‘Sat vixit, bene qui vixit spatium brevis aevi:Ignavi numerant tempore, laude boni.’
‘Sat vixit, bene qui vixit spatium brevis aevi:Ignavi numerant tempore, laude boni.’
Apparently radiant with happiness, and shedding happiness on all around her, she yet had often said latterly that she ‘did not feel that the compensations made up for the anxieties of life,’ and that she longed to be at rest.
“In the agreeable party at Battle it has been a great pleasure to find the French Ambassador and the Comtesse de Jarnac. Lord Stanhope is here, and has talked pleasantly as usual. Apropos of the custom of the living always closing the eyes of the dead, he reminded us of the admirable inscription over the door of the library at Murcia, ‘Here the deadopenthe eyes of the living.’
“He said how the Pineta at Ravenna was really a change in gender from the original name Pinetum in the singular: first it had become the plural of that; then Pineta itself had become a singular word.
“He described a dreary Sunday spent in Sabbatarian Glasgow, and how, everything else being shutup and forbidden, he had betaken himself for hours to examining the epitaphs in the churchyard, and at length found a single verse which atoned for the badness of all the rest:—
‘Shed not for me the bitter tear,Nor pour for me the vain regret,For though the casket is not here,The gem within it sparkles yet.’”
‘Shed not for me the bitter tear,Nor pour for me the vain regret,For though the casket is not here,The gem within it sparkles yet.’”
“Jan. 27.—Count Nesselrode has come. He has been describing to the Duchess how parents are always proposing to him for their beautiful young girls of fifteen or sixteen. He says that he answers, ‘Est que à mon âge je puis songer à me marier?’ and that they reply, ‘Avec le nom que vous portez, M. le Comte, on est toujours jeune.’ ... ‘et ça me donne le chair de poule.’
“On the Duchess asking Count Nesselrode after his sons, he said they were at a tutor’s, ‘pour former le cœur et l’esprit.’
“There used to be a ghost at Battle Abbey. Old Lady Webster told Mr. Hussey of Scotney Castle how she saw it soon after her marriage, an old woman of most terrible aspect, who drew the curtains of her bed and looked in. Immediately after, Sir Godfrey came into the room. ‘Who was that old woman?’ she said. ‘There could have been no old woman.’ ‘Oh, yes, there was, and you must have met her in the passage, for she has only just gone out of the room.’ In her old age Lady Webster would describe the pattern on the old woman’s dress, and say that she should recognise it anywhere.”
enlarge-imageTHE PINETA, RAVENNA.THE PINETA, RAVENNA.[165]
“Holmhurst, Feb. 1.—A long visit to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in Lady Jocelyn’s singular house at St. Leonards, which you enter from the top story. Lord Stratford is a grand old man with high forehead and flowing white hair. He can no longer walk, and sits in his dressing-gown, but his artistic daughters make him very picturesque, hanging his chair with a shade of purple which matches the lining and cuffs of his dressing-gown, &c. He talked of many different people he had seen, of Goethe, ‘who had a very high forehead’ (but ‘the highest forehead known was thatof the immortal Shakspeare, who had every great quality that could exist phrenologically’), and then he spoke of Mezzofanti, whom he had known personally in Italy, and who had told him the story of his life. He had been a carpenter’s apprentice, and had one day been at his work outside the open window of a school where a master was teaching. Having a smattering of Greek, which he had taught himself, he felt sure that he detected the master in giving a wrong explanation. This worried him so much that he could not get it out of his head, and, after the school and his own work were both over, he rang the bell and begged to see the master. ‘I was at work, sir, and I heard you speaking, and I think you gave such and such an explanation in Greek.’—‘Well, and what do you know about Greek?’—‘Not much, sir; but, if you will forgive my saying so, I am sure you will find, if you examine, that the explanation was not the correct one.’ The master found that the young carpenter was right, and it led to his obtaining friends and being educated. Lord Stratford said that Mezzofanti spoke English perfectly to him, and excellent modern Greek to his servant, and yet that, apart from his wonderful versatility in languages, he seemed to be rather a dull man than otherwise, utterly wanting in originality.
“Lord Stratford described going to dine one day with his agent, and meeting there a lady whose name he did not catch, but whom he was told to take down to dinner. In the course of dinner the conversation turned upon some subject of mathematics, ‘And then,’ said Lord Stratford, ‘I did what I have never done at any other time on a mathematical question.I tried to explain it and make it easy for my companion, who listened with polite attention. When I went upstairs I inquired her name, and it was ... Mrs. Somerville! I knew her intimately afterwards, and she told me something of her early life, which I regret should not have appeared in her memoirs. Her childhood was passed in Burntisland, whither her brother returned for his holidays, having some school-work to do whilst at home. One day, when he was called out, she took up the Euclid he had been studying. ‘Ah! what curious little designs! let me see if I can understand what it is about.’ And she found that she could, and devoured Euclid with avidity. Afterwards she got hold of her brother’s Æschylus and taught herself Greek in order to read it.
“Lord Stratford talked much of the extraordinary change, not only in politics, but in ‘the way of carrying on politics,’ since he was young.”
“69 Onslow Square, Feb. 4.—Aunt Sophy[166]had a pleasant party yesterday of Theodore Martins, Lady Barker, &c. Mrs. Theodore Martin’s is a fine illuminative face, like that of Madame Goldschmidt. As Helen Faucit she was celebrated as an actress and as having done her utmost to elevate the stage; but I do not admire her reading of Shakspeare, in which I think there is too much manner. He is evidently most excellent. He talked perfectly simply, but only when asked, of his intercourse with the Queen, with whom he must be on happy terms of mutual confidence.
“Feb. 7, 1875.—Yesterday, when I was with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, at Kent House, which is being beautifully arranged, Lady Bloomfield came in and then Mr. Carlyle—weird and grim, with his long coat and tall wizard-befitting hat. He talked in volumes, with fathomless depths of adjectives, into which it was quite impossible to follow him, and in which he himself often got out of his depth. A great deal was about Garibaldi, who was the ‘most absolute incarnation of zero, but the inexplicable perversity and wilfulness of the human race had taken him up, poor creature, and set him on a pedestal.’ Then he went on about ‘the poor old Pope, so filled with all the most horrible and detestable lies that ever were conceived or thought of.’ He was like the man who asked his friends to dinner and said, ‘I am going to give you a piece of the most delicious beef—the most exquisite beef that ever was eaten,’ and all the while it was only a piece of stale brown bread; but the host said to his guests, ‘May God damn your souls for ever and ever, if you don’t believe it’s beef,’ so they ate it and said nothing.
