more than the illuminations of the noisy streets, it was a fitting end to so solemn and momentous a day.

“And on Wednesday I was in the Green Park, and heard the thousands of school-children sing their farewell to the Queen as she went away to Windsor.”

* * * * *

To MRS. C VAUGHAN.

“March 1897.--I think the reviews of the first three volumes of my ‘Story’ must be coming to an end now. I have had them all sent to me, and very amusing they have been, mostly recalling the dictum of Disraeli, that ‘critics are those who have failed in art and literature.’ Many criticisms have been kind. One or two, but not more, have been rather clever, and some of the fault-finding ones would have been very instructive if I had not so entirely agreed with them at the outset on all their main points--that I was a mere nobody, that my life was wholly without importance, and that it was shocking to see parts of the story in print, especially the painful episode which I called ‘The Roman Catholic Conspiracy;’ for reviewers, of course, could not know the anguish it cost when I was led to publish that chapter, by its being my one chance of giving the true version of a story of which so many false versions had been given already. However, it is as Zola says, ‘Every author must, at the outset, swallow his toad,’ i.e., some malicious attack in the periodicals of the day; only I think my toads become more numerous and venomous as years go on.

“Some of the reviews are very funny indeed. The Saturday Review of ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency’ contrives to read (oh! where?) ‘how sweet and amenable and clever Augustus was,’ but is so shocked by a book ‘wholly without delicacy’ that it--‘cannot promise to read any more of it’!! The British Review, which thinks me an absolute beast, has a stirring article on ‘Myself in Three Volumes.’ The Pall Mall Gazette dwells upon their ‘bedside sentiment and goody-goody twaddle,’ and is ‘filled with genuine pity for a man who can attach importance to a life so trivial.’ The Athenæum describes me as a mere ‘literary valet.’ The New York Tribune finds the book ‘the continuous wail of a very garrulous person.’ The reviewer in the Bookbuyer speaks of the ‘irritation and occasional fierce anger’ which the book arouses in him(!). The New York Independent dwells upon my ‘want not only of all kindly sense of humour, but also of propriety.’ It is long since the National Observer has met with an author ‘so garrulous or so self-complacent.’ Finally, the Allahabad Pioneer (what a name!) votes that Mr. Hare’s chatter is ‘becoming a prodigious nuisance,’ and ‘if it had its deserts his book would make its way, and pretty quickly, to the pastry-cook and the trunk-maker.’

“What fun! Yet I am glad that most of the more respectable reviews say exactly the opposite, and certainly the public does not seem to agree with those I have quoted; it would be terribly expensive if it did. They are only birds of prey with their beaks cut and their claws pulled out, and if a book is found to be interesting, people read it whatever they say. They influence nobody, except just at first those who choose books for lending libraries.

“What is really almost irritating is the very ragtag and bobtail of reviews, whose writers can scarcely even glance at the books they are penny-a-lining--such as the Table, which ‘explains’ that ‘my grandmother was the wife of Archdeacon Hare;’ as another (I have lost it now) which speaks of ‘Priscilla Maurice, second wife of Julius Hare;’ as the Weekly Register, which reviews the life of ‘Esmeralda,’ or the student of the book who writes in The Dial and describes my life at ‘Balliol College,’ or Household Words (copied by the Free-thinker and several other even inferior reviews), which ‘quotes’ in full a long story about Mr. Gladstone and Father Healy which is not to be found in the ‘Story’ at all.

“Then, did you see Mr. Murray’s letter to the Times, which certainly gives a touching picture of the spirit of self-sacrifice which actuates publishers in their daily life, for he announces that my ‘Handbook of Berks, Bucks, and Oxon,’ which had three editions before his father’s death, and on which the author was only paid altogether £152, left, at that death, a deficit of £158!! I was sorry, all the same, that he was annoyed at my description of his father wrapt in his enveloppe de glace; for old Mr. Murray (who had cut me dead for all the years since the appearance of my Italian Handbooks) asked me to shake hands with him once again a few months before he died, which I did most cordially.”

* * * * *

To FRANCIS COOKSON.

“Holmhurst, August 29, 1897.-- ...With me, life has rippled on through several months, only I have been away for some days with the Lowthers to draw under Carlandi, and quite lately I have sorrowed bitterly at the early death of my dear Inverurie, kindest and most affectionate of young friends. I feel his being taken so much myself that I cannot bear even to think of what it must be to his nearest belongings; and yet--while absolutely free from all humbug--surely never was there any young man more simply and trustfully prepared for an early death.

“He cared less for ‘the world’ than any young fellow I have ever known, and was more in love with his family, his homes, and their surroundings.

‘Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis. Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus Sed tacitos sinit ire dies et paupere cultu Exegit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.’[581]

“Last week I was for three nights at Hurstmonceaux, actually--for the first time in thirty-seven years--at my old home of Lime. What a mixture of emotions it was; but within all is so changed, I could not recall my mother and Lea there; and the present inhabitants, the young Baron and Baroness von Roemer, were boundlessly good to me. Outside, there were many spots alive with old memories, especially in the garden, where my mother and I lived so much alone--our earthly Paradise. Did you know that the word Paradeisos means a garden?

“How I should like you to know the peculiar surroundings of Lime, different to those of any other place I have seen--the brown parched sun-dried uplands, the bosky ferny hollows, the reedy pools fragrant with mint, the eternal variety of pink lights and grey shadows on the soft downs beyond the wide Levels, which recall O’Hara’s lines--

‘Where the herds are slowly winding over leagues of waving grass, And the wild cranes seek the sedges, and the wild swans homeward pass.’

“We made a little excursion. In my very early childhood I was once at the ever-haunted Warbleton Priory, and the recollection of its utter weirdness and of the skulls kept there had always so remained with me that I had quite longed to see it again. The many stories about it are such as ought never to be told, only whispered. The very approaches have a mystery. No one will stay there now, even by broadest daylight; so we went to an old manor near Rushlake Green for the keys, but found even that so bolted and barred that we were long in obtaining them. ‘Oh no, there is never any one there,’ said the servant, ‘but you must go on till you come to a black gate, then drive in.’ To reach this, we followed a lane with well-built cottages, but they were deserted, their windows broken and their gardens overgrown; no one could live so near the accursed spot. Through the black gate we enter dark woods. A cart-track exists, winding through thickets with fine oaks interspersed, and by reedy ponds dense with waving cotton-plants. Then we cross open fields entirely covered with thistles--enough to seed all Sussex--for no one will work there. Then, through another black gate, we enter a turf-grown space, with lovely distant view between old trees, and there, with high red-tiled roofs, golden here and there with lichen, is a forlorn and mossy but handsome old stone house, built from and rising amidst other remains of an Augustinian priory. In its little garden are roses, and box bushes which have once been clipped into shapes. Inside, the mildewed rooms have some scanty remnants of their old furniture. In one of them, where a most terrible murder was committed, the blood then shed still comes up through the floor--a dark awful pool which no carpenter’s work can efface. The most frightful sounds, cries, and shrieks of anguish, rumblings and clankings, even apparently explosions, are always heard by night, and sometimes by day. In the principal room of the ground floor, in the recess of a window, are two skulls. They are believed to be those of two brothers who fought here and both fell dead. From one, the lower jaw has fallen down, increasing its ghastly effect. Successive generations of farmers have buried them, and instantly everything has gone wrong on the farm and all the cattle have died: now they have altogether abandoned a hopeless struggle with the unseen world. Besides this there is a tradition--often verified--that if any one touches the skulls, within twelve hours they pass through the valley of the shadow of Death. So naturally Warbleton Priory is left to the undisputed possession of its demon-ghosts.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL and LETTER to W. H. MILLIGAN.

“Thoresby, Oct. 22, 1897.--I began my little tour of visits at Maiden Bradley.... You know how it is almost the only remnant the title possesses from the once vast Somerset estates. The 12th Duke left everything he possibly could away, and when the present Duke and Duchess succeeded, they were pictureless, bookless, almost spoonless. Still they were determined to make the best of it. ‘He could not take away our future: we will not lament over all that is lost, but enjoy to the very utmost what we have;’ this has been the rule of their existence, and so ‘Algie and Susie,’ as they, always speak of each other, have had a most delightful life, enjoying and giving enjoyment. No one ever looked more ducal than this genial, hearty, handsome Duke: no one brighter or pleasanter than his Duchess: ‘all who have to do with her find nothing but courtesy, gentleness, and goodness,’ as Brantôme wrote of Claude of France. I liked my visit extremely. My fellow-guests were Sir E. Poynter of the Royal Academy, Lady Heytesbury, and Mrs. Kelly, an authoress. With the last I saw stately Longleat, which I had not visited since I was fourteen, and--as horses are the one indulgence the Duke gives himself--he drove us luxuriously about the country on his coach-and-four.

“The following week was delightful--with the Boynes in their beautiful hill-set home. They took me glorious excursions, and we picnicked out in beautiful places five days running. One day we went to Kinlet--a really great house, as well kept by Swedish maids (its mistress is a Swede) as if there were a dozen men-servants. And the last day we went to a real still-standing Norman farmhouse (Millichope), with its original round arched doors and windows.

“From Burwarton I went on to my pleasant cousin’s, the Francis Bridgemans, close to that beautiful church at Tong, and we spent a day with Francis’s kind old father, Lord Bradford, at Weston, and he showed us all the pictures and treasures in the house, and drove us about in his sociable to the ‘Temple of Diana’ and other points of interest in the park of a very comfortable well-to-do place.

“Next, I visited Lady Margaret Herbert (daughter of my dear Lady Carnarvon) as châtelaine at Teversal manor in Notts, a smoky wind-stricken country, but with Hardwicke and other fine houses to see. The charming aunt of my hostess, Lady Guendolen, was living with her as chaperon, none the worse in body for being a strict vegetarian, and in mind the sunniest of the sunny, delightful to be with.

‘And scarcely is she altered, for the hours Have led her lightly down the vale of life, Dancing and scattering roses, and her face Seems a perpetual daybreak.’[582]

I was glad to be taken to spend the day at Bestwood, the Duke of St. Alban’s modern place, its woods an oasis in the wilderness, and its honours were charmingly done by Lady Sybil Beauclerk and her good-looking brother Burford. In the Duchess’s room were a series of albums with all the original drawings for Dickens’s works. All the best pictures were burnt in a fire.

“The Ladies Herbert sometimes, but in a far-away sense, remind me of their mother, who was quite the most perfectly brilliant person I have ever known. I have always heard that she was this even as a girl, and that it was a perpetual surprise to her parents, who were very inferior people. Lady Dufferin used to say that they were like savages who had found a watch.

“Taking stern dismal Bolsover--its delicate carvings utterly ruined by ‘trippers’--on the way, I came on to meet a large party here at Thoresby, which is in more than usual autumnal forest glory. We have just been spending the afternoon at Welbeck, shown all the improvements by Mrs. Dallas Yorke, in the absence of the tall handsome Duchess, who, however, returned before we left. One did not wonder that she is such a special joy to the old people of the place, because they had ‘been so long without a duchess, and when there was one long ago, it was only such a little one.’ She has built a delightful gallery--Florence-fashion--between the old house and the new, and hung it with a galaxy of old prints, and has made fascinating little terrace-gardens, and edged their beds with dwarf lavender, so that ‘when the ladies’ dresses brush against it, its scent may be wafted into the house.’

“And meantime my thoughts have been much at Llandaff, with the cousin[583] who was the dearest friend of my boyhood, seeming to pass with her through the closing scenes of the good Dean’s life, and to see him as she did, lying in his cathedral, dressed in his surplice, in the majesty of eternal repose.”

* * * * *

To MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“Holmhurst, Nov. 16, 1897.--Here I am again in quietude, thinking of you very much in your last days at Llandaff; busy over the building of which I am architect, overseer, a hundred things at once, and planting a great deal, with a reminiscence of Dumbiedykes in Walter Scott--‘Be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, while you’re sleeping.’ My only companions now are the pleasant Hospitallers in the little Hospice, whom I constantly meet in the garden and wood walks. I wish you could see their little house, and the late roses lingering on their porch.

“I have been away for a week. Lady Stanhope took me from Chevening to see Lullingstone Castle in Kent, the old house of the Dykes, with a good brick gateway, a richly ceilinged upper gallery, and a chapel with interesting tombs. Two days afterwards, Lady Chetwynd took me to a finer place--Chawton in Hants, where the Knights, of Godmersham, live now, representing several old extinct families, especially the Lewknors, with whom I am very familiar through their tombs scattered all over Sussex, and who are commemorated at Chawton by many portraits and fine tapestried needlework. A little bookcase with a globe outside and a series of Elzevir Histories of the World within, was very attractive.

“Then I went to stay with ‘the richest man in the world,’ genial unassuming Mr. Astor, in his beautiful Cliveden, much improved since he bought it from its ducal owners, and enriched within by glorious portraits of Reynolds and Romney, and without by the noble terrace parapet of the Villa Borghese and its fountains, already looking here a natural part of the Buckinghamshire landscape, and replaced on its old site by a copy, which is just the same to nineteenth-century Italians! All the splendid sarcophagi and even the marble benches of the world-famous villa are now also at Cliveden, where they are more valued than at Rome. We had a charming party--Jane, Lady Churchill, retaining in advancing years ‘sa marche de déesse sur les nues,’[584] for which she was famous in her youth; the Lord Chancellor, Lady Halsbury, and a daughter; pretty gentle Princess Löwenstein; the Duchess of Roxburghe, ever wreathed in smiles of geniality and kindness, with two very tall agreeable daughters; Lord Sandwich, as bubbling with fun as when he was a young man; Lord and Lady Stanhope--always salt of the earth; with Mr. Marshall Hall and Sir Arthur Sullivan as geniuses; so, as you will see, ‘une élite très intelligente.’ Every one of these delightful people, too, was simplicity itself, rare as that virtue is to find. I see that Queen Adelaide, as Duchess of Clarence, wrote to Gabrielle von Bülow--‘How rarely you meet a really simple man or woman in our great world; they would be hard to find even with Diogenes’ lantern.’ Certainly ‘learned’ people are scarcely ever agreeable. There is a very good sentence in Hamerton about that--‘A good mental condition includes just as much culture as is necessary to the development of the faculties, but not any burden of erudition heavy enough to diminish, as erudition so often does, the promptitude or elasticity of the mind.’

“On Sunday morning we all went to the beautifully situated little church at Hedsor, arriving early and seeing the congregation wind up the steep grassy hill as to a church in Dalecarlia. In the afternoon we were driven about the grounds of Cliveden to the principal points--Waldo Story’s grand fountain in the avenue and his noble landing-place on the river. Exquisitely beautiful were the peace of the still autumn evening, the amber and golden tints of the woods, and the wide river with its reflections. Mr. Astor has attended to all the historic associations of the spot; placing a fine statue of Marlborough in the temple built by Lord Orkney, who was one of his generals, and portraits of Lady Shrewsbury and her Duke of Buckingham, and of Frederick and Augusta of Wales, in the successor of the house where they lived. Another portrait of Frederick, with his three sisters, Anne, Emily, and Caroline, all playing on musical instruments, has the old house in the background. Our host seemed to me quite absolutely frank and delightful; indeed, Surrey’s lines on Sir T. Wyatt might be applied to him--

‘An eye whose judgment no effect could blind, Friends to allure and foes to reconcile, Whose piercing look did represent a mind With virtue fraught, reposèd, void of guile.’

“Now, I am enjoying the time alone at home, with its much-reading opportunity, and I often think that my natural bent would have been to enjoy it quite as much as a boy, when all the family except you treated me not only as a consummate dunce, but a hopeless dunce; and when almost every book was thought wicked, or at best quite unsuited for a boy’s digestion. Now, eyes ache often, but I may say with Lady M. Wortley Montagu, ‘If relays of eyes were to be ordered like post-horses, I would admit none but silent companions.’

“Les années d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des livres’--part of Catherine II.’s epitaph on herself--is certainly true in my case. Just now I have been labouring through the two long thick volumes which are called ‘Memoirs of Tennyson,’ though, when you close them, you have less idea of what the man was like than when you began--of the rude, rugged old egotist, who was yet almost sublimely picturesque; of the aged sage, who in dress, language, manners was always posing for the adoration of strangers, and furious if he did not get it, or--if he did. The book is most provoking, for it would by no means have destroyed the hero to have truthfully described the man.

“There have been no end of hard-worked boy-friends here for Sundays, and it is no trouble, but very much the contrary. We always get on together capitally--

‘That which we like, likes us: No need of any fuss,’

is a capital Feejee proverb.[585]

“I think it is Frederick Locker who says that one gradually finds out how much of the affection one inspires is ‘reflected.’ ‘Though thou lose all that thou deemest happiness, if thou canst but make the happiness of others, thou shall find it again in thine own heart,’ is a sentence of George Ebers, of which I mentally leave out as irrelevant the conclusion--‘Is not this playing at being God Almighty?’”

* * * * *

To MISS GARDEN at LUCCA, and JOURNAL.

“Holmhurst, August 1, 1898.--I have been much in London since I wrote last, enjoying the garden-parties at Sion, Osterley, Holland House, Hatfield, Lady Penrhyn’s, Lady Portman’s, &c., and seeing many pleasant people, mostly ‘grandes dames de par le monde.’ Yet, in the season, it is all too great a hurry; one seldom has time to become really acquainted with any one; there are few who have even sufficient personality to leave an individual impression on the mind; if any one does, he or she is ‘like a tree in the steppe’ in the monotony of London life. I dined out daily for two months, but how difficult it is to remember any dinner-party! ‘Who cares for the whipped cream of London society?’ was a saying of Walter Scott. I do recollect one dinner, however, at Mr. Knowles’s, from the fine effect of light on Leighton’s ‘Clytie,’ the principal ornament of his dining-room, all the illumination being given to one fold of the dress, and the rest effectively left in shadow. One charming person whom I remember was Lady Blake, lately returned to England with her husband, who had been governor of Jamaica. She was fond of tame animals. ‘In Jamaica,’ she said, ‘I often had a large snake coiled round my waist; my tiger-cat I generally led by a string, for I never knew what he might do, but my tame crocodile always quietly followed me.’ She was Irish--a Bernal Osborne. ‘Oh, I assure you the Irish are very good to us, quite charming, in fact.’ ‘But if you do anything they don’t like, they kill you.’--‘Naturally.’

“On July 11 I was at Miss Fleetwood Wilson’s wedding to Prince Dolgorouki, and also at Lady Mary Savile’s in the Church of the Assumption, which was a most picturesque ceremony, performed by Cardinal Vaughan--such a fine cardinal!--in a jewelled mitre, with all accompaniments of cross-bearers, incense-swingers, &c.

“The nobly Christian death of Mr. Gladstone and the almost ludicrous apotheosis of one who, in his political life, did nothing and undid so much, were events of the spring. I have personally more individual recollection of his kindness to those who needed it than of his witty sayings; but they were constant. ‘What do you think of Purcell’s Life of Manning?’ some one said to him shortly before the end. ‘I think that Manning need have nothing to fear at the day of judgment.’ He was formidable to strangers, chiefly on account of ‘those demoniac eyes of his,’ as Cardinal Alcander said of Luther; and though in his private capacity he was all goodness, it seemed inconsistent with his public one. Yet what admirers he had! I remember his saying once to Lord Houghton, ‘I lead the life of a dog,’ and the answer, ‘Yes, of a St. Bernard--the saviour of men.’ Joseph Parker used to describe him as ‘the greatest Englishman of the century, he was so massive, sincere, and majestic. If he had had humour he would have been too good to live, but eagles don’t laugh.’

“How much and long people have talked of him, and now what a silence will fall upon it all. An amusing breakfast at Mr. Leveson’s has just been recalled to me, where Lady Marian Alford said, ‘Gladstone really puts his foot in it so often, he is a perfect centipede.’ Directly after, a wasp lighted on the breakfast-table and there was some question of killing it. ‘Oh, don’t; I can’t bear killing anything,’ cried Lady Marian. ‘What! not even a centipede?’ quietly said Lord Lyons, who was present.

“I was with Mrs. John Dundas at Holt in Wiltshire, where the little village once prospered exceedingly owing to its mineral spring. Ten smart carriages used to wait round its fountain at once whilst their owners drank the waters, and a house is pointed out where some Duchess or other died. Then the fashion changed, and drainage was allowed to filter into the spring, and Holt sank into obscurity.

“We went to see Mr. Moseley, the admirable old Rector, who is half-paralysed. A farmer had been to him to ask whether he did not think he might get his hay in on a Sunday afternoon, as the weather was likely to change, and he answered, ‘Certainly; it is God’s hay; save it by all means.’ How unlike most English priests, but how Christ-like--‘personne moins prêtre que Jesus Christ.’ ‘From the fetters of spiritual narrowness, Good Lord deliver us,’ is a petition which I feel more and more ought to be added to the Litany.[586] Yet in many houses I visit I still find much of the old Sabbath-bondage remaining, though certainly it is true that ‘we almost sigh with relief when we discover that even saints can find monotony monotonous.’

“There is a perfect cordon of drawable old manor-houses round Holt, and it is only two miles from Bradford-on-Avon, from which the great town in Yorkshire was colonised, and which owes much of its foreign look to French refugees. Its houses rise high, tier above tier, on the hillside, blue-grey against the sky. Over the Avon is a beautiful bridge with a fine old bracketed mass-chapel, long used as a lock-up. A tiny Saxon church--the only real one probably in England--has been discovered walled up into cottages; and there is a noble old ‘palace’ of the Dukes of Kingston standing in high-terraced gardens. Great Chalfield is a most lovely Tudor house, with an old chapel and moat. At South Wraxhall how I recalled many visits from my miserable so-called tutors at Lyncombe, in days of penury and starvation. How indefinite the misty future seemed in the thinking-time which those long solitary rambles afforded, and how I longed to penetrate it. At fifteen ‘j’ai trop voulu, des choses infinies,’ but I was at a parting of the ways of life then, and I think I decided in those early days to try to do the best I could here, and leave the eternities and infinities--of which I heard so much more than of realities--to take care of themselves, for:--

‘Though reason may at her own quarry fly, Yet how can finite grasp infinity?’

“But I am moralising too much and must return to my old houses, which were full of smugglers formerly--‘moonrakers’ they called them in Wiltshire, because many of the smuggled goods were concealed in the ponds, and when the excisemen caught the smugglers extracting them at night, and demanded what they were doing, they answered, ‘Oh, we are raking out the moon.’ I was working in Shropshire for some time after my Wiltshire visit, inspecting almost every church and old house for my book, and hospitably entertained by genial Fred Swete at Oswestry and the Misses Windsor Clive at beautiful Oakly Park near Ludlow.

“While in London I went for two days to Bulstrode, which the late Duke of Somerset left to his youngest daughter, Lady Guendolen Ramsden, who is the most charming of hostesses, but the place is disappointing--a very large modern villa, only one room remaining of the old house where Mrs. Delany lived so much with Margaret, Duchess of Portland, and nothing of that of Judge Jeffreys, which preceded it. It contains an early portrait of Shakspeare, and a most grand Sir Joshua of a Mrs. Weddell. We dawdled most of the day in the verandah. Oh, the waste of time in country-house visits; but Lady Guendolen had much that was pleasant to tell of her mother, the witty (Sheridan) Duchess of Somerset. ‘She was once at a bazaar selling things, and a fat, burly, plethoric farmer asked her the price of something and she mentioned it. The price seemed to him absurd. ‘Do you take me for the Prodigal,’ he said. ‘Oh, no,’ she replied; ‘I take you for the fatted calf.’ This made Graham Vivian, who was one of the party, recollect. ‘I was walking by the Duchess’s donkey-chair, and suddenly the donkey brayed horribly. “Will he do it again?” said the Duchess. “Not unless he hears another,” answered the donkey-boy. “Then mind you don’t sneeze,” said the Duchess, turning to me.’

“About Mr. L., who always speaks his mind, Lady Guendolen was very amusing:--‘Mr. L. took me in to dinner, and I thought I was making myself very agreeable to him, when he suddenly said--“Talk to your neighbour on the other side.” I felt humiliated, but I thought he fancied I couldn’t, so I did, and went on, and never spoke another word to Mr. L. I told him of it afterwards, that he had hurt me so much that I dreamt of it, and I told him my dream--that I said to him that I was considered to become very amusing after I had had two glasses of wine, and he answered, ‘Then, my dear lady, you must have been most uncommonly sober this evening.’”

* * * * *

To VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“Holmhurst, August 21, 1898.--I have been for three days at Hurstmonceaux, doubly picturesque in the burnt turf of this hot summer, upon which the massy foliage of the trees is embossed as in Titian’s landscapes. I always feel there, as nowhere else except in the views of the Roman Campagna from the Alban Hills, the supreme beauty of looking down upon vast stretches of flat pasture-land, reaching for ten miles or more, and iridescent in its pink and blue cloud-shadows, with here and there a ripple of delicate green in softest glamour of quivering light. Every hour one sees it change--luminous with long lines of natural shadow, purple from drifting storm-clouds--

‘Then at some angel evening after rain Glowing like early Paradise again.’

It is a pleasure now to be there, though life there is living amongst the sepulchres. ‘La morte, l’estrema visitatrice,’[587] has come to all I knew, and the gravestones of most of them are moss-grown--not only of all the family of my childhood, but of all the neighbours, and all that generation of poor people. How often there comes into one’s mind something like the lines often repeated in the cemetery of Port-Royal--

‘Tous ces morts ont véçu, toi qui vis, tu mourras: Ce jour terrible approche, et tu n’y penses pas.’

‘Ce n’est pas le temps qui passe, ce sont les hommes,’ was a saying of Louis Philippe. How different everything is to the time which Hurstmonceaux recalls; all hurry now and energy and updoing, and then such an extreme quietude of intellectual pursuits, in which every uninitiated visitor was considered an unendurable bore, if, however interesting he might be in himself, he did not fall in with the mutual admiration society of which the Rectory was the axis. I remember how Thomas Carlyle and Monckton Milnes, with his ‘gay and airy mind,’[588] were amongst those so considered, for they had naturally their outside views and intelligence, and the Rectory group never tried for a moment to penetrate ‘l’écorce exterieur de leur vie;’ and, while bristling with prejudices themselves, they always found much to be shocked at in every outside person they came across. It seemed oddly apropos in all the remembrance of the closed Hurstmonceaux life to read in Madame de Montagu--‘It is not a good thing for everybody to see each other every day and too closely; they risk becoming unconscious egoists, critics, rulers, or subjects, and exhaust themselves by revolving perpetually on a tiny axis.’ Yet in many ways how much more really interesting the life was then; how picturesque Uncle Julius’s enthusiasm, how pathetic his pathos over the books which were his realities; how interesting the conversation, and how genial the courtesy of such constant visitors as Bunsen and Landor, though the latter was such a perfect original, ‘dressed in classical adorning,’ as Arthur Young said of some one; then how unruffled my dearest mother’s temper, over which even Aunt Esther’s strenuous exactions were powerless; and how ceaseless the flow of her love--not charity, as people use the word now--to the poor of the cottages in the hazel-fringed lanes around her, whose cares she made her own, more moved and stirred by the querulous mutterings of Mrs. Burchett or Mrs. Cornford than by the most important events of English politics or the world’s history. Certainly she had a wonderful power with the poor, and an influence which has never passed away, for she had the rare art of entering into and understanding all their feelings; and then, when with them, she always gave them her whole attention. I feel that my two books give very different ideas of what Hurstmonceaux was fifty years ago, but both are quite true; only the ‘Memorials of a Quiet Life’ is the inside, and the ‘Story of my Life’ the outside view. How much of life, after sixty, consists in retrospect! It is, as Fanny Kemble says--

‘Youth with swift feet walks onward in the way, The land of joy lies all before his eyes; Age, stumbling, lingers slower day by day, Still looking back, for it behind him lies.’

One great difference of feeling older is that one is afraid to put off doing anything. ‘By the street of By-and-by, you come to the house of Nowhere,’ is an admirable Spanish proverb.

“I have greatly enjoyed the vivid, charming, simple letters of Mary Sibylla Holland--‘anche oggi si sente una dolcezza d’affetto a leggere quel libro.’”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN.

“Holmhurst, Sept. 29, 1898.--The building and changes here go on well, but very slowly, a result of having the work done with my own stone, and as much as possible by the men of our village. I think all will look well in the end. Not a chair or a book will be moved from the older part of the house, consecrated by my mother’s memory, but room will be given for the many things connected with Esmeralda, which I bought back at Sir Edward Paul’s sale, and, if I survive her, for many precious pieces of furniture, pictures, prints, and books from Norwich which Mrs. Vaughan says that she has left me. Where you will remember a steep grass bank, there is now a double stone terrace, with vases and obelisks, and luxuriant beds of brilliant flowers edged with stone, copied as a whole from the Italian Villa Lante near Viterbo. At the end are a staircase and gateway to the Solitude, the ‘Ave-Vale Gate,’ with ‘Ave’ on the outside and ‘Vale’ within. Cypresses are growing up beside it to enhance the impression of Italy, which is further carried out in a widening staircase from the centre of the terrace, with lead vases on the piers, copied in design and proportions from one at the Villa Arson near Nice. Just now, in this hot noon-day, the gorgeous flowers against the stone parapet, and background of brown-green ilex and blue-green pine are really very Italian, while below in the meadows all is as English as it can be, the cows feeding in the rich grass, the heavy rounded masses of oak foliage, and the misty sea asleep in the motionless heat. Nothing seems to move, except my little black Pomeranian spitz, Nero, frisking and barking at the butterflies. I am sure that much the happiest part of my present life is that spent at home, though there is nothing to tell about it--‘l’histoire ne se soucie pas des heureux.’

“Emmie Penrhyn is here, whose visits are always an unusual pleasure to me, and who is one of the dearest relations I have left, partly because, more than any one else, she has a distant likeness to my mother. She lives happily and most usefully at Richmond in a very little world, with a weak body but an all-sufficing soul.

“I have grieved so truly over the news of Ranulph Mostyn’s death in India, that I could not help writing to his mother. Yet I always hesitate about whether letters of condolence can be of any comfort, and can only act upon the knowledge that I like myself to have them in any great sorrow. No Christian disquisitions, however: they always seem forced and unmeaning. ‘Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;’ that is somewhere in Shakspeare. Thirlwall’s Letters have an excellent passage about them--‘Expressions of general condolence may be welcome as tokens of goodwill, but can scarcely exert any general alleviating power. The afflicted ones stand within a circle of images and feelings of their own, which, painful as they may be, they would not part with for worlds. Any attempt to draw them out of that circle can only inflict a useless annoyance.”

* * * * *

To MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“Holmhurst, Oct. 16, 1898.--I am alone this evening; the wind is wailing a dirge, and ‘the dark sea drinks in the greyness of the sky.’[589] But I have been away for three weeks. First to the sisters of my old friend Willie Milligan, who now live in the Barrington dower-house at Shrivenham, close to Beckett, the ideal ‘great house’ of my boyhood, so stately and luxurious. Now, so are the mighty fallen, it is let to some Australians, and the family--unless helped by an heiress--can never afford to live there again. Then I was with the delightful Boynes in the high Shropshire uplands, seeing in the most charming way many beautiful old houses. I saw two more from my next visit at Oxton in Notts--Wiverton, and Annesley where the Miss Chaworth Musters, beloved by Byron, once walked on the beautiful old terraces. Another echo from my long-ago came from my visit to Streatlam, where I so often was in my young days, and which is now inhabited by Lord Strathmore’s sister, Lady Frances Trevanion, and her pleasant cheery husband, both most kind cousins to me. The long galleries are filled with family portraits, including a great one of Mary Eleanor Bowes, whose strange story I have so often told. Lady Frances’s time is greatly taken up by the manners and morals of her dogs, the very smallest and noisiest I ever saw. They must be the sort of dogs Chaucer speaks of--

‘Of small houndes hadde she, that she fedde With rosted flesh and milk, and wastel brede; But sore wept she if one of hem were dead.’

“It was a short journey from Streatlam to Kiplin, the beautiful old house of Admiral Carpenter.... He told me how his grandfather had six sons, Talbots, and was fond of making them all lie down full length on the dining-room floor, joining one another, that he might see how many yards of sons he had! I saw Richmond from Kiplin: what a beautiful place, few abroad equal to it.

“But my most interesting visit was that to Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, rising, with a fortified central gate-tower, from a deep still moat, and with an inner courtyard full of flowers. It has dark tapestried rooms, several priest’s hiding-holes, ghosts of a lady and a child, and a murder-room, stained with the blood of a priest whom a squire of Edward IV.’s time slew when he caught him chucking his wife under the chin.[590] Then there are all the refined luxuries of fast-day dinners, evening prayers in the chapel with a congregation of maids veiled like nuns, and a live Bishop (of Portsmouth), in violet robes and gold cross and chain, to officiate.

“Such a bishop he is! such a ripple of wit and wisdom! and so full of playfulness! I read and copied somewhere--“A man after God’s own heart is never a one-sided man. He is not wholly spiritual, he is not wholly natural; he is not all earnestness, he is not all play; he cannot be all things at once, and therefore he is all things by turns.”[591] Our Bishop at Baddesley was just like this in his fun, in his love of cats, and never more charming than when he gathered up all the scraps of toast left at breakfast, and throwing open one of the windows, called ‘Quack, quack!’ and crowds of ducks came rushing under the bridge over the moat to scramble for them, one brown duck, which the Bishop called ‘the orphan,’ being especially cared for. Speaking of the frequent ignorance of religious intolerance led him to tell of the people of Imola and Brigatella, who were always quarrelling. When the priest at Brigatella began the paschal mass with ‘Christus immolatus est,’ his congregation thought it was some compliment to the people of Imola, and declared they would kill him unless he began ‘Christus brigatellatus est.’

“He had been with the Calthorpes of Woodland Vale to see an old house of theirs in the Isle of Wight, which was quite deserted, and in the very room where it occurred was told the reason why. A friend who had come there to stay with Mr. Calthorpe saw there, in the dawn of the morning, an old woman sitting knitting at the foot of the bed; he even heard the click of the knitting-needles. At first he thought she had mistaken the room, but it happened again the next day. The third time it happened, he kicked out. The old woman then turned round her face towards him, and displayed--a death’s-head. Another guest met the old woman on the stairs and equally saw the death’s-head. No servant would stay in the house, and now it is pulled down.

“After the evening service in the chapel, the Bishop went to have a cigar before going to bed. When I excused myself from joining him, he told of Benedict XIV., who offered a pinch of snuff to one of his Cardinals. ‘Santo padre, non ho quel vizio,’ he answered. ‘Se fosse vizio, tu l’avrei,’ said the Pope.

“Most charming of all was the châtelaine, the widow of my cousin Heneage Dering, whose first wife was her aunt, Lady Chatterton, the well-known novelist. The niece (‘Pysie’ Orpen) was then married to Marmion Ferrers, the last of a famous Catholic family lineally descended from the Earl of Derby attainted in the Wars of the Roses, and himself legally Baron Compton and De Ferrers, though he never claimed the title on account of his poverty and having no son. He was the pleasantest and most genial of men--‘the old squire’ he used to be called in Warwickshire. One day he found an old woman stealing his wood, and, when she expected a great scolding, he only said, ‘That load of wood is a great deal too heavy for you; you must let me carry it home for you,’ and he did. Another day he caught three poachers, and said, ‘Come, now, let us have it out!’ and they pulled off their coats and had a regular set-to: he floored two of them, he was so strong, and then he let them all go.

“His life seems to have been made up of deeds of faith and charity, but his property fell into decadence and must have been sold, if Heneage Dering, who had married his wife’s aunt, had not come to the rescue. They all lived together in the old house, mediaevally, almost mediaeval even in their dress; and after Lady Chatterton died, and then Marmion Ferrers, a final break-up of the remaining links with the past was prevented by the marriage of Heneage Dering with the widowed ‘Pysie.’ They were perfectly happy for several years, but he always said ‘a sudden death is the happiest death,’ and so in 1892 it was.

“Over the chapel door is inscribed--

‘Transit gloria mundi, Fides catholica manet,’

and the Catholic religion nourishes as much at Baddesley still as it did in the time of Sir Edward Ferrers, who founded this branch of the family in 1517, and left ‘five masses in worship of the five wounds principal that Our Lord suffered in His bitter Passion,’ and who is depicted kneeling before a crucifix, with the legend ‘Amor meus crucifixus est’ issuing from his mouth. On Sunday afternoon we went to hear the Benediction service beautifully sung by the invisible nuns of a convent close by--a convent of ‘Colettines’ from Bruges, a severe form of Poor Clares, founded here in 1850, the first of the Order since the Dissolution. A niece of Lord Clifford was their abbess. There are 250 Catholics at Baddesley.