“Then he talked of the books of Mazzini, which were ‘well worth reading,’ and of Saffi, ‘made professor of something at Oxford, where he used to give lectures in a moth-eaten voice.’”
“Feb. 11.—Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley, Miss Thackeray, and others dined. I was not prepared to like Sir Garnet much, a hero is usually so dull, but he is charming, so frank and candid, and most natural as well as good-looking. He has a very young face, though his hair is grey, almost white. Lady Wolseleyis remarkably pretty and attractive; Sir Garnet was quite devoted to drawing, and had a great collection of sketches, the work of his life. In the Crimea he drew everything, and it was a most precious collection; but in returning it was all lost at sea. The rest of his drawings he put into the Pantechnicon, where they were every one of them burnt. Miss Thackeray has a sweet voice, which is music in every tone.
“I have frequently seen lately, at the Lefevres’, old Lord Redesdale, with whom we have some distant cousinship through my Mitford great-grandmother. He is very kind, clever, old-fashioned, and always wears a tail-coat. He took us into the far-away by telling us of having heard his father, Speaker Mitford, describe having known a man in Swaledale named Rievely, whose earliest recollection was of being carried across the Swale by Henry Jenkyns (who lived to 160), who recollected having gone as a boy, with a sheaf of arrows and his elder brother on a pony, from Ellerton in Swaledale to Northallerton, to join the army before the battle of Flodden. He would tell all about the battle in a familiar way—‘the King was not there; but the Duke of Suffolk was there,’ &c.
“Much of the conversation in certain houses is now about Moody and Sankey, the American ‘revivalists,’ who are supposed to ‘produce great effects.’ Moody preaches and Sankey sings. They are adored by some, others (including most Americans) think them ‘mere religious charlatans’—and altogether they offer a famous opportunity for all the barking and biting which ‘truly religious people’ often delight in.”
“Feb. 20.—Dined with the Rafe Leycesters in Cheyne Walk, where they have a charming old manor-house with a stone gateway, flagged walk, ancient bay-trees, a wide staircase, and panelled rooms. Mrs. Leycester was picturesquely dressed like a picture by Millais. The company were Mr. and Mrs. Haweis, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Taylor, and the Augustus Tollemaches. It was an agreeable party, and a pleasant dinner in a room redolent of violets.”
“Feb. 21.—Dined with Lady Margaret Beaumont, who talked of dress and the distinction of a gown by Worth, which ‘not only looked well, butwalkedwell.’”
“Thorncombe, Feb. 27.—This place is a dell in the undulating hills about five miles from Guildford, very pretty and pleasant; and our new cousin, Edward Fisher, to whom it belongs, is one of the kindest, cheeriest, pleasantest fellows who ever entered a family.
“We have been to see Loseley, which belongs to my old college acquaintance Molyneux—a grand old house, gabled and grey, with a great hall, and richly carved chimney-pieces of white chalk, which looks like marble. It has three ghosts, a green-coated hunter, a sallow lady, and a warrior in plate-armour. The last appeared to the kitchen-maid as she was drawing some beer in the cellar, and almost frightened her out of her wits.”
“London, March 7, Sunday.—Breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, who has adopted Rogers’ custom of socialbreakfasts. It was a very amusing party—Joaquin Miller[167]the American writer, Henry Cowper, Lord Arthur Russell, &c. There was a young man there whom I did not notice much at first, but I soon found that he was very remarkable, and then that he was very charming indeed. It was Lord Rosebery. He has a most sweet gravity almost always, but when his expression does light up, it is more than an illumination—it is a conflagration, at which all around him take light. Joaquin Miller would have been thought insufferably vulgar if he had not been a notoriety: as it was, every one paid court to him. However, I ought not to abuse him, as he suddenly turned round to me and said, ‘Do you know, I’m glad to meet you, for you write books that I can read.’ Quantities of good stories were told—one of a party given by George IV. as Prince Regent to the Irish peer Lord Coleraine. Smoking was allowed. After supper, when Lady Jersey drank, the Regent kissed the spot upon the cup where her lips had rested: upon which the Princess took a pipe from Lord Coleraine’s mouth, blew two or three whiffs, and handed it back to him. The Prince was quite furious, but it was a lesson.”
“Holmhurst, March 14.—Went to see Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who talked incessantly and most agreeably for an hour. He said how surprised he had been to read in the ‘Greville Memoirs’ of himself as ill-tempered; he always thought he was ‘rather a good-tempered sort of fellow.’ It was Madame de Lieven who said that, and she had always hatedhim. She prevented him having an embassy once, but they made peace afterwards through a compliment he paid her at Paris. He talked of Madame de Lieven’s extraordinary influence, arising chiefly from our inherent national passion for foreigners.
“I asked Lord Stratford which he thought the most interesting of the many places in which he had lived. He said, ‘Oh, England is the most interesting by far.’ He described his first going out to Constantinople, before he had taken his degree, only going for four months, and staying for four or five years in a position equal to a Minister. He took his degree afterwards, and by literary merit, though there was a way then of giving degrees to those who were employed in the public service, and since then they had made him a doctor of both Universities. Now, in his helplessness, he amused himself by writing Greek verses. Once, walking about his room, he thought, ‘Well, I have often written Latin verses; let me see if I can write Greek.’ And his Greek has all come back to him.”