“As we drove to Warwick, we passed through a village where the learned Dr. Parr was rector. ‘He took pupils,’ said the Bishop. ‘They were not very bright. One of them said, “I make a point of never believing anything I do not understand.” “Then your creed must be most uncommonly brief,” said Dr. Parr.’

“In returning home, I lingered one day with my kind friend E. Mathews at Sonning. I had often longed to go there on a pilgrimage to dear Hugh Pearson’s grave, and never before been able. What a lovely village it is, with its old red roofs nestling under tufted trees, and how fragrant is the beloved memory of the true pastor who gave himself so royally for his people. ‘Go and break it to my family,’ were his first words when told he could not live, meaning by his family his parishioners, the people in the village, who loved him so, and amongst whom he was almost ideally happy, for he was not only always striving to do good for the poor and helpless, but was successful in doing it.

‘His virtues walked their humble round, Nor knew a pause, nor felt a void, And sure the Eternal Master found His single talent well employ’d.’[592]

“My volume on ‘Shropshire’ has come out--another book-child launched into public life.”

* * * * *

To W. H. MILLIGAN, and JOURNAL.

“Belvoir Castle, Nov. 18, 1898.--I have been with my dear Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, enjoying their large party of pleasant musicianers, Countess Valda Gleichen, radiant Mrs. Arkwright of the lovely voice, &c., but enjoying much more two quiet days with the family when the others were gone. Mrs. L. took me to Crowe Hall, a moated house with a delightful old lady-farmeress, of the hard-working high-thinking type, so familiar in my boyhood, but almost extinct in these days of over-dressed, gig-driving, pianoforte-strumming minxes.

“One of those kind and characteristic telegrams of the Duchess of Rutland, extending over a whole page, has brought me here, where there is a large party too, almost entirely composed of the Duke’s innumerable nephews and nieces. As I do not either shoot or care for the regular evening ball in the gallery, what I like best is the daily walk with the Duke and Duchess, meeting them in the hall as the clock strikes 12.15, and wandering in the wood walks or on the nearer terraces, already fragrant with violets, listening to the Duke’s reminiscences of his own past and Belvoir’s past, always of endless interest. How I pity my host and hostess in their over-anxious cares about their immense estates; but they must be comforted themselves by the pleasure they are able to give. Sightseers are admitted always, and the great Midland towns daily pour their legions into these beautiful woods: they do no harm and behave wonderfully well, but one almost feels as if the public, who most enjoy it, ought to help to keep up the place. In the case of Belvoir, the scourge of the death-duties affects what is the pleasaunce of thousands.

“I went with Mrs. G. Drummond to Bottesford, where there is such a grand series of monuments of the Earls of Rutland and their families, including one of some children who died by witchcraft. Their nurse was condemned to be burnt for it, but said, ‘If I am guilty, may this bit of bread choke me,’ and it did! The Duchess Elizabeth, who made all the charming walks here, moved all the Dukes to her new mausoleum in the Belvoir woods, but she left the Earls at Bottesford.

“Hearing of her again here has recalled much that Lady Waterford used to tell me of the Duchess Isabella, who was called ‘Was a bella’ in her later years. She used to describe the painting of her fine portrait by Sir Joshua, how he would rush forward and look closely into her eyes, take her well in, and then go as far back as possible and look at the general effect in a distant glass, chiefly making his picture from that. Lady Adeliza Manners once met a very beautiful peasant girl near Belvoir, very beautiful except that she had lost one of her best front teeth. ‘What a misfortune,’ said Lady A.; ‘how could it have happened?’--‘Oh, the Duchess (Isabella) had lost one of her front teeth, so she forced me to have mine taken out to replace it.’

“I wonder if you went to Harlaxton when you were here--the immense modern house by Blomfield, of which a most pleasant Mr. Pearson Gregory suddenly found himself the heir from a godfather. He was staying at the castle and took me there. When the Empress Frederick was here, she admired it beyond words, but I did not: it is magnificent, but too heavy, and the staircase very dark. Outside there are garden-staircases and fountains, which are really beautiful, almost worthy of the Villa Aldobrandini. There is a picture of a De Ligne baby, the heir of the place, whose cradle was put too close to the fire: a coal flew out, and it was burnt to death. The village is rendered infinitely picturesque by stone wells and portals made from fragments of a recently destroyed moated manor-house, of which only the gateway is left.

“There is a great charm in being made a sharer in what Disraeli called ‘the sustained splendour of a stately life,’ but much of the pleasure of a great country-house depends upon whom it falls to your lot to take down to dinner, and the Duchess attends to this with careful cleverness. I was especially amused by one sentence in that delightful ‘Isabel Carnaby’--‘There is one good thing in getting married. You know then that, whatever happens, there is one woman you will never have to take in to dinner again as long as you live.’

“And what funny things people say at dinner. Lately--not here--a very ‘great lady’ said to me, ‘I can assure you that the consciousness of being well dressed gives me an inward peace which religion could never bestow.’”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Holmhurst, Jan. 21, 1899.--I sit alone on my hilltop, amid the swirling mists, and howling winds, and swelching rain, and am often very desolate and full of melancholy thoughts, which require active work to drive them away. But I ought not to complain, for before Christmas I was a week with the kind Llangattocks at the Hendre in beautiful Monmouthshire, seeing much that was interesting, and driving with four horses and postillions, to Raglan, and through the beautiful brown billowy country of the Forest of Dean. Then I had a quietly happy fortnight at Torquay with my kind Thornycroft cousins; and went from them to Mount Ebford to Pamela Turner, a very pleasant first cousin I had not seen for years; paying, lastly, a sad visit--because probably the last ever possible--to beautiful Cobham.... Yet I am alone now, and perhaps it is as well that my thoughts should be always turning to the ‘undiscovered country’ which will be so much to us, and of which we know nothing, even though we may be very near its shores. I work on, I enjoy on, but I feel more that life is becoming a waiting time.

‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; My master calls me, I must not say no.’[593]

And there is a sentence of Epictetus which seems to demand thinking about. ‘If the Master call, run to the ship, forsaking all these things, and looking not behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the ship at any time, lest the Master should ask, and thou not be ready.’ ... It was Adrienne de Lafayette who said, ‘Must we not all die? The great thing is to be always ready; as for the kind of death, that is only a detail.’ I think and think, as so many millions have thought, how it can be after death, and such inquiries and searchings have no answer. Still, as Jowett wrote towards the close of life, ‘Though we cannot see into another life, we believe, with inextinguishable hope, that there is still something reserved for us.’

“I feel the view usually held now on these subjects is wholesomer than that of my childhood, when ‘good people’ talked with such dogmatic assurance, in all ‘le bel air de leur devotion,’ of how glorious their life in another world would be, whilst definitely condemning so many of their neighbours to the hell which, in their imagination, was their God’s vindictive retaliation for His injuries. I often remember her words, and I think I realise the feeling with which my dear old friend Mrs. Duncan Stewart once said to me, ‘I should say, like Dr. Johnson, I am speaking in crass ignorance, according to the failings of my fallible human nature; and yet, may we not all, whilst acting like fallible human beings as we are, trust respectfully to God’s mercy, though speaking of no glorious future as reserved for us, lest He should say, “What hast thou done to deserve this?”’

“Lord Llangattock writes urging me to join the Anti-vivisection Society; but I answer I am not competent to judge of it. Then he sends me its pamphlets, which seem to me rather blasphemous, asserting that ‘Christ died just as much for all animals as for all human beings.’ What! for bugs, lice, ringworms, mosquitoes? ‘Don’t kill that flea; Christ died for it.’ Then how about cobras and puff-adders? Surely it must have been the Devil that died for those. What nonsense people, especially ‘religious people,’ write in these little pamphlets, almost as great nonsense as most country clergy preach in the dreary Sahara of their endless sermons. ‘Long texts, short sermons,’ was John Wesley’s maxim, and what a good one!”

* * * * *

JOURNAL and LETTERS.

“Rome, March 10, 1899.--I was very ailing, and Catherine Vaughan insisted on my seeing Dr. Sansom, who found me so ‘run down’ that he insisted on my coming out here to my ‘native air;’ therefore here I am, and already it has done me good. I found my dear old friend Miss Garden rather better than I left her three years ago, and full of her sister Mrs. Ramsay’s escape, having been upset in a carriage close to the edge of the Tarpeian rock. ‘If the horse had not been assolutamente pecora,’ said the coachman, ‘she must have gone over.’

“The other day I was with a circle of old friends who were discussing the ‘Story of my Life.’ ‘Surely the early part must have been exaggerated,’ said one of them, ‘that story of Aunt Esther hanging the cat, for instance,[594] because the child loved it.’ ‘I can testify that that story was absolutely true, for I was there,’ said an old clergyman present, ‘and I have shuddered over the cruel recollection ever since.’ It was Canon Douglas Gordon. I had quite forgotten that he was a pupil of Mr. Simpkinson, curate of Hurstmonceaux, at the time. Mr. Gordon also said, ‘I can vouch, too, for the truth of the story of the bullying at Harrow, for I was myself the victim;’ and he told how a brutal bully got a dead dog, and cut off its feet, ears, &c., and forced him to drink them in coffee. That day he ran away. ‘Alexander Russell’ went with him. They had only four miles to go to his father Lord Aberdeen’s house at Stanmore. He and Lord Abercorn were governors of the school. They happened to be together, and they sent him back in a carriage that evening with a letter to the head-master saying that, in the interests of the school, what had happened had better be hushed up; but that it was so dreadful, that he--the master--must be compelled to take the awful bullying in the school seriously in hand. And he did. Mr. Gordon says that the wickedness of Harrow at that time was quite appalling: things which could never be mentioned were then of nightly occurrence all over the school. The masters were as bad, and would come into the very pupil-rooms humming obscene songs.

“What an age of independent criticism it is! An acquaintance here said to me the other day, ‘I have a horror of the patriarchs, and how any one can set up such wicked, low, mean men as an example, I cannot understand--Jacob and the rams, for instance. No wonder the Jews were bad with such examples to follow.... I believe in Christ thoroughly and cling to the thought of Him: of course the story of His birth and all that is very difficult, but “autre pays, autres mœurs,” that is what I say.’”

* * * * *

“March 24.--We have been to Tivoli on the most glorious day--a pellucid sky, and exquisite blue shadows flitting over the young green of the Campagna. From the station I went to S. Antonio, the old hermitage and shrine bought by the Searles. Mrs. Searle met me most kindly. I said, ‘What a beautiful home you have!’ ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘and the really delightful thing is that the Lord has given it to us.’ I could hardly help saying, ‘I suppose that means you bought it.’ Afterwards I found she was one of the very few ladies who belong to the Salvation Army. She is kind and Christian beyond words--‘vraie marchande de bonheur’--and her lovely home is a centre of thoughtful charity; but being in this Catholic country gives her many qualms and shocks. One day lately she was alone in a lane near her home, and came upon a shrine of the Virgin with her little statue, and was filled with righteous indignation at ‘that doll.’ As she stood there, a number of peasant women came up and knelt before the shrine and prayed most devoutly. When they got up she said, ‘How could you pray to that graven image? I wonder what you were praying for.’ ‘Why, we were asking the Madonna to send us rain; our land needs it so much,’ said the women, much surprised at her wrath. ‘How can you pray to her for that?’ said Mrs. Searle; ‘let me show you how to pray,’ and then and there she knelt down in the dusty road and prayed aloud, prayed with her whole heart to her Lord, that He would send them the rain they needed; and immediately, though the sky had been quite clear till then, it poured!

“The women went away to their priest and told him that they had seen a lady who reviled the Madonna, but who was a powerful witch and had been able to bring the rain by her enchantments.”

* * * * *

“March 29.--To Sutri with Mrs. Ramsay. In the early morning the dew was like crystal, every leaf glistening. The mountains rose pale blue against an opal sky, but were hidden at their base by the delicate mists of the plain. It was a long, long drive before we reached the great solid rock, which is hewn away within into all the circular steps of a vast amphitheatre overhung by mighty ilexes. Behind it, is an Early Christian church, also hewn out of the rock,--pillars, font, and altar all one with it.

“Se voi pensate sedere sopra una cittadina Americana, voi vi sbagliate,’ was heard by Gery Cullum from an American lady here in altercation with her cabman.”

* * * * *

“April 1.--I have had one of my Palatine lectures quite in the old way, and a luncheon with the charming Crown Princess of Sweden has been a great pleasure.

“Dining at Palazzo Bonaparte, M. de Westenberg told me that one day when Madame Mère was living there, a stranger came to the palace and insisted upon seeing her on a matter of vital importance. He was evidently a gentleman, but would not tell his name or errand. At last his urgency prevailed, and Madame Mère admitted him. He gave her a crucifix and said it belonged to her son in St. Helena, and then he said, ‘You need no longer be unhappy about him, for he has just entered into rest: his sorrows are over.’ It was on that day that Napoleon died in St. Helena.

“Miss Garden says, ‘Lanciani came to me one day. He was not married then, and he said, “I am too miserably dull; it cannot go on; I must either take a wife or a cat.” “Well, and which should you prefer, Signer Lanciani?”--“Oh, a me sono tutte due eguale,” he said. “But la signora madre, which would she prefer?”--“Oh, la madre,” he said meditatively, “il gatto.”

“‘All life has its sorrows,’ says Miss Garden, ‘only they are unequally distributed. Do you know what Eddie Baddeley’s sorrow is? He is only three, you know. It is that the turkey-cock at the Villa Borghese will not make friends with him. “But don’t you think he will ever like me?” he said to his mother. “No, my dear,” she said, “I don’t think he ever will.” But it was just one of those cases in which I think a lie would have been permissible; she had better have held out hopes.’”

* * * * *

“Palazzo Guadagni, Florence, April 17.--I have been here ten days as the guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, and found Mrs. and Miss Lowther here. It is an unusual life. We scarcely see our hostess till dinner-time, unless she asks us to drive with her, and we have each a most comfortable apartment, with excellent food and service, and the whole day to employ as we like. Many are the old friends we have seen, but most frequently the Marchesa Peruzzi, Story’s daughter, who has all his agreeable power of narration. ‘The reason why we loved Mrs. Browning so much as children,’ she says, ‘is because she always treated us as her equals, and talked to us as such. Pen and I used to sit at her feet, and she was just as courteous to us as to any of the grown-up people.’”

* * * * *

“Arco in Sud Tyrol, April 27.--I came here with the Lowthers, and we have been some days with two delightful Misses Warre, sisters of the head-master of Eton. It is an exquisitely beautiful place, with glorious excursions. One day we have spent most deliciously at Castel Toblino, a grand old castle which looks at itself in a glassy lake surrounded by mountains. General Baratieri, a hero, though a most unfortunate one, is one of those of whom we have seen something here.”

* * * * *

“Holmhurst, May 10.--Reached the dear home with great thankfulness, after a most severely hard-worked fortnight for a new edition of my ‘Paris.’”

* * * * *

“June 14, 1899.--At luncheon at Lady Constance Leslie’s I met Mr. Holman Hunt, a charming, simple, natural man. He spoke of the great difficulty of getting any one to do such work as is wanted for St. Paul’s Cathedral; that few would give up the high prices paid now for other work for the small prices the Government would pay. He talked of Leighton, whom he had known intimately in early life. Three tailors in Bond Street, thinking it might be a good speculation, clubbed together to buy one of his first pictures. They offered £100 for it: he stuck out for £200. Eventually it was arranged that they should pay £150, but a suit of clothes was to be thrown in. Then came the violent abuse of all Leighton’s work, and the tailors got alarmed, and sold the picture for £100 without any suit of clothes. That picture was afterwards bought for thousands by the Gallery at Liverpool, and there it is now, unlikely ever to come to the hammer again.

“After this, when Leighton’s pictures were accepted for the Academy and he was hard at work for the next year, he was told by his studio-man that some one wanted to speak to him. He sent out word that he was very busy and could not see any one; but the man was pertinacious and would not go away. At last Leighton said, ‘Well, he had better come in for a minute and say what his business is.’ So he was let in. But it was a man who stood by the door and did not come further. ‘Well,’ said Leighton, ‘what do you want?’ ‘To come straight to the point at once,’ said the man, ‘I want that picture’ (pointing to the work upon the easel). ‘You get £300 now for your pictures, don’t you? Well, I will give you £700.’ ‘But you have not even seen the picture,’ said Leighton; ‘you don’t even know what the subject is.’ ‘No, I don’t,’ said the man, ‘and, if I did, I should know no more about it than I do now.’ That man was Agnew. He acquired the picture: it was his first venture.

“Mr. Holman Hunt said, speaking of the bad results of Board Schools, that he had been away lately. When he came back, a boy came to him as a model, a very good boy, whom he had not seen for some time. ‘Well,’ he said to the boy, ‘it’s a long time since I’ve seen you; I’ve been away; I’ve been at Stratford-on-Avon.’ ‘Ah,’ said the boy slowly, ‘so you’ve been at Stratford-on-Avon, have you? That’s where Shakspeare lived, him as married Anne Hathaway, and him as they called the Swan of Avon and the smooth-tongued liar (lyre). It’s well I didn’t live in them times, or they might have been calling me some such beastly names as that.’”

* * * * *

“Holmhurst, Sept. 8.--Early on the morning of July 29 I was summoned from home by telegraph to the dying bed of my dear cousin Catherine Vaughan, perhaps more than any one else still left bound up with all my life in the long-ago. She had forbidden any one to come to her when ill, but desired that, if it was known she was dying, I should be sent for. I found her terribly ill and suffering, though delighted to see me. That Saturday was a day of great anguish, both for herself and those with her. But she grew calmer in the night, and was with us still for four days and nights, during which I seemed to go back into my old life with my mother, constantly by her side, fanning her, wiping the poor brow, trying to help her to bear through. Almost her very last words were ‘Dear, dear Augustus.’ Then, the day before she quite left us, she was unconscious, and we sate in a great calm, only waiting for the coming of the angel. A majestic beauty had come back to her in the shadow of death, a likeness to her mother, to her brother Arthur Stanley at his best, to the ‘Curly Kate’ of sixty years ago, only now they were snow-white curls which rippled over the pillow. I think it was the so frequent sight of this life-long friend, more intimate and dearer than ever in the last few years, yet so much older than myself, which has always made me feel young, and that, with her passing away, a bridge is broken down. It has been since quite a small added pain to take leave of the old furniture and pictures, the inanimate witnesses of our lives--‘auld nick-nackets’ somebody called them--but still silent and sacred memorials of the dear Alderley and Norwich family homes, which have now passed almost to a stranger. They could still recall to those familiar with them so much that only Kate and I knew, and so much more that only Kate and I cared about.

‘Yea, truly, as the sallowing years Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, And that unwakened winter nears, ’Tis the void chair our surest guest receives, ’Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, ’Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears; We count our rosary by the beads we miss.’[595]

“How long and how full the hours of watching by a death-bed seem! how full of what varied emotions and anxieties, an almost agonising eagerness to do the right thing every minute even in a physical sense, but much more to say the right thing, only the right thing, to one who is on the awful threshold of so great a transition, to whom, because she is on the very brink of unravelling the great mystery, all the commonplaces, even of religion, must fall so flat. One can only try to help, to support the beloved one, who is passing away from our possibilities, spiritually as well as physically, try to recollect what would be a comfort to oneself in such a crisis, and let oneself go with the departing one to the very portal itself.

“With dear Kate I had often spoken of this, yet, when the reality came, it was unlike all we had imagined, and I suppose it is always so. But I felt how well it must always be to talk over the end of life with those you are likely to be near when the close really comes. It makes a sort of death-bed comradeship, if I can so call it, which could never exist without it, and certainly in this case it made Kate cling to my being constantly with her, when she would allow no one else to see her. Then how seldom any words are possible from a dying person. In the six death-beds I have attended it has been so; and even in this case, when it lasted four days and nights, there was little speech, only an urgency that I should never leave her, that I should keep near her, that I should be close by her side as long as she was on earth at all, till she passed into the unseen.

“Whilst feeling the change which her loss makes in my life, I have read words of Bishop Magee which have come home to me. ‘The most beautiful and natural of sunsets is still a sunset, and the shadows that follow it are chill and depressing. I begin to feel the peculiar sadness that the death of much older relatives brings to those who are entering themselves on old age. When I see all those whom I remember once, middle-aged men and women, younger by many years than I am now, all passed and gone, I feel somehow as if light was going out of life very fast. There are so few living with whom one can recall the past, and grow young again in recalling it.’”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Holmhurst, Sept. 31.--I have been a week at Swaylands to meet the Duchess of York, and as there were scarcely any other guests, saw a great deal of her, and was increasingly filled with admiration for the dignified simplicity and single-mindedness, and the high sense of duty by which her naturally merry, genial nature is pervaded, and which will be the very salvation of England some day. Before her scandal sits dumb: she has a quiet but inflexible power of silencing everything which seems likely to approach ill-natured gossip, yet immediately after gives such a genial kindly look and word to the silenced one as prevents any feeling of mortification. All morning the Duchess was occupied with her lady in real hard work, chiefly letters, I believe; in the afternoons we went for long drives and sight-seeings--of Penshurst, Knole, Groombridge, Hever, Ightham, and she was full of interest in the history and associations of these old-world places. At Hever the owners were away, but we got a table from a cottage, and an excellent tea-meal was spread upon it at the top of the high field above the castle. If the Duchess is ever Queen of England, that table will be considered to have a history.”

* * * * *

“Holmhurst, Sept. 8.--I have been in Suffolk on an ancestor-hunt, which involved a delightful visit to Herbert and Lady Mary Ewart at Great Thurlow. It was in the time of George I., I think, that our great-great-uncle Francis Naylor, the owner of Hurstmonceaux Castle, a ‘Medmenham Brother’ and the wildest of the wild, was led to a changed and better life by his love for the beautiful Carlotta Alston of Edwardstone. Unfortunately, whilst they were engaged, his father, Bishop Hare, found out that her elder sister, Mary Margaret, was one of the greatest heiresses in England, married her without telling his son till the day before the wedding, and then positively forbade him to become his brother-in-law. Francis Naylor was very much inclined to go to the devil again, but Carlotta maintained her influence, and eventually they were married without the Bishop’s consent. They were too poor to live at Hurstmonceaux, but the third Miss Alston had married the rich Stephen Soame, and she gave them a home, and there, in the house of the generous Anne Soame, they lived and died. The old Jacobean mansion of Little Thurlow was magnificent and had eighty-one bedrooms; its beautiful wrought-iron gates with pilasters were given by Charles II., who often stayed there, and the family lived at Little Thurlow in most unusual state, even for that time, driving out daily in three carriages-and-four. Sir Stephen Soame, the builder of the house, has a grand tomb in the church where Francis and Carlotta Naylor and Anne Soame are buried behind his stately carved pew, and there are a most picturesque grammar-school and almshouses erected by him. I remember some of the Soames coming to Hurstmonceaux--as cousins--in my childhood, but their direct line died out at last, and the place went to some very distant relations from Beverley, who pulled down the old hall, because ‘they could not live in a house where you could drive a coach-and-four up the great staircase.’ Old Mrs. Soame, however, of the second set, did not die till she was 104, and the last of her two daughters only in 1885. Yet the Misses Soame had never been to London: their travels were limited to being driven twice a year to Lowestoft in their large yellow chariot with post-horses. They always intended to try the railway by going from Haverhill to the next station and having their carriage to meet them there; but when the day came they shrank from the feat. They were ‘worth an income to the doctor, the chemist, and the fishmonger,’ and they left a fortune to the family of a man who had once proposed to one of them.”

* * * * *

“Holmhurst, Oct. 23.--Again I have been on an ancestor-hunt. I met Mrs. Lowther at the old haunted house of Lawford Hall near Manningtree, and our hostess, Mrs. Mouncey, sent us to Hadleigh, where Mary Margaret Alston’s grandfather, Charles Trumbull, was the very saintly Rector in the time of James II., and resigned his living for his ordination oath’s sake on the advent of William III. The Rectory, now known as the Deanery, is a glorious old house, with a grand brick gateway, priests’ hiding-holes, and curious pictures by Canaletto--an intimate friend and visitor of one of the rectors--let into its walls. It was the home of Rowland Taylor, the Marian martyr, who was dragged down the street of Hadleigh to his stake outside the town ‘cracking jokes all the way,’ and another vicar was Hugh Rose, when Archbishop Trench was the curate.

“Two days later I went to Edwardstone, a delightful old place near Sudbury, one of the many of which Bishop Hare’s wife was the heiress, and where numbers of her Alston ancestors are buried; and then I was two days at the familiar Campsea Ashe, where, as its beloved owner says, ‘If you do not know how to enjoy yourself, you must be made to.’ Mr. Astor was there, and told me that the origin of the American expression ‘a chestnut’ lay in the rivalries of the theatres in Chestnut Street and Walnut Street in New York. An expected star who came out in the Walnut Street Theatre could only do things which had already appeared in Chestnut Street, and when the young men saw them they said, ‘That’s a chestnut,’ and it passed into a proverb.

“Mr. Astor was very funny about a man who was always late for everything, and who one day, when he was expecting a party to stay with him, rushed home after all his guests had arrived. On the stairs he met a man, with whom, to make up for lost time, he shook hands most warmly, saying, ‘Oh, my dear fellow, I’m so glad to see you; do make yourself quite at home and enjoy yourself.’ It was a burglar, very much surprised at his cordial reception, for he was carrying off all the valuables. He also said--

“‘You know Dr. N. and his wonderful tales. I heard him tell of going to shoot chamois. He had sighted one a long way off and fired. He said the chamois never moved, but put up one foot and scratched its ear. He fired again, and it put up the other foot and scratched the other ear. Then he fired again and killed it. When he came up to it, he found that each of the first shots had touched an ear. The chamois had only thought, “Oh, these damned fleas!”

“‘Then Dr. N. told of how he went after bears. A grisly came and he shot him: then another grisly came and he shot him: then a third grisly came.... “If you say you shot him” said a man present, “I’ll throw this bottle at your head.” “Well, the third grisly escaped,” calmly said Dr. N.’

“The last two days of my absence I spent with the Grant Duffs at Lexden Manor, where Sir Mountstuart was most agreeable and anecdotive, and whence Lady Grant Duff drove me to see the old gateway of Layer Marney, beautiful in its great decay.”

* * * * *

“London, Nov. 29.--Luncheon with the C.’s, who had dined last night with the Wilberforces. Canon Wilberforce told them of a missionary establishment in Africa, a most admirable mission, which had been most effective, had converted the whole neighbourhood, built church and schools, and done no end of good.

“Then, in some crisis or other, the mission was swept away and the place was long left desolate.

“After many years the missionaries returned, expecting to find everything destroyed. But, to their astonishment, they found the church-bell going and the buildings in perfect repair, all looking as before--only there was a difference. They could not make out what it was.

“So they went to the chief and asked him about it. ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘there is one little difference. You used to tell us that God was love and always watching over us for good, while the devil was always seeking to destroy us; so we felt it was the devil we had better propitiate, and it is the devil we have worshipped ever since you left, and--it has most completely answered.’”

* * * * *

“Dec. 22, 1899.--I am just at the end of a long retreat in a sort of private hospital, where I have been for the sake of the ‘Nauheim cure’ for an affection of the heart, from which I have now suffered for more than a year, and which was greatly increased by the anxieties and sorrows of last August. I am better since my ‘cure,’ but am seldom quite well now, and, as I read in a novel, ‘my dinner is always either a satisfying fact or a poignant memory,’ and generally the latter. The South African war news is casting a shadow over the closing year, and the death of Lady Salisbury has been a real sorrow--an ever-kind friend since my early boyhood. I went to the memorial service for her in the Chapel-Royal--a beautiful service, but a very sad one to many.”

* * * * *

To MRS. and MISS AGNES THORNYCROFT (after a happy visit to them at Torquay).

“Liskeard, May 7, 1900.--I will begin a history to my two kindest of hostesses from this dreary wind-stricken little town, which is as ugly as it can be, but with a large, clean, old-fashioned posting-inn. I got a little victoria to take me the 2½ miles to St. Cleer’s Well in the uplands, in a moorland village, approached by primrosy, stitchworty lanes. The well is a glorious subject for sketching, old grey stones tinged with golden lichen, a canopy of open Norman arches, and background of purple hill. It was so bitterly, snowily cold that I feared, as I sate down on my camp-stool, that sciatica would never allow me to rise from it; but Providence sent me a whole schoolful of children, boys and girls, about sixty of them, who pressed close round through the whole performance, so I just wore them like an eider-down, and was rather hot than otherwise. Returning, the evening was still so young that I took the carriage on to St Keyne’s Well, on the other side of Liskeard, but it was scarcely worth the visit.”

“Helston, May 8, 6 P.M.--No farther than this, for when I arrived here at midday, I found there was no chance of getting on to the Lizard; the whole town was in too great a turmoil to attend to any individual, for it was Furry Day, a local floral festa from very early times, and all the gentlemen and ladies of the neighbourhood (the real ones!) were dancing in couples, with bands playing through the streets, under garlanded arches and flags flying from every window. This sounds lovely, but really was not--only curious, though it gave infinite satisfaction to the thousands of spectators, who on this day bring great wealth to the town. But oh! the noise and discomfort for an unwilling spectator--the organs, and peep-shows, and wild-beast shows, and ‘Boer and Briton’ shows, and horsemanship-ladies careering through the streets after the dancing was over. If any one wishes to know what the Inferno is like and the worst din the human mind can imagine, they should spend a ‘Furry Day;’ only, to be sure, at Helston all the people are quite good, which would probably make a very considerable difference!”

“Helston, May 10.--Yesterday I breakfasted in the coffee-room with an old gentleman who was exceedingly angry with me because I did not think Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ should be one of the twelve novels to be saved if all the rest in the world were swept away--‘only the most dense ignorance of literature’ could make me confess such a thing!

“It was a drive of ten miles in a grand and lonely landau through a country brilliant with gorse and blackthorn. Beneath a great plantation on the right was the Loe Pool, only separated by a strip of silver sand from the sea, and described in Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur.’ Beyond a wooded hollow with rocks and fir trees the road enters upon the high-lying plain of the Lizard, wind-stricken, storm-swept, without a tree, the houses of ugly Lizard-town rising black against a pellucid sky on the horizon. A scrambling walk down a rugged lane, and then a pathlet marked by white stones above tremendous precipices brought me to Kynance Cove--a little disappointing, for it was high water when it ought to have been low, and a grey colourless day when it ought to have been brilliant. However, my drawing ‘answered,’ as Aunt Kitty would have said, and in two hours, as it began to mizzle, I was ready to return.”

“Tintagel, May 10.--The ‘girling’ of the sea in the old ballad of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ just expresses what one hears here. This ‘Wharncliffe Arms’ is an ideal inn, and very striking is the little glen, now so primrosy, with the black ruined castle, the cries of the seabirds--

‘And the great sea-waves below, Pulse of the midnight, beating slow.’”[596]

* * * * *

“Royal Hotel, Bideford, May 15.--This house has beautiful old rooms built by John Davy, the first tobacco merchant, with splendid Italian ceilings: the little Revenge was built in a shipping yard just before the house, and in a narrow street on the other side the river is a public-house which is the house of Sir Richard Grenville. I thought the path above the precipice at Lynton the most beautiful sea-walk I ever saw. In places it is a sheer wall of rock rising from the waves--

‘Which roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves Beneath the windy wall.’”

* * * * *

“Middlewick, Corsham, May 18.--The kind Clutterbucks, with whom I am staying, took me to Castlecombe yesterday, the home of the Scroopes for five hundred years, and quite one of the most enchanting places in England, in its green glen, its clear rushing river, its exquisite church tower and old market-cross. I saw it last at nine years old, and was enchanted to find its loveliness all and more than I remembered. To-day we went to luncheon at Harnish, and I visited once more the little rectory where I was at school for three and a half most miserable years. How different a little boy’s path is now! We saw Corsham Court afterwards, with Cronje’s flag floating over its staircase.”

“Holmhurst, May 23.--I found a very large party on Saturday at hospitable Mr. Astor’s, and Cliveden in great beauty, entrancing carpets of bluebells under the trees. A telegram from the Queen of Sweden took me to Roehampton on Monday. It was twenty-two years since I had seen the King, and I thought him even handsomer and more royal-looking than of old. The Queen is not less fragile, and as full of good thoughts and words as ever. I had luncheon with the royal pair and their household, and a long talk with the Queen afterwards, who told me much of my especial Prince, now Regent in his father’s absence.”

XXXI

FAREWELL

“Pleasure to our hot grasp Gives flowers after flowers; With passionate warmth we grasp Hand after hand in ours: Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.” --MATTHEW ARNOLD.

“Oh, He has taught us what reply to make, Or secretly in spirit, or in words, If there be need, when sorrowing men complain The fair illusions of their youth depart, All things are going from them, and to-day Is emptier of delights than yesterday, Even as to-morrow will be barer yet: We have been taught to feel this need not be, This is not life’s inevitable law; But that the gladness we are called to know Is an increasing gladness, that the soil Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become Richer and deeper, fitted to bear fruit Of an immortal growth from day to day, Fruit of love, life, and inefficient joy.”--R. C TRENCH.

“Lord, I owe thee a death: let it not be terrible: yet Thy will, not mine, be done.”--HOOKER.

“When the tapers now burn blue, And the comforters are few, And that number more than true, Sweet Spirit, comfort me!”--HERRICK.

I must close this book. Printers are calling for its last pages. It is like seeing an old friend go forth into a new world, and wondering if those who inhabit it will understand him and treat him well. Perhaps no one will read it except the intimate circle--a large one certainly--who have loved Hurstmonceaux, Stoke, and little Holmhurst at different times. But I can never regret having written it, and it has been so great an enjoyment to me, that perhaps others may like it; for I have concealed nothing, and Coleridge says, “I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book. Let him relate the events of his own life with honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied them.”[597]

Most people will say two volumes would have been enough, but the fact is I have written chiefly for myself and my relations, and not for the general public at all. They may read the book if they like, but it was not intended for them, and, as Walter Scott describes it--

“Most men, when drawn to speak about themselves, Are moved by little and by little to say more Than they first dreamt; until at last they blush, And can but hope to find secret excuse In the self-knowledge of their auditors.”[598]

Except that I have seen more varieties of people than some do, I believe there has been nothing unusual in my life. All lives are made up of joys and sorrows with a little calm, neutral ground connecting them; though, from physical reasons perhaps, I think I have enjoyed the pleasures and suffered in the troubles more than most. But from the calm backwater of my present life at Holmhurst, as I overlook the past, the pleasures seem to predominate, and I could cordially answer to any one who asked me “Is life worth living?”--“Yes, to the very dregs.”

Sainte-Beuve says, “Il est donné, de nos jours, à un bien petit nombre, même parmi les plus délicats et ceux qui les apprécient le mieux, de recueillir, d’ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon ses goûts, avec suite, avec noblesse.” And latterly my days have been “avec suite;” “avec noblesse” is what they ought to have been. In my quiet home, of which little has been said in these volumes, days succeed each other unmarked, but on the whole happy, though sometimes very lonely. The whole time passes very quickly, yet it is, as I remember the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden wrote to my aunt Mrs. Stanley--“In youth the years are long, the moments short, but in age the moments are long, the years short.” Really I have been alone here for thirty years, twelve in which my dearest Lea was still presiding over the lower regions of the house, and eighteen in absolute solitude. It is the winter evenings, after the early twilight has set in, which are the longest. Then there are often no voices but those of the past:--

“Time brought me many another friend That loved me longer; New love was kind, but in the end Old love was stronger.

Years come and go, no New Year yet Hath slain December, And all that should have cried, Forget! Cried but--Remember!”

People say, “It is all your own fault that you are solitary; you ought to have married long ago.” But they know nothing about it; for as long as my mother lived, and for some time after, I had nothing whatever to marry upon, and after that I had very little, and I have been constantly reminded that people of the class in which I have always lived do not like to marry paupers. Besides, the fact is, that except in one impossible case perhaps, very long ago, “I have never loved any one well enough to put myself in a noose for them: it is a noose, you know.”[599] What I have to regret is that I have no very near relations who have in the least my own interests and sympathies, though they are all very kind to me. I have far more in common with many of my younger friends, “the boys,” who cease to be boys after a few years, and many of whom, I am sure, turn to Holmhurst as the haven of their lives. But one feels that there would be this difference between any very congenial near relations and even the kindest friends: the latter are very glad to see one, but would be very sorry to see more of one; whilst the former, if they existed, would take it as a matter of course.

By friends I often feel that I am greatly over-estimated, so many ask my advice, and act upon what I tell them. It is a responsibility, but I feel that I am right in urging what I have always found answer in my own case, and what has greatly added to my happiness. When a wrong, sometimes a very cruel wrong, is done to one, one must not try at once to do some good to those who have done it, because that would be to mortify them; but if one immediately, at once, sets to think of what one can do for somebody else, it takes out the taste. Then one can very soon paste down that unpleasant page of life, as if it had never existed, and all will be as before.

Also, always believe the best of people till the worst is proved, and meditate not on your miseries, but your blessings.

The greatest of all the blessings I have to be grateful for is, that though, since my serious illness six years ago, I have never been entirely without pain, I have, notwithstanding this, good health and a feeling of youth--just the same feeling I had forty years ago. I suppose there will be many who will be surprised to see in these pages how old I am; I am unspeakably surprised at it myself. I have to be perpetually reminding myself of my years, that I am so much nearer the close than the outset of life. I feel so young still, that I can hardly help making plans for quite the far-distant future, schemes of work and of travel, and I hope sometimes of usefulness, which of course can never be realised. I have very good spirits, and I feel that I should be inexcusable if I were not happy when I remember the contrast of my present life to my oppressed boyhood, or to the terrible trial of the time when every thought was occupied by such tangled perplexities as those of the Roman Catholic conspiracy.

My next greatest blessing is my home, so infinitely, so exquisitely suited to my needs, and indeed to all my wishes. As I write this, and look from my window across the tiny terrace with its brilliant flowers to the oakwoods, golden in the autumn sunset, and the blue sea beyond, with the craggy mass of Hastings Castle rising up against it, I feel that there are few places more lovely than Holmhurst. Then the walks in the grounds offer a constant variety of wood and rock, flowers and water, and the distant view changes constantly, and composes into a hundred pictures. And in the little circle of this pleasant home love assuredly reigns supreme. I look upon my servants as my best and truest friends; their rooms, in their way, are as pretty and comfortable as my own, and I believe that they have a real pleasure in serving me. We unite together in looking after our less fortunate friends, who come in batches, for a month each set, to the little Hospice in the grounds. I could not ask my servants to do this, but they are delighted to help me thus, as in everything. When one of our little household community, as has happened four times now, passes, in an honoured and cherished old age, from amongst us, we all mourn together, watch by the deathbed, and follow the flower-laden coffin to the grave.

My local affections are centred in Holmhurst now. Rome, which I was formerly even fonder of, is so utterly changed, it has lost its enchaining power, and, with the places, the familiar faces there have all passed away. I go there every third year, but not for pleasure, only because it is necessary for “Walks in Rome,” the one of my books which pays best.

In the summer I generally have guests at Holmhurst, but even then my mornings are passed in writing, and several twilight hours besides. In the evenings there is generally reading aloud, or there are drawings to be looked at, or if “the boys” are with me there are games. Then the early months of spring are often spent abroad, and the later in London, and in the autumn I have the opportunity of far more visits than I like to pay: so that I have quite sufficient people-seeing to prevent getting rusty, or at any rate to remind me of my utter insignificance in every society except my own. However, Reviews are a perfect antidote to all follies of vainglory. I used to be pained by the most abusive ones, though I generally learnt something from them. Latterly, however, I have been more aware of the indescribable incapacity and indolence of the writers, and have not cared at all. I a little wonder, however, why I have scarcely ever had a favourable Review. My work cannot always have been so terribly bad, or it would not have had so wide a circulation--wider, I think, than has attended any other work of the kind.

How I wish one knew something, anything, of the hereafter to which the Old Testament never alludes, and of which the New Testament tells us nothing satisfactory. Can we really sleep, for millions of years perhaps, or can we live in another hemisphere, or can we linger here near people and places we love, incorporeal, invisible? I believe all the truths of revealed religion, but there is so much that is unrevealed. Oh! if the disciples, during their three years’ opportunity, had only asked our Saviour a few more questions--questions so absolutely essential, to which the answers would have been of such vital importance. For oh! how far more important what our state after death is than all our life’s work, than everything we have done or said or written, or what any one has thought of us. I can truly say with Olga de la Ferronays, “Je crois, j’aime, j’espère, je me repens;” but how strangely dim is the clearest sight as to the future. “The awful mysteries of life and nature,” says Whittier, “sometimes almost overwhelm me. What? Where? Whither? These questions sometimes hold me breathless. How little, after all, do we know! And the soul’s anchor of Faith can only grapple fast upon two or three things, and fast and surest of all upon the Fatherhood of God.”[600]

It is astonishing how little good can be derived from all the religious teaching which is the form and order of the day, from the endless monotony of services, from the wearisome sermons, not one of which remains with me from the thousands upon thousands I have been condemned to listen to, some few of them excellent, but most of them a farrago of stilted nonsense. I suppose that there are some types of mind which are benefited by them: I cannot believe that they were good for me. “Oh, stop, do stop; you have talked enough,” my whole heart has generally cried out when I have listened to a preacher--generally a man whom one would never dream of listening to in ordinary conversation for a quarter of an hour. It is a terrible penalty to pay for one’s religion to have weekly to hear it worried and tangled by these incapable and often arrogant beings. What does really remain with me, and raise my mind heavenwards with every thought of it, is the gentle teaching of my sweet mother in my childhood, and the practical lesson of her long life of love to God and man; the austere, unswerving uprightness and justice which was the mainspring of life’s action to the dear old nurse who was spared for forty-eight years to be the blessing of our home, ever one of those who, as Emerson says, “make the earth wholesome;” the remembrance of Hugh Pearson, Lady Waterford, and many other holy ones entered into the Perfect Life, and the certainty whence their peace in life and their calm in death was derived. Whittier again echoes my own thoughts when he says, “I regard Christianity as a life rather than a creed; and in judging my fellow-men, I can use no other standard than that which our Lord and Master has given us, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ The only orthodoxy that I am especially interested in is that of life and practice.”

I know my own great imperfection and unworthiness, and when I turn from myself to others, I cannot judge them. One cannot know all the secret guiding wires of action in them. I think perhaps the secret of any influence I have with boys is, that though I am willing to tell them what I think best as to the future, I never condemn their past; I am not called upon to do so. Southey’s lines come back to me:--

“Oh, what are we, Frail creatures that we are, that we should sit In judgment man on man! And what were we If the All-Merciful should mete to us With the same rigorous measure wherewithal Sinner to sinner metes!”[601]

When I look at the dates of births and deaths in our family in the Family Bible, I see that I have already exceeded the age which has been usually allotted to the Hares. Can it be that, while I still feel so young, the evening of life is closing in. Perhaps it may not be so, perhaps long years may still be before me. I hope so; but the lesson should be the same, for “man can do no better than live in eternity’s sunrise.”[602]

“La figure de ce monde passe. Sans la possession de l’éternité, sans la vue religieuse de la vie, ces journées fugitives ne sont qu’un sujet d’effroi, le bonheur doit être une prière et le malheur aussi. Pense, aime, agis et souffris en Dieu; c’est la grande science.”[603]

“Seek out with earnest search the things above; Thence to God’s presence rise on wings of love. By Truth the veils of earth and sense are riven, And Glory is the only veil of Heaven. Seek’st thou by earthly roads to find thy way? Surprise will seize thy rein and bid thee stay; Only man’s Guardian has cross’d o’er that sea, And those whom He has bidden--‘Follow me.’ He who has journeyed on without this Friend, Worn out, has failed to reach his journey’s end. Oh, Sàdi, think not man has ever gone Along the path of Holiness alone, But only he who treads behind the Chosen One.”[604]

“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more Change shall be, But stedfast rest of all things, firmely stayd Upon the pillours of Eternity, That is contrayr to Mutabilitie; For all that moveth doth in Change delight; But thence-forth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight: O! that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth’s sight.”[605]

INDEX

A.

Abbots-kerswel, iv. 249.

Aberdare, Henry Bruce, 1st Lord, iv. 427, 428; v. 225.

Aberdeen, Hon. Ishbel Marjoribanks, Countess of, v. 192, 204, 205, 380.

---- John Gordon, 7th Earl of, iii. 43; v. 192, 204, 205, 380.

---- Lady Mary Baillie, Countess of, v. 204.

Abinger, James Scarlett, 4th Lord, vi. 380.

Ackermann, Félix, i. 36, 97, 158; ii. 192, 195, 423; iii. 53-56, 338, 349.

---- Madame Victoire, i. 31, 32, 96, 339-340; ii. 192, 195, 405, 422-423, 499; iii. 52-64, 189, 253, 308, 310-312, 339, 351.

---- Victoria, iii. 309.

Acland, Sir Thomas, ii. 149.

Acland-Hood, Sir Alexander, vi. 233.

Acton, Sir John, iv. 437.

Acuto, ii. 426, 438-441; iv. 103.

Adeane, Lady Elizabeth, iv. 360.

---- Henry John, i. 214.

Adelaide, Madame, de France, iii. 23; iv. 339-340; vi. 109.

---- of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen of England, i. 189, 294; vi. 106, 478.

Aïdé, Mrs., iv. 293.

Aigues-Mortes, v. 431.

Ailesbury, Maria Tollemache, Marchioness of, v. 213, 233; vi. 67.

Airlie, Hon. Blanche Stanley, Countess of, iv. 127-128, 325-326; v. 274-275, 278, 289, 312, 384; vi. 90, 97, 135, 415-420, 436-443.

---- David Stanley William Ogilvy, 10th Earl of, vi. 440.

---- Lady Mabel Gore, Countess of, vi. 440.

Alacoque, Marguerite Marie, i. 445.

Alatri, iv. 103.

Albanie, Louisa of Stohlberg, Duchesse d’, vi. 121.

Albert, H.R.H. the Prince Consort, i. 302; ii. 286-288.

Albrecht, Archduke of Austria, 11. 35-36.

Alcock, Mrs., story of, iii. 118-123.

---- Sir Rutherford, v. 209.

Alcott, Miss Louisa, the authoress, vi. 405.

Aldeburgh, vi. 23.

Alderley, i. 61, 66; ii. 292, 293; vi. 351.

Aldermaston, ii. 219.

Alderson, Miss Louisa, iv. 73, 123.

Alemayu, Prince of Abyssinia, v. 237-238.

Alexander, Mary Manning, Mrs., i. 185, 248-251, 357, 469, 481; ii. 128.

Alford, Henry, Dean of Canterbury, i. 479; ii. 390-391, 432-433; iii. 155-157, 393-394.

---- Lady Marian, i. 293; ii. 298; iii. 28, 368; iv. 51, 55-60, 121, 399; v. 20-21, 66, 213-214, 294, 415, 455; vi. 110, 141-142, 270, 404, 483, 484.

Alfriston, i. 505.

Algeciras, iv. 33.

Alice, H.R.H. Princess, of Hesse, ii. 288; iv. 101; v. 147.

Alington, Henry Gerard Stuart, 1st Lord, vi. 164.

Allan, Charles Stuart, ii. 515.

---- John Hay, ii. 515.

Almena, Marqueza d’, iv. 41.

Alnwick Castle, ii. 353; iii. 33; vi. 134-139.

Alston, Carlotta, i. 2; vi. 517.

---- Mary Margaret, i. 2, 5; vi. 519

Altieri, Prince and Princess, v. 148, 159.

Alton Barnes, i. 45-48, 191-192, 278; iii. 110.

Amadeo, Duke of Aosta and King of Spain, iv. 31.

Amboise, ii. 495.

Amesbury, v. 292-293.

Ammerdown Park, vi. 240.

Amory, Henrietta Unwin, Lady Heathcote, vi. 90.

Ampère, J. J., v. 305.

Ampthill, Arthur, 2nd Lord, vi. 75.

Ampthill Park, iv. 412-422; v. 55.

Anagni, iv. 103.

Ancaster, Mary Panton, Duchess of, vi. 105.

Anderson, Henry, of Bradley, ii. 320.

Andover, Henry Charles Howard, Viscount, iv. 392, 393.

---- Lady Jane Coke, Viscountess, iv. 453-454.

Anglesey, Henry-William Paget, 1st Marquis of, v. 335.

Angoulême, Marie Therése de France, Duchesse d’, ii. 298; iii. 43-44; vi. 113.

Anguillara, vi. 414.

Annesley, vi. 494.

Anson, Sir John, iv. 359.

Anthony, iv. 243.

Antibes, iii. 146-149.

Antonelli, Cardinal Giacomo, ii. 72; iii. 71; iv. 172.

Antrobus, Marianne Dashwood, Lady, v. 292.

Aponte, Dom Emmanuele, i. 6-8.

Apponyi, Countess, v. 148.

Aquila, iv. 179.

Aram, Eugene, ii. 232-234.

Arcachon, ii. 465.

Archaeological Society, Roman, speech at the, v. 179.

Arco, vi. 310.

Argyll, George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of, iv. 329.

---- John Campbell, 2nd Duke of, iv. 216-217.

Arkcoll, Mrs. Thomas, ii. 228, 244.

Arles, iii. 184; vi. 3, 39.

---- sur Tech, v. 440.

Arley, iv. 461; vi. 230.

Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of, vi. 326.

Arnold, Edward, iii. 329.

---- Edward, the younger, vi. 145.

---- Mary Penrose, Mrs., i. 177; iii. 327-329, 418; iv. 63.

---- Matthew, the poet, i. 177, 512; v. 288; vi. 143-144.

---- Dr. Thomas, Headmaster of Rugby, i. 160.

Arpino, iv. 181.

Ars, Jean-Marie Vianney, le Curé d’, ii. 417-420.

Ars, visit to, iii. 134-136.

Arthur, King of Britain, vi. 320.

---- H.R.H. Prince, iv. 88, 90-93, 224.

Arundel, vi. 297.

Ashburnham House, London, iv. 337.

Ashburnham, Bertram, 4th Earl of, vi. 79.

---- Lady Catherine Baillie, Countess of, v. 323; vi. 76.

---- Hon. John, iv. 271.

---- Lady Mary, v. 320.

Ashburton, Lady Harriet Montagu, Lady, vi. 441.

---- Louisa Stewart Mackenzie, Lady, iv. 90, 91, 99, 121, 154, 305, 329; v. 60, 61, 66, 73, 211, 284, 294, 297, 314.

Ashdown, ii. 229.

Ashley, Hon. Anthony Lionel, iv. 290-291.

Ashridge, vi. 367.

Astor, Hon. W., vi. 478, 519, 525.

Athelstan, Mrs., ii. 270.

Atkens, Mr., of Kingston-Lyle, ii. 140.

Aubrey, Sir George, v. 333.

Audley End, iv. 243.

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Empress of Germany, v. 195.

Aumale, Henri de Bourbon, Duc d’, iii. 18; v. 446; vi. 109.

Austin, Alfred, the poet, v. 92.

Autun, ii. 320.

Avalanche, on the Mont Cenis, v. 133-135.

Avalon, the Isle of, vi. 320.

Avezzano, iv. 180.

Avila, iv. 43.

Avonmore, Therèse Longworth, Lady, v. 412.

Aylesford, Jane Knightley, Countess of, v. 292.

B.

Babington, Mrs. Catherine, ii. 351.

Babraham, vi. 229.

Babworth Hall, v. 41, 366, 417.

Bacon, Sir Hickman, vi. 64.

---- Mrs. Nicholas, iii. 169.

Baddeley, Helen Grant, Mrs. St. Clair, vi. 459, 460.

Baddesley-Clinton, vi. 34, 495.

Baden, Frederic William, Grand Duke, and Louisa, Grand Duchess, iii. 109.

---- Louis, Hereditary Grand Duke of, v. 211, 212, 213, 225-228.

Baden-Baden, i. 384.

Bagot, Mr. Charles, iii. 132.

---- Lucia Welbore, Lady, iii. 32, 368; vi. 298.

---- William, Lord, iii. 368.

Baillie-Hamilton, Mrs. Cospatrick, iii. 395.

---- James, vi. 17-18.

Baker, Sir George and Lady, v. 245.

---- Sir Samuel, iv. 388, 482.

---- Thomas Barwick Lloyd, iv. 350.

Balcarres, vi. 443.

---- Anne Dalrymple, Countess of, iv. 137.

---- Colin, 3rd Earl of, iii. 25.

---- James, 5th Earl of, iii. 24.

Balcaskie, vi. 442.

Balfour, Right Hon. Arthur, v. 92; vi. 373.

---- Charles, of Newton Don, vi. 88.

---- of Burleigh, Lady Katherine Gordon, Lady, vi. 94.

---- Minnie Georgiana Liddell, Mrs. Charles, vi. 88.

Bamborough Castle, ii. 271, 354; iii. 8, 170.

Bampfylde, Hon. Coplestone, v. 318.

Bankes, Rev. E. S., v. 457.

Bankhead, Charles, Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, i. 26.

---- Maria Horatia Paul, Mrs., i. 27, 28, 296.

Bantry, Jane Herbert, Countess of, vi. 94.

Bar-le-Duc, iii. 333.

Baratieri, General, vi. 510.

Barcelona, iv. 28.

Baring, Mrs. Drummond, v. 41, 417.

---- Hon. Mary, iv. 95.

Barker, Mary Ann Stewart, Lady, iv. 304, 331.

Barnard, Lady Anne, iii. 14, 27, 324-326.

Barnard Castle, ii. 275, 340.

Barnby, Sir Joseph, the musician, vi. 314.

Barnekow, Countess, v. 145, 152, 158.

---- Elizabeth de, v. 152.

Barraud, Madame and Mademoiselle, ii. 116, 125-128.

Barrère, Madame, iii. 87.

Barrie, James M., the novelist, vi. 434-435.

Barrington, Hon. Adelaide, ii. 139.

---- Hon. Augusta, ii. 139.

---- George, 5th Viscount, ii. 320.

---- George, 7th Viscount, iv. 362, 395.

---- Hon. Jane Liddell, Viscountess, iii. 138, 140; iv. 362, 395; v. 20, 210.

---- Maria Lyon, Hon. Mrs. Russell, ii. 282.

---- Shute, Bishop of Durham, ii. 139.

---- William Keppel, 6th Viscount, ii. 139, 140.

Bassi, Donna Laura, i. 7.

Bathurst, Benjamin, vi. 146.

---- Miss Rosa, vi. 145.

Bathyany, Count and Countess, iv. 285, 286, 429.

Battle Abbey, iv. 300-301; v. 66; vi. 4.

Baume, La Sainte, vi. 40.

Bayard, Hon. T. F., American Ambassador, vi. 402.

Bayley, Mrs., iii. 130-134.

Baynards, vi. 162.

Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, 1st Earl of, v. 47-48, 210, 343-344; vi. 99-100, 325, 373.

Bean, Ainslie, the artist, vi. 168.

Beauchamp, Lady Emily Pierrepont, Countess, vi. 101.

---- William, 7th Earl, vi. 459.

Beauclerk, Lady Sybil, vi. 475.

Beaujour, Château de, ii. 500-503.

Beaumont, Hubert G., ii. 66, 147; v. 377-378.

---- Lady Margaret, iv. 62, 65-69, 122, 148, 307, 329; v. 196; vi. 253.

---- Wentworth, iv. 62.

Beaurepaire, Mademoiselle de, iv. 411.

Beckett, ii. 138-140, 217, 229; vi. 494.

Beckwith, Priscilla Maria Hopper, Mrs., of Silksworth, ii. 422.

Bedford, Lady Elizabeth Sackville West, Duchess of, iv. 145; v. 60.

----Francis Russell, 9th Duke of, v. 60-61.

Belgians, Marie Henriette, Queen of the, vi. 29, 68.

Belgium, tour in, ii. 377.

Belhaven, Hamilton Campbell, Lady, ii. 335-337, 354-355, 358; iii. 35-36; iv. 268.

---- Robert, Lord, ii. 354, 358; iii. 35, 45-46.

Bell, Rev. Edward, vi. 351-353.

Bellagio, iii. 106.

Bellairs, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 158.

Belsay, ii. 347.

Belvoir Castle, iv. 58-60; vi. 305, 341-342.

Benalta family, story of, ii. 454-460.

Benedict, Sir Julius, the composer, v. 8.

Benedict XIV., Pope, vi. 497.

Beneventum, v. 271.

Bengivenga, Francesca, iii. 200.

Bennett, Rev. T. J. Filmer, vi. 237, 242.

---- Hon. Frederick, ii. 268-269.

---- Hon. George, ii. 268-269.

Bennigsen, Countess Marie Paul von, v. 91.

Bentinck, Penelope Leslie, Mrs. Cavendish, v. 70, 191, 275.

Bentley, Harriet, iii. 406, 412

Benzoni, the sculptor, iii. 83.

Berchtesgaden, iii. 231.

Bergeret, Madame, story of, iii. 177-182.

Berkeley Castle, i. 287; v. 304.

Berlin, v. 91-94.

Bernabo, Cardinal, iv. 172.

Bernhardt, Sarah, the actress, v. 198.

Berri, Caroline, Duchesse de, iii. 15-17, 43-44.

Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, i. 299-300; vi. 440.

Bestwood, vi. 475.

Betharram, iii. 487.

Beust, Frederick Ferdinand, Count von, iv. 145.

Biarritz, ii. 488; iv. 42.

Bidart, ii. 489.

Biddulph, Lady Elizabeth, v. 53. 221; vi. 302.

Bideford, vi. 524.

Birch, Sir Arthur, vi. 56.

Birtles, iii. 117.

Bishopthorpe Palace, vi. 256, 354, 356, 360, 444.

Bismarck, Count Herbert, vi. 236, 461.

Black, William, the novelist, v. 16.

Blackett, Sir Edward and Lady, of Matfen, ii. 266-267, 341, 346; iii. 170, 323; v. 19.

Blackmoor, iv. 131.

Blackwood, Sir Arthur, iii. 243.

Blaise Castle, vi. 447.

Blake, Edith Bernal Osborne, Lady, vi. 482.

---- Sir Francis, iii. 31.

Blake, Mrs. Jex, v. 237.

---- William, the artist, iii. 14.

Bland, Ven. Archdeacon, v. 424.

Blenkinsopp Castle, ii. 353.

Blessington, Harriet Power, Countess of, i. 20, 37; ii. 408.

Blickling, v. 452; vi. 105, 303.

Bligh, Hon. Arthur, iv. 237.

---- Hon. Ivo, iv. 237.

---- Lady Kathleen, iv. 426; vi. 105, 163, 164.

Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London, i. 470.

Blommart, Miss Elizabeth, ii. 489.

Bloomfield, Hon. Georgiana Liddell, Lady, iv. 305, 365; vi. 97, 184, 247.

---- John Arthur Douglas, Lord, v. 220.

Blyth, Miss Mary Popham, the authoress, vi. 275.

Bodley, G. F., the architect, iv. 476; vi. 448.

Bodryddan, iii. 123.

Boleyn, Anne, Queen of England, vi. 303, 315.

---- Lady Mary, vi. 317.

Bologna, i. 7-9; iii. 380; iv. 313.

Bolsover Castle, vi. 475.

Bolsover, Augusta Browne, Lady, v. 366.

Bolvilliers, Comtesse de, i. 343-351.

Bonaparte, Letizia Raimolino, Madame Mère, vi. 509.

---- Madame Jerome, v. 301.

Bonis, Madame Maria de, iii. 373, 378.

Bonnyrigg, ii. 341.

Bordighera, vi. 265.

Borghese, Adèle de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58.

---- Lady Guendolina Talbot, Princess, ii. 58, 59.

---- Marc-Antonio, Prince, ii. 58, 375.

---- Pauline Bonaparte, Princess, ii. 336.

Borghese, Teresa de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58; iii. 85, 194.

Bosanquet, Charles, of Rock, ii. 278.

---- Mrs., of Rock, ii 279.

Boscobel, iv. 440.

Bothwell Castle, iii. 48.

Boughton, v. 448.

Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de, iii. 21-23; vi. 122.

Bourges, ii. 310.

Bouverie, Hon. Stuart, vi. 318.

Bowes, Lady Anna, ii. 172, 173.

---- John, of Streatham, ii. 173, 178, 179, 274-276; v. 20.

---- Mrs. John, iii. 275.

Bowles, Miss, iii. 294, 298.

Boyle, Carolina Amelia Poyntz, Lady, i. 89, 291-292.

---- Hon. Carolina Courtenay, i. 289-294, 436-437, 508-509; ii. 381-384; iv. 61.

---- Edmund Montagu, iv. 249; v. 412.

---- Hon. John, iv. 249.

---- Miss Mary, i. 293; iii. 368, 370; iv. 55, 214, 426.

---- Ella Gordon, Hon. Mrs. Richard, the authoress, iv. 60.

Boyne, Lady Katherine Scott, Viscountess, iv. 445; v. 457; vi. 411, 433.

Bozledene Wood, i. 361.

Bracciano, iii. 375.

Bradford-on-Avon, vi. 484.

Bradford, Orlando Bridgeman, Earl of, vi. 474.

Bradley Manor, in Devon, i. 287.

---- in Northumberland, ii. 320.

Bradley, Rev. Charles, i. 297-299, 303-315, 332-335, 368, 369, 390-393, 396-398, 408.

---- Mrs. Charles, i. 303, 307, 369.

Brainscleugh, ii. 358.

Bramham, vi. 356.

Bramshill, v. 340.

Brandling, Charles, v. 229; vi. 105.

Brassey, Albert, ii. 391; iv. 427.

Brassey, Annie Allnutt, Mrs. Thomas, afterwards Lady, iii. 416; v. 69.

---- Henry, ii. 391.

---- Thomas, afterwards Lord, ii. 25; iv. 379.

Braybrooke, Hon. Florence Maude, Lady, iv. 223.

Breamore, iv. 348.

Breadalbane, Lady Alma Graham, Marchioness of, vi. 80, 81.

Bremen, v. 129.

Bremer, Margaret, Countess, v. 15.

Bretton Park, iv. 64-69.

Bridges, Mrs., v. 449.

Bridgeman, Hon. Francis, vi. 474.

---- Gertrude Hanbury, Hon. Mrs. Francis, vi. 474.

---- Lady Selina, ii. 389.

Bright, Right Hon. John, the orator and statesman, v. 196; vi. 95.

Brimham Rocks, ii. 339.

Brinkburn Abbey, ii. 365.

Bristol, Geraldine Anson, Marchioness of, vi. 306.

Broadlands, iv. 340-341; v. 295.

Brodie, Sir Benjamin, i. 248.

Brogyntyn, vi. 433.

Bromley, Miss Caroline Davenport, iv. 476; v. 20, 32, 38, 310, 425.

Brontë, Branwell, iv. 69; vi. 394.

---- Charlotte, the novelist, iv. 69; vi. 394.

Brooke, Rev. Stopford, iv. 335; v. 209-210.

Brooks, Bishop, vi. 310.

Broughton, Miss Rhoda, the novelist, iv. 218-219, 326, 330, 383; vi. 253.

Brown, Dr., Professor at Aberdeen, i. 22.

---- Dr. John, the author of “Rab and his Friends,” vi. 438.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, the poetess, ii. 91, 409; vi. 431, 510.

---- Robert, the poet, ii. 408; iv. 218-219; v. 24, 289; vi. 85, 96, 431, 463.

Brownlow, Lady Adelaide Talbot, Countess, v. 204, 212; vi. 242, 246, 367-368.

---- John, 2nd Earl, ii. 137.

---- Adelbert, 3rd Earl, v. 204; vi. 242, 243, 367-368.

Brougham, Henry, 1st Lord, the legal orator, iii. 143-144; iv. 472; v. 321.

Broussa, vi. 209-214.

Bruce, Rev. J. Collingwood, the antiquarian, ii. 318; iii. 49.

---- Lord Robert, vi. 297.

---- Hon. Mrs. Robert, iii. 203.

Brunnow, Baron and Baroness, iv. 129.

Bruschi, Countess, v. 143.

Brussels, vi. 191.

Bryan, Hugh, vi. 146, 148, 192, 222, 424.

Bryce, James, the historian, v. 196.

Brymer, Dr. (Archdeacon of Wells), i. 338.

---- Marianne Wilkinson, Mrs., i. 338.

Brympton, v. 73.

Buccleuch, Lady Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of, v. 449.

Buchanan, Miss Helen, iii. 181.

Buckhurst, v. 455; vi. 17.

Buckland, Dr. William, v. 358.

Bufalo, The Venerable Gaspare del, ii. 425, 442.

Bulkeley, Anna Maria Hare, Mrs., i. 3, 494.

Buller, Right Hon. Charles, the politician, vi. 442.

---- Sir Redvers and Lady Audrey, vi. 182, 379.

Bulman, Mrs., ii. 346.

Bülow, Madame de, v. 200.

Bulstrode, vi. 486.

Bulwer, Sir Henry, iv. 76.

Bunsen, Charles de, ii. 109; v. 85, 86, 155.

Bunsen, Isabel Waddington, Mrs. Charles de, v. 85, 155.

---- Christian, Chevalier, afterwards Baron, i. 162-163, 164, 465, 504; vi. 373.

---- Emilia de, iii. 109; v. 1, 76, 78; vi. 412.

----Frances Waddington, Madame, afterwards Baroness de, i. 465; ii. 293; iii. 333-336; iv. 321-323; v. 1, 3, 54, 130, 157.

----Frances de, ii. 293; iii. 109; iv. 322; v. 1, 76, 87.

---- George de, i. 481; v. 91.

---- Rev. Henry de, ii. 328; iv. 440.

---- Mary Battersby, Mrs. Henry de, v. 33.

---- Matilda de, ii. 293.

---- Theodora de, i. 464; ii. 294.

---- Theodore de, i. 163; v. 86.

Buntingsdale, i. 144, 208; ii. 326-327; v. 217; vi. 381.

Burford, Charles de Vere, Earl of.,, vi. 475.

Burghley House, v. 51.

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, the artist, vi. 423-424.

Burney, Miss, the authoress, ii. 436.

Burns, Robert, the poet, ii. 164.

Burr, Mrs. Higford, ii. 220.

Burrell, Sir Raymond and Lady, vi. 323.

Burton, Isabel Arundel, Lady, vi. 460.

---- Sir Richard Francis, the traveller, vi. 357-358, 461.

Burwarton, v. 457; vi. 411.

Butcher, Miss, iv. 33.

Bute, John Patrick Stuart, 1st Marquis of, iv. 269-271, 400; v. 197, 225.

---- Gwendoline Howard, Marchioness of, iv. 270.

Butler, Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage, afterwards Dean of Lincoln, ii. 222-224.

Butler, Mrs., i. 501.

---- story of Mrs., vi. 365-367.

Buxton, Catharine Gurney, Lady, vi. 263, 339.

---- Miss Richenda, v. 99.

Byng, Hon. and Rev. Francis, iv. 475.

C.

Cadenabbia, vi. 293.

Cadiz, iv. 33.

Cadland, vi. 155.

Cadogan, Lady Augusta, v. 351.

---- Lady Beatrix Craven, Countess, vi. 372.

---- George Henry, 5th Earl, vi. 372.

Cadouin, v. 437.

Caen, i. 319.

Caerlaverock Castle, ii. 164.

Caiëtani, Don Filippo, ii. 58.

---- Don Onorato, iii. 87.

Cairns, Mary Harriet M’Neile, Countess, v. 205, 212.

Caister Castle, vi. 103.

Caithness, Marie de Mariategni, Countess of, iv. 325.

Calotkin, Count, i. 15.

Cambo, ii. 490.

Cambrai, vi. 44.

Cambridge, H. R. H. Adolphus, Duke of, iv. 455.

Cameron, Lady Margaret, v. 362.

---- Lady Vere, ii. 8, 481, 482.

Campbell, Janey Callander, Lady Archibald, v. 289, 290.

---- Charlotte Malcolm, Lady, i. 88.

---- Colin, i. 309, 310, 313.

---- Lady Constance, vi. 135.

---- Gertrude Blood, Lady Colin, vi. 31.

---- Lady Evelyn, vi. 17.

---- Mary Meredith, Lady Frederick, iv. 236.

---- Lord and Lady George, vi. 4.

Campbell, Kenneth, of Ardpatrick, vi. 454.

Campsea Ashe, v. 444; vi. 23, 186, 258, 499, 519.

Canevari, G. B., the portrait painter, ii. 75.

Cannes, iii. 136-156; iv. 163-165; vi. 264.

Canning, Charlotte Stuart, Countess, ii. 360; iii. 324; vi. 334, 349-350.

Canons Ashby, v. 405.

Canossa, iv. 313.

Canterbury, i. 357-366; ii. 23-25; iii. 331-332, 394.

---- Edward White Benson, Archbishop of, vi. 97, 182, 456.

---- Archibald Tait, Archbishop of, iii 35-36, 39; v. 205, 383.

Capel, Monsignor, ii. 486.

Capheaton, ii. 350.

Caprarola, Palace of, iv. 108-113.

Capri, ii. 81.

Carcolo, Marchese, iv. 101.

Cardwell, Edward Viscount, and Viscountess, iv. 362-363, 401.

Carew, Frances Anne Buller, Mrs. Pole, iii. 375, 425; iv. 244.

---- Miss Julia Pole, iii. 372; iv. 246.

---- William Henry Pole, iv. 243; v. 71.

Carham, iii. 326.

Carlandi, Onorato, vi. 468.

Carlisle, vi. 134.

Carlo Borromeo, St., iv. 112.

Carlsruhe, i. 6; iii. 109, 333.

Carlyle, Jane Baillie Welsh, Mrs., v. 7, 314; vi. 441.

---- Thomas, the author, i. 166; iv. 71, 81, 123, 154-155, 305, 367, 383; v. 274, 310, 310, 313-314, 319, 384; vi. 96, 442, 488.

Carmichael, Sir William, iii. 46.

Carnac, vi. 345.

Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn Stanhope, Countess of, iv. 126, 149, 222, 223, 228, 300; vi. 253, 474.

Carnarvon, Henrietta Howard, Countess of, iv. 228.

Caroline, Empress of Austria, ii. 42.

---- of Brunswick, Queen of England, iii. 14-15.

Carpenter, Hon. Walter Talbot, Admiral, vi. 494.

Carr of Hedgeley, family of, ii. 280.

Carrington, Charles Robert Wynn, Earl, vi. 399.

Carysfort, Charlotte Heathcote, Countess of, v. 196; vi. 376, 455.

---- William Proby, 5th Earl of, vi. 376.

Cator, John, vi. 367.

---- Mary Mohun-Harris, Mrs., vi. 225.

---- the Misses, vi. 280.

Castagnuolo, iv. 194, 319-320.

Castel Fusano, ii. 390; iv. 100.

---- del Monte, v. 270.

---- Toblino, vi. 510.

Castlecombe, vi. 525.

Castlecraig, iii. 46.

Castletown of Upper Ossory, Augusta Douglas, Lady, iv. 171, 173, 174, 218, 220, 224, 231, 232; v. 209.

---- of Upper Ossory, John FitzPatrick, Lord, iv. 232-233.

Castro, Don Alessandro del, iii. 194.

Cavaillon, vi. 38.

Cavendish, Admiral and Mrs. George, ii. 94, 97.

---- Lady Beatrice, v. 229.

---- Hon. Compton, v. 229.

---- Mr. and Lady Harriet, vi. 175.

---- Louisa Lascelles, Hon. Mrs., i. 212.

---- Lord Richard, i. 212.

Cavoni, Marchesa, v. 154.

Cecchi, Cardinal, iii. 68.

Cecil, Lord Eustace, i. 241; v. 195; vi. 22-23, 81.

Cecinelli, Lucia, i. 53.

Cenci, Count Bolognetti, iii. 49, 85, 87.

Chaise Dieu, La, iii. 150.

Chalfield Manor, Great, vi. 485.

Chalus, v. 434.

Challinor, Mrs. Hannah, i. 151.

Chambers, Theodore, vi. 343.

Chambord, Henri, Comte de, iii. 16-18.

Champlatreux, vi. 100.

Chantrey, Sir Francis, the sculptor, vi. 331.

Charlemont, Hon. Elizabeth Somerville, Countess of, iv. 483; v. 8, 11, 12, 285.

Charles II., King of England, vi. 439.

Charles X., King of France, iii. 43.

Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz, Queen of England, ii. 436-437; vi. 105.

---- Princess, of Belgium, ii. 36, 37.

Charlton Hall, iv. 390.

---- House, near Greenwich, v. 280.

Charltons of Hesleyside, the. ii. 343.

Charteris, Lady Caroline, iv. 213.

Chartwell, i. 507; ii. 321.

Chatterton, Henrietta Georgiana, Lady, vi. 497.

Chawton, vi. 477.

Cheddar Cliff, vi. 320-321.

Cheney, Edward, of Badger, iv. 128, 325, 395.

Chequers, ii. 8.

Chesham, Henrietta Lascelles, Lady, iv. 145.

Chesterfield, Anne-Elizabeth Forester, Countess of, iv. 228.

Chesters, ii. 341; iii 49; vi. 435.

Chetwode, Mrs. George, i. 157.

Chetwynd, Harriet Johanna Camphill, Viscountess, vi. 382, 477.

Chevening, iv. 126, 235-237; vi. 295, 476.

Chevreuse, ii. 125.

Chewton, William Frederick, Viscount, iv. 240.

Chichester, vi. 19.

Chichester, Miss Catherine, ii. 94, 286.