The enormous circulation of the “Memorials of a Quiet Life” in the two years which had elapsed since its publication astonished those who were opposed to it; and in America the sale had been even greater than in England. Numbers of Americans had come to England entirely from the desire to visit the different scenes of my mother’s quiet life, and had gone in turn to Toft, Stoke, Alton, Hurstmonceaux,Holmhurst, and some even to the distant grave of Lucy Hare at Abbots Kerswell. At Holmhurst there were frequently many sets of visitors in a day—“pilgrims” we used to call them,—and even if I was at home I could never bear to refuse them admittance, while to my dear old Lea, who was in very poor health at this time, they were a positive benefit, in rousing her from dwelling upon sad recollections. It was in answer to a constantly expressed desire that, in the autumn of 1874, I occupied myself with the third volume of the Memorials, containing more of my mother’s thoughts upon especial subjects, and photographs from family portraits and of the places described in the first two volumes. The book was, as it were, a gift to the public. It had a large circulation, but no remuneration whatever was ever looked for or obtained. Soon after the publication of the volume, a review appeared in theSpectator(July 8, 1876), speaking of “the veiled self-conceit” with which Mr. Hare had placed himself “upon the voluminous records of his family as upon a pedestal;” that Mrs. Hare was far from being honoured by “the capital” her adopted son had made of her, though, “if his public likes and is willing to pay for the contents of the family album, there is nothingmore to be said.... Here, however, let us be thankful, is, so far as anything can be predicated safely on such a subject, the last of the ‘Memorials,’ and that is so grateful a thought as to justify tolerance of what already is.” It seemed a singular review to have been admitted by theSpectator, which, four years before (December 11, 1872), had written of the “Memorials” as containing “passage after passage worthy of comment or quotation,” and as “an interesting record of spiritual conflicts and spiritual joy, free from narrowness and fanaticism, and marked throughout by the most guileless sincerity.” I suppose that editors of reviews, when biassed by intense personal feeling, often trust to the public having forgotten what has appeared before in their pages.
Annually, I had tried to make my dearest mother’s home as useful as possible to all those in whom she was most nearly interested, as well as to keep up her charities, especially at Alton. It had also been a great pleasure, with what my books produced, to fit up a cottage close to Holmhurst as a Hospice for needy persons of a better class. These I have always invited to come for a month at a time, their travelling expenses being fully paid, and firing, linen, farm and garden produce,with an outfit of grocery, being supplied to them. Many are the interesting and pleasant persons whom I have thus become acquainted with, many the touching cases of sorrow and suffering with which I have come in contact. In the month of October the Deaconesses of St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, for several years occupied the Hospice, and they generally remained over All Saints’ Day, when they sang the Te Deum in the field round the twisted tree where the dear mother used to sit—“the Te Deum tree.”
In the spring of 1875 I was obliged to go to Italy again, to continue collecting materials for my “Cities of Northern and Central Italy.”
ToMary Lea Gidman.
“Rimini, April 4, 1875.—I made my first long lonely expedition from Turin, going for an hour by rail to the town of S. Ambrogio, and then walking up through the forests to the top of the high mountain of S. Michele, where there is a famous monastery in which the sovereigns of the country—Dukes of Savoy—used to be buried many hundreds of years ago. It is a wonderful place, quite on the highest peak, looking into the great gorges of snow. As I was sketching, the old Abbot was led by on his mule, and stopped to speak to me. I found he was a famous missionary preacher—Carlo Caccia—and had been in England, where he knew Lord Bute well, and was very glad tohear of him. So we made great friends, and as he was going to Turin for Easter, we travelled back together.
enlarge-imageIL SAGRO DI S. MICHELE.IL SAGRO DI S. MICHELE.[168]
“From Turin I went to Parma, where I had a great deal of work to finish. The cold there was ferocious, but I made the great excursion I went for—to Canossa, where the Emperor Henry IV. performed his famous penance, though it is a most dreadfully fatiguing walk, either in snow above the knees, or in the furrows of streams from the melted snow. At Bologna I never saw anything like the snow—as high as the top of the omnibus, and darkening the lower windows, with away cut through it down the middle of the street. I had the same room at the Hotel S. Marco which you and the dear Mother had for those anxious days in 1870, and of course I seemed toseeher there, and it was a very sad visit. The Librarian told me that hundreds of people had been to look at the portrait of Clotilda Tambroni since reading the ‘Memorials.’
enlarge-imageCANOSSA.CANOSSA.[169]
“We slept here once in 1857, but did not appreciate Rimini properly then, I think, for it is a charming place, with a delightful seashore and interesting oldtown; but the country is strange and wild, and there is not a sign of vegetation on the hedges; so that when I remember the buds on the deutzia opposite your window at Holmhurst, it seems most dismal in Italy.”
ToMiss Wright.
enlarge-imageURBINO.URBINO.[170]
“Citta di Castello, April 12, 1875.—It is very cold in Italy, but glorious weather now—ceaseless sunshine and the pellucid skies of Perugino. I have been many great excursions already; to the Sagro di S. Michele, to desolate Canossa, and to S. Marino and the extraordinary S. Leo near Rimini. Then from Forli I paid an interesting visit to Count Saffi, one of the Roman triumvirate, whom I had known well at Oxford,and who lives, with his wife (Miss Craufurd of Portincross) and many children, in a farmhouse-like villa near the town. At Ancona, Charlie Dalison came to meet me, a pleasant change after much silence and solitude. We went together to Loreto, and next day a dreary journey to Urbino, which is more curious than beautiful, though there is a noble old palace of its Dukes. It was a thirteen hours’ drive thence through hideous country to Gubbio, where the inns are wretched, but the town full of interest. Charlie left me at Perugia, and I came on here into the Piero della Francesca country, which is more instructive than captivating.”
enlarge-imageGUBBIO.GUBBIO.[171]
Journal.
“Forli, April 2.—In one of the old churches here is the tomb of Barbara Ordelaffi, wife of the Lord of Forli, who was one of the most intensely wicked women of her own or any other age. But her tomb is indescribably lovely, her figure, that of quite a young girl, lying upon its marble sarcophagus with a look of innocence and simplicity which can scarcely be equalled.
“The tomb is in a side-chapel, separated by a heavy railing from the church. Inside this railing, in an arm-chair, with his eyes constantly fixed upon the marble figure, sat this morning a very old gentleman, paralysed and unable to move, wrapped in a fur cloak. As I looked in at the rails, he said, ‘And you also are come to see Barbara; how beautiful she is, is not she?’ I acquiesced, and he said, ‘For sixty years I have come constantly to see her. It is everything to me to be here. It is the love and the story of my life. No one I have ever known is half so beautiful as Barbara Ordelaffi. You have not looked at her yet long enough, but gradually you will learn this. Every one must love Barbara. I am carried here now; I cannot walk, but I cannot live without seeing her. My servants bring me; they put me here; I can gaze at her figure, then I am happy. At eleven o’clock my servants will come, and I shall be taken home, but they will bring me again to see Barbara in the afternoon.’