---- Richard Durnford, Bishop of, vi. 19-20, 324.

---- Henry Thomas Pelham, 3rd Earl of, iv. 90, 348; vi. 260.

Childe, Frances Christina Leighton, Mrs., vi. 302.

Chillingham, ii. 267-271, 364; iii. 33.

Chingford, i. 312, 400.

Chipchase, ii. 343.

Chiswick, v. 24.

Cholmondeley, Miss Mary, the novelist, vi. 383.

---- Mary Heber, Mrs., i. 143.

Christ-Church, Hants, iv. 211.

Christian, H. R. H. the Princess, vi. 87.

Christina, Queen of Spain, ii. 57.

Church, Richard William, Dean of St. Paul’s, iv. 245.

Churchill, Jane Conyngham, Lady, vi. 478.

Chute, Challoner, of the Vyne, vi. 156.

Cimies, iv. 165.

“Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” iv. 352-356, 375.

Civita Castellana, ii. 53; iv. 107.

Clairvaux, vi. 17.

Clanricarde, Hon. Harriet Canning, Marchioness of, iv. 64.

Clarence, H. R. H. William, Duke of, iv. 144.

Clarendon, Lady Caroline Agar, wife of the 5th Earl of, ii. 139.

Clarke, Miss Freeman, the authoress, iv. 90.

Clayton, Mrs. Anne, ii. 318-319.

---- George Nathaniel, ii. 318, 353: vi. 435.

---- Isabel, Mrs. G. Nathaniel, ii. 318; vi. 435.

Clayton, John, of Chesters, ii. 318, 343.

---- Miss, ii. 274, 318, 341-344.

---- Mr. Matthew, ii. 318-319.

Clemens, Mr. Samuel (Mark Twain), vi. 281-283.

Clermont-Tonnerre, Comte and Comtesse de, iv. 85.

Cleveland, Lady Caroline Lowther, Duchess of, iv. 412, 417, 419-424, 468-469, 482; v. 19, 229-230, 285; vi. 79.

---- Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of, v. 230-231.

---- Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of, iv, 83; v. 68; vi. 120-123.

---- Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope, Duchess of, iv. 83, 145, 279, 334, 338, 376; v. 210; vi. 82, 120, 128-129, 140, 459.

---- William Henry, 1st Duke of, iii. 46.

Clifford, Captain, ii. 81.

---- Edward, the artist, iv. 72; vi. 243.

Clinton, Elizabeth Grant, Lady Charles, ii. 477; iv. 328; v. 205.

---- Lady Louisa, i. 383.

---- Miss Louisa, i. 59, 210, 257, 387-388.

Clisson, vi. 147.

Clive, Mrs. Archer, the novelist, i. 453.

---- Lady Catherine, v. 308.

---- Charles Meysey, of Whitfield, v. 16.

---- Lady Mary, v. 459.

Cliveden, v. 229; vi. 478, 479, 525.

Close, Mr. and Mrs., of Nottingham, vi. 58.

Cluny, iii. 383.

Clutterbuck, Marianne Lyon, Mrs., of Warkworth, ii. 17, 284, 352.

Clyde, Falls of the, iii. 49.

Clyde, Colin Campbell, Lord, General and hero, iv. 211-212.

Cobbold, Felix, vi. 259.

Cobham, Claude Delawal, iii. 152-153.

Cobham Hall, Kent, iv. 237-238, 356-357, 411-412; v. 16, 31; vi. 141, 254, 295, 503.

Cockerton, George, vi. 347.

Coigny, Augustin, Duc de, iii. 18-19.

Colchester, v. 446.

Cole, Miss Florence, ii. 45, 54; iv. 129.

---- Miss Louisa, ii. 46; iv. 129.

---- Sir Henry, Director of South Kensington Museum, iv. 157.

Colegrave, Mrs. Francis, ii. 94, 286.

Coleman, Miss Sarah, i. 173.

Coleridge, John Duke Coleridge, Baron, iv. 77, 78.

Collatia, ii. 390.

Collet, Susanna, vi. 376-377.

Collins, Staunton, i. 154, 190.

Colonna, Isabella de Toledo, Princess, iii. 191.

Colquhoun, J. A., i. 507; ii. 322.

---- Archibald, iv. 6.

Combermere, Mary Gibbings, Countess of, v. 22, 315.

Compton, Florence Anderson, Lady Alwyne, iv. 336, 399; vi. 456.

---- Mrs., iii. 326.

Condé, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, Prince de, vi. 109.

Condover, vi. 383.

Conington Castle, iv. 424.

Conington, John, Professor of Latin, ii. 4.

Conques, v. 442.

Consolo, the musician, v. 176.

Constantinople, vi. 193-209.

Conwy, Shipley, iii. 129.

---- Colonel Shipley, iii. 130.

Cookson, Francis, vi. 375.

Coomb Bank, iv. 236.

Copeland Castle, ii. 364.

Copenhagen, v. 99-101.

Copley, Lady Charlotte, v. 419.

Corbet, Hester Cotton, Lady, of Adderley, iii. 401; iv. 133.

Cordova, iv. 30.

Cori, iv. 104.

Cork and Orrery, Edmund, 8th Earl of, i. 293.

---- Lady Emily De Burgh, Countess of, iv. 125, 410; vi. 335.

---- Isabella Poyntz, Countess of, v. 301.

Cornford, Joseph, vi. 189.

Corry, Montagu Lowrie, afterwards Lord Rowton, v. 47, 48.

Cortachy, vi. 438.

Costa le Cerda, Vicomte, ii. 115-116, 121.

Cotehele, iv. 248.

Cottrell Dormer, Mr. and Mrs., of Rousham, ii. 150.

---- Mrs. Upton, vi. 183.

Coulson, Colonel, ii. 354.

---- Mary-Anne Byron, Hon. Mrs., ii. 354.

---- Misses Mary and Arabella, of Blenkinsopp, ii. 176, 272.

Courmayeur, i. 458; ii. 409.

Courtenay, Hon. and Rev. Charles and Lady Caroline, vi. 257.

---- Lady Agnes, iii. 320.

---- Edward Baldwin, Lord, iv. 385.

---- “Sir William” (Nichols Tom), i. 361-365.

---- Miss, vi. 431.

Cousin, M. Victor, iii. 146.

Coutts, Angela Georgina, Baroness Burdett, the philanthropist, iv. 71, 396; vi. 77, 172.

Coventry, Miss Augusta, iv. 231.

Cowburne, Mrs., i. 128, 209.

Cowdray, vi. 20.

Cowell, Sir J., v. 70.

Cowley, Henry Richard Wellesley, 1st Lord, the Ambassador, iv. 81.

---- Olivia de Ros, Countess, iv. 81, 394.

Cowling Castle, v. 32.

Cowper, Lady Anne Florence de Grey, Countess, iv. 414-416.

---- Hon. Henry, iv. 145, 308, 416; vi. 95.

Cowper-Temple, Hon. William, iv. 341.

Coxe, Rev. Henry Octavius, Bodleian Librarian, ii. 157; v. 202.

Cracroft, Colonel and Mrs., iii. 382.

Cradock, Hon. Harriet Lister, Mrs., i. 512; ii. 137-138.

Cranborne, Lady Alice Cicely Gore, Viscountess, vi. 422.

Craster, family of, ii. 279.

Craven, Lady Emily Grimston, Countess, v. 47, 296.

---- Pauline de la Ferronays, Mrs. Augustus, v. 22.

Crawford, Misses Annie and Mimoli, iv. 106.

----Frank Marion, the novelist, iv. 106; v. 177.

---- James Ludovic Lindsay, 9th Earl of, vi. 120.

---- Emily Florence Wilbraham, Countess of, vi. 224, 443.

Crealock, Lieutenant-General Henry Hope, iv. 66.

Crecy, ii. 380.

Creslow Pastures, ii. 220.

Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, the judge, ii. 353.

Crewe, John, 3rd Lord, v. 13, 63.

Crewe Hall, v. 62.

Crichton, Colonel and Lady Madeleine, iv. 94.

Crichton Castle, ii. 172.

Crockett, Samuel Rutherford, the novelist, vi. 434-435.

Croglin Grange, story of, iv. 203-208.

Croisic, Le, vi. 147, 152.

Croker, James, vi. 325.

---- John Wilson, vi. 255.

Cromer, v. 449; vi. 262-263.

Crowcombe, vi. 233.

Croyland, iii. 164.

Crozant, Le, v. 433.

Crum, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 231.

Cuffe, Sir Charles, ii. 358.

Cullum, Gery Milner Gibson, vi. 24, 508.

Cummings, Mr. and Mrs. E. C., iii. 380; vi. 310-311, 394-397.

Cunliffe, Sir Robert, iv. 486.

Curran, John Philpot, vi. 359.

Curzon, Hon. George Nathaniel, afterwards Viceroy of India, v. 284, 296; vi. 421.

Cushman, Miss Charlotte, the actress, iii. 204-207, 386.

Cust, Hon. Archdeacon Arthur, afterwards Dean of York, iv. 411.

---- Lady Caroline, iv. 58-59.

Cuvier, Frederic, the naturalist, vi. 363.

D.

Daldy and Isbister, Messrs., v. 241-243.

Dalison, Charles Burrell, iv. 17, 89, 316; vi. 294.

Dallas, Mrs., iii. 380.

Dalton Hall, iii. 131; iv. 63.

Dalzel, Mrs. Allen, iii. 172.

---- Aventina Macmurdo, Mrs., ii. 17-19, 172, 357; iii. 172, 174-176.

Dampierre, ii. 125.

Darley, George, i. 164.

Darling, Mr., of Bamborough, ii. 272.

Darnley, John Stuart Bligh, 6th Earl of, vi. 164.

---- Lady Harriet Pelham, Countess of, iv. 223, 237, 426; v. 31, 199.

Dasent, Sir George, the author, i. 67, 449; v. 339, 341; vi. 31, 61-63, 75-77.

Dashwood, Anna Maria Shipley, Mrs., i. 17, 26, 158; iii. 125, 127-128.

Dashwood, Bertha Abercromby, Lady, ii. 466, 477; v. 193.

---- Sir Edwin, ii. 466.

----Florence Norton, Lady, vi. 299.

---- Sir Francis, iv. 445.

D’Aubigné, M. Merle, the historian, i. 453.

Davenport, Augusta Campbell, Mrs. Bromley, v. 216.

---- Edward, of Capesthorne, ii. 142.

---- Miss Evelyn Bromley, v. 289.

Davidoff, Adèle, Madame, i. 351; ii. 65-67, 76, 115, 416.

Davidson, Susan Jessop, Mrs., of Ridley Hall, ii. 172-177, 266, 272-274; iii. 322-323; iv. 272, 458; v. 20.

Davy, Jane, Lady, v. 56-57.

Dawkins, Mrs. Francis, ii. 297; iii. 71-75, 315.

Daylesford, iv. 435.

Days near Rome, iv. 84-85, 162.

De Capel Brooke, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 238.

Decies, John Beresford, Lord, iv. 290.

Deimling, Herr Otto, i. 162.

De Jarnac, Hon. Geraldine Foley, Comtesse, iv. 300.

Delamere, Hugh Cholmondeley, 2nd Lord, v. 195.

Delawarr, Constance Baillie-Cochrane, Countess, v. 455; vi. 143, 452.

De L’Isle, Philip Sidney, Lord, iv. 459.

Dempster, Mr. and Mrs., of Ormistoun, iv. 267-268.

Denbigh, Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of, iv. 427, 465; v. 281.

---- Mary Berkeley, Countess of, iv. 427, 465; v. 195.

Denfenella, ii. 168.

Denison, Alfred, iv. 465; v. 316.

Denison, Lady Charlotte, iii. 42.

---- Rev. George Anthony, v. 278.

---- Mr. Stephen, ii. 272.

Denman, George, Judge, iv. 283.

Dent, Emma Brocklehurst, Mrs., iv. 439.

Deramore, Sir R. W. de Yarburgh Bateson, Lord, vi. 425.

Derby, Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of, iii. 131.

Dereham, vi. 363.

Dering, Edward Heneage, vi. 34, 497.

---- Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen, Mrs., vi. 497.

Derwentwater, James Radcliffe, Earl of, ii. 266, 351.

De Ros, Georgiana Lennox, Lady, vi. 190-191.

De Selby, Mrs., iii. 71, 73.

---- Mrs. Robert, iii. 192.

Des Voeux, Miss Georgiana, ii. 371-372; iii. 139.

De Vesci, Hon. Evelyn Charteris, Viscountess, vi. 329, 351.

Devon, William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of, iv. 240, 385, 387; v. 461.

Devonshire, Lady Georgiana Spencer, wife of the 5th Duke of, i. 5, 6.

Dickens, Charles, ii. 275.

---- Lady Elizabeth, v. 20.

Dictionary of National Biography, vi. 223.

Dilston, ii. 266, 320.

Dino, Duc de, v. 155.

Dixon, Louisa Simpkinson, Mrs., iii. 397.

Dixon-Browne, Mr. and Mrs., of Unthank, iii. 170.

Dodd, Mr. Wolley, the botanist, vi. 231.

Dolceacqua, ii. 253.

Dolgorouki, Prince Nicol, iii. 68, 84.

---- Princess, the story of, iv. 293-299.

Domremy, vi. 44.

Doncaster, ii. 261.

Donington, Charles Abney-Hastings, Lord, vi. 230.

Donoughmore, Thomasine Steele, Countess of, v. 383; vi. 97.

Dorchester, Dudley Carleton, 4th Lord, v. 205.

Doria, Donna Guendolina, ii. 71.

---- Prince Filippo, ii. 424.

---- Donna Olimpia, ii. 72.

---- Donna Teresa, ii. 70.

D’Orsay, Count Alfred, artist and dandy, i. 18, 20, 29, 37; ii. 408; v. 299.

Dorset, John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of, vi. 121.

Douglas, Lady Agnes, v. 138, 145, 150.

Dowdeswell, Miss, iii. 76, 82.

Downshire, Caroline Frances Cotton, Marchioness of, v. 223.

Doyle, Sir Francis, the poet, v. 16, 55.

---- Percy, iv. 360.

---- Richard, the artist, iv. 67, 325; v. 46.

Draycot, iv. 394.

Drayton House, v. 447.

Drummond, Augusta Charlotte Fraser, Mrs. Robert, vi. 12, 26.

----Frances Jemima Oswald, Mrs., of Megginch, vi. 410.

---- George, of Swaylands, vi. 456.

---- Elizabeth Norman, Mrs. George, vi. 456, 500.

---- Henry, founder of the Irvingites vi. 136.

---- William [1585-1649], of Hawthornden, the poet, vi. 444.

Dublin, Richard Chevenix Trench, Archbishop of, iv. 90, 328.

Dubois, Madame, iv. 163.

Ducie, Henry John Moreton, 3rd Earl of, iv. 381, 397; v. 298.

Ducie, Julia Langston, Countess of, iv. 219, 435; v. 30, 273, 281.

Duckworth, Sir John and Lady, iv. 245.

---- Robinson, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold and Canon of Westminster, i. 446, 472; ii. 4, 33.

Dudley, 1st Earl of, i. 20; iv. 421.

Dufferin, Helen Selina Sheridan, Baroness, vi. 475.

Dugdale, Alice Trevelyan, Mrs. Stratford, v. 13.

Dumbleton, Miss Harriet, i. 269.

Dumfries, ii. 163.

Dundas, Hon. Alice Wood, Mrs. John, iv. 369; v. 422; vi. 484.

Dunlop, Harriet, Mrs., iii. 258, 260, 281-282, 288, 290, 292, 298, 304, 306, 317.

Dunraven, Anne, Countess of, v. 148, 151.

Dunottar, ii. 166.

Dunstanborough Castle, ii. 269-270, 364; iii. 35, 36.

Dunster Castle, vi. 235.

Duntrune, ii. 165.

Dupanloup, Felix Antoine Philibert, Bishop of Orleans, iii. 360.

Du Quaire, Fanny Blackett, Madame, iv. 200, 219, 220; v. 198, 311, 386; vi. 28-31.

Durham, ii. 262.

Durham, Beatrix, Countess of, ii. 364-366; iii. 35-39.

---- George Frederick, 2nd Earl of, ii, 364-365; iii. 35-36; iv. 124.

---- Sir Philip, v. 15.

Dutton, Hon. Julia, iv. 466.

---- Hon. Ralph and Mrs., iv. 71, 331. 397; v. 287.

Dyrham Park, i. 315.

Dysart, Elizabeth Tollemache, Countess of, v. 235.

E.

Eardley, Sir Culling, ii. 289.

Earle, Theresa Villiers, Mrs., the authoress, vi. 254.

Eastbourne, i. 63, 210, 256, 376, 505.

East Hendred, 11. 230.

Eastlake, Elizabeth Rigby, Lady, iii. 154-155, 418; v. 308, 311.

Ebury, Robert, 1st Lord, iv. 400; vi. 89.

Eccles Greig, ii. 168.

Eddis, E. V., the portrait-painter, vi. 324-326, 330-333.

Edgecumbe, Fanny-Lucy Shelley, Hon. Mrs. George, iv. 247-248.

---- Lady Ernestine, vi. 257.

---- Hon. George, iv. 247.

---- Sir Richard, iv. 248.

Edgeworth, Life and Letters of Maria, vi. 370.

Edinburgh, iv. 449.

Edinburgh, H.R.H. Duke and Duchess of, v. 210.

---- H.R.H. the Duchess of, vi. 261.

Edwardstone, vi. 519.

Egerton, Lady Blanche, iii. 32.

---- Rev. Charles, i. 137.

---- Elizabeth Sykes, Mrs., iv. 460.

---- Miss Mary, vi. 97.

---- Lady Mary, iv. 348, 464.

---- of Tatton, Lady Charlotte Loftus, Lady, iv. 460-462; v. 65.

---- of Tatton, Lady Mary Amherst, Lady, vi. 229-239, 305.

---- of Tatton, William Egerton, William, 1st Lord, iv. 382; v. 18.

Elcho, Lady Anne Anson, Lady, ii. 356; iii 42; v. 206.

Eldon, John Scott, 1st Earl of, vi. 333.

Eliot, William, Lord, iv. 245.

Elizabeth, Queen of England, iv. 77, 337; v. 332.

Ellice, Lady Jane, iv. 9, 51, 136, 209, 213, 254, 338, 405, 406, 408; v. 214; vi. 21.

---- Mr. William, iv. 51, 405; v. 214.

Elliot, Lady Harriet, iv. 447.

---- Miss Margaret, iv. 324.

Ellis, Hon. Harriet, iv. 182, 189.

Ellisland, ii. 164.

Ellison, Mr. Cuthbert, i. 50.

---- Mrs. of Sugbrooke, iii. 169.

Elphinstone, Sir Howard, iv. 230; vi. 152, 181.

Elsdon, ii. 345.

Elton Hall, v. 271; vi. 376, 455.

Eltz, vi. 223.

Elvedon, vi. 400.

Ely, iii. 8.

Embrun, vi. 46.

Enfield, Lady Alice Egerton, Viscountess, v. 363.

Enniskillen, William Willoughby, 3rd Earl of, iv. 382.

Ensleigh, vi. 181.

Erskine, Emmeline Adeane, Mrs. Thomas, novelist, iii. 201; v. 278.

---- Thomas, of Linlathen, essayist, ii. 165, 278.

Escrick, ii. 437.

Escurial, Palace of the, iv. 42.

Eslington, ii. 320, 364.

Este, iii. 229.

Eugène Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.

Eugénie de Montijos, Empress of the French, i. 492; iii. 392; iv. 225, 434; v. 205, 210-211, 417-418; vi. 350-351.

Eulenborg, Count, v. 96, 98.

Evans, Rev., iii. 3.

Eversley, Charles Shaw-Lefevre, Viscount, ii. 217; iv. 343; v. 221, 340.

Evreux, i. 326.

Ewart, Herbert and Lady Mary, vi. 517.

Exeter, Lady Georgina Pakenham, Marchioness of, v. 47.

Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of, ii. 264; iv. 249.

---- William Alleyne Cecil, 3rd Marquis of, v. 47, 52.

F.

Faa, Esther, Queen of the Gipsies, iv. 250-252.

Facchini, Giacinta, “the Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Fairholme, Grace Palliser, Mrs., iv. 133, 135, 136, 139, 143.

Falconnet, Mademoiselle Judith, ii. 59.

Falk, Paul Ludwig, the politician, v. 92.

Falkirk Tryst, iii. 48.

Falkland, Byron Plantagenet Cary, 12th Viscount, vi. 445.

Fane, Captain, iv. 288.

Farfa, iv. 190.

Farley Hungerford, i. 271-272.

Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro, iv. 112.

Farquharson, Miss, of Invercauld, v. 456.

Favart, Madame, v. 176.

Fawsley, v. 404.

Feilden, Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot, iii. 78-80; iv. 106.

Feilding, Lord and Lady, i. 340.

Felbrigge, v. 451.

Felixstowe, vi. 259.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn and Mrs., vi. 241.

---- Susan Lyon, Mrs., ii. 272, 317.

Fénélon, Chateau de, v. 437.

Fergusson, Sir James, v. 8.

Ferney Voltaire, i. 453.

Ferrar, Nicholas, of Little Gidding, vi. 376-378.

Ferrara, ii. 47; iii. 345.

Ferrers, Sir Edward, vi. 498.

---- Laurence, 4th Earl, iv. 236.

---- Marmion Edward, vi. 497.

Ferronays, M. de la, ii. 68.

Fersen, John Axel, Comte de, iv. 273-279.

Feuchères, Sophia Dawes, Madame de, iii. 21-23; iv. 338-339; vi. 122.

Feuchtwanger, the Misses, vi. 285.

Fiano, Don Marco, Duke of, ii. 59, 424.

---- Donna Giulia Boncompagni, Duchess of, ii. 59.

Fielding, Copley, the artist, i. 165, 505.

Filiol, Sybil, i. 157.

Fina, S., iii. 344.

Finucane, Miss Anastasia, iii. 209, 378.

Firle, v. 407.

Fisher, Captain Edward, iv. 201, 203, 307.

----Frederick, iii. 67, 414.

FitzClarence, Lady Frederick, iii. 29-30.

Fitzhardinge, Georgina Sumner, Lady, v. 304, 306.

FitzGerald, Edward Fox, i. 29.

---- Jane Paul, Mrs. Edward, i. 29; iii. 267, 269, 271, 272; iv. 243.

---- Pamela Sims, Lady Edward, i. 28; iv. 243; v. 413.

---- Percy, the author, vi. 259.

Fitzherbert, Mrs., iii. 324.

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, v. 14.

---- Mrs., iii. 226.

Fitzwilliam, Lady Albreda, iv. 282.

---- Hon. Charles, vi. 378.

---- Lady Frances Douglas, Countess, iv. 269, 281-282.

---- William, 6th Earl, iv. 269, 281.

Flahault, Margaret, Baroness Keith, Comtesse de, iv. 61.

Fletcher, Miss, of Saltoun, ii. 355; iii. 40, 42, 43.

---- Lady Charlotte, ii. 356; iii. 43-45.

Flint, Professor Robert, theologian, v. 323.

Flodden Field, ii. 281.

Florence, ii. 84; iii. 315; iv. 193; vi. 510.

Florence, Henry, iii. 363.

Flower, Constance de Rothschild, Mrs. Cyril, afterwards Lady Battersea, vi. 90.

---- Professor (Sir) William Henry, vi. 81.

Foley, Henry Thom, 5th Lord, v. 284.

---- Lady Mary Howard, Lady, v. 413.

---- Miss Margaret, the sculptress, iv. 90.

Folkestone, Matilda Chaplin, Viscountess, v. 15.

Fontainebleau, i. 451.

Fontaines, iii. 183.

Fontarabia, ii. 493.

Fontenay, iii. 385.

Ford Abbey, vi. 296.

Ford Castle, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii. 323-326; iv. 51, 133-144; vi. 158-161, 244-249.

---- Mary Molesworth, Mrs., of Pencarrow, vi. 95.

Forester, Hon. Eleanor Fraser, Mrs. Henry, vi. 123.

Forli, iv. 315-318.

Forster, Harry, vi. 156.

---- Professor, iv. 326.

Fortescue, Elizabeth Geale, Countess, iv. 249.

---- Hugh, Earl, iv. 249.

Foscolo, Ugo, iv. 346.

Foster, Dr., Bishop of Kilmore, ii. 233.

---- Miss, ii. 234.

---- Mrs. Johnston, vi. 301.

Fotheringham, Mrs., of Fotheringham, ii. 165.

Fotheringhay, v. 272.

Fox, Charles James, the politician, vi. 401.

---- George Lane, of Bramham, vi. 357.

---- St. George Lane, v. 416.

Framlingham, v. 445.

France, publication of volumes on, vi. 238.

Francesca Romana, St., iii. 225-226.

Francesco d’Assise, King Consort of Spain, iv. 35-37.

Francesco II., King of Naples, iii. 85, 96-97.

Francheschi, Signor, v. 22.

Franklin, Lady, iii. 2.

Franzoni, Madame, iv. 166-167.

Fraser, Mrs., v. 323.

Fray, Miss, i. 268.

Frederick the Great of Prussia, ii. 148; v. 92.

---- Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany, ii. 374; v. 96, 97; vi. 69.

Freeman, Edward Augustus, the historian, iv. 354-356. 424; vi. 380.

Frere, G. E., v. 331.

Fribourg, in Breisgau, iii. 109.

---- in Switzerland, ii. 112.

Fritwell Manor, ii. 151.

Froude, James Anthony, the historian, iv. 397; v. 18, 197, 289.

Fry, Elizabeth Gurney, Mrs., i. 229; ii. 437.

---- Mrs., of Clifton, iv. 78-80.

Fryston, iv. 69.

Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, ii. 400, 403; iii. 270, 287.

Fuseli, Henry, R.A., vi. 330.

Fyler, Rev. J., Vicar of Cornhill, iv. 264, 266.

---- Gabet, M., ii. 421.

G.

Gabriac, Marquis de, ii. 115.

---- Marquise de, ii. 67.

Gabrielli, Augusta Bonaparte, Princess, v. 140.

Gaebler, M. Bernard, i. 161.

Gage, Henry, 5th Viscount, v. 407.

Galicano, the Hermitage of, ii. 98.

Galloway, Lady Mary Cecil, Countess of, vi. 224.

Galway, Henrietta Eliza Milnes, Viscountess, vi. 421.

---- Rev. Father, ii. 398-404, 427; iii. 263, 287.

Garden, Miss Henrietta, i. 108; iii. 193, 213, 220; v. 135, 345; vi. 264, 275, 279, 415, 505, 509.

Gargilesse, v. 433.

Garrowby, vi. 389.

Gaskell, Charles Milnes, vi. 28.

---- Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, Mrs., the novelist, ii. 224; iii. 117.

Gasperoni, the robber chieftain, ii. 54.

Gatton Park, v. 33.

Gaussen, M., i. 453.

Gayford, Mrs., i. 53, 369.

Gemmi, adventure on the, i. 462.

Geneva, i. 452; ii. 379.

Genoa, ii. 253; iii. 187.

George III., King of England, ii. 434-436.

George IV., King of England, iii. 14, 15, 176, 324; iv. 308; v. 335; vi. 359.

Germany, H.R.H. Frederick, Crown Prince of, ii. 374; v. 96, 97; vi. 69.

----Frederick William II., Emperor of, vi. 253.

---- H.R.H. Victoria, the Crown Princess of, v. 75, 96-98; vi. 69, 70.

Ghizza, Ancilla, iii. 234.

Giacinta, the “Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Gibraltar, iv. 34-37.

Gibside, ii. 180.

Gibson, John, the sculptor, iii. 76-78.

Gidding, Little, vi. 376-378.

Gidman, John, i. 131; ii. 33, 83, 386; iii. 232, 406, 412; iv. 46; v. 378.

---- Mary Lea, Mrs., i. 205-207, 210; ii. 33, 468, 489; iii. 195, 316, 399, 403, 409, 412, 413, 414; iv. 46, 299, 373-375; v. 315, 325, 352, 369-381.

Gilbertson, Rev. Lewis, Minor Canon of St. Paul’s, vi. 375, 464.

Gilling Castle, vi. 256.

Gioberti, Signor, iii. 167.

Girgenti, v. 251.

Gladstone, Catherine Glynne, Mrs., ii. 381; iv. 397, 462; v. 210.

---- Rt. Hon. William Ewart, the statesman, iv. 397, 461-462; v. 210; vi. 235-236, 325, 408, 483.

Glamis Castle, i. 22; v. 44, 217-218.

Glamis, John Lyon, 6th Lord, i. 23.

---- John Lyon, 7th Lord, i. 23.

---- John Lyon, 8th Lord, i. 23.

Glassenbury, vi. 55.

Glastonbury, i. 98.

Gleichen, Countess Valda, vi. 499.

Glemham, v. 445.

Gloucester and Bristol, Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of, iv. 401.

Glyn, Hon. and Rev. Edward Carr, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, iv. 283, 284.

Glynde Place, v. 407.

Goldschmidt, Jenny Lind, Madame, i. 236; iii. 146-149; iv. 80; v. 200; vi. 260-262, 406.

Goldsmid, Nathaniel, ii. 68; iii. 168.

---- Mrs. Nathaniel, iii. 69, 71-75, 93.

Goldstone Farm, i. 150, 208.

Gondi, Count, iii. 252.

Gontaut, Duchesse de, Governess of the Children of France, vi. 321.

Gordon, Alexander, v. 319-320.

---- Hon. Sir Arthur, afterwards Lord Stanmore, v. 203, 208.

---- Hon. Canon Douglas, iv. 347; vi. 105, 414.

Gordon, Lady E., vi. 405, 414.

---- Hon. John, iii. 43.

---- Misses Duff, iv. 370.

---- Isabella Grant, Lady Francis, iv. 66, 67, 410.

Gore, Lady, i. 278.

Gorhambury, v. 47.

Gosau, Lakes of, 11, 41.

Gosford, ii. 356.

Gower, vi. 101.

---- Granville Leveson, vi. 305.

---- Lord Ronald, iv. 61; v. 228, 275, 340, 372, 374; vi. 341.

Grammont, Antoine, Duc de, vi. 29.

Granada, iv. 37-39.

Grande Chartreuse, La, ii. 258.

Grant, Dr., Bishop of Southwark, ii. 442.

----Frederick Forsyth, i. 440; ii. 151, 168.

---- General, the American, v. 97.

---- Miss Katherine, v. 429.

---- Lady Lucy, v. 281.

---- Miss Mary, the sculptress, iv. 397; v. 281.

---- Owen, v. 279; vi. 96.

---- Duff, Sir Mountstuart and Lady, vi. 520.

Granville, Castalia Campbell, Countess, vi. 301.

---- Mr. Court, and Lady Charlotte, ii. 353.

Gravetye, vi. 227.

Gray, Dr. Asa, the botanist, v. 300-301.

Great Oakley Hall, vi. 238.

Greenwell, Rev. Canon William, the archaeologist, v. 424.

Greenwood, John, of Swancliffe, v. 425.

Gregory, Pearson, of Harlaxton, vi. 501.

---- Mrs., ii. 482-486; iv. 200.

Gregory XVI., Pope, iii. 74.

Grenfell, Alethea Adeane, Mrs. Henry, v. 326.

Grenoble, vi. 51.

Gresford, i. 96; ii. 448.

Grey, Albert, vi. 18.

---- Anna Sophia Ryder, Lady, of Falloden, ii. 279, 363.

---- Charles, 2nd Earl, the Prime Minister, iii. 36; iv. 286.

---- Charlotte Des Voeux, Lady, ii. 251, 371, 377; iii. 139, 154; iv. 327.

---- Lady Elizabeth, ii. 276, 366.

---- Hon. and Rev. Francis, ii. 276-278, 366; v. 231, 461.

---- Hon. Sir Frederick, iv. 283.

---- George, of Falloden, iv. 290.

---- Right Hon. Sir George, of Falloden, statesman, ii. 279, 363; iii. 36; iv. 99; v. 2.

---- Sir George, of New Zealand, ii. 214-217; iii. 330.

---- Rev. Harry, i. 253.

---- Henry George, 3rd Earl, the politician, iii. 35, 36; iv. 62.

---- Lady Georgiana, ii. 332, 334-335, 337-339.

---- John, of Dilston, ii. 266.

---- Maria Copley, Countess, iii. 35-36; iv. 62.

---- Mrs. William, iv. 473.

Greystoke, vi. 354.

Greville, Hon. Alwyn, v. 214.

---- Mrs., née Locke, ii. 94.

---- Sabine Thellusson, Mrs., iv. 370, 484; v. 38-41, 289-290.

---- William Fulke, v. 223.

Grignan, Chateau de, vi. 37.

Grigor, Dr., of Nairn, iii. 373; iv. 89.

Grimaldi, ii. 250.

---- the Marchesa, ii. 320.

Grimston, Lady Anne, vi. 374-375.

---- Lady Jane, v. 48.

Groombridge Place, vi. 322-323.

Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. Norman, vi. 367.

---- Lady Sybil Lumley, Countess, vi. 353.

Grosvenor, Hon. Victoria, vi. 77.

Grote, Harriet Lewin, Mrs., ii. 26-29, 218; iv. 480; v. 307-308, 310-312; vi. 253.

Grove, Elizabeth Hill, Mrs. Thomas, iii. 394; v. 291.

Guerande, La, vi. 152.

Guildford, the trial at, iii. 294.

Guiness, Adelaide Maria Guiness, Mrs. Edward, v. 204.

Guizot, M. François Pierre Guillaume, Prime Minister, i. 320.

Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, i. 319.

Gurdon, story of Father, vi. 130.

Gurney, Miss Anna, i. 230.

---- Mrs. Catherine, i. 229.

Gurneys of Earlham, the, vi. 337-339, 370-371, 384.

H.

Haddington, Helen Warrender, Countess of, iv. 445.

Hadleigh in Essex, vi. 518.

Haig of Bemerside, the Misses, iii. 378.

Hailes Abbey, iv. 438.

Hailstone, Mr. and Mrs., of Walton, iv. 68.

Hale, Dr. Douglas, ii. 369, 497.

---- Mrs., ii. 497; iii. 414.

Halifax, Lady Agnes Courtenay, Viscountess, iv. 290; vi. 353, 424.

---- Miss Caroline, i. 284.

---- Sir Charles Wood, Viscount, the statesman, iv. 290, 325, 362; v. 421.

---- Charles Lindley Wood, Viscount, President of the Church Union, v. 461; vi. 64, 97, 181-182, 257-258, 353, 424.

---- Lady Mary Grey, Viscountess, iv. 290, 475.

Hall, Mrs. Richard, iii. 159, 196, 198.

Hallam, Arthur, i. 509.

Hallein, mines of, ii. 42.

Hallingbury, iii. 7.

Hallstadt, ii. 40.

Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard, Lord Chancellor, vi. 478.

Hamilton, Alexander, 10th Duke of, ii. 336, 359.

---- Hon. Emma Elizabeth Proby, Lady Claude, vi. 376.

---- Lady Emily, iii. 48.

---- Hon. Frances Scott, Mrs. Baillie, iv. 259.

---- Rev. Henry Parr, Dean of Salisbury, iv. 346.

---- Hon. Margaret Dillon, Mrs., i. 382.

---- Princess Mary of Baden, Duchess of, ii. 358.

---- Mary Grove, Mrs. Cospatrick Baillie, iii. 395.

---- Lady Margaret, vi. 97.

---- Hamilton, Mrs., iv. 211-212, 215, 338-340, 404, 408.

Ham House, v. 231; vi. 225.

Hampden, Great, ii. 8.

---- Eliza Ellice, Viscountess, v. 407.

Hams, vi. 406.

Hanbury, Cecil, of La Murtola, vi. 341, 347.

Hanover, H.R.H. Princess Frederika of, v. 195.

---- H.R.H. Princess Mary of, iv. 429; v. 351, 429.

---- H.M. Queen Mary of, iv. 431-434; v. 351.

---- H.M. King George of, ii. 152, 153; iv. 431; v. 307.

Harcourt, Archbishop, iii. 157.

---- House, vi. 80.

---- Right Hon. Sir William, the statesman, v. 273.

Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, vi. 24, 102-103.

Hardwicke, Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, Countess of, iii. 24-27, 324; iv. 139-140.

Hardwicke, Hon. Susan Liddell, Countess of, ii. 403; iv. 409; v. 222.

Hardy, Thomas, the novelist, vi. 398.

Hare, Anna-Maria Clementina, i. 11, 13.

---- Anne Frances Maria Louisa, i. 39, 161, 338-357, 370; ii. 55-57, 70, 72, 114-115, 182-213, 284, 400, 409-432, 499-517; iii. 68, 89, 232, 233-272.

---- Augustus John Cuthbert: birth of, i. 42; baptism, 50; adoption, 51; is sent to England, 53; childhood of, 54-166; sent to school at Harnish, 167; private school life of, 170; at Harrow, 214-246; at Lyncombe, 247-296; at Southgate, 297-401; tour in Normandy, 318-331; tour in Belgium, Germany, and France, 377-387; goes to University College, Oxford, 402; second tour in Germany and France, 422-436; in France and Switzerland, 450-465; in Wales, 501-503; in Scotland, ii. 17-23; leaves Oxford, 31; in Switzerland and Austria, 33-44; first journey to Rome and Naples, 45-84; summer at Florence and Lucca, 84-103; autumn in Northern Italy and Paris, 103-128; writes Murray’s Handbook for Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire, 133-241; second summer in Scotland, 162-172; has to leave Hurstmonceaux, 227; leaves Lime, 243; settles at Holmhurst, 244; spends the winter at Mentone, 246-258; writes Murray’s Handbook for Durham and Northumberland, 260-366; spends the spring at Nice and early summer in Switzerland, 370-380; second winter at Rome, 384-409; visit to Escrick, 433; spring at Pau and Biarritz, 462-497; summer in Northumberland, iii. 8-49; third winter at Rome, 50-109; winter at Cannes, 134-152; fourth winter at Rome, 183-232; death of his sister, 232; is attacked by a Roman Catholic conspiracy, 272-312; fifth winter at Rome and dangerous illness, 314-320; sixth winter at Rome, 333-386; death of his adopted mother, 400; writes “Memorials of a Quiet Life” under great opposition, iv. 1-9; visits at Penzance and Bournemouth and Highcliffe, 6-14; lawsuit about a portrait by Sir J. Reynolds, 17-24; travels in Spain with Miss Wright, 24-44; autumn of 1872 in Northumberland and Yorkshire, 51-71; visit at Hatfield, 72-82; publication of “Wanderings in Spain,” 83-84; seventh winter at Rome, 85-123; autumn of 1873 in the North of England, 132-148; work in 1874 on “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 162-197; becomes a member of the Athenaeum, 198-199; publishes a third volume of “The Memorials,” 309-311; tour for work in 1875 in Northern and Central Italy, 312-323; visits in London and the country, 323-351; publishes “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 352; is attacked by Mr. John Murray, 353; by Mr. Edward Freeman, 354; attends Lady Augusta Stanley’s funeral, 366; visit at Powdenham, 385; at Charlton, 388; at Highcliffe, 404; at Cobham, 411; at Ampthill, 412; at Conington, 424; at Sarsden, 426; at Donington, 440; at Raby, 442; at Whitburn, 443; at Winton, 447; at Ravensworth, 451; at Kinmel, 458; at Tatton, 459; at Sherborne, 465; at Osterley, 467; at Hinchinbroke, 470; writes the Memoirs of Baroness Bunsen, v. 1; visit at Llanover, 3; at Milford, 38; at Babworth, 41; at Thoresby, 43; at Glamis, 44; at Gorhambury, 47; at Goldings, 53; at Ampthill, 55; at Crewe, 62; at Battle Abbey, 66; meets the Crown Princess of Germany, 75; visits the Princess of Wied, 77; visits and tour in Germany, 85-99; in Denmark, 99-102; in Sweden, 102-108; in Norway, 108-118; visit to the King and Queen of Sweden and Norway, 118-129; undertakes to be with the Crown Prince at Rome, 132; is overtaken by an avalanche on the Mont Cenis, 134; at Rome with the Crown Prince, 135-177; speech before the Roman Archaeological Society, 179-190; in London with the Crown Prince, 195-213; visits with the Crown Prince, 213-217; at Llanover with the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, 225-228; suffers from the bankruptcy of his publishers, 241; makes a tour in Sicily and Apulia in 1879-80, 245-271; edits the Life of Amelie von Lassaulx, 292; goes to Holyrood as equerry to the High Commissioner, 318-324; visits Rome, Capri, Calabria, and Venice in 1882, 344-352; tour in Holland in 1882, 363-365; death of his old nurse, 369-381; travels in Russia in 1883, 391-401; tour in Picardy and Switzerland in 1884, 408-411; loss of fortune, 416; first journey in France for literary purposes in 1885, 430-442; his failures in trying to help young men, 462-470; reaches middle life, vi. 1-3; travels in France and Italy in 1886, 8-17; travels in France in 1887, 35-54; is arrested at Vizille, 48; publishes “Paris,” and “Days near Paris,” 114-117; travels again in France in 1888, 146-152; last visit to Ford, 158; spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1889, 165-170; loss from books, 165; illness at Holmhurst in 1889, 187-188; journey to Constantinople, Broussa, and Oberammergau in 1890, 192-225; last visit to Highcliffe, 228-229; his loss in Lady Waterford, 241-251; spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1892, 263-294; serious illness at Holmhurst in 1892, 299-301; loss of Miss Leycester, 318-319; writes a volume on Sussex, 322; publishes “Two Noble Lives,” 333-336; writes the “Gurney Memoirs,” 337-339; travels in Normandy and Brittany in 1894, 342-346; publishes “Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth,” 370-371; publishes “The Gurneys of Earlham,” 384-385; publishes “North-Western France” and “Biographical Sketches,” 392; spring on the Rivieras and at Rome and Venice in 1896, 411-421; visits at Reigate, Hatfield, and Osterley, 421-424; visit at Wollaton, 425; visits at Oswestry, Lutwyche, Chesters, North Berwick, Airlie Castle, Bishopthorpe, 434-436; publishes the first three volumes of “The Story of my Life,” 446; visits at Lockinge, Blaise Castle, Hewell, Elton, Madresfield, Painswick, Hereford, 447-463; visits at Maiden-Bradley, Burwarton, Teversal, Thoresby, Cliveden, 473-480; builds at Holmhurst, 491; visits at Shrivenham, Oxton, Streatlam, Kiplin, Baddesley-Clinton, Sonning, and Belvoir, 494-502; at Rome in the spring of 1899, 505-510; at Florence and Arco, 510; attends the deathbed of Mrs. C. Vaughan, 513-516; is at Swaylands with the Duchess of York, 410; visits in Suffolk, 517-521; undergoes the Nauheim treatment, 521; tour in Devon and Cornwall, 522-524; visits at Corsham and Cliveden, 525; visit to the King and Queen of Sweden, 525.

Hare, Augustus William, Rector of Alton-Barnes, i. 6, 13, 14, 43-49.

---- Mrs. Augustus (Maria Leycester), i. 43, 54-80, 98-171, 187-196, 200-201, 210-212, 240, 254, 259, 262, 365, 376-377, 437-438, 442-444, 450, 454, 464, 466, 469, 487-492; ii. 14-17, 44-49, 76, 80, 85, 97, 109, 130, 227-229, 243, 246-247, 259, 326-328, 367-372, 392-393, 460-497; iii. 3, 84, 103, 107, 110, 141, 183, 187-190, 202-232, 320-322, 331, 337-419; vi. 489.

---- Miss Caroline, i. 4, 89, 94, 291.

---- Caroline, daughter of Francis and Anne, i. 33, 35.

----Francis, Dean of St. Paul’s and Bishop of St. Asaph and Chichester, i. 1, 2; ii. 156.

Hare, Francis George (the elder), i. 6-21, 26, 29-42, 49-53, 84-85, 95, 157-159; ii. 57; portrait by Sir J. Reynolds of, iv. 17-24.

----Francis George (the younger), i. 35, 92-94, 160, 373-375; ii. 400-402, 408; iii. 240, 248, 257-259, 276, 278, 282-313.

---- Anne Frances Paul, Mrs., i. 33-42, 51, 53, 95, 160, 260-261, 276, 339-355, 370-376; ii. 55-57, 114, 212-213, 397-406; iii. 53, 54; iv. 18.

---- Charlotte Fuller, Mrs. Robert, iv. 50.

---- George, i. 91-94.

---- Georgiana, afterwards Mrs. Frederick Maurice, i. 13, 16, 82-83, 280.

---- Gustavus Cockburn, i. 13, 123, 287, 481.

---- Annie Wright, Mrs. Gustavus, i. 123.

---- Mrs. Henckel, i. 3, 4, 89, 90.

---- Henry, i. 91.

---- Julius Charles, Rector of Hurstmonceaux and Archdeacon of Lewes, i. 6, 10, 14, 49, 50, 59, 67-68, 77, 80-81, 99, 104-107, 109-111, 122, 156, 159, 176, 179, 251-253, 261-262, 357, 466-469, 476, 478, 480-484; iv. 18; vi. 6.

---- Marcus Augustus Stanley, i. 74, 86; ii. 366, 370; iv. 51, 164, 249; v. 69-70.

---- Marcus Theodore, i. 6, 11, 85, 96, 175, 190, 192, 194-196; iv. 18; vi. 6.

---- Lucy Anne Stanley, Hon. Mrs. Marcus, i. 49, 74, 166, 175, 178, 192, 194-196, 201-204; iii. 318-319.

---- Miss Marianne, i. 4, 10, 89, 95, 291.

---- Mary Margaret Alston, Mrs. i. 2, 494; ii. 156; vi. 518, 519.

---- Mary Hargreaves, Mrs. Theodore, vi. 297.

---- Reginald John, i. 13.

---- Rev. Robert, Rector of Hurstmonceaux, i. 4, 5; vi. 5.

---- Rev. Robert, Canon of Winchester, i. 2, 6, 494.

---- Theodore Julius, i. 160, 204.

---- William Robert, i. 18, 160, 373-375; ii. 401-402, 411, 452-453, 514; iii. 241-250.

Hare-Naylor, Anna Maria Mealey, Mrs., i. 13, 82, 83; vi. 6.

----Francis, i. 5, 11, 12, 13; vi. 5.

---- Georgiana Shipley, Mrs., i. 5-12; vi. 6.

Harewood, Lady Florence Bridgeman, Countess of, vi. 402.

Harford, Mary de Bunsen, Mrs., iv. 165; v. 2.

Harlaxton, vi. 501.

Harlech, William Richard Ormsby Gore, 2nd Lord, vi. 434.

Harnham, ii. 351.

Harnish, i. 170; vi. 525.

Harraden, Miss, the novelist, vi. 340.

Harrington, Elizabeth Green, Countess of, v. 198.

Harris, Hon. Charles, vi. 459.

---- George Robert Canning, Lord, iv. 357.

---- Hon. Reginald Temple, i. 264, 277, 282.

Harrison, Archdeacon Benjamin and Mrs., iii. 331-332.

Harrow, i. 214.

Harte, Bret, the poet, vi. 319.

Harvey, Annie Tennant, Mrs., of Ickwellbury, iv. 335, 363; v. 406.

Hastings, i. 122.

Hastings, Francis, 1st Marquis of, iv. 285-286.

---- Warren, the statesman, iv. 435.

Hatfield House, i. 307, 313; iv. 72-82, 223, 224; vi. 372-375. 422-423, 482.

Hatherley, Lord and Lady, iv. 379.

Haweis, Rev. Hugh Reginald, the author, iv. 307.

Hawker, Misses Jane and Adelaide, iii. 106-107, 146.

Hawkestone, i. 148, 208; ii. 327.

Haworth, iv. 68-69; vi. 394.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, the novelist, v. 19.

Hawtrey, Dr. Edward Craven, Provost of Eton, ii. 230; iv. 198.

Hay, Adam, of King’s Meadows, ii. 137; iii. 46, 146.

---- Sir Adam, ii. 357; iii. 146.

---- Miss Ida, ii. 372.

---- Sir John, v. 51.

Haygarth, Mrs., afterwards Lady Blanche, iv. 83, 240; v. 276; vi. 257.

---- Colonel Francis, iv. 83, 240; v. 276; vi. 257.

Hayward, Abraham, the essayist, iv. 226, 395.

Heber, Rev. Reginald, Rector of Hodnet and Bishop of Calcutta, i. 44.

---- Emilia Shipley, Mrs. Reginald, i. 44; iii. 125.

Heckfield Place, iv. 343.

Hedley, Rev. W., Dean of University College, afterwards Rector of Beckley, i. 405.

Heidelberg, i. 380.

Heiligenkreutz, ii. 38.

Helbig, Professor Wolfgang, the antiquarian, v. 142.

Helmingham, v. 445.

Helston, vi. 522.

Hely-Hutchinson, Lady Margaret, v. 320.

Henckel, Mrs., i. 90.

Henderson, Colonel, iv. 155-156.

Hendre, the, vi. 502.

Henniker, Miss Edith, vi. 456.

Herbert, E., the artist, v. 191-192.

---- Rev. George, the poet, vi. 108.

---- Hon. George, Dean of Hereford, vi. 302.

---- Lady Gladys, iv. 406.

---- Lady Gwendolen, vi. 474.

---- Lady Margaret, vi. 474.

---- Lady Winifred, iv. 149; v. 11.

---- of Lea, Elizabeth A’Court, Lady, the authoress, iv. 51-55, 406.

---- of Llanarth, Arthur, v. 6.

---- of Llanarth, Hon. Augusta Hall, Mrs., v. 6, 228.

Hereford, vi. 302.

Herkomer, Hubert, the artist, v. 429.

Herrenalb, iv. 322-323; v. 86, 87.

Herries, Marcia Vavasour, Lady, iii. 237.

Hervey, Lord Arthur, Bishop of Bath and Wells, vi. 320-321.

---- Lord Francis, iv. 153.

Hesleyside, ii. 343.

Hesse, H.R.H. Princess Alice of, iv. 102; v. 147.

---- H.R.H. Prince Louis of, iv. 102.

Hewell, vi. 351, 448.

Hewitt, Sir Prescott, the great surgeon, vi. 4.

Hibbert, Caroline Cholmondeley, Mrs., iii. 117.

---- Miss Letitia, vi. 9.

Hickleton, ii. 283; iv. 290; v. 418; vi. 257-258, 371-372.

Higginson, Miss Adelaide, i. 478.

---- Lady Frances, i. 478; iv. 132; vi. 94.

---- General Sir George, v. 279; vi. 86, 94, 299.

Highclere, iv. 148.

Highcliffe, iii. 427; iv. 8-14, 208-217, 404-409; vi. 21, 108, 228-229.

High Force, the, ii. 340.

Hill, Anne Clegg, Viscountess, i. 148.

---- Miss Octavia, vi. 319.

---- Sir Roger, the philanthropist, vi. 183.

---- Sir Rowland, i. 147.

---- Rowland, 1st Viscount, i. 145.

Hills-Johnes, Lady, vi. 142-143.

Hinchinbroke, iv. 425, 470.

Hirsel, the, iv. 258.

Hoare, Mrs. R., v. 452.

Hobart, Vere Henry, Lord, and Mary Catherine Carr, Lady, ii. 389.

Hodnet, i. 143; ii. 327.

Hogg, James, the Ettrick Shepherd, ii. 314-315; iv. 55.

---- Mary Magniac, Mrs., vi. 247.

Hohenzollern, Prince Friedrich of, v. 98.

Holcombe, vi. 401.

Holford, Miss Evelyn, vi. 78.

---- George, vi. 448.

Holland, Mary-Augusta Coventry, Lady, iv. 226, 231, 325, 331, 395, 474.

---- Miss Caroline, v. 99, 109, 112, 245, 316, 390; vi. 92.

---- Miss Gertrude, v. 99, 245, 255, 316, 390

---- Mary Sibylia, Mrs. Frank, vi. 490.

Holland House, iv. 226-228, 231, 325, 331, 335, 395, 398; v. 21, 212; vi. 329.

Holmbury, vi. 225.

Holmesdale, Lady Julia Cornwallis, Viscountess, v. 45.

Holmhurst, ii. 241-246, 259, 368; iii. 320; iv. 46, 49, 229, 311, 404; v. 30-31, 352, 462; vi. 4, 139, 170, 173-174, 342, 393, 428-429, 476, 480, 491, 503.

Holtermann, Baron, v. 119, 117, 138.

Holy Island, ii. 271-272.

Home, Cospatrick Alexander, 11th Earl of, iv. 258.

Honingham Hall, vi. 241.

Hood, Henry, iii. 152.

Hope, Adrian, vi. 101.

---- Aldena Kingscote, Lady, iv. 454.

---- Alexander James Beresford, iv. 290-291.

---- Miss Louisa, v. 321

---- Lady Mildred, ii. 14.

Hopton, vi. 103.

Hornby Castle, vi. 402.

Hornby, Mrs., of Dalton, iii. 80, 131, 329-330.

Horsley, Bishop, iii. 332.

Hosmer, Miss Harriet, the sculptress, iii. 76, 368; iv. 124; v. 66; vi. 268-273; 284-285, 287-290, 311-312.

Hos Tendis, i. 4; vi. 103.

Houblon, Mr. and Mrs. Archer, ii. 390; iii. 7.

Houghton Hall, vi. 104.

Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron, iii. 229, 360; iv. 69-71, 140, 143, 226, 307-308, 370, 383, 422, 478, 481; v. 14, 16, 17, 23, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 209, 272-273, 274, 287, 314; vi. 84, 253, 275, 373, 442, 483, 488.

Hour, the Holy, ii. 499.

Housesteads, ii. 343.

Hovingham Hall, vi. 256.

Howard, Edward Henry, Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal, ii. 67; vi. 297.

---- Miss Elizabeth, iv. 99; v. 245, 255.

---- Hon. Hubert George Lyulph, vi. 422.

---- Lady Victoria, iii. 145; iv. 391.

---- of Glossop, Clara Louisa Greenwood, Lady, v. 60.

---- of Greystoke, Charlotte Long, Mrs., vi. 162, 354.

---- de Walden, Lady Lucy Bentinck, Lady, iv. 101.

Howden, vi. 361.

Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, the poetess, v. 16.

Howick, iii. 35, 36.

Howitt, Miss Margaret, v. 163, 175.

---- William and Mary, author and authoress, v. 163-164, 175-176.

Hughan, Miss Janetta, ii 284.

Hughes, Hugh, of Kinmel, iv. 362.

---- Lady Florentia, vi. 77, 164.

---- Miss, “Sister Marion,” i. 473-474.

Hull, Henry Winstanley, i. 164, 196-197, 501.

Hulne Abbey, iii. 33.

Hulse, Sir Edward, iv. 249, 348.

Hungerford, Mrs., iv. 202.

Hunt, Holman, the artist, vi 511.

---- Leigh, v. 384.

---- Sir J., iii. 31.

Huntingtower, Katherine Burke, Lady, v. 234, 359; vi. 225.

---- William, Lord, v. 234.

Hurstmonceaux, i. 4, 9-12, 54-60, 92-94, 156, 157, 159, 164-165, 187-189, 258-260, 437-438, 475-478, 504-507; ii. 14, 227-228; iii. 410-411, 413-416; iv. 49-50; v. 380-381, 387; vi. 429, 470, 487-490.

Husband, story of Mr., vi. 102.

Hussey, Edward, of Scotney, iv. 301, 355-358. v. 408.

Hutt, William, M.P. for Gateshead, ii. 180.

---- Hon. Henrietta Clive, Mrs., iv. 330; v. 355, 359, 408.

Hyères, ii. 370.

I.

Ickwellbury, vi. 27.

Ightham Mote, iv. 66; vi. 516.

Ignatieff, Madame, vi. 422.

Ignatius, Brother (Rev. Leycester Lyne), iii. 81, 83; v. 306-307.

Imperial, Napoléon Victor Jerome Frederic, the Prince, iv. 396, 398; v. 122, 123, 126-129, 204-205, 210-211; vi. 350.

Indelicati, the family of the, v. 254-258.

Ingilby, Elizabeth Macdowall, Lady, of Ripley, ii. 283, 337; iv. 287.

---- Miss, ii. 332; iv. 287.

Inglefield, Admiral, iv. 422.

Ingmire, vi. 183.

Ingram, Hon. Emily Wood, Mrs. Meynell, iv. 283.

Inverurie, Ian, Lord, vi. 343, 468.

---- Lady Sydney, v. 217-218.

Iona, v. 220.

Ipswich, v. 442.

Irongray Church, the, ii. 164.

Irving, Washington, the author, v. 385.

---- Henry, the actor, iv. 383, 484-486; v. 10-11.

Italy, H.M. Margherita di Savoia, Queen of, v. 135-136, 158.

---- H.M. Umberto II., King of, v. 158; vi. 278.

Iveagh, Edward Guinness, Lord, and Maria Guinness, Lady, vi. 372, 398.

J.

Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, i. 15.

Jagherds, v. 53.

James, Henry, the novelist, iv. 481; v. 16.

---- of Hereford, Lord, vi. 447.

Janin, Jules, iii. 6.

Jarnac, Hon. Geraldine Foley, Comtesse de, iv. 474.

Jedburgh, Lord, vi. 459.

Jekyll, Walter, iv. 100.

Jelf, Dr., Canon of Christ Church, ii. 152-153.

Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, v. 289, 323.

Jersey, Frances Twysden, Countess of, iv. 308; vi. 369.

---- Julia Peel, Countess of, v. 229, 297; vi. 105.

---- Hon. Margaret Leigh, Countess of, authoress, vi. 79-80, 182, 224-225, 367, 369.

---- Lady Sarah Fane, Countess of, iii. 8-9; vi. 369.

---- Victor Child-Villiers, 7th Earl of, vi. 182, 224-225, 369.

Jerusalem, Bishopric of, i. 163.

Jeune, Dr. Francis, Master of Pembroke, Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, ii. 6; iii. 161-168; iv. 425.

Jewsbury, Miss Geraldine, the authoress, v. 6-7.

Jocelyn, Lady Frances Cowper, Viscountess, iii. 140; iv. 166, 415.

Johnes, Miss, v. 225, 326.

Johnson, G. H. Sacheverell, Dean of Wells, iv. 355.

---- Mr., of Akeley Heads, ii. 265.

Jolliffe, Hon. Agatha, vi. 6.

---- Colonel Hylton, i. 25.

---- Hon. George Hylton, v. 151, 175: vi. 97, 192, 194, 209, 264, 429.

Jones, Anna Maria Shipley, Lady, i. 6, 13, 16; ii. 144; vi. 5.

---- Sir Edward Burne, the artist, vi. 423.

---- Rev. Herbert, vi. 104.

---- Sir Laurence, vi. 103.

---- Rev. Robert, of Branxton, ii. 280.

---- Sir William, the orientalist, i. 6.

---- Miss Whitmore, vi. 430.

Josselin, vi. 345.

Jowett, Dr. Benjamin, tutor and Master of Balliol, i. 399, 402, 404, 420, 439, 472; ii. 220, 222, vi. 372.

Joyce, Miss, iii. 95.

Jubilee, ceremonies of the First Victorian, vi. 65-75, 81, 83; of the Second, vi. 463-465.

K.

Keate, Dr. John, Headmaster of Eton, iv. 232.

Keith, Lady, iii. 26.

Kellie Castle, vi. 443.

Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, the authoress, iv. 87; v. 360-361, 453, 455; vi. 309-312.

Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., v. 359.

Kenmare, Gertrude Harriet Thynne, Countess of, vi. 415, 420.

Kenyon, Matilda Cotton, Mrs. Orlando, v. 223.

Keppel, Hon. Derek, vi. 99.

---- Hon. Admiral Sir Henry, vi. 401.

Kerrison, Sir Edward, v. 330.

Kershaw, Rev. E. E., ii. 388.

Kerslake, Mr., iv. 77.

Kestner, Christian William, physician and author, vi. 275.

Keudel, M. and Mme. de, v. 158.

Kieff, v. 398.

Kielder, ii. 342.

Kildare, Lady Hermione Duncombe, Marchioness of, v. 409.

Kilmarnock, Mary Caroline L’Estrange, Lady, vi. 134, 184.

Kilmorey, Francis Jack, 1st Earl of, v. 279.

Kilvert, Rev. Robert, i. 167, 172, 213.

---- Thermuthis Coleman, Mrs. Robert, i. 167.

King, Edward, Bishop of Lincoln, vi. 362.

Kinglake, Alexander William, the historian, v. 359.

Kings Meadows, ii. 357.

Kinlet, vi. 474.

Kiplin, vi. 494.

Kirk-Newton, ii. 362.

Knaresborough, ii. 322.

Knebel, Mademoiselle, ii. 387.

Knebworth, v. 415.

Knepp Castle, vi. 323.

Knightley, Louisa-Mary Bowater, Lady, v. 404-405, 407; vi. 372.

---- Sir Rainald, afterwards Lord, v. 404-405, 407; vi. 372.

Knowles, James, the editor, iv. 478; vi. 220, 225-226, 482.

Knowsley, iv. 63.

Knox, Mrs. John, ii. 274.

Königsfelden, iii. 108.

Krohn, M. de, v. 167, 214.

Kuper, Mrs. and Miss, iii. 338, 339.

Kynance Cove, vi. 524.

Kyre, vi. 302.

L.

Labouchere, Henry, M.P., vi. 85.

Labre, the Venerable, ii. 443.

Lacaita, Sir James, iv. 119-123, 332-334, 397, 400; v. 155; vi. 88.

Laire, M., the antiquary, i. 324.

Lajatico, Marchesa, v. 154.

Lamarre, M., ii. 404-405.

Lambert, Lady Mary, iv. 209, 213.

Lamington, Annabella Drummond, Lady, vi. 91.

Lanciani, Rudolfo, the archaeologist, vi. 509.

Landor, Julia Thuillier, Mrs., ii. 92, 407.

---- Walter Savage, the poet, i. 16, 18, 26, 37, 265-268, 270, 277, 289, 292, 510; ii. 111-112, 407-409; iv. 155; vi. 145.

Landseer, Sir Edwin, the artist, vi. 325-326.

Lanerton, Diana Ponsonby, Lady, vi. 297-298.

Langford, Elizabeth, Viscountess, iii. 129.

Langy, M. de, iv. 255.

Lansdowne, Henry Fitz-Maurice, 5th Marquis of, v. 199.

Larmignac, Mademoiselle Martine de, ii. 193, 505.

Large, Mrs., iii. 309, 310.

Lassaulx, Amalie von, v. 292.

Laughton Place, v. 407.

Lavalette, Marquis de, iv. 81, 279.

Lawford Hall, vi. 518.

Lawley, Hon. and Rev. Stephen, ii. 433; iv. 6.

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, the artist, i. 22; vi. 360-361.

Layard, Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, explorer and ambassador, iv. 35.

Layer Marney, vi. 520.

Lea, Mary, i. 50, 54, 60, 78, 117, 122, 124, 140, 171, 205, 487.

Lear, Edward, the artist, iv. 428.

Lecky, Elizabeth de Dedem, Mrs., v. 199.

Ledbury, vi. 302.

Ledstone, vi. 354.

Lee, Henry Hives, v. 32, 363.

Leeds, Fanny Georgiana Pitt, Duchess of, vi. 402, 404.

---- Louisa Catherine Caton, Duchess of, vi. 404.

Lefevre, Miss Emily Shaw, iv. 378.

---- Hon. Emma Shaw, v. 221.

---- Right Hon. George Shaw, the politician, iv. 397; v. 19; vi. 320.

---- Sir John Shaw, ii. 213, 454; iv. 157, 239, 356, 371-373, 400, 471; v. 62, 196, 220-221.

---- Miss Madeleine Shaw, iv. 23, 219, 229, 231.

---- Miss Maria Shaw, ii. 392.

---- Miss Mary Shaw, ii. 392; iv. 217, 231.

---- Miss Rachel Shaw, iv. 372.

Legh, Emily Wodehouse, Mrs., of Lyme, afterwards Lady Newton, iii. 113, 116; v. 216; vi. 183.

Lehmann, Hon. Chandos and Mrs., iv. 149.

---- Miss Theodosia, i. 178.

----Frances Butler, Hon. Mrs. James, vi. 457-458.

---- Hon. James Wentworth, Dean of Hereford, vi. 457.

---- William Henry, Lord, vi. 408.

---- Dr., i. 9, 11.

Leighton, Sir Frederick, R.A., i. 294; vi. 357-358, 512.

---- Sir Baldwin, iv. 484.

Leinster, Lady Caroline Grosvenor, Duchess of, v. 218.

Leitrim, Robert Clements, 4th Earl of, v. 416.

---- Lady Winifred Coke, Countess of, v. 416.

Lennox, Adelaide Campbell, Lady Arthur, ii. 354.

---- Miss Ethel, ii. 354.

Leo XIII., Pope, vi. 277-278.

Le Puy, iii. 149.

L’Estelle, ii. 480, 487.

Leslie, Constance Dawson-Damer, Mrs., afterwards Lady Constance, iv. 323; v. 14; vi. 511.

---- Hon. George Waldegrave, v. 44.

---- Lady, story of, ii. 322-324.

Le Strange, Emmeline Austin, Mrs., vi. 25.

---- Hamon Styleman, of Hunstanton, ii. 137.

Letton, vi. 362.

Leuk, Baths of, i. 460.

Leven and Melville, Sophia Thornton, Countess of, iv. 219.

Levett, Basil, vi. 97, 420.

---- Lady Margaret, vi. 87, 97, 420.

Leycester, Miss Emma Theodosia, i. 114, 500; ii. 477-481.

---- Miss Charlotte, i. 114, 317, 376, 450, 454-458, 480, 487, 499; ii. 161, 289, 479; iii. 199, 208-221, 322, 397, 398; iv. 49, 129, 160, 230, 329, 404; v. 291; vi. 111-114, 255, 318-319.

Leycester, Miss Georgiana, iii. 200.

---- Mr. and Mrs. Henry, of White Place, ii. 156-157.

---- Judge Hugh, i. 141.

---- Maria, youngest daughter of Rev. Oswald, i. 33.

---- Elizabeth White, Mrs. Oswald, i. 102, 126-141, 209, 272-274, 228-229.

---- Rev. Oswald, Rector of Stoke-upon-Terne, i. 44, 61, 126, 207-208.

---- Ralph, of Toft, i. 317.

---- Susannah Leigh, Mrs. Ralph, i. 66.

---- Emily Tyrwhitt Jones, Mrs. Ralph, iv. 307.

Licenza, iv. 174.

Lichfield, ii. 330; v. 403.

---- John Hacket, Bishop of, v. 403.

---- William Maclagan, Bishop of, v. 402.

---- George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of, v. 404.

Lichtenstein, Marie Fox, Princess, iv. 228.

Liddell, Miss Amelia, ii. 264, 271.

---- Hon. Colonel Augustus, iii. 367.

---- Cecil Elizabeth Wellesley, Hon. Mrs. Augustus, iii. 367.

---- Miss Charlotte, ii. 264, 271.

---- Charlotte Lyon, Mrs. Henry, i. 283; ii. 263, 271; iii. 8, 171.

---- Christina Fraser Tytler, Mrs. Edward, the novelist, iv. 51, 444, 446.

---- Edward, afterwards Rev., iii. 365-368; iv. 51, 444, 446.

---- Hon. George, ii. 262, 263, 318; iv. 447; v. 292.

---- Louisa Meade, Hon. Mrs. George, ii. 263, 318.

---- Hon. Hedworth, ii. 364.

---- Henry, Headmaster of Westminster and Dean of Christ Church, i. 283; ii. 9, 157.

Liddell, Rev. Henry, Rector of Easington, and trustee of Bamborough Castle, i. 283; ii. 263; iii. 8-10, 171; death of, iv. 39.

---- Lorena Reeve, Mrs., vi. 89.

---- Maria Susanna Simpson, Lady, i. 25.

---- Hon. Thomas, ii. 139.

---- Rev. William, ii. 264.

---- Lady Victoria, iv. 201, 232.

Lieven, Princesse de, iv. 308.

Lievenhaupt, Count and Countess, v. 150.

Lilford, Emma Brandling, Lady, iv. 395.

Lillieköök, M. de, v. 214.

Lime, at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex, i. 57, 60; 66-75.

Limosin, Madame Flora, iii. 311, 339, 349.

Lincluden Abbey, ii. 164.

Lincoln, vi. 361.

Lincoln, Abraham, the American statesman and President, v. 451.

Lind, Mademoiselle Jenny, i. 236; vi. 260, 261.

Lindertis, vi. 439.

Lindsay, Hon. Colonel Hugh, v. 426.

---- Lady Margaret, iii. 27.

---- Miss Maude, iv. 133, 137, 209, 213, 250, 260, 264, 404; v. 214; vi. 246, 249.

---- Lady Sarah, iv. 222, 250, 360, 370; v. 426-427.

---- Miss Violet, iv. 332.

Liskeard, vi. 522.

Liszt, Franz, ii. 389.

Littlecote Hall, vi. 161.

Llanarth, v. 226.

Llandaff, vi. 101, 240, 476.

Llangattock, John Rolls, Lord, vi. 505.

Llanover, v. 2-6, 225-228.

Llanover, Augusta Waddington, Lady, v. 2-6, 226-228.

Llanover, Benjamin Hall, Lord, v. 6; vi. 410.

Loch, Sir Henry, afterwards Lord, Colonial Governor, v. 336.

---- Elizabeth Villiers, Lady, v. 336.

Locke, Selina Tollemache, Mrs., iv. 226.

Locker-Lampson, Frederick, the poet, v. 449; vi. 263.

Lockhart, John Gibson, novelist and biographer, vi.

Lockinge, vi. 447.

Lockwood, Lady Julia, iv. 472.

London, Frederick Temple, Bishop of, vi. 320.

London dinners, vi. 252.

Londonderry, Frances Anne Vane Tempest, Marchioness of, iii. 9; v. 428.

---- Mary Cornelia Edwards, Marchioness of, iii. 270.

Longford Castle, vi. 312.

Longland, John, Dean of Salisbury and Bishop of Lincoln, vi. 314-316.

Longley, Charles Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, v. 340.

Loraine, Sir Lambton, v. 13.

Lorne, John George Campbell, Marquis of, v. 22; vi. 341.

Loseley, iv. 307.

Lothian, Lady Cecil Talbot, widow of the 7th Marquis of, i. 339, 356; ii. 398-404, 409, 444; iii. 153, 270, 287, 294, 298.

---- Lady Constance Talbot, Marchioness of, iii. 47; v. 452; vi. 105, 243, 303-304, 367-368.

---- William Schomberg, 8th Marquis of, iii. 47.

Louis, King of Bavaria, ii. 374.

---- XVIII., King of France, vi. 113.

---- Philippe d’Orleans, King of the French, iv. 339.

Louisa, Queen of Prussia, v. 95, 97.

Louise, H.R.H. the Princess, v. 16, 22, 316; vi. 341.

Lourdes, v. 432.

Lovat, Simon, Lord, ii. 351.

Lovelace, Jane Jenkins, Countess of, vi. 183.

Lowe, Mrs., iv. 401-403, 479.

---- Right Hon. Robert, the statesman, iv. 402-403; vi. 119.

Lowell, James Russell, Minister and poet, v. 305; vi. 129.

Löwenjelm, Count Carl, iv. 278-279.

Löwenstein Wertheim, Lady Anne Saville, Princess, vi. 478.

Lowther, Hon. Alice Parke, Hon. Mrs. William, iv. 67, 124, 224, 331; v. 444.; vi. 175-176, 186, 215, 222, 225, 241, 258, 262, 326, 353, 499, 510, 518.

---- James, v. 444.

---- Gerard Augustus, vi. 201.

---- Miss Mabel, vi. 510.

---- Miss Mary, iv. 416; v. 445; vi. 175.

---- Hon. William, iv. 416; v. 59, 297; vi. 23, 187, 353, 499.

Loyd, Frances Irby, Mrs. Lewis, iv. 359.

---- Graham, vi. 101.

---- Henry, of Langleybury, vi. 97.

Lubbock, Sir John, afterwards Lord Avebury, natural historian and antiquarian, vi. 298.

Lübeck, v. 98.

Lucca, Bagni di, ii. 93; iv. 318.

Lucchesi, Marchese, iii. 17.

Lucerne, ii. 33.

Lucy, Mrs., of Charlcote, ii. 14.

Ludlow, v. 459.

Lullingstone Castle, vi. 476.

Lulworth, vi. 22.

Lumley, Aldred, Viscount, v. 41.

---- Augustus Savile, vi. 119.

Lumley, Sir John, afterwards Lord Savile, vi. 9.

Lurgan, Hon. Emily Browne, Lady, vi. 163.

Lushington, Dr., ii. 298-309.

Luttrell, Henry, the wit, iv. 421.

Lützow, Harriet Seymour, Countess, iv. 171, 182; v. 350; vi. 169, 192.

----Francis, Count von, iv. 171, 182.

Lyall, William Rowe, Dean of Canterbury, i. 359.

Lychett Heath, vi. 22.

Lygon, Lady Mary, vi. 459.

Lyme Hall, iii. 113; v. 216; vi. 183, 386.

Lyncombe, i. 261.

Lyndhurst, Georgiana Goldsmith, Lady, v. 66, 292, 336-339, 341; vi. 92.

---- John Singleton Copley, Lord, v. 336-339.