“I remained in the church. At eleven o’clock the servants came. They took up the old gentleman andcarried him up to the monument to bid it farewell, and then out to his carriage; but in the afternoon, said the Sacristan, they would come again, for he always spent most of the day with Barbara Ordelaffi; when he was alone with the marble figure, he was quite quiet and happy, and as they always locked him into the chapel, he could never come to any harm.”
ToMary Lea Gidman.
“Florence, April 28.—On Monday I went to the excellent inn at Lucca, and on Tuesday to the Bagni. Never was a place less altered—only one new house, I think, and very pretty and rural it all looked. I went up to the dear old Casa Bertini, and into the little garden looking down on the valleys, quite as pretty as my recollection of it. Quintilia (our maid) was enchanted to see me, but has grown into a very old woman, though only sixty-three.
“I liked Lucca better than all the other places. It was the festival of S. Zita when I was there, who was made a saint because she had been such a good servant for forty years. I thought, if my dear Lea had lived in those days, how she would have had a chance of being canonised.”
ToMiss Wright.
“Florence, May 2, 1875.—No words can express the fatigue or discomfort of my Tuscan tour. The food, in the mountain convents especially, was disgusting—little but coarse bread with oil and garlic; the inns were filthy and the beds damp; and thetravelling, in carts or on horseback, most fatiguing, often sixteen hours a day. And yet—and yet how thrilling is the interest of Monte Oliveto, S. Gemignano, Volterra, La Vernia, Camaldoli!”
Journal.
enlarge-imageLA VERNIA.LA VERNIA.[172]
“Castagnuolo, May 3.—I am writing from the old country palace of the Marchese Lotteria Lotharingo della Stufa. It is reached by driving from Florence through the low envineyarded country for five miles. Then, on the left, under the hills, one sees what looks like a great old barrack, grimy, mossy, and deserted. This is the villa. All outside is decay, but when you enter, there are charming old halls and chambers, connected by open arches, and filled with pictures, china, books, and beautiful old carved furniture. A terrace,lined with immense vases of lilies and tulips, opens on a garden with vine-shaded pergolas and huge orange-trees in tubs; and beyond are the wooded hills.
enlarge-imageCAMALDOLI.CAMALDOLI.[173]
“The Marchese is charming, living in the hearts of his people, sharing all their interests, working with them—taking off his coat and tucking up his sleeves to join in the sheep-shearing, gathering the grapes in the vintage, &c. But the presiding genius of the place is Mrs. Ross (Janet Duff Gordon), who has redeemed lands, planted vineyards, introduced new plans for pressing the grapes—whose whole heart and soul are in the work here.”
ToMiss Wright.
“Vicenza, May 20, 1875.—I have been to Genoa and Pegli, and to Piacenza again for a tremendousexcursion of sixty-eight miles, eighteen riding on a white mule, to the grave of S. Columbano in the high Apennines. After this, the Italian lakes were comparative rest. I thought the Lago d’Iseo far the most beautiful of them all. To-day I have been on a family pilgrimage to Valdagno, where my grandmother lived so happily, and where my uncle Julius Hare was born. There is much also here in Vicenza to remind me of a later past, for opposite the window of this room are the trees in the Marchese Salvi’s garden, where my dearest Mother took her last walks.”
enlarge-imageBOBBIO.BOBBIO.[174]
Journal.
“Herrenalb, in the Black Forest, June 14.—A week at Venice was a great refreshment. Then I crossed the S. Gothard to Lucerne and came on here. The semi-mountain air of this lovely place is as refreshing to the body as the pure high-minded Bunsen characteris to the soul. A little branch railway brought me from the main line to Gernsbach, a pretty clean German village with picturesque gabled houses girding a lovely river. Hence it is a charming drive of two hours through forest into the highlands, where the wood-clad hills break occasionally into fine crags. Herrenalb itself takes its name from the abbey on the little river Alb, while a monastery for women on the same stream a few miles off gives its name to ‘Frauenalb.’ The former is Protestant now, the latter is still Catholic, but in the valley of Herrenalb are the immense buildings of the abbey, its great granaries with wooden pillars, and the ruins of its Norman church.
enlarge-imageLOVERE, LAGO D’ISEO.LOVERE, LAGO D’ISEO.[175]
enlarge-imageFrances Baroness Bunsen 1874Frances Baroness Bunsen 1874
“Frances de Bunsen and one of her Sternbergnieces met me in the valley, and we were soon joined by the dear old Frau von Bunsen in her donkey-chair. At eighty-six her wonderful power of mind and charm of intellect and conversation are quite unimpaired. She has still the rare art, described by Boileau, ‘passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au sévère.’ The whole family breakfast at seven, and for an hour before that the dear Grandmother is in the little terraced garden, examining and tending her flowers. The house is full of souvenirs: in the Baroness’s own room is a large frame with photographs of all her numerous descendants, sent by the Grand Duchess of Baden to greet her first arrival in this her new country home.”
To this happy visit at Herrenalb, and to the long conversations I used to have with my dear old friend, walking beside her donkey-chair in the forest, I owe the power of having been able to write her Memoirs two years afterwards. It was my last sight of this old friend of my childhood. I returned from Herrenalb to England.
Journal.
“London, June 23, 1875.—Called on Mrs. Leslie in her glorious old house in Stratford Place, which is beautiful because all the colour is subdued, no new gilding or smartness. She herself sat in the window embroidering, with the bright sunlight just glinting on her rippled hair and sweet face, at once a picture and a poem.”
enlarge-imageLAMBETH, INNER COURT.LAMBETH, INNER COURT.[176]
“June 26.—A great party at Lambeth Palace, the lawn and its many groups of people very charming. Going in to tea with Miss Elliot down a narrow passage, I came suddenly upon Arthur Stanley. In that moment I am sure we both tried hard to recollect what had so entirely separated us for five years, but we could not, and shook hands. The Spanish Lady Stanley seeing this, threw up her hands—‘Gratias a Deo! O gratias a Deo! una reconciliatiōn!’
“In the evening there was an immense party at Lady Salisbury’s to meet the Sultan of Zanzibar.[177]He hada cold, so sent to say he could not have the windows opened; the consequence of which was, that with thousands of wax-lights and crowds of people, the heat was awful, positively his native climate. The Sultan has a good, sensible, clever, amused face, but cannot speak a word of any language except Arabic, of which Lady Salisbury said that she had learnt some sentences by the end of the evening, from hearing them repeated so often through the interpreter, and at last ventured to air her new acquirements herself. When the Sultan went away, the suite followed two and two—a picturesque procession. Lord Salisbury walked first, leading the Sultan, or rather holding his right hand in his own left, which it seems is the right thing to do. The Sultan was immensely struck by Lady Caithness, and no wonder, for her crown of three gigantic rows of diamonds, and then huge diamonds and emeralds, had the effect of a sunlit wave in the Mediterranean.”