Lyne, Rev. Leycester, iii. 81.

Lynn-Linton, Mrs., i. 268.

Lyon, Lady Anne (Crawford), vi. 433.

---- Hon. Francis, vi. 433.

---- Sir John, of Glamis, i. 23.

---- Sir John, 1st Baron Kinghorn, i. 22.

---- Hon. Thomas, of Hetton, ii. 317.

---- Mary Wren, Hon. Mrs. Thomas, ii. 317.

Lyons, i. 452.

Lyons, Richard, Lord, Ambassador at Paris, iv. 44-45; vi. 484.

Lyte, Frances Somerville, Mrs., afterwards Lady Maxwell, iv. 377.

---- Henry Maxwell, Deputy Keeper of the Records, vi. 163, 341, 465.

Lyttleton, Hon. Mrs. Robert, vi. 34.

---- Hon. Spencer, iv. 469; v. 231.

Lytton, Edward Robert Lytton, 1st Earl of, iv. 365; v. 415.

---- Edward Bulwer Lytton, Lord, vi. 142-143.

---- Edith Villiers, Countess of, iv. 365; v. 415; vi. 236.

---- Rosina Doyle Wheeler, Lady, v. 57-58.

Lyveden, v. 448.

Lyveden, Emma Mary Fitzpatrick, Lady, v. 310, 314.

M.

Maberly, General, iv. 406.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, the historian, i. 515; ii. 218; iv. 129; vi. 86.

Macchi, Cardinal, Governor of the Romagna, iv. 257.

Macdonald, Hon. Flora, iv. 222.

---- General Jem, v. 341.

---- George, the novelist, v. 30; vi. 265-266.

Mackenzie, Dr. Morel, the famous surgeon, vi. 90.

Maclagan, Hon. Augusta Barrington, Mrs., v. 402-403; vi. 99, 294, 356-360.

Maclaren, Ian, the author, vi. 434.

M’Neile, Lady Emma, vi. 135.

---- Sir John, v. 70.

Macmurdo, General, iii. 176.

Macon, iii. 383.

Macpherson, of Glen Truim, Mr., iv. 201.

Macsween, Alexander, i. 171.

Madraza, Don Juan de, iv. 40.

Madresfield Court, vi. 301, 458-459.

Madrid, iv. 39.

Magee, William Connor, Bishop of Peterborough, vi. 241, 451.

Magnusson, Eric, the Icelandic scholar, v. 107.

Maiden Bradley, vi. 473.

Maine, Sir Henry, the authority on Law, and Lady, iv. 73.

Mainsforth, ii. 309.

Maintenon, vi. 345.

Maitland, Rev. Charles, v. 357.

Makrina, La Madre, of Minsk, ii. 72-74.

Malaga, iv. 37.

Malcolm, Miss Ann-Emilia, i. 435; iv. 119.

---- Lady, i. 435.

---- Miss Kate, i. 435; iv. 119.

Malet, Sir Edward, the ambassador, v. 427.

Mallock, W. H., the novelist, v. 16.

Malmesbury, James Edward. 2nd Earl of, iv. 12.

Malpas, vi. 232.

Malshanger, vi. 156.

Manchester Exhibition, vi. 97.

Manners, Lady Adeliza, vi. 501.

---- Lord Edward, vi. 308.

---- Jannetta Hughan, Lady John, ii. 284.

---- Lord John, iv. 334.

---- Lydia Sophia Dashwood, Lady, v. 19; vi. 60.

---- Lord Robert, vi. 308.

Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of York, iii. 157.

Mannheim, i. 53, 383.

Manning, Henry Edward, Archdeacon of Chichester, afterwards Cardinal, i. 98, 339; ii. 395; iii. 308, 360; iv. 332, 333; vi. 260, 451, 483.

Mannington, vi. 104.

Mantua, iii. 337.

Manvers, Charles Herbert Pierrepont, 2nd Earl, v. 43; vi. 119.

---- Georgine de Franquetot, Countess, v. 43.

---- Sydney Pierrepont, 3rd Earl, v. 43.

Marbourg, i. 425.

Margherita, H.R.H. Princess of Savoy, iv. 102.

Maria, Angelo, the famous brigand, vi. 167.

Marie Antoinette d’Autriche, Queen of France, ii. 298; vi. 121; prison of, ii. 125.

---- Amelie, Queen of the French, i. 274; iv. 339-340.

---- Anne, Sœur, ii. 443.

Marino, Teresa Caraccioli, Duchess of, v. 149.

Mariott, Lady Smith, v. 357.

Marjoribanks, Sir Dudley, v. 210.

---- Sir John and Lady, of Lees, iv. 258-259.

Marlborough, John, 1st Duke of, i. 1.

---- Sarah Jennings, Duchess of, v. 61.

Marple, vi. 183.

Marsh, Miss Catherine, the philanthropist, i. 407; ii. 289; iii. 245-247, 250.

Marsham, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Townshend, vi. 349-350.

Martin, Baron, the judge, iii. 297.

---- Mr., afterwards Sir Theodore, the biographer, iv. 304.

---- Helen Faucit, Mrs. Theodore, afterwards Lady, the actress, iv. 304.

Martineau, Harriet, the novelist, iv. 481-482.

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, iv. 75-76.

Masham, Mrs., ii. 309.

Massereene, Clotworthy, Viscount, iv. 363.

Massie, Hester Townsend, Mrs., iii. 113.

Massimo, Marie-Gabrielle de Savoie Carignan, Princess, v. 173.

Mastai-Ferretti, Conte, ii. 236.

Matfen, ii. 266, 346.

Matheson, Sir Kenneth, vi. 187.

Mathews, E., vi. 478.

Matthias, Marie de, Foundress of the “Order of the Precious Blood,” ii. 426, 438-442; iii. 86, 238-239; iv. 103.

Maurice, Annie Barton, Mrs. Frederick, i. 70.

---- Esther Jane, i. 73-112, 176-178.

---- Rev. Frederick Denison, i. 70-72; iii. 280; iv. 21.

---- Georgiana Hare, Mrs. Frederick, iii. 412.

---- Harriet, i. 179.

---- Mary, i. 179, 182.

---- Priscilla, i. 70-73, 112, 181-182, 410.

Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor, ii. 36.

Maxwell, Sir John, vi. 88.

May, Sir T. Erskine, afterwards Lord Farnborough, v. 340.

Mayo, Dermot, 7th Earl of, iv. 370.

Mecklenbourg, Duchess Paul of, vi. 143-144.

Mecklenbourg-Strelitz, H.R.H. Augusta, of Cambridge, Grand Duchess of, v. 212; vi. 68, 82.

----Frederic William, Grand Duke of, iv. 338.

Medine, Count Battistino, iii. 338.

Mela, Padre, iv. 333.

Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount, v. 23.

Melchet, v. 294.

Mellor, Judge, iv. 22, 23.

Melun, M., Protestant Pasteur at Caen, i. 321.

Melville, Major G. J. Whyte, the novelist, iv. 363.

“Memorials of a Quiet Life,” publication of, iv. 62, 63, 309-310.

Mentone, ii. 246-258; iii. 185; vi. 164.

Mère, Marie Letitia Raimolino, Madame, iv. 260; vi. 509.

Merimée, Prosper, the author, iv. 330; v. 417.

Merivale, Mr. Herman, the historian, iv. 149, 150.

Merlini, Don Giovanni, Father-General of the Precious Blood, ii. 425, 427, 442.

Merode, Monsignor de, iii. 70.

Messina, v. 246.

Mexborough, Mary Anne Yorke, Countess of, vi. 360.

Meyer, M. Carl Friedrich, i. 382.

Mezzofanti, Cardinal, i. 9; iv. 303.

Middleton Park, vi. 369.

Middleton, Digby Wentworth Bayard Willoughby, 9th Lord, vi. 425.

---- Eliza Maria Gordon, Lady, vi. 61.

Milbank, Sir Frederick and (Alexina Don) Lady, vi. 405.

Mildmay, Mary Baillie, Mrs. George St. John, v. 18.

Miles, Frank, the artist, v. 275.

Millais, Sir John, the artist, v. 274.

Miller, Joaquin, the author, iv. 308.

Milligan, Misses Christina and Mary, vi. 494.

---- William Henry, i. 416, 420, 422, 493, 499; ii. 1, 2, 131; v. 20; vi. 494.

Mills, Mr. Charles, vi. 145.

Milman, Henry Hart, Dean of St. Paul’s, poet and historian, i. 394; ii. 231.

Milner, Elizabeth Mordaunt, Lady, i. 96.

Milton Court, vi. 227.

Minghetti, Madame, v. 160.

Mitford, Hon. Emily Egerton, Mrs. Percy, vi. 183.

Moberly, George, Bishop of Salisbury, iv. 347.

Mocenigo, Countess, vi. 291.

Modjeska, Madame, the actress, v. 359.

Mohl, M. Julius, ii. 118.

----Frewen, Madame, ii. 118-121; iii. 5-7; vi. 253.

Mohun, Arthur, Lord, and Evelyn, Lady, iv. 126, 235, 351.

Moissac, v. 439.

Mommsen, Theodore, the historian, v. 92.

Monan, St., vi. 442.

Monceaux, Château de, iii. 383.

Monk, Miss Emily, iii. 203; iv. 398.

Monk’s Orchard, iv. 359.

Monreale, v. 262.

Monserrat, iv. 26.

Mont Blanc, the tour of, i. 458.

Mont S. Michel, vi. 344.

Monte Cassino, ii. 78; iv. 182.

Monte Vergine, iv. 183.

Montacute, v. 74; vi. 296, 320.

Montagu, Lady Elizabeth, ii. 437.

---- Lord and Lady, vi. 119.

Montalba, Misses Clara and Hilda, the artists, vi. 420.

Montbard, iii. 383; vi. 15.

Montefiore, Sir Moses, the philanthropist, v. 412; vi. 407.

Monteith, Robert, of Carstairs, iii. 95, 288, 293, 295.

---- Wilhelmina Mellish, Mrs., ii. 427; iii. 289, 290, 294.

Montgolfier, Madame de, iii. 385; vi. 16.

Montgomery, Hon. Fanny Wyndham, Mrs. Alfred, iii. 71, 96, 239, 280, 282, 284, 289, 294, 301.

---- Miss Florence, vi. 33, 449.

Montmajour, vi. 40.

Montpensier, Marie Louise de Bourbon, Duchess of, iv. 31.

Moody and Sankey, Messrs., the revivalists, iv. 306, 331.

Moor Park, vi. 301.

Moore, Henry, Archdeacon of Stafford, theologian, i. 164; ii. 132; iv. 440.

Mordaunt, Lady Mary, v. 447.

Morgan, Mrs. Mary, iv. 210.

---- Sydney Owenson, Lady, v. 301.

Morini, Padre Agostino, the orator, iii. 256.

Morley, Margaret Holford, Countess of, v. 212.

---- Harriet Sophia Parker, Countess of, iii. 139; iv. 221, 241; v. 212; vi. 181.

---- Albert-Edmund, 3rd Earl of, iii. 145; iv. 241.

Morlot, Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, ii. 121-122.

Morpeth, ii. 277, 365.

Morton, Lady Alice Lambton, Countess of, vi. 257.

----Frances Rose, Countess of, v. 140, 148, 160.

Moscow, v. 394.

Moseley, Rev. Herbert Henry, Rector of Holt, vi. 484.

Mostyn, Mary Monk, Hon. Mrs., iv. 398.

---- Hon. Ranulph, vi. 493.

Motley, John Lothrop, the historian, iv. 147-148.

---- Miss Susan, iv. 148.

Mount Edgcumbe, Caroline Augusta Feilding, Countess of, ii. 356.

---- Lady Katherine Hamilton, Countess of, iii. 138.

---- Lady Sophia Hobart, Countess of, iv. 247.

---- Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of, iv. 247.

---- William Henry Edgcumbe, 4th Earl of, iii. 137, 145.

Mount Temple, Georgiana Tollemache, Lady, v. 295.

---- William Cowper Temple, Lord, v. 295.

Müller, Professor Max, vi. 462.

Muncaster Castle, vi. 133, 184.

Muncaster, Constance L’Estrange, Countess of, vi. 79, 134, 184.

---- Sir Josslyn Pennington, 5th Lord, v. 212; vi. 134.

Munich, iii. 336.

Munn, Rev. John Reade, iii. 415.

Munro, Henrietta Drummond, Mrs. Campbell, vi. 439.

Murcia, iv. 30.

Murray, Sir Digby and Lady, v. 154.

---- John, the 3rd, publisher, ii. 133, 134, 260; iv. 352-353, 379.

---- John, the 4th, publisher, vi. 468.

Musgrave, Thomas, Archbishop of York, vi. 360.

---- Hon. Catherine Cavendish, Mrs., vi. 360.

Musset, Alfred de, v. 299.

N.

Napier and Ettrick, Francis, Lord, iv. 332, 334.

---- Hon. Mark, v. 62.

---- Hon. William, Master of, iv. 224.

Naples, ii. 80.

----Francesco II., King of, iii. 96-97.

---- Marie of Bavaria, Queen of, iii. 86, 94, 97.

---- Marie Therèse Isabelle, Queen of, iii. 86, 190.

---- Victor Emmanuel, Prince of, vi. 253.

Napoleon I., Emperor of the French, i. 91.

Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, ii. 508; iv. 225-226.

Narni, iii. 100.

Naworth, ii. 354.

Naylor, Anna Maria Mealey, Mrs. Hare, i. 13, 82-83, 280, 287.

---- Bethaia, i. 4.

----Francis, i. 1; vi. 517.

----Francis Hare, i. 5, 11.

---- Georgiana Shipley, Mrs. Hare, i. 5-12.

---- Miss Grace, i. 1, 260.

---- Robert Hare, i. 2.

Necker, Madame, vi. 123.

Neri, S. Filippo, iii. 201.

Nesselrode, Count, iv. 301.

Netherlands, Sophie of Wurtemburg, Queen of the, iv. 326, 335.

Nettlecombe, vi. 234.

Neuchatel, ii. 113.

Nevill, Lady Dorothy, v. 277; vi. 4, 61.

Neville, Rev. W., vi. 234.

---- Rev. Hastings Mackelcan, vi. 159, 246.

Nevin, Rev. Dr., v. 164.

New Abbey, ii. 164.

New Hailes, iv. 451.

Newbattle Abbey, iii. 47.

Newburgh Hall, v. 423.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, ii. 318.

Newman, Rev. John Henry, afterwards Cardinal, iii. 1-2.

Newton, Mr., afterwards Sir Charles, iv. 83, 348; v. 363.

Nice, ii. 370; vi. 412.

Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia, ii. 74, 506; v. 68.

Nicholson, Miss, iii. 372.

Nilsson, Mademoiselle Christine, v. 200, 206.

Ninfa, iv. 105.

Noailles, Henriette Anne de, Duchesse d’Ayen, vi. 100.

Noel, Lady Augusta, iv. 467.

---- Ernest, iv. 467.

Norfolk, Lady Flora Hastings, Duchess of, v. 281.

---- Lady Mary Mordaunt, Duchess of, v. 447.

Normanby, George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquis of, vi. 77.

---- Maria Liddell, Marchioness of, ii. 93, 204, 211.

Normanton, Hon. Caroline Barrington, Countess of, vi. 72, 73.

Northampton, Charles Compton, 3rd Marquis of, iv. 336.

North Berwick, ii. 357; vi. 484.

Northbrook, Sir James Baring, 1st Earl of, vi. 164.

Northcote, Miss Agnes, v. 11.

---- Captain and Mrs., ii. 364.

---- Sir Stafford, the statesman, iv. 149, 371.

Northumberland, Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of, ii. 353; iii. 331.

---- Algernon George Percy, 6th Duke of, vi. 135.

---- Lady Eleanor Grosvenor, Duchess of, ii. 353; iii. 331; vi. 135-136.

---- Louisa Drummond, Duchess of, vi. 135-138.

Norton, Charles Bowyer Adderley, Lord, vi. 406-409.

Norwich, i. 116-120, 229; v. 330.

---- Hon. John Thomas Pelham, Bishop of, vi. 259-262.

---- Edward Stanley, Bishop of, i. 44, 62, 66, 69, 117-118, 133, 231-236, 280.

Nostell, v. 297.

Nottingham Castle, vi. 424.

Nova Scotia, Bishop of, vi. 286.

Novgorod the Great, v. 393.

Noyon, v. 409.

Nunnington Hall, ii. 16.

Nuremberg, i. 435; vi. 405.

O.

Oakly Park, v. 459.

Ober-Ammergau, the Passion-Play of, vi. 214-222.

Oberlin, ii. 109.

Oberwesel, iii. 231.

Ockwells, vi. 26.

Ogilvy, Lady Clementine, vi. 438, 439.

---- Lady Griselda, vi. 97, 135.

Ogle, Miss Annie, the authoress, vi. 434.

Olevano, iv. 105.

Oliphant, Lawrence, the mystic, v. 275.

Onslow, Hon. Florence Gardner, Countess of, vi. 90.

---- William Hillier Onslow, 4th Earl of, v. 16.

Ordelaffi, Barbara, tomb of, iv. 317.

Orford, Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of, vi. 304.

Orkeröd, v. 119-127.

Ormistoun, iv. 267.

Orsi, Carlo, the artist, v. 277.

Orvieto, ii. 84, 385; iv. 116-118; vi. 13.

Ossington, Lady Charlotte Bentinck, Viscountess, v. 363.

Ossulston, Charles Bennet, Lord, ii. 268-269; v. 209.

Osterley, iv. 467; v. 19, 231; vi. 79, 224-225, 423, 482.

Otterburn, ii. 344.

Ouseley, Sir Frederick Gore, v. 316-317.

Overstone, Lord, iv. 362, 482.

Owen, Professor Richard, iv. 265, 317.

Oxenham, Rev. W., i. 236.

Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of, iii. 153.

---- Jane Elizabeth Scott, Countess of, i. 18.

Oxton Hall, vi. 424.

P.

Padua, iii. 338-339.

Paestum, ii. 83.

Page, Miss, vi. 283.

Paget, Right Hon. Sir Augustus Berkeley, v. 291; vi. 422-423.

---- Miss Ruth, v. 385.

---- Walpurga de Hohenlohe, Lady, iv. 171; v. 160, 324, 415; vi. 351.

Palermo, v. 260.

Pallavicini, Carolina Boncompagni Ludovisi, Princess, ii. 59.

Palmer, Edward, vi. 233.

Palmer, William, ii. 207.

Palmerston, H. Temple, 1st Earl of, i. 12.

Panizzi, Sir Antonio, the great librarian, ii. 132; iii. 142; iv. 333.

Pantaleoni, Dr., ii. 374-376.

Paolucci di Calboli, Marchese Annibale, ii. 388.

---- Marchese Raniero, ii. 388.

Papillon, Rev. Henry, iii. 412.

---- Mrs. Henry, iii. 414.

Paraclete, The, vi. 17.

Paray le Monial, ii. 445, 499; iv. 197.

Parham Hall in Suffolk, vi. 23.

---- in Sussex, vi. 296.

Paris, i. 318-319, 327; ii. 114-128; iv. 24, 44; vi. 17.

---- Book upon, vi. 34, 112, 114.

---- Days near, vi. 114-116.

Parisani, Palazzo, i. 261, 340, 373; ii. 55-56; iii. 190.

Parker, John Henry, the publisher, ii. 9; iii. 319; vi. 380.

---- Mrs. John Henry, i. 473.

---- Lady Katherine, iii. 145; iv. 222, 241; vi. 181, 182.

Parnell, Hon. Victor, iv. 486.

Parr, Queen Katherine, iv. 438-439.

---- Dr. Samuel, iv. 347; vi. 498.

Parry, Catherine Hankinson, Lady, i. 279.

---- Sir Edward, the Arctic voyager, i. 114, 279.

---- Edward, Bishop of Dover, i. 279.

---- Hon. Isabella Stanley, 1st wife of Sir Edward, i. 114.

---- Serjeant, iii. 298, 299, 303.

Paterson, Rev. George J. Mapletoft, v. 295, 329.

Patmore, Coventry Kearsey Deighton, the poet, vi. 429-431.

Patrizi, Francesco Saverio Patrizi-Naro-Montoro, Cardinal, iii. 76.

Pattenden, Deborah, i. 211.

Pau, ii. 465; iv. 25.

Paul, Anne Frances, i. 25, 26, 30.

---- Eleanor Maria, i. 42, 95, 351-352; ii. 69-70, 94, 103-106, 206, 411-415; iii. 262, 266, 315; iv. 17, 22; v. 273.

---- Elizabeth Halifax, Lady, i. 284, 295.

----Frances Eleanor Simpson, Lady, i. 21, 26.

---- Jane, i. 28, 295.

---- Sir John Dean, 1st Bart., i. 21, 30, 50, 84, 284, 295; iv. 17, 19.

---- Sir John Dean, 2nd Bart., i. 495.

---- Maria Horatia, i. 27, 296.

---- Mary Napier of Pennard, Lady, i. 84.

---- William Wentworth, i. 295.

---- Marie Marcia, Countess Benningsen, widow of W. Wentworth, v. 91.

Paulet, Lady Lilian, v. 50.

Payne, Mrs., iii. 87.

Payson, Miss Louisa, the authoress, vi. 397.

Peabody, Mr. George, ii. 372-374.

---- Robert, iii. 341, 344, 360, 370.

Peakirk, iii. 165.

Pearse, Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey, iv. 220.

Pearson, Rev. Hugh, Rector of Sonning and Canon of Windsor, i. 120, 411, 470; ii. 221; iv. 131, 153, 351; v. 235-237, 328, 340, 352-355.

---- his grave, vi. 498-499.

Pease, Mary Fox, Mrs., afterwards Lady, iv. 269, 279-280; v. 44.

Peate, Dr., iv. 347.

Peebles, ii. 357.

Peel, William Robert Wellesley, vi. 83.

Peglia, ii. 253.

Peglione, ii. 253, 255, 372.

Pelham, Elizabeth Mary Bligh, Lady, iv. 356; v. 16.

---- Hon. John Thomas, Bishop of Norwich, vi. 259-262.

Pellerin, Monsignor, ii. 68-69.

Pellew, Hon. George, Dean of Norwich, i. 231.

Pembroke, George Herbert, 13th Earl of, vi. 243.

---- Lady Gertrude Talbot, Countess of, vi. 107, 243.

Pencaitland, ii. 356.

Pennant, Hon. Alice, vi. 384.

Penrhyn, Lady Charlotte, i. 48, 142-143, 408-409.

---- Edward Leycester, i. 48, 69, 208, 408, 464, 514; ii. 259-260.

---- Emma Charlotte Leycester, i. 383-384, 408, 464; iii. 377, 414; vi. 493.

---- Edward-Gordon, Lord, v. 334-335.

---- Gertrude Glynne, Lady, vi. 383.

---- Mr. and Mrs. Leycester, iii. 414.

---- Lady Mary-Louisa FitzRoy, v. 334.

Penrhyn Castle, v. 384; vi. 381, 433.

Percy, Lady Edith Campbell, Countess, iv. 398; v. 208; vi. 137.

---- Emily Heber, Mrs. Heber, ii. 159.

---- Henry George Percy, Earl, vi. 139.

---- Lord Henry, iii. 145.

---- Hugh Heber, iii. 159.

---- Dr. Hugh, Bishop of Carlisle, ii. 160.

Perkins, Mrs. Mary Ridge, vi. 292-293.

Persia, Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of, vi, 171.

Perugia, vi. 12.

Peruzzi, Edith Story, Marchesa, vi. 510.

Pescitelli, Abbot of Farfa, v. 141.

Petit, Miss Emma, ii. 256, 328.

---- Rev. J. L., the ecclesiologist, ii. 256-258, 330.

Petworth, vi. 297.

Phelips, Constance Ponsonby-Fane, Mrs., vi. 296, 320.

Phillimore, Admiral and Mrs. Augustus, iv. 37.

---- Sir Robert, the ecclesiastical lawyer, iv. 360-361.

Pierrepont, Lady Mary, vi. 119.

Pietra Santa, ii. 102.

Pile, Mr. Robert, i. 60; iii. 112; iv. 49-50.

---- Mary Miller, Mrs. Robert, i. 60, 171, 192, 278; iv. 49-50.

Pine, Miss, iv. 76.

Pinkie, iv. 451.

Piombino, Prince and Princess, ii. 428.

Piper, Count, the Minister, iv. 193; v. 199.

---- Mrs., i. 103, 260.

Pisa, ii. 101; iii. 52, 190, 310-312, 338-358; v. 155.

Pitcairn, Mrs., ii. 289.

Pitchford Hall, vi. 383.

Pius IX., Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, Pope, i. 341; ii. 61-64, 289, 428; iii. 70, 71, 80, 93, 167, 190, 319, 360; iv. 97-98, 99, 333; vi. 288.

Planché, Mr., the Somerset Herald, iv. 83.

---- James Robinson, the dramatist, V. 11-12.

Playfair, Sir Hugh Lyon, Provost of St. Andrews, ii. 170.

---- Right Hon. Sir Lyon, politician and scientist, iv. 427.

Plumptre, Rev. Edward, afterwards Dean of Wells, i. 179; iv. 21.

---- Rev. Dr. Frederick Charles, Master of University College, i. 405, 441, 474.

Plumptre, Harriet Maurice, Mrs. E., i. 179.

Pole, Lady Louisa, i. 354.

---- Miss Marguerite, i. 352-357; iii. 249.

---- Sir Peter Van Notten, i. 352.

Polignac, Duc de, iii. 43.

Pollock, Mr., afterwards Sir Frederick, iv. 19.

Ponsonby, Hon. Ashley, v. 302.

---- Mary Bulteel, Lady, v. 229.

---- Miss Melita, ii. 358.

Popham, Francis, of Littlecote, vi. 162.

Porson, Dr. Richard, ii. 376.

Port Eliot, iv. 245.

Port Royal, ii. 125.

Portal, Mrs. George, v. 420-421.

---- Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham, vi. 156.

Portland, William Bentinck, 5th Duke of, v. 366.

---- Winifred Yorke, Duchess of, vi. 475, 476.

Portman, Mary Selina Fitzwilliam, Mrs., afterwards Lady, vi. 86.

---- Hon. Walter, i. 306, 308, 332, 452.

Porto d’Anzio, iv. 104.

----Fino, ii. 254.

---- Venere, ii. 102.

Portsmouth, Lady Evelina Herbert, Countess of, v. 193.

---- John Vertue, Bishop of, vi. 495, 496, 498.

Potocka, Count and Countess, v. 41-43.

Potsdam, v. 95-98.

Poulevey, Père de, ii. 416.

Powderham Castle, iv. 239, 249, 385; v. 461.

Powell, Lucilla Maurice, Mrs., i. 179.

Powers, Carolyn S., Mrs., vi. 284.

Poynter, Sir Edward, President of the Royal Academy, vi. 474.

Prague, i. 432.

Praslin, Charles Laure, Duc de, vi. 29.

---- Duchesse de, i. 245; iii. 19-20.

Prât, Marquis and Marquise du, ii. 115.

Pregnier, Marquise du, ii. 118.

Prentiss, Mr., i. 164.

Preston, Georgiana Campbell, Mrs., iv. 219.

Price, Lady Maria Barrington, vi. 35.

Primoli, Charlotte Bonaparte, Countess, v. 140, 176.

Primrose, Hon. Everard, iv. 42, 208, 228, 325, 370; vi. 140.

Prinzsköld, M. de, v. 139, 150, 155, 214.

Probyn, Sir Dighton, v. 14.

Procter, Anne Montagu, Mrs., v. 287-288, 406-407; vi. 84-85, 462-463.

Prosperi, Monsignor, iii. 70; v. 137.

Purbeck, Isle of, vi. 398.

Pusey, Dr. Edward Bouverie, the Church leader, iii. 70.

Q.

Quin, Georgiana Boyle, Mrs., iv. 249; v. 412, 428.

R.

Raasloff, General von, iv. 188, 192.

---- Mademoiselle von, iv. 183.

Raby Castle, iv. 145-147, 269, 272; vi. 120.

Rachel, Madame, the actress, v. 359.

Radicofani, iv. 274-279.

Radnor, Helen Matilda Chaplin, Countess of, vi. 313-318.

Radnor, William Bouverie, 5th Earl of, vi. 313-318.

Radowitz, General, iv. 141.

Raeburn, portraits by Sir Henry, iv. 450.

Raglan, Richard, 2nd Lord, v. 227.

---- Mary Blanche Farquhar, Lady, v. 227.

Ramsay, Claudia Garden, Mrs., the authoress, iii. 193, 198; vi. 276, 279, 505.

---- Sir James and Lady, v. 217.

Ramsden, Lady Guendolen, vi. 486.

Rate, Mary Mackintosh, Mrs., vi. 227.

Rathdonnel, Lady, iii. 83.

Ratisbon, Le Père, ii. 68.

Ravenna, ii. 48.

Ravenstone, vi. 354.

Ravensworth, Henry Liddell, politician and poet, 1st Earl of, ii. 453; iv. 124, 201, 273, 279; v. 69.

Ravignan, Le Père de, i. 353, 355.

Rayleigh, John William Strutt, Lord, vi. 99, 128.

---- Evelyn Balfour, Lady, vi. 99.

Reay, Fanny Hasler, Lady, v. 200.

Recamier, Madame, v. 305.

Redesdale, John Thomas Mitford, politician and controversialist, Earl of, iv. 306.

Reedswire, the, ii. 345.

Reeve, Henry, the editor and essayist, iv. 449; v. 360; vi. 89.

Reisach, Cardinal de, iii. 96.

Repton, Lady Jane, v. 413, 427.

Revesby, vi. 386.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, R.A., iv. 18; vi. 360.

Riaño, Emilia de Guyangos, Madame de, iv. 40, 41, 400; v. 277, 281.

Rianzares, Duc de, ii. 57.

Ricardo, Mrs. David, iv. 213.

---- Wilfred, vi. 306.

Rice, Captain Ernest, iv. 244.

Richelieu, Duc de, iv. 227.

Richmond, Elizabeth Liddell, Mrs. Brook, ii. 208, 209, 213.

---- George, R.A., ii. 214; iv. 72, 80; v. 279.

---- Rev. Canon Thomas Knyvett, vi. 134.

Richmond, in Yorkshire, vi. 495.

Ridley, Alice Bromley-Davenport, Mrs. Edward, afterwards Lady, vi. 222.

Ridley Hall, ii. 172-178, 266, 272, 341; iii. 170; vi. 433.

Riez, vi. 36.

Rignano, Emilio Massimo, Duke of, ii. 70.

Rimini, ii. 49.

Ripley Castle, ii. 283, 332-336; iv. 285-288.

Ripon, George Robinson, 1st Marquis of, vi. 293.

---- William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of, vi. 172.

Ritchie, Annie Thackeray, Mrs., the authoress, v. 453.

Rivieras, book on the, vi. 411.

Robertson, Miss Erica, v. 45.

Robinson, William, the botanist, vi. 227.

---- Miss, ii. 310-317.

Rocamadour, v. 435.

Rochers, Chateau de les, vi. 346.

Rockend, i. 85-87, 251; v. 215.

Rockingham Castle, vi. 239, 256.

Rodd, Rennell, author, iv. 359.

Roddam, Mr. and Mrs., of Roddam, ii. 280, 282, 364.

Roemer, Baron and Baroness von, vi. 470.

Rogers, Samuel, the poet, iv. 421; v. 449; vi. 86.

Rogerson, Christina Stewart, Mrs., v. 10, 13, 15, 443.

Rohan, Princess Charlotte de, vi. 122.

Roleston, Mary Pierina, Abbess of the Precious Blood, ii. 425, 438-442; iii. 238, 266-268, 270, 274, 275, 287, 295, 298, 305, 306.

Rolle, Mr. and Lady Gertrude, iv. 258.

Rome, ii. 54-76, 387-391, 422-432; iii. 65-100, 313-319, 359-378; iv. 86-101, 170-172; v. 135; vi. 165-168, 268-290, 412-415, 505.

Romilly, Helen Denison, Lady, v. 333.

---- Sir Samuel, the famous lawyer, iv. 286-287.

---- William, Lord, v. 333.

Romney, Charles Marsham, 4th Earl of, iv. 258.

Rosam, Miss, i. 504.

Roscia, Capolo, the brigand, vi. 167.

Rosen, Countess Ebba von, v. 84, 119, 120, 122, 124, 132, 144, 238-241.

Rosny, vi. 113.

Ross, Janet Duff-Gordon, Mrs., the authoress, iv. 194-196, 320; v. 155; vi. 290.

---- Lady Mary, iv. 201.

Rossetti, Madame, iv. 326.

Rossini, Goachino Antonio, the composer, iv. 257.

Rothbury, ii. 365.

Rothenburg, vi. 222.

Rothes, Henrietta Leslie, Countess of, v. 45, 46.

Rousham, ii. 150.

Routh, Dr. Joseph Martin, President of Magdalen, i. 447-450.

Routing Lynn, iv. 143.

Rowe, Lady Victoria, vi. 324, 326.

Rowley, Charlotte Shipley, Hon. Mrs., iii. 129.

Rowton, Montagu Corrie, Lord, the philanthropist, vi. 373, 400.

Roxburghe, Lady Anne Spencer Churchill, Duchess of, vi. 478.

Royat, Baths of, iii. 151.

Rudolstadt, v. 89.

Rufford, vi. 119.

Rumbold, Louisa Anne Crampton, Lady, v. 277.

Rushbrooke Hall, vi. 25.

Rushmore, v. 293.

Rushton Hall, vi. 239.

Ruskin, John, the author, ii. 107-109, 277, 484; v. 295.

Russell, Lady Agatha, v. 197.

---- Lord Arthur, iv. 308.

---- Sir Charles, iv. 149, 151.

---- Elizabeth Rawdon, Lady William, iv. 285-286.

---- Lady Ermyntrude, v. 417.

---- Lady Frances Elliot, Countess, v. 197.

---- Lady Frankland, ii. 8, 240.

---- George W. E., v. 193, 284-285.

---- John, Earl, the statesman, iv. 250, 403.

---- Sir John, of Chequers, ii. 240.

---- Hon. Odo and Lady Emily, iii. 368.

---- Hon. Rollo, v. 197; vi. 105.

Rutherford, of Ettington, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 322-324.

Ruthven, Mary, Baroness, ii. 335-337, 354-356; iii. 39, 42-43. 47; iv. 267-269, 447-449; v. 322.

Rutland, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Duchess of, vi. 500.

---- Janetta Manners, Duchess of, vi. 306-308, 500.

---- John Manners, 7th Duke of, vi. 306-309, 341-342, 500.

---- Lady Mary Isabella Somerset, Duchess of, vi. 501.

Rutson, Albert O., ii. 7, 13, 16.

Rycroft, Edith Berners, Mrs., of Everlands, vi. 267, 295.

Rye, Miss, iv. 360.

Rye House, the, i. 314; v. 19.

Ryton, ii. 320.

S.

Sackville, S. Stopford, of Drayton, ii. 137; iv. 87, 96.

---- Caroline Harriet Sackville, Mrs. Stopford, v. 447; vi. 351.

---- Lady Margaret, v. 457; vi. 452.

---- Lady Mary, vi. 452, 453.

Saffi, Count Aurelio, the triumvir, iv. 315.

St. Alban’s Head, vi. 153-154.

S. Aldegonde, Madame, iii. 71.

St. Andrews, ii. 19, 170.

St. Ann’s Hill, iv. 474.

S. Arpino, Augusta Selina Locke, Duchess of, iv. 101.

St. Audries, vi. 233-235.

S. Bernard, Le Grand, i. 459.

S. Cloud, iv. 44.

St. Davids, v. 333.

S. Denis, i. 327.

S. Emilion, ii. 494.

S. Flour, vi. 150.

S. Gemignano, iii. 342-344.

St. Germans, Edward Granville, 3rd Earl of, iv. 246.

S. Giorgio, Lady Anne, ii. 86-90; iii. 192-193, 358.

---- Contessa Carolina di, ii. 90-91; iii. 191.

S. Jean du Doigt, vi. 345.

St. Levan, Sir John St. Aubyn, 1st Lord, vi. 175.

S. Martino, vi. 418.

S. Maxime, vi. 411.

St. Michael’s Mount, vi. 175-180.

S. Michele, iv. 312.

S. Nectaire, vi. 151.

St. Paul, Sir Horace, iv. 264, 265.

St. Petersburg, v. 391.

S. Pierre, Le Curé de, ii. 420.

S. Remo, ii. 377; vi. 110, 266.

S. Wandrille, vi. 344.

Salamanca, iv. 42.

Salette, La, ii. 512; vi. 42.

Salisbury, Georgina Alderson, Marchioness of, iv. 68; 72-82, 324, 325, 328; v. 14, 195, 196; vi. 237, 373-374, 423, 521.

Salisbury, James Cecil, 2nd Marquis of, iv. 74.

---- Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquis of, the statesman, iv. 68, 72-77, 125, 324; vi. 237, 374, 423.

---- Lady Amelia Hill, Marchioness of, iv. 73-74.

Salm-Reiffersheid, Princess of, v. 161.

Salt, Miss Harriet, ii. 328.

---- Miss Sarah, ii, 256-258, 328.

---- Sir Titus, iv. 157.

Salzburg, ii. 40; iii. 231.

Sand, Madame George, the novelist, v. 299, 433.

Sandwich, Lady Blanche Egerton, Countess of, iv. 425.

---- John William Montagu, 7th Earl of, iv. 470; v. 206.

Sandwich Islands, Emma, Queen Dowager of the, iii. 2-3, 109.

Santa-Croce, Catherine Scully, Princess of, ii. 59-61.

---- Donna Vincenza, iii. 91.

Sarlat, v. 436.

Sartines, M. de, ii. 145.

Sartoris, Adelaide Kemble, Mrs., v. 360-361; vi. 310-357.

Sauchiehall, Mrs., story of, vi. 123.

Savile, Lady Mary, vi. 483.

---- Sir John Savile, Lord, the ambassador, vi. 9.

Savona, iii. 186.

Saxe-Altenbourg, Duke Josef of, v. 90.

---- Princess Therèse of, v. 90.

Saxe-Weimar, Charles Auguste, Hereditary Grand Duke of, v. 174.

---- Pauline of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Hereditary Grand Duchess of, v. 174, 176.

Saxon Switzerland, i. 430.

Saye and Sele, 14th Baron, ii. 152.

Scarborough, Richard George Lumley, 6th Earl of, v. 41.

Schenk, General, iv. 348.

Schleswig, v. 99.

Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Amalie of, iv. 398; v. 193.

Schouvaloff, Count, ii. 65.

Schulenberg, Countess, v. 148, 151.

Scotney Castle, v. 355; vi. 54.

Scott, Lord Henry, iv. 381.

---- Sir Walter, the poet and novelist, ii. 166, 309, 312-314; iv. 135, 258.

---- Alicia-Anne Spottiswoode, Lady John, v. 238.

Sculthorpe, i. 4; vi. 103.

Sebright, Guy, vi. 90.

---- Hon. Olivia Fitz-Patrick, Lady, v. 315.

Sedgwick, Professor Adam, i. 120, 164.

Segni, vi. 415.

Segovia, iv. 41.

Selborne, iv. 132.

Selborne, Lady Laura Waldegrave, Countess of, iv. 343.

---- Roundell Palmer, Earl of, the Lord Chancellor, iv. 73, 131, 343; vi. 237.

Selby, vi. 361.

Selby, Lady, of the Mote, iv. 66-67.

Selman, Sarah, i. 3.

Senior, John Nassau, iv. 472.

Sepolti Vivi, the, iii. 73-76.

Serafina della Croce, iii. 234-235, 287.

Sergisson, the Misses, v. 225.

Serlupi, Marchese, iii. 191, 198.

Sermoneta, Hon. Harriet Ellis, Duchess of, v. 141, 148, 160, 177; vi. 8-9, 290, 510.

---- Margherita Knight, Duchess of, ii. 58.

---- Michelangelo Caiëtani, Duke of, ii. 58; iii. 87; v. 141, 160, 174, 177, 178, 345.

Servites, Order of the, ii, 445.

Sestri, iii. 187.

Seville, iv. 32.

Seymour, Miss Charlotte, iv. 171, 182, 189.

---- Elizabeth Baillie-Hamilton, Mrs. Hamilton, iii. 395; v. 292.

---- Miss Emma, iv. 171, 182, 189: vi. 28-29.

---- Sir Francis, v. 362.

Shavington, iv. 132.

Sheffield, George, i. 421, 446, 493; ii. 5-8, 33-38, 132, 156; iv. 44, 45, 85, 159.

---- Sir Robert and Lady, v. 285.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs., i. 39.

---- Jane Gibson, Lady, ii. 278.

Sherborne, James Dalton, 3rd Lord, iv. 465.

---- Susan Block, Lady, iv. 403; v. 274; vi. 97, 162.

Sherbrooke, Miss Violet, vi. 424.

Shipley, Anna Maria, i. 13.

---- Anna Maria Mordaunt, Mrs., i. 5.

---- Emilia, i. 84.

---- Jonathan, Bishop of St. Asaph, i. 5; iv. 18.

---- Mrs. Louisa, i. 20, 84, 95, 96; iv. 18.

---- Penelope, ii. 144; vi. 5.

---- William, Dean of St. Asaph, iii. 123-129; vi. 5.

Shrewsbury, Anna Theresa Cockerell, Countess of, vi. 290.

---- John, 16th Earl, and Maria Theresa Talbot, Countess of, i. 230.

Shropshire, book on, vi. 499.

Siddons, Mrs., i. 134; ii. 316.

Siena, iii. 342; vi. 13.

Silchester, iv. 345.

Simpkinson, Miss Emma, iii. 50, 208, 220, 228, 397.

---- Rev. John Nassau, i. 122, 214, 243.

---- Miss Louisa, i. 122, 123, 214.

Simpson, Lady Anne, i. 22-26, 351; ii. 320.

----Frances Emily Baring, Mrs. Bridgeman, v. 41.

---- John, of Bradley, i. 22.

---- Palgrave, the novelist, v. 282-284.

Singh, Prince Duleep, vi. 400.

Skelton Castle, vi. 443.

Skiddaw, ascent of, ii. 163.

Sligo, Isabelle de Peyronnet, Marchioness of, vi. 332.

Sloper, Rev. John, i. 84.

Smith, Dudley, v. 304.

---- Goldwin, i. 415, 448.

---- Isabel Adeane, Mrs. Robert, v. 414.

---- John Abel, iv. 330.

---- the Misses Horace, iv. 293.

---- “Sir Hugh,” i. 437.

---- Miss Leigh, vi. 283-284.

---- Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, iii. 395; vi. 152.

---- Rev. Sydney, the wit, i. 515; ii. 316, 317; iv. 80; v. 62; vi. 325-326.

---- Miss Virginia, iv. 396.

Soame, Stephen and Anne, vi. 517.

Somers, Charles, 3rd Earl, iv. 253.

---- Virginia Pattle, Countess, iv. 222.

Somerset, Algernon Seymour, 15th Duke of, vi. 473.

---- Jane Georgiana Sheridan, Duchess of, vi. 473, 486.

---- Susan Mackinnon, Duchess of, vi. 473.

---- Lady Isabella Somers Cocks, Lady Henry, vi. 421, 459.

---- Raglan, G. H., iv. 223; vi. 99.

Somerton, Hon. Caroline Barington, Viscountess, ii. 139.

Somerville, Mrs. Mary, the authoress, iv. 303-304.

Sonning, i. 411, 470; vi. 498.

Sora, Agnese Borghese, Duchess of, ii. 59, 405, 424, 428; iii. 95, 253.

Sora, Rodolfo Boncompagni, Duke of, ii. 59, 428; iii. 95.

Soracte, ascent of, iv. 107.

Sorrento, ii. 81, 396.

South Wraxhall Manor, i. 272; vi. 485.

Southam, v. 224.

Southgate, i. 297.

Souvigny, iii. 152.

Soveral, Mr. and Madame de, iii. 198.

Speke, iv. 63.

Spencer, Adelaide Seymour, Countess, iv. 475.

---- 5th Earl, and Charlotte Seymour, Countess, ii. 213.

Spilsby, vi. 387.

Spinola, Marchese and Marchesa, iv. 169.

Splugen, Passage of the, iii. 107.

Spoleto, iii. 101.

Spottiswoode, William, iv. 236-237, 379.

Spurgeon, Rev. Charles Haddon, v. 324; vi. 431.

Spy, the Family, i. 370-376.

Squires, Dr., iii. 262-264, 298.

Staël, Auguste de, vi. 122.

---- Anne Louise Necker, Madame de, iii. 416; vi. 428.

Staffa, v. 219-220.

Stanhope, Arthur Philip, 6th Earl, vi. 478.

---- Dorothea Hay, Lady Scudamore, v. 222.

---- Hon. Edward, ii. 137; vi. 386.

---- Emily Harriet Kerrison, Countess, iv. 81, 126, 235, 350.

---- Evelyn Pennefather, Countess, vi. 476, 478.

---- Lucy Constance Egerton, Hon. Mrs. Edward, vi. 386.

---- Hon. Harry, iv. 83.

---- Sir Henry Edwyn Scudamore, v. 222-223.

---- Philip Henry, 4th Earl, iv. 330; v. 357.

---- Philip Henry, 5th Earl, the historian, iv. 81, 99, 126-128, 235, 238, 300-301, 325, 330, 350-351.

---- General Philip, iv. 451.

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Dean of Westminster, i. 67, 118-120, 230, 236, 238, 264, 284, 357-366, 383, 393, 402, 439, 471, 481, 483, 491; ii. 122-126, 132, 135-137, 153-155, 158-159, 220-222, 290, 380-381, 390, 497-498; iii. 110, 153, 158-159, 414-415; iv. 2, 63, 153, 324, 365, 367; v. 196, 208, 326-329, 331.

---- Lady Augusta, ii. 390, 497-498; iii. 110, 153, 158, 414; iv. 365-369; vi. 410.

---- Catherine Maria, afterwards Mrs. C. Vaughan, i. 66, 69, 118, 210, 281, 291.

---- Miss Cecilia, vi. 439.

---- Captain Charles Edward, i. 156, 281.

---- Eliza Clayton, Mrs. Charles Edward, ii. 45.

---- Rev. Edward, Rector of Alderley, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich, i. 44, 62, 66, 69, 117-118, 132, 231-236, 280.

---- Catherine Leycester, Mrs. Edward, i. 44, 62, 102, 118, 124, 208, 257, 281, 299-301, 360, 383, 399, 407, 471, 514-515; ii. 122-124, 132, 290-292.

---- Hon. Emmeline, ii. 133.

---- of Alderley, Fabia, Lady, iv. 324, 383.

---- Edward John, 2nd Lord, vi. 440.

---- Hon. Henrietta, Dillon, Lady, vi. 440.

---- Hon. Louisa, i. 412; ii. 140-141.

---- Maria Joseph Holroyd, Lady Stanley of Alderley, i. 114, 140-143, 411-412.

---- Hon. Maria Margaret, i. 412; ii. 140.

---- Mary, i. 69, 118, 210, 331, 383, 471; ii. 8, 9, 10, 11; iii. 4, 281, 287, 289, 304, 414; iv. 2, 63; v. 243-244.

---- Captain Owen, i. 281.

---- Hon. William Owen, antiquarian author, i. 502; v. 334.

---- Ellen Williams, Mr. William Owen, i. 502.

Stapleton, Lady, iii. 124.

Star, Thomas, i. 164.

Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, i. 383, 385.

Sterling, John, i. 70.

Sternberg, Baron Reinhold von Ungern, v. 87.

Stewart, Harriet Everilda Gore, Mrs. Duncan, iv. 428-438, 480-481; v. 13, 190, 198-199, 200, 204, 272, 273, 274, 277, 288, 289, 298-309, 315-316, 342-344, 358-359, 384-386, 406.

---- Lady Helen, vi. 94.

---- Robert Shaw, iii. 48, 49; iv. 449; vi. 434.

Stichill, iv. 252.

Stirling, Mrs., of Glenbervie, iii. 48.

---- Mrs., of Kippenross, iii. 40-42.

---- Mrs., of Linlathan, ii. 165.

Stirling-Graham, Miss Clementina, of Duntrune, ii. 165.

Stisted, Mrs., of the Bagni di Lucca, ii. 94.

Stockholm, v. 102-108.

Stoke-upon-Terne, i. 61, 64, 124-151; ii. 160, 327.

Stokesay Castle, vi. 382.

Stonebyres, ii. 360.

Stonehenge, ii. 155; v. 293.

Stoney, Mr. Robinson, i. 24.

Story, Miss Amelia, ii. 466.

---- William Wetmore, the author and sculptor, vi. 77, 90, 273-274.

Stover, Mr., of Biddick, iv. 280.

Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, i. 515.

Stradbroke, Augusta-Sophia Musgrave, Countess of, vi. 77.

Stratford de Redcliffe, Stratford Canning, Viscount, the statesman, iv. 302-304, 308-309.

Strathfieldsaye, iv. 343-345.

Strathmore, Charles, 6th Earl of, i. 23.

---- Claude Bowes Lyon, 13th Earl of, iv. 365; v. 45, 217.

---- Hon. Charlotte Barrington, Countess of, vi. 438.

----Frances Dora Smith, Countess of, vi. 87.

---- John, 5th Earl of, i. 23.

---- John, 9th Earl of, ii. 172.

---- John, 10th Earl of, ii. 173, 178.

---- Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of, i. 24; ii. 172, 275; iv. 210, 416; vi. 494.

---- Mary Milner, Countess of, i. 53; ii. 178, 274.

Strawberry Hill, iv. 328.

Streatlam Castle, ii. 178, 274; vi. 494.

Streletski, Count, iv. 332, 423.

Strettel, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 254.

Strickland, Mr., of Cokethorp, ii. 151

Stuart, Charles Edward, ii. 515.

---- Sir J., of Allenbank, iv. 266.

---- General Charles, v. 138.

---- Lady Euphemia, i. 23.

---- Lady Jane, i. 22.

---- John Sobieski Stolberg, ii. 515.

---- Lady Louisa, i. 301.

Stuart de Rothesay, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, ii. 280-282, 360; iv. 255, 407, 408.

Stuart Wortley, Hon. Jane Lawley, Mrs. James, iv. 224.

Stucley, Marion Elizabeth Fane, Mrs., vi. 235.

Stufa, Marchese Lotteria Lotharingo della, iv. 194, 319; v. 155; vi. 9.

Stuttgart, iii. 336.

Subiaco, iv. 173.

Sudeley Castle, iv. 438.

Sudeley, Ada Tollemache, Lady, v. 233, 275

Suffolk, Hon. Isabella Howard, Countess of, iii. 139, 149; iv. 390-391.

---- Charles John, 17th Earl of, iii. 139, 145.

Sullivan, Sir Arthur, vi. 478.

Sulmona, Prince and Princess, v. 148.

Sumner, John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury, i. 407.

Surtees, Robert, of Mainsforth, the historian and poet, ii. 309, 313.

---- Anne Robinson, Mrs., of Mainsforth, ii. 309-317.

Sussex, book upon, vi. 322.

Sutherland, Anna Hay-Mackenzie, Duchess of, iii. 245; iv. 331; v. 212.

---- George, iv. 165.

Sutri, iv. 108; vi. 508.

Sutton Place, ii. 217; iv. 239.

Swaylands, vi. 510.

Sweden, J. B. J. Bernadotte, Charles XIV., King of, vi. 359.

Sweden and Norway, Gustaf, Crown Prince of, v. 119, 123, 124-125, 128, 132, 137-174, 195-200, 202-208, 210, 213-217, 238-240, 410-411; vi. 68, 80-81, 525.

---- Louisa, Queen of, vi. 76.

---- Oscar, King of, v. 106, 119-128; vi. 525.

---- Sophie of Nassau, Queen of, v. 79-85, 106, 119-127, 132, 144, 147, 239-240, 310-325 vi. 525.

---- Victoria of Baden, Crown Princess of, v. 410-411; vi. 415, 509.

Swete, F. H. Buller, of Oswestry, vi. 433, 486.

Swillerton, vi. 354.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, the poet, v. 16; vi. 357.

---- Sir John, ii. 350.

Sydenham, vi. 180.

Sydney, Lady Emily Paget, Countess, vi. 349-350.

---- John Robert Townshend, Earl, iv. 224; vi. 350.

Symonds, John Addington, the author, iv. 427.

Syon House, iv. 397.

Syracuse, v. 248.

T.

Tabley, the old house of, vi. 98.

Taddini, Conte Luigi, iii. 83.

Tadema, Alma, the artist, v. 277.

Taglioni, Madame, iv. 483.

Tailetti, Don Pietro, v. 141.

Tait, Archibald Campbell, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, iii. 35-36, 39; iv. 219; v. 383.

---- Catherine Spooner, Mrs. J. Archibald, iii. 35-36, 39; iv. 219; vi. 354.

---- Crawford, iii. 39.

Talbot, Lady Gertrude, iv. 133.

---- Monsignor, ii. 67; iii. 190, 238, 252, 307.

Talleyrand, Baron de, v. 154.

Tambroni, Clotilda, Professor of Greek at Bologna, i. 6-9.

Tanjore, the Princess, vi. 275.

Tankerville, Charles Bennet, 6th Earl of, ii. 267-271, 365; iv. 226.

---- Corisande de Gramont, Countess of, iv. 139.

---- Lady Olivia Montagu, Countess of, ii. 267-272; iii. 32, 33.

Taormina, v. 247, 266.

Tatton, Miss Fanny, iii. 401; iv. 129, 230.

Tatton Park, iv. 459, 463; vi. 97, 182-183, 229.

Taranto, v. 269.

Taunton, Lady Mary Howard, Lady, iv. 133, 357.

Tayler, Frederick, the artist, v. 44.

Tayleur, Miss Harriet, i. 143-144, 502; ii. 326; iii. 113; v. 217.

---- Miss Mary, i. 143-144. 502; ii. 326; v. 217.

---- Mr. John and Mrs., of Buntingsdale, i. 143.

---- William, of Buntingsdale, ii. 326.

Taylor, Sir Charles, iv. 132.

---- Colonel Philip Meadows, iv. 363.

---- Rowland, the martyr, vi. 519.

---- Tom, editor of Punch, iv. 307, 370.

Teano, Ada Wilbraham, Princess of, iii. 194; v. 151, 160.

Teck, Prince Adolphus of, vi. 353.

---- H.S.H. Francis, Duke of, iv. 224, 325-327.

---- H.R.H. Princess Mary, Duchess of, iv. 222, 224; v. 14, 312; vi. 320, 465.

Teesdale, ii. 340.

Tellemarken, v. 109-113.

Temple, Right Rev. Frederick, Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, vi. 320.

---- W. S. Gore-Langton, Lord, vi. 240.

---- Harry, i. 12.

---- Hon. William Cowper, iv. 71.

Temple Newsam, iv. 283-285; vi. 353-354.

Tenby, v. 333.

Tennyson, Alfred, the Poet Laureate, i. 258; iv. 478; v. 38-41, 314, 453; vi. 96, 226, 397, 429-431.

Tenterden steeple, iii. 332.

Terry, Mrs., iii. 375, 376; vi. 415.

Thackeray, Miss Annie, the novelist, iv. 155, 224, 305, 306.

Thellusson, Maria Macnaughton, Mrs., iv. 376, 483.

Thiers, Louis Adolphe, President of the French Republic, vi. 121.

Thirlwall, Connop, Bishop of St. Davids, i. 164, 437, 482.

Thomas, John, Bishop of Peterborough, ii. 338.

---- William Brodrick, the landscape gardener, iv. 239.

Thoresby, v. 43; vi. 118, 473.

Thorncombe, iv. 307.

Thornton, Harriet Heber, Mrs. John, ii. 144-149.

---- Miss, iv. 419.

Thorneycroft, ii. 161.

---- Blanche Swete, Mrs., vi. 502, 522.

Thorp Perrow, vi. 405.

Thorpe, Mrs., iii. 237, 262.

Throndtjem, v. 108.

Thun, i. 464, v. 408.

Thurlow, Edward, Lord High Chancellor, v. 286-287.

---- Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, of Baynards, vi. 162.

Thurlow, Great, vi. 517.

---- Little, vi. 507.

Thynne, Lord John, iv. 418, 479.

Tilt, Georgiana Hibbert, Mrs., vi. 9, 465.

Timsbury, iv. 71.

Tintagel, vi. 524.

Tittenhanger, v. 50; vi. 109.

Tivoli, iii. 370; iv. 175; vi. 507.

Tollemache, Hon. Algernon, v. 233.

Tollemache, John, 1st Baron, v. 445.

---- Marguerite Hume-Purves, Hon. Mrs. Augustus, iv. 307.

---- Mary Stuart Hamilton, Lady, vi. 376.

---- Colonel Thomas, v. 445.

Tong Church, iv. 441.

Torcello, iii. 230.

Torchio, iii. 236-237.

Torlonia, Duke of, ii. 295-297.

---- origin of the family of, iv. 349-350.

Torre, Contessa della, ii. 448-449.

Torrigiani, Marchesa Cristina, v. 154; vi. 9.

---- Marchesa Elisabetta, v. 154; vi. 8, 290.

---- Don Filippo, v. 154.

---- Marchese Pietro, v. 154.

---- Marchesa Margherita, vi. 8.

Tortworth, v. 298.

Toscanella, vi. 416.

Tosti, the Abbate, iv. 182.

Toul, iii. 333.

Tours, ii. 464.

Tower, Mr. and Mrs., of the Weald, vi. 380.

Towneley, Colonel, iv. 346.

Townley, Walter, vi. 420.

Townshend, Lady Anne, v. 421.

---- Lady Agnes, vi. 175.

---- Dorothy Walpole, Lady, vi. 104.

Trafford, Edward William, of Wroxham, ii. 193, 406, 506.

---- Martine Larmignac, Madame de, ii. 186-200, 406, 412-415, 500-513; iii. 53-64, 251-254, 260, 265.

Trani, Mathilde of Bavaria, Countess of, iii. 86.

Trebeck, Rev. Canon, James John and Mrs., vi. 119.

Tregastel, vi. 345.

Tremayne, Hon. Mary Vivian Mrs., vi. 180.

Trenca, M. and Madame, ii. 247.

Trench, Mrs. R. C., ii. 434; iv. 90.

Trent, iii. 231.

Trevanion, Lady Frances, vi. 494.

Trevelyan, Sir Alfred, vi. 234.

---- Sir Charles, Governor of Madras, ii. 348; iv. 379.

---- Sir George Otto, politician and author, iv. 401.

---- Paulina Jermyn, Lady, ii. 277, 348-50.

---- Mrs. Spencer, ii. 351.

---- Mrs. Raleigh, ii. 351.

---- Sir Walter, ii. 277, 348-351.

Treves, i. 385.

Trisulti, iv. 192.

Trollope, Adolphus, the novelist, iv. 171; v. 300.

---- Mrs. Anthony, v. 16.

---- Miss Beatrice, iv. 171; v. 151.

Tronchin, Colonel, the philanthropist, i. 453.

Trotter, Captain, i. 313.

---- Hon. Charlotte Liddell, Mrs., i. 315.

Troubridge, Miss Laura, vi. 104.

Troutbeck, John, afterwards Minor Canon of Westminster, i. 414, 417, 419, 446.

Truro, Edward White Benson, Bishop of, v. 71.

Tucker, Rev. Alfred Robert, Bishop of Uganda, vi. 453.

Tufton, i. 278.

Tullgarn, Gustaf, Comte de, v. 153.

Turin, ii. 106.

Turner, J. M. W., the artist, vi. 330-331.

---- Miss, iii. 114-115.

---- Pamela FitzGerald, Mrs., vi. 502.

Turnour, Algernon, vi. 28.

Tusculum, ii. 391; v. 150.

Twain, Mark (Mr. Samuel Clemens), the author, vi. 281-283.

“Two Noble Lives, the Story of,” vi. 333-336.

Tytler, Christina Fraser, the authoress, iii. 368.

U.

Ugolini, Cardinal, iii. 71.

Umberto II., King of Italy, v. 135, 158; vi. 278.

Ungern Sternberg, Theodora v. Bunsen, Baroness von, ii. 294; iii. 109.

Unthank, iii. 170.

Upsala, v. 105.

Upton, General, v. 64.

Upton Court, vi. 26.

Usedom, Baron von, i. 435; iii. 104-106.

---- Olympia Malcolm, Baroness, afterwards Countess von, i. 435; iii. 104-106; v. 349-350.

V.

Val Anzasca, ii. 109.

Valdagno, iv. 321.

Vallombrosa, ii. 84; iii. 381; vi. 273.

Val Richer, i. 320.

Valsamachi, Emily Shipley, Countess, ii. 145, 159, 160, 327.

Van de Weyer, Madame, ii. 232.

---- M. Sylvain, ii. 231-232.

Vane, Lady Katherine, afterwards Lady Barnard, vi. 79.

---- Margaret Gladstone, Lady, vi. 32.

---- Sir Henry, vi. 33, 354.

Vatche, the, in Buckinghamshire, i. 2, 3, 493; ii. 156.

Vaucher, Mademoiselle, ii. 379.

Vaudois, the, ii. 109.

Vaughan, Cardinal, vi. 483.

---- Catherine Maria Stanley, Mrs. Charles, i. 281, 311, 336; ii. 213, 261; iii. 170; iv. 360, 366; v. 225, 316, 327; vi. 102, 476, 505; death of, vi. 513-515.

---- Dr. Charles, afterwards Dean of Llandaff, i. 214, 218, 281, 336; ii. 213, 260, iii. 414; death of, vi. 476.

---- Herbert, of Llangoedmore, vi. 347.

Vauriol, Vicomte de, iii. 354.

Veii, ii. 391; iv. 95-96.

Venables, Rev. Edmund, afterwards Canon and Precentor of Lincoln, i. 240; vi. 361-362.

---- George Stovin, vi. 99.

Venice, vi. 168-170, 290-293.

Vernon, Augustus Henry, 6th Lord, iii. 140.

Verona, iii. 230, 337.

Verulam, Elizabeth Weyland, Countess of, iii. 139; v. 47.

---- James Walter Grimston, 2nd Earl of, v. 47, 49.

Vetturino travelling, ii. 46-49.

Vicenza, iii. 338; vi. 420.

Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, ii. 376; iv. 96, 222.

Victoria, Queen of England, ii. 286-288; iv. 224, 366, 368; vi. 69-75, 82-83, 228, 264, 307, 464, 465.

Victorine, Madame, iii. 89-90.

Vienna, ii. 36.

Vigne, Père la, i. 338.

Villari, Professor Pasquale, the historian, v. 155.

Villiers, Hon. Francis, iv. 396.

Vine’s Gate, iii. 393.

Vitelleschi, Francesco Nobile, Marchese, politician, iv. 332-343.

Vivian, William Graham, vi. 101, 486.

Vivian, Amabel Beaumont, Lady Hussey, vi. 101.

Vivier, M., the actor, iv. 220-221, 225.

Vizille, vi. 48.

Voight, the artist, iv. 86.

Vyne, the, vi. 156.

W.

Waddington, Dean of Durham, ii. 265.

---- Mary Port, Mrs., v. 2, 5, 6.

---- William Henry, the statesman and ambassador, i. 319; ii. 109; v. 94-95.

Wagner, Rev. George, i. 79, 80.

---- Mrs., i. 79; ii. 427; iii. 397.

Wagstaff, Mrs., the clairvoyant, iv. 392.

Wake, Sir Baldwin, ii. 151.

Waldegrave, Frances Braham, Countess, iv. 328; v. 209.

---- Sarah Milward, Countess, iii. 397.

Wales, H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of, ii. 381; iv. 222, 223, 331, 379; v. 24, 212, 213; vi. 34.

---- H.R.H. Alexandra, Princess of, ii. 381; iv. 222, 223, 328, 331, 334, 396; v. 212.

---- H.R.H. Prince George of, v. 24.

Walker, Frederick J., i. 309, 332, 398; vi. 264.

---- Mrs. Frederick, v. 166; vi. 264.

----Frederick, the artist, iv. 357-358.

“Walks in Rome,” iii. 388, 397, 408; vi. 416.

Wallace, Sir Richard, v. 208.

Wallington, ii. 277, 347-352.

Wallop, Hon. John, v. 296.

Walpole, Catherine Shorter, Lady, vi. 104-105.

---- George, Lord, vi. 104.

---- Sir Robert, i. 2; vi. 104.

Walsh, Hon. Christopher, vi. 156.

Waltham Abbey, i. 311.

Walton, in Yorkshire, iv. 67.

“Wanderings in Spain,” iv. 83.

Wantage, ii. 222.

Wantage, Hon. Robert James Loyd Lindsay, Lord, vi. 433, 447.

---- Hon. Harriet Loyd, Lady, vi. 433, 447.

Warbleton Priory, vi. 470.

Warburton, Egerton, of Arley, iv. 461.

---- Matilda Grove, Mrs. Eliot, i. 510, 511-513; ii. 12.

---- Miss Sydney, the authoress, i. 510.

---- Miss Jane, iv. 216.

Ward, Hon. Elizabeth Blackwood, Mrs., v. 428.

---- Miss Geneviève, iv. 436; v. 276.

---- Herbert, vi. 240.

---- Mrs. Humphry, vi. 164.

Ward-Howe, Mrs. Julia, the poetess, v. 174.

Wardour Castle, v. 293.

Warkworth, ii. 278, 352.

Warkworth, Henry Algernon George, Lord, vi. 373.

Warner, Charles, the Trinidad philanthropist, vi. 434.

Warre, the Misses Florence and Margaret, vi. 510.

Warren, Miss Anna, ii. 144.

---- Penelope Shipley, Mrs., i. 165-166; ii. 143-144; iii. 125.

Warsaw, v. 401.

Warwick, George Guy Greville, 3rd Earl of, iv. 253-254, 261.

---- Lady Anne Charteris, Countess of, iv. 261, 267; vi. 33.

Warwick Castle, vi. 33.

Waterford, Christina Leslie, Marchioness of, vi 21.

---- John, Marquis of, ii. 280.

---- Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquis of, ii. 362; iv. 291-292; v. 358.

---- Hon. Louisa Stuart, Marchioness of, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii. 10-13, 23-31, 323-327; iv. 51, 60-61, 133-143, 208-217, 251-265, 340-343, 376, 404-409; v. 15, 213-214, 290-291; vi. 108-110, 158-161, 241-251, 326, 327, 333.

Watson, Sir Thomas, physician (1792-1882), v. 184.

---- Mr. and Mrs., of Rockingham, vi. 256.

---- the author, vi. 434.

Watts, G. F., R.A., vi. 326-330.

---- Theodore, the author, v. 289-290.

Way, Albert, i. 503; ii. 133.

---- Rev. John, vi. 183.

Wayland Smith’s cave, ii. 230.

Webster, Charlotte Adamson, Lady, iii. 177; iv. 301.

Weeping Cross, ii. 328.

Weimar, Pauline of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Grand Duchess of, v. 87.

Welbeck Abbey, v. 366; vi. 475.

Weld, Thomas, Cardinal, vi. 22-23.

Weling, Fräulein von, the authoress, v. 77, 292.

Wellesley, Rev. Dr. Henry, Principal of New Inn Hall and Rector of Hurstmonceaux, i. 16; ii. 213, 244, 294-297.

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of, i. 393; iv. 345; v. 276; vi. 190-191, 373.

---- Arthur Richard Wellesley, 2nd Duke of, iv. 81, 344; v. 11-12, 29, 276.

Wells, i. 308; v. 291; vi. 320.

Wells, Lady Louisa, ii. 356; iii. 140.

Wemyss, Francis, 8th Earl of, iii. 44.

---- Lady Louisa Bingham, Countess of, ii. 356; iv. 267.

Wenlock Abbey, vi. 382.

Wenlock, Hon. Caroline Neville, Lady, ii. 389; iii. 154.

Wensleydale, Cecilia Barlow, Lady, iv. 124, 414; v. 62.

Wentworth, Lady Harriet, v. 298.

Wentworth Castle, v. 297.

---- Wodehouse, iv. 281-283.

Wesselow, Mr. and Mrs. Simpkinson de, iv. 163-165; vi. 264.

Westenberg, M. and Mme. de, v. 152, 160; vi. 509.

Westminster, Lady Constance Gower, Duchess of, v. 229.

---- Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Marchioness of, v. 366.

Westmoreland, Anne Child, Countess of, iv. 468.

West Woodhay, i. 84, 95.

West Wycombe, vi. 299.

Weyland, Lady Catherine, iv. 69; v. 47.

Weymouth, ii. 229.

Wharncliffe, Lady Susan Lascelles, Countess of, iv. 327.

Whately, Richard, Archbishop of Dublin, i. 228, 283.

Whewell, Dr. William, Master of Trinity, i. 164; iii. 158; vi. 526.

Whistler, James, the artist, iv. 376; v. 190.

Whitburn, ii. 206-213; iv. 272; v. 423.

White, Lady Maude, vi. 436.

Whiteway, vi. 181.

Whitford, Mrs. Mary, vi. 174.

Wickham, Agnes Gladstone, Mrs., vi. 362.

---- William of Binstead-Wyck, afterwards M.P., ii. 217; iv. 131.

Wied, Marie of Nassau, Dowager Princess of, v. 78-84.

Wigan, Mrs., iv. 219.

Wilberforce, Rev. Canon Basil, vi. 520.

---- Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, afterwards of Winchester, i. 470; iii. 153; iv. 125; v. 218-219.

Wilbraham, Charles, v. 17.

Wilcot House, i. 278.

Wilde, Oscar, the play-writer, v. 386.

Wilkinson, Rev. George Howard, iv. 342.

William IV., King of England, i. 69, 294.

Williams, Captain, iii. 28, 32.

---- Sir Fenwick, iv. 35.

---- Sir John and Lady Sarah, i. 503.

Williamson, Hon. Anne Liddell, Lady, ii. 207, 208, 211, 212, 400, 403.

---- Captain Charles, ii. 210, 212; iv. 248.

---- Lady Elizabeth, iv. 272, 365, 456; v. 423.

---- Sir Hedworth, iv. 272, 365, 459

---- Victor A., ii. 137, 210, 214, 403; iv. 232; v. 208.

Willmer, Bishop of Louisiana, vi. 354-356.

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, the Arctic voyager, vi. 425.

Wilson, Miss Fanny Fleetwood, vi. 280, 483.

---- Georgiana Sumner, Mrs., i. 407.

---- Sir Thomas Maryon, v. 280.

Wimbledon Camp, iv. 219.

Wimpole, iv. 252.

Winchelsea, Fanny Rice, Countess, iv. 411.

Winchester, John Paulet, 14th Marquis of, iv. 482.

Windham, Rt. Hon. William, the statesman, v. 451.

Windsor, Alberta Victoria Paget, Lady, vi. 351, 448.

---- Robert George Clive, Lord, v. 359; vi. 351, 448.

Wingfield, Miss Katherine, vi. 313.

---- Hon. Cecilia FitzPatrick, Hon. Mrs. Lewis, iv. 173, 227, 228, 231; v. 209.

Winkworth, Mrs. Stephen, v. 289.

Winslow, Dr., iii. 313, 359, 366, 370.

Winton Castle, ii. 354; iv. 267, 447.

Wiseman, Nicholas Patrick, Cardinal, ii. 486; vi. 162.

Wishaw House, ii. 358.

Woburn Abbey, v. 60-61; vi. 77.

Wodehouse, Miss Emily, i. 120.

---- Canon and Lady Jane, i. 120.

Wolff, Rev. Joseph, v. 278.

Wollaton Hall, vi. 424.

Wolseley, Sir Garnet, afterwards Viscount, iv. 305, 465.

---- Louisa Erskine, Viscountess, iv. 305, 465.

Wombwell, Lady Julia, v. 423.

Wood, Lady Agnes, iv. 240-243, 249, 293, 385.

---- Alderman, iii. 15.

---- Rt. Hon. Sir Charles, ii. 283; iv. 286.

---- Hon. Charles Lindley, ii. 137-138, 214, 251-253, 283, 325; iii. 320; iv. 239-243, 249, 290-293, 363, 385; v. 419-421.

---- Hon. Frederick, iv. 283.

---- Misses Isabel and Lorraine, vi. 12.

---- Lady Mary, ii. 251.

---- Mrs. Shakespeare, iii. 191, 204.

Woodbastwick Hall, vi. 225, 262.

Woodlands, vi. 99.

Woodward, Fanny Finucane, Mrs., iii. 209, 211, 213, 318, 364, 365, 374, 378.

Woolbeding, vi. 297.

Wordsworth, William, the poet, i. 177, 499.

Worsley Sir William, Bart., vi. 256.

Worth Park, vi. 27, 227.

Worting House, near Basingstoke, i. 13; ii. 143, 144.

Wortley, Hon. Mrs. James Stuart, iv. 82.

Wraxhall Manor, South, i. 272; vi. 485.

Wright, Miss Sophia of Mapperley, ii. 392; iii. 140, 183, 318; iv. 24, 25, 28, 48, 95, 99, 106, 304; v. 17, 130-131, 147.

Wynford, Caroline Baillie, Lady, iv. 398; v. 45, 195.

Wynne, Sir Watkin, v. 65, 202.

Wythenshawe, iv. 463.

Y.

Yates, Edmund Hodgson, the novelist, v. 16.

Yeatman, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, iii. 414.