“June 27, Sunday.—To Holland House. Lady Holland sat at the end window, looking on the garden, with a group round her. I went out with Lord Halifax, then with Everard Primrose, who appeared as usual from the library, and a third time with Lord Stanhope, who took me afterwards in his carriage to Airlie Lodge. There the garden was in great beauty, and we met Lady Airlie sauntering through its green walks with the Duke of Teck. We went to sit in a tent, where we found Mr. Doyle, Mr. Cheney, and a young lady who greeted me with, ‘Now, Mr. Hare, may I ask if you nevercanremember me, or if youalways intend to cut me on purpose?’ It was Miss Rhoda Broughton.
“Lady Airlie talked of the death of Madame Rossetti. Her husband[178]felt so completely that all his living interests were buried with his wife, that he laid his unpublished poems under her dead head, and they were buried with her. But, after a year had passed, his feeling about his wife was calmed, while the longing for his poems grew daily, and people urged him that he was forcing a loss upon the world. And the coffin of the poor lady was taken up and opened to get at the poems, and behold her beautiful golden hair had grown and grown till the whole coffin was filled with it—filled with it and rippling over.[179]Lady Airlie had the account from an eye-witness. For one moment Madame Rossetti was visible in all her radiant loveliness, as if she were asleep, then she sank into dust. She was buried with her Testament under her pillow on one side and her husband’s poems on the other.
“The Duke of Teck looked very handsome and was most pleasant and amiable. He said that an old lady in Germany, an ancestress of his, had the most glorious pearl necklace in the world, and when she died, she desired that the pearl necklace might be buried with her. And the family were very sorry to part with their aged relative, but they were still more sorry to part with the family jewels; and in time their grief for the old lady was assuaged, but their grief for the pearl necklace was never assuaged at all, andat last there came a moment when they dug up the coffin, and took the pearl necklace from the aged neck. But behold the pearls were quite spoilt and had lost all their lustre and beauty. Then pearl-doctors were summoned, men who were learned in such things, and they said that the only thing which would restore the beauty of the pearls would be if three beautiful young ladies would wear them constantly, and let the pearls drink in all their youth and beauty. So the eldest daughter of the house took them and wore them constantly, and all the beauty and brilliancy of her loveliness flowed into the pearls, which grew brighter and better every day. And as her beauty faded, another daughter of the house took them, and so three beautiful young ladies took them and wore them in three generations, till, when sixty years were passed, the pearls were so beautiful and glorious, so filled with youth and radiancy, that there is no such pearl necklace in the whole world.”
“June 28.—Luncheon with dear old Lady Grey. Then to Lady Wharncliffe, who looked very lovely seated beneath a great blue-green vase filled with lilies.
“The way young men now weary their friends to ask for invitations for them is almost as contemptible as the conduct of the ladies who ask others to invite their guests for them that they may ‘get into society.’ ‘Que ne fait-on pour trouver un faux bonheur!’ says Fénélon; ‘quels rebuts, quelles traverses n’endure t’on point pour un fantôme de gloire mondaine! quelles peines pour de misérables plaisirs dont il ne reste que des remords.’”
“June 29.—With the Archbishop of Dublin, Miss Trench, and Lady Charles Clinton to Strawberry Hill, the ‘little plaything house’ of Horace Walpole. It had been so wet that one had almost to wade from the station to the house, and the beautiful breakfast was sopping in a tent on the mossy lawn, so little being left in the house that the Princess of Wales had to drink her tea out of a tumbler in a corner. Still the interior of the house was full of interest—the historic pictures, especially those of the three beautiful Waldegrave sisters, and of Maria, Duchess of Gloucester; and then in the gallery are, by Sant and Bucknor, all the especial friends of the house—all the beautiful persons who have stayed there.
“Lady Waldegrave[180](assisted by art) looked twenty-five years younger than she did twenty-five years ago. The Princess of Wales, in a pink dress under black lace and a little hat to match, copied as a whole from pictures of Anne Boleyn, looked lovely.
“In the evening I went to Lady Salisbury’s reception. At the latter was the Sultan of Zanzibar. Suddenly, in the midst of the party, he said to Lady Salisbury, ‘Now, please, it is my time to say my prayers: I should like to go into your room, and to be alone for ten minutes.’ And he did, and he does it four times a day, and never allows anything whatever to interfere with it. The Archbishop of Dublin, when presented, said, ‘I am glad to have the honour of being presented to a man who has made a promise andkeptit.’ The Sultan answered, ‘It can only be your goodness which makes you say that.’”
ToMiss Leycester.
“Howglad I am that we do not agree about Sunday. I think your view of ‘the Sabbath’ so entirely derogatory to all the dignity and beauty of Christianity, and I cannot understand any one not becoming an infidel, if they think God someanas to suppose that He would consider ‘His day’ (though Sunday is only the Church’s day, all days are God’s days) dishonoured by walking with one’s intimate friends in a garden, or having tea in another garden with several persons, all infinitely better and wiser than oneself. ‘I am amazed,’ says Professor Amiel, ‘at the vast amount of Judaism, of formalism, that still exists, eighteen centuries after the Redeemer’s declaration that the letter killeth.... Christian liberty has yet to be won.’”
Journal.
“June 30.—A very pleasant party in the Duke of Argyll’s garden, in spite of a wet afternoon; all the little golden-haired daughters of the house very kind in entertaining the guests. I returned with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, to her beautiful Kent House. The rooms, hung with yellow, with black doors and picture-frames, are very effective. There are some semi-ruined cartoons of Paul Veronese upon the staircase.
“In the evening I went to Lady Margaret Beaumont’s to meet the Queen of the Netherlands, ‘La Reine Rouge,’ as she is often called from her revolutionary tendencies. She sat at the end of theroom, a pleasant natural woman, with fuzzy hair done very wide in curls, and a quaint little diamond crown as an ornament at the back. She was most agreeable in conversation, and, as Prosper Merimée says in one of his letters to Panizzi, ‘would have been quite perfection, if she had not wished to appear a Frenchwoman, having had the misfortune to be born in Würtemburg.’”