Yetholm, iii. 31.

York, H.R.H. George, Duke of, vi. 353, 399.

---- William Maclagan, Archbishop of, vi. 256-257, 294, 356, 443.

---- William Markham, Archbishop of, vi. 360.

---- Thomas Musgrave, Archbishop of, vi. 262.

---- William Thompson, Archbishop of, iv. 473.

---- Edward Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of, vi. 360.

---- H. R. H. Victoria Mary, Duchess of, vi. 353, 516.

Yorke, Hon. Alexander, iv. 250, 251; v. 222.

----Frances Graham, Mrs. Dallas, vi. 475.

---- Hon. Eliot, iv. 288-290, 410.

Yorke, Annie de Rothschild, Hon. Mrs. Eliot, iv. 410.

Z.

Zanzibar, the Sultan of, iv. 328.

Zermatt, i. 460.

Zouche, Robert Curzon, Lord de la, vi. 296.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] J. Greenleaf Whittier, “Letters.”

[2] I had to pay a duty of 10 per cent, even on all my own money and savings, as it had been unfortunately invested in her name.

[3] Archibald, eldest son of John Archibald Colquhoun of Killermont, N.B., and Chartwell, near Westerham, in Kent.

[4] Archie Colquhoun died at Nice in the following spring.

[5] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[6] These rooms have been entirely altered since Lady Waterford’s death.

[7] Mary Amelia, widow of the first Marquis.

[8] Daughter of the 5th Earl of Balcarres.

[9] James Edward, 2nd Earl.

[10] Afterwards Dean of Wells.

[11] The picture was exhibited in the spring of 1845, and was sent straight to Hurstmonceaux from the Exhibition.

[12] Our cousins Sir Alexander and Lady Taylor. See vol. iii.

[13] The Rev. Henry Liddell, brother of my great-uncle Ravensworth, and whose wife, Charlotte Lyon, was niece of my great-grandmother, Lady Anne Simpson.

[14] Don Juan died in 1880, leaving his last great work, the restoration of Leon Cathedral, unfinished.

[15] This was my first meeting with Everard Primrose, afterwards for many years one of my most intimate friends. He had a cold manner, which was repellant to those who did not know him well, and in conversation he was tantalising, for nothing came out of him at all comparable to what one knew was within. But no young man’s life was more noble, stainless, and full of highest hopes and purposes. He died--to my lasting sorrow--of fever during the African campaign of 1885. His mother printed a memoir afterwards, which was a beautiful and simple portrait of his life--a very model of biographical truth.

[16] It has since been entirely destroyed.

[17] From “Paris.”

[18] W. S. Landor.

[19] Dr. Chalmers.

[20] Wordsworth.

[21] For these old friends of my mother, vide vols. i. and iii.

[22] This dear old lady (widow of a first cousin of my father’s) lived in uncomplaining poverty till 1891, and was a great pleasure to me. I was glad to be able to contribute to the support of her small establishment at Norbiton.

[23] Since this was written the pictures have all been dispersed.

[24] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[25] Mrs. T. Erskine’s novel.

[26] George Macdonald.

[27] Lady Margaret Beaumont, whom I afterwards knew very intimately, and learnt to regard with ever-increasing esteem and affection, died, to my great sorrow, March 31, 1888.

[28] Afterwards Lieutenant-General Henry Hope Crealock. He died May 1891.

[29] The Mote has since been sold and its contents dispersed.

[30] Mr. Hailstone of Walton Hall died 1890, his wife some years earlier. He bequeathed his topographical collections to the Chapter at York, where they are preserved as the “Hailstone Yorkshire Library.”

[31] This church, the most interesting memorial of the Brontë life at Haworth, was wantonly destroyed in 1880-81.

[32] Lady Salisbury’s description.

[33] Told me by Lord Houghton.

[34] Note added 1890.--Authorities now decide that this picture does not represent Mary at all, and it is certainly not, as formerly stated, by Zucchero, for Zucchero, who was never in England till the Queen was in captivity, never painted her.

[35] Afterwards Lady Sherbrooke.

[36] This was so for a long time. Then in about ten years several more editions were called for in rapid succession. One can never anticipate how it will be with books.

[37] 1890.--This was so for many years: then the sale of “Days near Rome” suddenly and unaccountably stopped.

[38] From “Days near Rome”

[39] Miss Margaret Foley died Dec. 1877.

[40] Afterwards Lady Compton.

[41] From “Days near Rome.”

[42] From “Days near Rome.”

[43] Perhaps the interest of these details is of the past, but I insert them because the conduct of the Sardinian Government is being rapidly forgotten, and I was at great pains in obtaining accurate statistics and verifying the facts mentioned.

[44] From “Days near Rome.”

[45] Afterwards Duchess of Marino.

[46] Mother of the Duchess S. Arpino.

[47] Shortly before this my publishers had given me a magnificently bound copy of “Walks in Rome,” with the desire that I would present it to Princess Margherita. I demurred to doing this, because, owing to the strictures which the book contains on the “Sardinian Government,” I thought it might be considered little less than an impertinence; but I told the Duchess S. Arpino, who was in waiting at the time, and she repeated it. The amiable Princess said, “I am sorry Mr. Hare does not appreciate us, but I should like my present all the same,” and the book was sent to her.

[48] From “Days near Rome.”

[49] From “Days near Rome.”

[50] This quaint journey is described in the introductory chapter of “Days near Rome.”

[51] From “Days near Rome.”

[52] From “Days near Rome.”

[53] From “Days near Rome.”

[54] From “Days near Rome.”

[55] From “Days near Rome.”

[56] From “Days near Rome.”

[57] From “Days near Rome.”

[58] Miss Kate Malcolm, the last of her family, died, universally beloved, in May 1891.

[59] From “Northern Italy.”

[60] From “Northern Italy.”

[61] Samuel Wilberforce.

[62] Rev. Hugh Pearson, Rector of Sonning.

[63] The house of William Wickham, who married my cousin Sophia Lefevre.

[64] In 1884 this fine old property of the Needhams was sold to A. P. Heywood Lonsdale, Esq. (now Heywood), who is also owner of the neighbouring estate of Cloverly.

[65] This old friend of my childhood died Dec. 1890, in her 99th year.

[66]

“Andrew, she has a face looks like a story, The story of the heavens looks very like her.” BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Elder Brother.

[67] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[67] Afterwards Lady Harcourt.

[69] This is much like the epitaph which Ruskin has placed on the grave of his father.

[70] A rich farmer, the landlord of our Lime farm at Hurstmonceaux.

[71] Mrs. Harford of Blaise Castle, third daughter of Baron de Bunsen.

[72] From “Northern Italy.”

[73] From “Northern Italy.”

[74] From “Northern Italy.”

[75] Beatrice, afterwards the first wife of Charles Stuart Wortley.

[76] From “Days near Rome.”

[77] From “Days near Rome.”

[78] From “Days near Rome.”

[79] From “Days near Rome.”

[80] From “Days near Rome.”

[81] From “Days near Rome.”

[82] From “Days near Rome.”

[83] From “Days near Rome.”

[84] From “Days near Rome.”

[85] From “Days near Rome.”

[86] Daughter of Lord Howard de Walden, afterwards Duchess of Sermoneta.

[87] From “Days near Rome.”

[88] This excellent old Abbot was afterwards cruelly murdered at Rome.

[89] From “Days near Rome.”

[90] From “Days near Rome.”

[91] From “Florence.”

[92] All the women have fainted.

[93] Sermon on Ezekiel.

[94] From “Northern Italy.”

[95] From “North-Eastern France.”

[96] Afterwards known as “Sunday Hill.”

[97] Fanny Blackett, Vicomtesse du Quaire, who died, universally beloved and regretted, in the spring of 1895.

[98] Feb. 8, 1814.

[99] Hon. E. Primrose, second son of the Duchess of Cleveland by her first marriage with Lord Dalmeny.

[100] Cambry.

[101] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[102] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[103] Eighth daughter of the 7th Earl of Wemyss. She died, deeply mourned and beloved, in 1891.

[104] Author of “Rab and his Friends.”

[105] Daughter of the 8th Earl of Cavan, afterwards Baroness von Essen.

[106] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[107] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[108] John, second Duke of Argyll, immortalised by Pope.

[109] Author of “Music and Morals,” &c.

[110] From “Walks in London.”

[111] From “Walks in London.”

[112] From “Days near Paris.”

[113] This was my first sight of the contentious and arbitrary essayist Abraham Hayward, whom I often saw afterwards. He was always interesting to meet, if only on account of his perverse acerbity. Constantly invited by a world which feared him, he was always determined to be listened to, and generally said something worth hearing.

[114] From “Walks in London.”

[115] From “Walks in London.”

[116] Lady Victoria Liddell married Captain Edward Fisher, now Rowe.

[117] John FitzPatrick, Baron Castletown of Upper Ossory.

[118] From “Walks in London.”

[119] Emily, wife of the 5th Earl Stanhope, died Dec. 31, 1873.

[120] Evelyn Henrietta, daughter of R. Pennefather, Esq., afterwards 6th Countess Stanhope.

[121] Daughter of Amos Meredith, Esq. She married, secondly, a son of the 4th Duke of Argyll.

[122] Lady Harriet Pelham, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Chichester, wife of the 6th Earl of Darnley.

[123] Tasso.

[124] My real mother’s youngest sister Jane (see vol. i.). She married Edward, only son of the famous Lord Edward FitzGerald and of the beautiful Pamela. She lived till November 1891.

[125] The family circle was broken up by the death of Mr. Carew in 1888, a few months after that of his eldest daughter.

[126] I learnt to value Dean Church very much afterwards. The story of his beautiful and noble life is told in a wonderfully interesting “Memoir.”

[127] William, afterwards 4th Earl of St. Germans, died Oct. 7, 1877.

[128] Edward Granville, 3rd Earl of St. Germans, died 1877.

[129] George, second son of the 2nd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, married Fanny Lucy, eldest daughter of Sir John Shelley.

[130] Sophia, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire.

[131] Hugh, 3rd Earl Fortescue.

[132] The Queen of the Gipsies died in July 1883, at the age of eighty-six.

[133] Her mother, Lady Stuart de Rothesay, was daughter of the 3rd Earl of Hardwicke.

[134] Charles, 3rd Earl of Somers.

[135] George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick, died Dec. 2, 1893.

[136] I afterwards heard the same story, almost in the same words, from Lord Warwick himself.

[137] from “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[138] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[139] Bk. vi. 73, 74.

[140] Anne, wife of the 4th Earl of Warwick, daughter of Francis, 8th Earl of Wemyss and March.

[141] My mother’s first cousin, Georgiana Liddell, had married Lord Bloomfield, formerly ambassador at Berlin and Vienna.

[142] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[143] I have heard Professor Owen tell this story himself.

[144] Louisa, fourth daughter of 2nd Earl of Lucan.

[145] John Patrick, 3rd Marquis of Bute.

[146] Gwendoline Mary-Anne, eldest daughter of Lord Howard of Glossop.

[147] Prior.

[148] Sir Hedworth and Lady Elizabeth Williamson. The parents of both were first cousins of my mother.

[149] My mother’s first cousin, Henry Liddell, 1st Earl of Ravensworth.

[150] John Axel Fersen, making the tour of France at nineteen, was presented to the Dauphine, herself nineteen, in 1774. Throughout his friendship with her, the perfect reserve of a great gentleman and great lady was never broken.

[151] In 1879 I told this story to the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, who took the trouble to verify facts and dates as to the Löwenjelms, &c., and found everything coincide.

[152] Mrs., then Lady Pease, died, universally beloved and regretted, in 1892.

[153] The 6th Earl of Fitzwilliam.

[154] Lady Frances Douglas, daughter of the 18th Earl of Morton.

[155] Eldest daughter and youngest son of Viscount Halifax.

[156] Edward Carr Glyn, afterwards Vicar of Kensington, son of the 1st Baron Wolverton.

[157] Mother of the 9th Duke of Bedford, a most charming and hospitable person. She died August 1874.

[158] Lord Moira was created Marquis of Hastings 1816, and died at Malta, November 26, 1826.

[159] “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.”--Elihu in Job.

[160] Charles, 2nd Earl Grey.

[161] I have since heard this story as told by a Captain Campbell, and as having happened in Ireland near the Curragh. A similar story is told of two officers invited to the house of a Mr. T. near Dorchester. The appearance of the hostess at dinner was excused on plea of illness, and the younger guest, staring at the place where she would have sat, implored his elder friend to get him away from this devil-haunted place. An excuse of early parade was made, and as they were returning over the hills, the young man described the figure of “a lady with dripping hair wringing her hands.” Soon afterwards her body was found in the moat of the house. It was Mrs. T.

[162] My old schoolfellow, George, Equerry to the Prince of Wales, only son of the Right Hon. Sir George Grey.

[163] Anthony Lionel Ashley, died Jan. 14, 1836.

[164] I afterwards heard this story confirmed in every particular by Lord Waterford’s widow.

[165] From “Central Italy.”

[166] Miss Wright

[167] Whose real name is Cincinnatus.

[168] From “Northern Italy.”

[169] From “Northern Italy.”

[170] From “Central Italy.”

[171] From “Central Italy.”

[172] From “Florence.”

[173] From “Florence.”

[174] From “Northern Italy.”

[175] From “Northern Italy.”

[176] From “Walks in London.”

[177] He died March 1888.

[178] Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

[179] Professor Forster has since assured me that this was impossible, for that hair will only continue to grow for a few hours after death.

[180] Daughter of the famous English tenor, John Braham.

[181] From “Walks in London.”

[182] From “Walks in London.”

[183] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[184] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[185] Story told me by Sir J. Shaw Lefevre.

[186] Afterwards Sir Charles Newton. He died Nov. 28, 1894.

[187] I need scarcely say that, as soon as possible thereafter, I eliminated all reference to Mr. Freeman, and all quotations from his works, from my books.

[188] From “Walks in London.”

[189] From “Walks in London.”

[190] Tom Taylor, editor of Punch, died 1880.

[191] Née Sabine Thellusson.

[192] Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[193] From “Walks in London.”

[194] From “Walks in London.”

[195] From “Walks in London.”

[196] From “Walks in London.”

[197] From “Walks in London.”

[198] From “Walks in London.”

[199] From “Walks in London.”

[200] William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of Devon.

[201] Sir Samuel Baker died Dec. 1893.

[202] This picture was sold to the National Gallery in 1880 for £9000, and is probably the cheapest purchase the Gallery ever made.

[203] Isabella, second daughter of Lord Henry Howard.

[204] Mr. Abraham Hayward, the well-known critic and essayist, who had been articled in early life to an obscure country attorney, always seemed to consider it the summum-bonum of life to dwell amongst the aristocracy as a man of letters: and in this he succeeded admirably, and was always witty and well-informed, usually satirical, and often very coarse.

[205] Fourth son of the 4th Earl of Clarendon.

[206] Eldest sister of Prince Christian.

[207] From “Walks in London.”

[208] Many years afterwards I saw her again: her name was Mrs. Macnabb.

[209] Lord Russell died May 28, 1878.

[210] Lady Gladys afterwards married the 4th Earl of Lonsdale.

[211] My mother’s first cousin, Susan, sixth daughter of the 1st Lord Ravensworth.

[212] Eliot Yorke died Dec. 21, 1878--a bitter family sorrow.

[213] From “Walks in London.”

[214] Anne-Florence, Baroness Lucas, Dowager Countess Cowper, elder daughter and co-heir of Thomas Philip, Earl De Grey. She died in 1880.

[215] P.S.--The unpublished letters of Lady Mary Cooke show that this local tradition is incorrect. Lord Tavistock’s accident occurred far away, and he lingered afterwards for three weeks; but it is true that the family never lived at Houghton after his death.

[216] Lord Hinton afterwards used to play a barrel-organ in the streets of London, with an inscription over it in large letters, “I am the only Viscount Hinton.” He would play it for hours opposite the windows of Lord Powlett in Berkeley Square.

[217] Mr. E. A. Freeman--whose lengthy and disproportionate writings were never wholly without interest--died March 1892.

[218] Blanche, Countess of Sandwich, died March 1894.

[219] Letters of Alexis de Tocqueville to Mrs. Grote.

[220] Sir John Acton was commander-in-chief of the land and sea forces of Naples, and was for several years Neapolitan Prime Minister. His wife was the daughter of his brother, General Acton, and he had by her two sons (the younger of whom became Cardinal), and a daughter, afterwards Lady Throckmorton.

[221] At Sudeley Castle, where “the Mother of the English Reformation” is buried, I wrote for Mrs. Dent:--

“Here, within the chapel’s shade, Reverent hands have gently laid, From the suffering of her life, From its storminess and strife, All that rests of one who shone For a time on England’s throne, Ever gentle, ever kind, Seeking human souls to bind In a Christian’s fetters fast, Heavenward leading at the last: And their watch two angels keep Over Katherine’s gentle sleep.

Oh! amid this world of ours, With its sunshine and its flowers, Glad with light and blest with love, Let us still so live above All earth’s jealousies and snares, All its fretfulness and cares, Ever faithful, ever true, With the noblest end in view, Seeking human souls to raise By the simplest, purest ways; Then their ward will angels keep When we too are hush’d to sleep.”

[222] Emma, daughter of John Brocklehurst, Esq., of Hurdsfield, the authoress of an admirable work on the “Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley.”

[223] The great feature in views from Stoke Rectory.

[224] The name is thus spelt in the epitaph on the tomb of Richard Pendrill at St. Giles in the Fields.

[225] Henry Strutt, who succeeded his father as 2nd Lord Belper in 1880, married Lady Margaret, sixth daughter of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.

[226] Frederick Arthur, second son of the 14th Earl of Derby, married Constance, eldest daughter of the 4th Earl of Clarendon.

[227] He succeeded his grandfather as 5th Viscount Gage in 1877.

[228] Frederick, third son of the 6th Earl of Tankerville. See vol. ii.

[229] Eldest son of the Hon. Colonel Augustus Liddell, married Christina Catherine, daughter of C. E. Fraser Tytler, Esq., of Sanquhar, the authoress of “Mistress Judith,” “Jonathan,” &c. See vol. iii.

[230] Helen, daughter of Sir John Warrender, wife of the 11th Earl of Haddington.

[231] Katherine, third daughter of the 2nd Earl of Eldon.

[232] Coleridge.

[233] Lady Harriet Elliot, sixth daughter of the 1st Earl of Ravensworth.

[234] E. Waller.

[235] Aldena (Kingscote), wife of Sir Archibald Hope.

[236] General Philip Stanhope, fifth son of Walter Spencer Stanhope of Cannon Hall, celebrated for his kindly nature and pleasant conversation. Died 1879.

[237] Charles Nevison, Viscount Andover, son of the 15th Earl of Suffolk, died January 11, 1800.

[238] Lord Eslington, afterwards 2nd Earl of Ravensworth.

[239] See my visit in 1866.

[240] Afterwards Mrs. C. Warren.

[241] Lady Charlotte Loftus, eldest daughter of John, 2nd Marquis of Ely.

[242] Eldest daughter of William Pitt, Earl Amherst.

[243] Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir Christopher Sykes, died 1853.

[244] Eldest sister of the 1st Earl of Lathom.

[245] Egerton Warburton, Esq.

[246] A family home. In 1807 Thomas Tatton of Wythenshawe married my mother’s first cousin, Emma, daughter of the Hon. John Grey.

[247] Harriet Susan, eldest daughter of Robert Townley Parker of Cuerden Hall.

[248] Fourth daughter of the 6th Earl of Albemarle.

[249] Second son of the 3rd Lord Lyttelton and Lady Sarah Spencer.

[250] Lady Agneta Montagu was one of the daughters of Susan, Countess of Hardwicke, my mother’s first cousin.

[251] Pascal.

[252] Sotherton Peckham Branthwayt Micklethwait.

[253] Third daughter of the 2nd Earl of Arran by his third wife, Elizabeth Underwood.

[254] Dr. William Thompson, Archbishop of York, married Miss Zoë Skene, a beautiful Greek.

[255] Adelaide Horatia Seymour, Countess Spencer, who died October 1877.

[256] The well-known architect.

[257] From “Walks in London.”

[258] Mr. J. Cordy Jeaffreson (“Book of Recollections”) gives a most attractive account of this lady, which may be summed up in his dictum “It is impossible for a daughter of Eve to be a better woman than Geraldine Jewsbury.”

[259] Elizabeth Jane, daughter of the first Lord Athlumney.

[260] From “Walks in London.”

[261] Helen Matilda, daughter of Rev. Henry Chaplin, afterwards 5th Countess of Radnor.

[262] Mr. Froude died Oct. 1894.

[263] Mrs. Davidson of Ridley Hall. See vols. ii. and iii.

[264] From “Walks in London.”

[265] I have frequently seen Mrs. L.’s pictures in the Academy. I had often been told of the strange likeness between Napoleon III. and myself.

[266] Author of “Unspoken Sermons,” “David Elginbrod,” &c.

[267] Died June 20, 1889.

[268] The house of Joseph Pease, M.P., afterwards Sir Joseph Pease.

[269] Afterwards Lord Rowton.

[270] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”

[271] All the best pictures at Burghley have since been sold at Christie’s.

[272] The same amusement was in vogue during the parties of the second Empire at Compiègne, where the worst of the many bad organ-grinders was the Emperor himself.

[273] Francis-Charles, 9th Duke, a great archaeologist.

[274] Hungerford Crewe, Lord Crewe, died Jan. 1894.

[275] The Roman sculptress, Gibson’s favourite pupil. See vol. iii.

[276] Widow of John Singleton Copley, three times Lord Chancellor.

[277] Told me by Mrs. Henry Forester.

[278] Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

[279] See Macpherson’s “Memorials of Mrs. Jameson.”

[280] Fräulein von Weling afterwards translated my “Life and Letters of Baroness Bunsen” into German, and it has thus had a wide circulation in Germany.

[281] Afterwards “Carmen Sylva,” the poet-queen of Roumania.

[282] Widow of my cousin Marcus, lost in the Eurydice.

[283] The epitaph of Prince Otto, by his mother, is--

“Made perfect through Suffering and patient in Hope, Of a fearless Spirit and strong in Faith, His mind turned towards heavenly things, He searched for truth and a knowledge of God. What he humbly sought in Life, He, being set free, has now found in Light.”

[284] Née Isabel Waddington, sister of the ambassador from France to England.

[285] Younger son of my real mother’s youngest brother Wentworth.

[286] My real mother’s younger brother, Wentworth Paul, had married Countess Marie Marcia von Benningsen, lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Hanover.

[287] Afterwards ambassador in England.

[288] From “Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia.”

[289] Longfellow.

[290] Carlyle.

[291] Their grandmother was a Mademoiselle Clary, sister of Queen Desirée of Sweden.

[292] From “Days near Rome,” vol. ii.

[293] From “Days near Rome,” vol. ii.

[294] From “Central Italy.”

[295] From “Central Italy.”

[296] See vol. iii.

[297] Wife of a north-country baronet.

[298] Mary Howitt, aged 89, fulfilled her heart’s desire by also dying at Rome, Jan. 30, 1888, and, though a Catholic, was permitted to rest by her husband’s side in the Protestant cemetery. She never recovered the fatigue of a visit to the Pope. It was all made as easy as possible for her, on account of her great age, and the Duke of Norfolk was allowed to bring her in separately. “Adieu! we shall meet again in heaven,” said Leo XIII., on taking leave of her: a fortnight after she was dead.

[299] I have not been able to do this, as there is a prohibition in England against wearing foreign orders, dating from Elizabeth, who said, “My dogs shall wear nothing but my own collars.”

[300] I little thought at the time that Frank Crawford would turn out a distinguished and popular novelist: it was at Bombay that he met the original of “Mr. Isaacs.”

[301] The Misses Monk, daughters of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.

[302] Miss Clarke.

[303] From “South-Eastern France.”

[304] Of very humble origin himself, to court great personages had been the ruling passion of his life, and it had been a subject of extravagant pride to him that he had occasionally entertained this good-natured Princess at dinner at Pau.

[305] From “Walks in London.”

[306] I often saw Mademoiselle Bernhardt act afterwards, and was far less impressed by her, feeling the truth of the expression “Une tragédienne du Boulevard.”

[307] With whom afterwards I became great friends.

[308] The story of Count Piper is curious and highly honourable to him. He discovered that the late King Carl XV. was going to make a most unworthy and disgraceful marriage, and he wrote to him most strongly upon the subject. The king never forgave him, and made it impossible for him to stay in Sweden, but the cause of his disgrace was unknown, till the present king, Oscar, found the letter among his brother’s papers after his death. Count Piper was at once recalled, and given first-rate diplomatic posts.

[309] From “Walks in London.”

[310] From “Walks in London.”

[311] Daughter of John Braham, the singer. She married (1) John James Waldegrave, Esq.; (2) George-Edward, 7th Earl Waldegrave; (3) George Granville Harcourt, Esq., of Nuneham; (4) Chichester Fortescue, Lord Carlingford. When she was a child a gipsy foretold that she would marry first to please her parents, secondly for rank, thirdly for wealth, and fourthly to please herself.

[312] Eldest son of the Earl of Tankerville. See vol. iii.

[313] Lady Waterford, Lady Jane Ellice, and Lady Marian Alford.

[314] See vol. i.

[315] Joaquin Miller.

[316] See vol. i.

[317] Sir John Shaw Lefevre died at Margate.

[318] My cousin, Lady Elizabeth Adeane, née Yorke, had married Michael Biddulph, Esq., of Ledbury.

[319] See vol. iii.

[320] Constance-Gertrude, youngest daughter of the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.

[321] Maria, youngest daughter of Hon. Charles Tollemache, second wife (1833) of Charles Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury.

[322] Ada Maria Katherine, daughter of Hon. Frederick Tollemache, married (1868) Charles Hanbury Tracy, Baron Sudeley.

[323] Ham House has been greatly, perhaps too much restored since this, by the 8th Earl of Dysart.

[324] Feb. 17, 1671-2.

[325] Afterwards Dean of Winchester.

[326] Two thousand pounds and its interests for many years have (1900) never been repaid.

[327] Archbishop Trench.

[328] From “Southern Italy.”

[329] From “Southern Italy.”

[330] From “Southern Italy.”

[331] From “Southern Italy.”

[332] From “Southern Italy.”

[333] From “Southern Italy.”

[334] From “Southern Italy.”

[335] From “Southern Italy.”

[336] From “Southern Italy.”

[337] From “Southern Italy.”

[338] This story was told to me by Susan, Lady Sherborne, who heard it from Lord Clanwilliam.

[339] From “Southern Italy.”

[340] From “Southern Italy.”

[341] From “Southern Italy.”

[342] From “Southern Italy.”

[343] Eleanor Paul, who had lived with my sister, and who afterwards lived with her brother, George Paul.

[344] Frank Miles died July 1891.

[345] Marquis de Sade.

[346] Afterwards Lady Rumbold.

[347] Rev. Joseph Wolff, missionary to Palestine, died 1862.

[348] Doña Emilia de Guyangos. See vol. iv.

[349] Mrs. Thellusson died January 23, 1881, leaving a most loving memory behind. Swinburne wrote a pretty poem on her death.

[350] Afterwards married to Robert-George, Lord Windsor.

[351] See vol. ii.

[352] Dr. Grey died, aged 77, January 1888.

[353] Isabella Henrietta Poyntz, 8th Countess of Cork.

[354]

“No wonder, Mary, that thy story Touches all hearts--for there we see The soul’s corruption, and its glory, Its death and life combin’d in thee.

* * * * *

No wonder, Mary, that thy face, In all its touching light of tears, Should meet us in each holy place, When man before his God appears, Hopeless--were he not taught to see All hope in Him who pardoned thee.”

[355] Yet, M. Vivier told Madame du Quaire that, when he first went to see Mrs. Grote, he found her sitting high aloft in a tree, dressed in a coachman’s brown greatcoat with capes, playing on the violoncello.

[356] Mr. Grote was ever imperturbably placid. When Jenny Lind was asked what she thought of Mr. Grote, she said he was “like a fine old bust in a corner which one longed to dust.” Mrs. Grote dusted him.

[357] This was my last sight of Lady Ruthven, who died April 5, 1885, aged 96.

[358] “Pensées Philosophiques,” 1747.

[359] Since republished in “Biographical Sketches.”

[360] The Stanleys’ dear old nurse.

[361] From “Biographical Sketches.”

[362] Lord Romilly perished in his burning house in Egerton Gardens, London, in May 1891, having never recovered the death of his most sweet wife several years before.

[363] Hon. W. Owen Stanley, brother of the 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley, and of my aunt Mrs. Marcus Hare.

[364] Mary Louisa, daughter of Henry, 5th Duke of Grafton.

[365] Edward Gordon Douglas Pennant, Baron Penrhyn, who had succeeded to Penrhyn Castle in right of his first wife, Miss Dawkins Pennant.

[366] Her grandmother, Lady Ravensworth, was my grandmother’s only sister.

[367] From “Southern Italy.”

[368] From “Southern Italy.”

[369] From “Southern Italy.”

[370] Olympia, Countess von Usedom, eldest daughter of Sir John Malcolm. See vols. i. and iii.

[371] This Patriarch died of the influenza in 1892.

[372] From “Venice.”

[373] Dr. Walter Smith on Robertson of Irvine.

[374] Philip-Henry, 4th Earl Stanhope, died 1855.

[375] Dr. Buckland afterwards told Lady Lyndhurst that there was one thing even worse than a mole, and that was a blue-bottle fly.

[376] From “Walks in London.”

[377] From “Holland.”

[378] From “Holland.”

[379] The results of this tour appeared in the first part of my little volume, “Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia.”

[380] Second daughter of the 1st Duke of Sutherland, born 1797; she wrote to me several times after this, and showed me great kindness, but we never met again. She died November 11, 1891.

[381] Lowell.

[382] Gray’s “Enigmas of Life.”

[383] John Gidman, her most unworthy husband, the cloud and scourge and sorrow of her life. He had (fortunately for me) kept away during her illness, and did not wish to have anything to do with her funeral, or even to attend it. Immediately after, he removed all her possessions to Cheshire, and soon married again, dying six years after.

[384] Madame de Staël.

[385] Princess Elizabeth of Wied; translated by Sir Edwin Arnold.

[386] Thomasine Jocelyn, widow of the 4th Earl of Donoughmore.

[387] From “Studies in Russia.”

[388] From “Studies in Russia.”

[389] From “Studies in Russia.”

[390] From “Studies in Russia.”

[391] From “Studies in Russia.”

[392] From “Studies in Russia.”

[393] From “Studies in Russia.”

[394] I published some articles on Mrs. Duncan Stewart and her remarkable life in Good Words for 1892. They have been republished in “Biographical Sketches.”

[395] From “North-Eastern France.”

[396] From “North-Eastern France.”

[397] From “North-Eastern France.”

[398] The third boy, Henry Wood, died in London, June 6, 1886. The second son, Francis, died at Eton, March 17, 1889. The beloved eldest son, Charlie, died at Hickledon, September 1890.

[399] My second-cousin, Lady Elizabeth Williamson, daughter of the 1st Earl of Ravensworth.

[400] Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, widow of Philip, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke[.] Her eldest daughter, Lady Mexborough, was the mother of Lady Sarah Savile, who married Hon. Sir James Lindsay.

[401] Frances-Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Vane Tempest, who (1819) became the second wife of the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry.

[402] From “Walks in London.”

[403] From “South-Western France.”

[404] From “South-Western France.”

[405] From “South-Western France.”

[406] From “South-Western France.”

[407] From “South-Western France.”

[408] From “South-Western France.”

[409] From “South-Western France.”

[410] William Schomberg, 8th Marquis of Lothian, died 1870, aged 38.

[411] From “Sussex.”

[412] Very soon after I was at Ludlow, gentle Lady Mary Clive lost all her powers by a paralytic seizure, and she died in the summer of 1889

[413] William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of Devon.

[414] Clough.

[415] W. H. Smith, 1844.

[416] Dante, Purg. III.

[417] “Le Lys dans la Vallée.”

[418] Ben Jonson.

[419] Monckton Milnes.

[420] From “Sussex.”

[421] This was my last visit to the kind and excellent Lotteringo della Stufa, who died at Castagnolo, Feb. 26, 1889, after a long and painful illness.

[422] From “Days near Rome.”

[423] From “Days near Rome.”

[424] From “Days near Rome.”

[425] From “Central Italy.”

[426] From “Central Italy.”

[427] From “South-Eastern France.”

[428] From “North-Eastern France.”

[429] Lady Gage died a few months after, and left Hengrave to Lord Kenmare, who sold it.

[430] Ockwells was afterwards bought by my friend Stephen Leech, who restored it thoroughly and then sold it again.

[431] Frances Mary, daughter of Christopher Blackett of Wylam, widow of the Vicomte du Quaire.

[432] Emma, sister of Sir Francis Seymour.

[433] Margaret, daughter of T. Steuart Gladstone, Esq., of Capenoch.

[434] Anne, daughter of the Earl of Wemyss and March, wife of the 4th Earl of Warwick.

[435] Edward Heneage Dering was the author of several books. His last, a novel--“The Ban of Maplethorpe”--was only completed the day before his sudden death in November 1892. His grandmother, Lady Maria Harrington Price, and my grandmother. Lady Paul, were first cousins.

[436] From “South-Eastern France.”

[437] From “South-Eastern France.”

[438] From “South-Eastern France.”

[439] From “South-Eastern France.”

[440] From “South-Eastern France.”

[441] From “South-Eastern France.”

[442] From “South-Eastern France.”

[443] From “South-Eastern France.”

[444] From “South-Eastern France.”

[445] From “South-Eastern France.”

[446] From “South-Eastern France.”

[447] From “South-Eastern France.”

[448] From “Sussex.”

[449] He had been sub-editor of the Times.

[450] From “Walks in London.”

[451] Prince Abu’n Nasr Mir Hissanum, Sultanah of Persia; Devawongse Varspraker of Siam; and Komatsu of Japan.

[452] Princess “Liliuokalani.” Queen Liliuokalani was deposed January 1893, after a reign of only two years.

[453] Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham.

[454] Fourth daughter of the 3rd Marquis of Exeter, afterwards Lady Barnard.

[455] Lady Alma Graham, youngest daughter of the 4th Duke of Montrose.

[456] I never saw Mrs. Procter again; she died March 5, 1888. She liked to see people to the last. Every Sunday and Tuesday she admitted all who came to her as long as she could; then she saw a portion: up to the last few weeks she saw one or two. As Landor says, “She warmed both hands before the fire of life, and when it sank she was ready to depart.”

One day a young man remonstrated with Mrs. Procter for not going to see an exhibition of Sir Joshuas which was open at that time. “I have seen them all,” she said. “Why, Mrs. Procter, there has never been such an exhibition before.”--“I beg your pardon; there has been.”--“Why, when?”--“In 1808, and--where were you then?”

Mrs. Procter used to tell how she had been at the jubilee of George III., and would add that if she could see the jubilee of Queen Victoria she would say her “Nunc Dimittis;” and she did see it, and the Queen expressed a wish that Mrs. Procter, who was invited to her garden-party, should be especially presented to her.

Mrs. Procter--Anne Benson Procter--was born Sept. 11, 1799, being the daughter of Mr. Skepper, a small Yorkshire squire. Her mother, a Benson, who was aunt of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name, married, as her second husband, Basil Montagu, Q.C. In 1823, Miss Skepper married Bryan Waller Procter, known as Barry Cornwall, described by Patmore as a “simple, sincere, shy, and delicate soul,” well known to his contemporaries by his songs set to music by popular composers. He died in 1874.

[457] Née Janet Duff Gordon.

[458] Second daughter of the 1st Earl of Kilmorey, aged 95.

[459] Henry Cowper, than whom no one was a more universal favourite, or more deservedly so, died a few months after this.

[460] Afterwards Lady Swansea.

[461] Third son of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, married Ellen, 2nd daughter of the 19th Earl of Morton.

[462] Lady Gertrude Talbot, daughter of the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.

[463] Esquire being written as well as Reverend, is supposed to have been intended to indicate the son of a baronet.

[464] In 1890 Mr. Pigott died, and the new Rector destroyed the character of Bemerton by adding largely to the rectory in red brick.

[465] The Earl of Caledon’s place in Hertfordshire.

[466] The 16th Earl, father of the Princesses Doria and Borghese.

[467] Browning.

[468] From “North-Western France.”

[469] Sir John Saville’s.

[470] Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland, who died August 21, 1891.

[471] Afterwards Duchess of Portland.

[472] Louisa, daughter of Henry Drummond, Esq., died 1890.

[473] Algernon-George, 6th Duke of Northumberland.

[474] How well I remember, when somebody remonstrated with Lady Marian for “burning the candle at both ends,” the quickness with which she answered--“Why, I thought that was the very way to make two ends meet.”

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