“July 1.—Luncheon at Lord Stanhope’s to meet Miss Rhoda Broughton. Lord Stanhope aired one of his pet hobbies—the virtues of the novel ‘Anastasius.’ Mrs. Hussey says that his father used to say of him, ‘My son is often very prosy, but then he has beenvaccinated;’ for the fourth Earl Stanhope had a familiar of whom he always spoke as ‘Tesco,’ and Tesco had inveighed against vaccination to him, and had told him that to be vaccinated had always the effect of making the recipient prosy.
“Mrs. Hussey mentioned this at a dinner to Mr. John Abel Smith, who exclaimed, ‘Oh, that accounts for what has always hitherto been a mystery to me. I went with that Lord Stanhope to hear a man named Belloni lecture on “the Tuscan Language,” and we sat behind him on the platform. He was most terribly lengthy. Suddenly, Lord Stanhope caught him by the coat, and, arresting the whole performance, said, “Pray, sir, have you ever been vaccinated?”—“Certainly, my Lord,” said the astonished lecturer. “Oh, that is quite enough; pray continue,” said Lord Stanhope, and the lecture proceeded, and Lord Stanhope composed himself to sleep.’”
“July 2.—A large sketching party at Holland House. We sat for three hours in the Lily Garden, with birds singing, fountains playing, and flowers blooming, as if we had been a hundred miles from London. Our sketches were all sent in afterwards to Lady Holland, who sent them out in the order of merit—Mrs. Lowther’s first, mine second.
“I dined with the Ralph Duttons and sat by Lady Barker, who was full of Moody and Sankey, to whom she has been often with the Duchess of Sutherland, who insists upon going every day. She says the mixture of religious fervour with the most intense toadyism of the Duchess was horribly disgusting; that the very gift of fluency in the preachers contaminated and spoilt their work. Sometimes they would use the most excellent and powerful simile, and then spoil it by something quite blasphemous. Speaking of the abounding grace of God, Moody compared Him to a banker who scolded the man who only drew for a penny, when he might draw for a pound and come again as often as he liked. So far the sermon was admirable, and all understood it; but then he went on to call it the ‘Great I Am Bank,’ and to cut all sorts of jokes, whilst the audience roared with laughter; that when a man presented his cheque, however large—‘Here ye are, says I Am,’ &c.
“Went on to the ball at Dorchester House, which was beautiful; the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Tecks were there. The great charm of the house is in the immensely broad galleries, which are so effective when filled with beautiful women, relieved, like Greek pictures, against a gold background. MissViolet Lindsay, in a long white dress embroidered with gold and a wreath of gold oak-leaves, was quite exquisitely lovely.”
enlarge-imageDORCHESTER HOUSE.DORCHESTER HOUSE.[181]
“July 3.—Breakfast with Sir James Lacaita to meet Mr. Gladstone, Lord Napier and Ettrick, and the Marchese Vitelleschi. The great topic was Manning. About him and Roman Catholicism in general, Gladstone seems to have lost all temperance, but told much that was curious. He described the deathbed of Count Streletski and Manning’s attempts to get in. Lacaita said that there was a lady stillliving to whom Manning had been engaged—‘fatto l’impégno’—and that he had jilted her to marry one of two heiress sisters: now, whenever she hears of any especial act of his, she says, ‘As ever, fickle and false.’
“‘False,’ said Gladstone, ‘always, but never fickle.’
“Lacaita described the illness, the apparently hopeless illness, of Panizzi, when he and Mr. Winter kept guard. The Padre Mela came and tried to insist upon seeing the patient. He told the Padre it was quite impossible, but, upon his insisting, he assured him that if Panizzi rallied, he would at once mention the Padre’s wish. At that time it was ‘impossible, as Panizzi was quite unconscious.’ When the Padre heard that Panizzi was insensible, he implored and besought an entrance ‘basta anche un’istante,’ but was positively and sternly refused.
“The next day Panizzi rallied, upon which both Lacaita and Mr. Winter thought it necessary to mention the strong wish of the Padre Mela to see him. ‘Oh, il birbone!’ said Panizzi, ‘vuol dunque convertirmi,’ and he was so excited, that in order to content him they were obliged to engage a policeman to stand constantly at the door to keep the priests out.
“Gladstone said he knew that the Pope (Pius IX.) had determined against declaring the doctrine ofpersonalinfallibility, till Manning had fallen at his feet, and so urged and implored him to do so, that at length he had consented. He (Gladstone) upheld that there was no going back from this, and that even in case of the Pope’s death, the condition of the Roman Church was absolutely hopeless. Vitelleschi agreedso far, that if a foreign Pope were chosen, for which an effort would be made, there was no chance for the Church; but if an Italian were elected—for instance, Patrizi or Bilio, who had especially opposed the doctrine of personal infallibility—the sense of the doctrine would be so far modified that it would practically fade into nothingness, and that every advantage would be taken of the Council not being yet closed to make every possible modification.
“Vitelleschi lamented the utter want of religious education in modern Italy—that he had been in schools where, when asked who Jesus Christ was, all the boys differed, one saying that he was a prophet, another something else; that when the question was put to Parliament how morality was to be taught without religion, the answer was, ‘Faremmo un trattato morale.”
“Lord Napier every now and then insisted on attention, and delivered himself of some ponderous paragraph, on which occasions Gladstone persistently and defiantly ate strawberries.”
“July 4.—Tea at the Duchess of Cleveland’s. Lord John Manners was there. They were full of the dog Minos and his extraordinary tricks. In invitation cards to parties, ‘To meet the dog Minos’ is now constantly put in the corner. When told to take something to the most beautiful woman in the room, however, he made a mistake, and took it to the Queen, who flicked him with her pocket-handkerchief; and then he took it to the Princess of Wales. Being left alone in the room with a plate on which there were three sandwiches, he could not resist eating them, butfound three visiting cards and deposited them in their place!”
“July 7.—A party at Holland House. The old cedars, the brilliant flowers, and more brilliant groups of people, made a most beautiful scene.”
“July 8.—A party at Lady Airlie’s for the Queen of Holland—very pleasant.”
“July 9.—Luncheon at Mrs. Harvey of Ickwellbury’s. The whole family were full of Nigger stories:—of a man who, being pursued by an Indian for the sake of his scalp, and finding escape hopeless, pulled off his wig and presented it with a bow, upon which the Indian fell down and worshipped him as a god!—Of a negro who, on being told that the strait path to heaven was full of thorns and difficulties, said, ‘Den dis ere nigger take to the woods!’”
“July 11.—To hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach. It was most interesting—upon the love of God. He began by saying that he would not undertake to prove the existence of God, for ‘God is, and those who love Him know it.’
“He said, ‘Think in everything which you are about to do, whether it will be for the good of the human race; if not, if it is only good for yourself, your family, your society, don’t do it: that is the love of God.
“‘Fight against all power which in the name of religion seeks to narrow it. Fight against all, whetherof caste or family, which seeks to elevate one power to the exclusion of another; for the perfection of thewholehuman nature, that is God’s will. This is the service we must give to Him, which separates worship from selfishness, and makes it more praise than prayer: thus, with our sails filled with the winds of God, may we drive over the storms of the human race to the harbour of unity.’”
“July 12.—To luncheon at Lord Northampton’s, but, except Lady Marion Alford, I do not much like the Comptons. Lady Alwyn, who is charming, was very amusing about them. ‘Lord Alwyn pretends not to hear; that is because he is displeased, for he thinks I am abusing the Comptons. He cannot bear me to find fault with any of his ancestors, however remote they may be, for he thinks that the Comptons are quite perfect, and always have been. When I first married, I hoped to have made a compromise, and I told Lord Alwyn that if he would give up to me his great-grandfather, I would spare all the rest; but he wouldn’t.... After all, the Comptons were quite ruined, and we owe everything to old Sir John Spencer who lived at Crosby Hall in the City, andhehad so poor an opinion of the Comptons, that he wouldn’t let the Lord Northampton of that day marry his daughter on any account. But Lord Northampton dressed up as the baker’s boy and carried his bride off on his head in a basket. He met Sir J. Spencer on the stairs, who gave him a sixpence for his punctuality, and afterwards, when he found out that his daughter was in that basket, swore it was the only sixpenceof his money Lord Northampton should ever see. But the next year Queen Elizabeth asked him to come and be ‘gossip’ with her to a newly-born baby, whom she hoped he would adopt instead of his disinherited daughter, and he could not refuse; and you may imagine whose that baby was.’
enlarge-imageCROSBY HALL.CROSBY HALL.[182]
“Five-o’clock tea at Ashburnham House. Thepictures there are beautiful, a Mantegna and several Ghirlandajos, and it is a charming old house in itself. In the evening to a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s given to the blind Duke of Mecklenburg and his Duchess.”
“Highcliffe, July 18.—The usual party are here.... Lady Jane Ellice is full of a theory that she is an Israelite, that we are all members of the lost tribes of Israel, that our royal family are the direct descendants of Tepha, the beautiful daughter of Zedekiah, who was brought to Ireland by Jeremiah, and married to its king.
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton has much that is interesting to tell of her old embassy life in France. She was at S. Leu the day before the Duc de Bourbon’s death. She would not go in, though urged to do so, because ‘that woman, Madame de Feuchères,’ was there, but heard how well the Duke was, preparing for the chase, ‘never better in his life.’ The next day, in returning to Paris, their carriage was passed and repassed by quantities of royal servants riding to and fro. At last they asked why it was. The Duc de Bourbon was dead, found hung up to the blind of the window.
“A few days before, the Duke had declared his intention of altering his will in favour of the Comte de Chambord. Previously Chantilly had been settled upon the Duc d’Aumale. Madame de Feuchères had said long before to Louis Philippe, ‘Leave it all to me.’
“Madame de Feuchères (once an orange-girl at Southampton) was left enormously rich. She promisedto settle all her property on the Duc d’Aumale if the Duchess of Orleans would receive her. Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton was seated at the end of the room between the Duchesse Decazes and another great lady of the old régime. Suddenly the Duchess of Orleans got up and crossed the whole room to receive some one at the door. Generally she remained in her place, making only one step even for a duchess. It was Madame de Feuchères who entered.
“At the Court of Charles X. it was the Dauphine who received. She was very severe in her manner and had a very harsh voice: it was as if the shadow of the Temple always rested upon her. The Duchesse de Berri was of gentler manners, but less wise. When the family of Charles X. fled after the revolution of four days, the deputation going to offer the crown to Louis Philippe found he was out; they found only the Duchess of Orleans. She was horrified at the very idea and refused point-blank, saying that her husband would never do such a wrong to his cousin—‘Grace à Dieu! mon mari ne sera pas usurpateur.’ Going through the garden at Neuilly, however, the deputation met Madame Adelaïde, who asked what their business was, and being told what the Duchess had answered, said, ‘Oh, mais mon frère accepte, certainement il accepte;’ and her view was definitive. She never separated from her brother afterwards, and he always deferred to her opinion; indeed, as Napoleon used to say, she was ‘the only man of the family.’ The whole family paid her great attention. She was enormously rich, and made the Prince de Joinville her heir. Louis Philippe chose her epitaph in the vaultsat Dreux. It is from Gen. xii. 13: ‘Thou art my sister, and it has been well with me for thy sake.’
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton was the first person Queen Marie Amelie sent for after her accession. She went in the evening, and found the Queen sitting at a table with Madame Adelaïde and one other lady, the wife of the Swedish Minister. A place was given to her between the Queen and Madame Adelaïde. The first words of the Queen seemed ominous—‘Nous avons laissé notre bonheur à Neuilly, Madame Hamilton.’ But Madame Adelaïde instantly took up the conversation, and talked of a bullet which she had found in her mirror, saying that she should never have the mirror mended, but should preserve it as ‘un souvenir historique.’
“Lady Waterford says how much brighter and happier people are for having something young about them,—a young lady, a child, a young dog even. She says, ‘I want to make a picture of Hope painting the future in the brightest colours. It will be such a beautiful subject. A rainbow will pour into the room and all its colours be reflected on her palette.’”
“July 20.—Lady Waterford and the Ellices went to Broadlands, and returned in the evening radiant, and full of the Conference, with which they were delighted. I was very sorry indeed to be too ill to go, these Broadland ‘Conferences’ being quite a type of the times.
“They had a delightful drive through the forest and halted at Lyndhurst, visiting the ‘King’s House’ and seeing the stirrup which is said to have belonged toWilliam Rufus. It is of gigantic size, and was probably really intended, when dogs were forbidden in the forest, as a sort of standard of measurement, only dogs which could pass through that stirrup being allowed.
enlarge-imageTHE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE.THE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE.[183]
enlarge-imageTHE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE.THE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE.[184]
“At Broadlands, after luncheon, they went out on the lawn, where the Conference was proceeding under some fine beech-trees. ‘It was like a Claude,’ said Lady Waterford, the view being over the water, with a temple on one side and a cypress cutting the sky.’ Mr. Cowper Temple opened the afternoon meeting with a little speech; a Nonconformist minister followed,and then the High Church Mr. Wilkinson gave an address. The most remarkable thing he told was a story of a young lady who went to a meeting and returned resolved to dedicate herself to God. She wrote down her dedication, and then said, ‘It shall be from to-day.’ Then she considered that there was so much to be done, &c.—‘It shall be in three years.’ Again she hesitated and altered what she had written—‘I may not live: it shall be to-night.” But finally she thought again how much there was she wanted to do first, and finally wrote—‘In three weeks I will dedicatemyself to God.’ In the morning the paper was found with all the different erasures and alterations, but the young lady was dead.... Several other speakers followed, and then Mr. Cowper Temple knelt on the gravel and prayed: all was most simple and earnest.
“Here at Highcliffe we have sat in the library in the morning, the great Brugmantia bursting into its bloom of scarlet bells in the conservatory beyond, Lady Waterford painting at her table, the rest working beneath the stained window.”
“Heckfield Place, August 13.—This is a beautiful open country with lovely woods and purple heaths studded with groups of fine old firs. The grounds of Heckfield itself are delightful, and the house, of red brick, stands upon a high bastioned terrace filled with brilliant flower-beds and overlooking undulating green lawns and an artificial sheet of water.
“Lord Eversley and his daughter Emma received me with most cordial kindness and a real family welcome, and it was pleasant to see so many interesting pictures of our common ancestors,—on the staircase a full-length of my great-grandmother Mrs. Hare, as a young girl tripping along with her apron full of flowers. There are fine portraits of her father and mother; and her sister, Helena Lefevre, is represented again and again, from youth to age.
“Lord and Lady Selborne have been here. He has a stiff manner, but warms into much pleasantness, and she is very genial: their daughter, Sophy, is a union of both. I went with Lord Selborne and Miss Palmer to Strathfieldsaye. The Duke (of Wellington), dressed like a poor pensioner, received us in his uncomfortable room, where Lord Selborne, who has a numismatical mania, was glad to stay for two hours examining coins. Meanwhile the Duke, finding we were really interested, took Miss Palmer and me upstairs, and showed us all his relics. It was touching to see the old man, who for the greater part of his lifetime existed in unloving awe of a father he had always feared and been little noticed by, now, in the evening of life, treasuring up every reminiscence of him and considering every memorial as sacred. In his close stuffy little room were the last pheasants the great Duke had shot, the miniatures of his mother and aunt and of himself and his brother as children, his grandfather’s portrait, a good one of Marshal Saxe, and the picture of the horse Copenhagen. Most of the bedrooms were completely covered with prints pasted on the walls. It was the great Duke’s fancy. Some of them are amusing, but the general effect is poor and bad, and the medley curious, especially in some rooms where they were framed in crowds—Lord Eldon, Melancthon, and views of the Alhambra together. In the hall hung a fine beginning of a picture of the great Duke, painted by Goya at Madrid. Before it was finished the army had moved on to Salamanca. The Duke had then been made Captain-General of the forces, and upon the Spanish commander saying in a huff, ‘I will not serve under a foreigner,’ Goya rejoined, ‘And I will not finish his portrait.’ And he never did.
“Strathfieldsaye is an unprepossessing house—as the Duke himself said, ‘like a great cottage.’
“Lord Eversley gave, as a curious instance of the awe in which the great Duke kept his Duchess, that Mrs. Lefevre, going one day to visit her, found her dissolved in tears. When she asked the reason, the Duchess said, sobbing, ‘Look there,’ and from the window Mrs. Lefevre saw workmen cutting down all the ivy which made the whole beauty of the trees before the house; and when Mrs. Lefevre asked the Duchess why she did not remonstrate, she showed her a written paper which the head man had just brought in, having received it from the Duke—‘Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington desires that the ivy may immediately be cut down from every tree on his estate.’ They had begun with those nearest home; the Duke had evidently forgotten to except those, but his order could not be trifled with.
“One day the great Duke was much surprised by receiving a letter which he read as follows:—‘Being in the neighbourhood, I venture to ask permission to see some of your Grace’s best breeches. C. London.’ He answered to the Bishop of London that he had great pleasure in assenting to his request, though he must confess it had given him very considerable surprise. London House was thrown into confusion. The note was from Loudon, the great gardener, and ‘breeches’ should have been read ‘beeches.’[185]
“We went on to Silchester, which is one of the three walled Roman towns of England, Wroxeter and Risborough being the others. The walls, three miles in circumference, are nearly perfect. In the centre is the forum, an immense square, 315 feet by 276, surroundedby shops, amongst which those of the oyster-monger, game-seller, butcher, and jeweller have been identified. One house retains its curious apparatus for warming very perfect.”
“Heckfield, August 14.—Yesterday Colonel Townley came to dine, celebrated for his ride of eight hundred miles without stopping. It was of great importance that certain despatches from our Government should reach Constantinople before the Austrian messenger could deliver his, and Colonel Townley accomplished it. When within a few hours of Constantinople, an old wound opened from his exertion, and he felt almost dying; but just then he caught sight of the Austrian envoy coming over the brow of a distant hill, and it nerved him, and he rode on and arrived first. It gained him his colonelcy. He is a pleasant, handsome, unaffected man.”
“Deanery, Salisbury, August 15.—I came here yesterday morning to the Venerable Dean Hamilton of eighty-two, and his wife of seventy-two. He was a Cambridge friend of my uncle Julius Hare, and lived in the same circle, of Thirlwall, Whewell, Sedgwick, and the Malcolms, &c. His mind has all its old power, and he has much that is most interesting to tell of all the people he has seen. He gave a curious account of breakfasts at the house of Ugo Foscolo, where everything was served by the most beautiful maidens in picturesque dresses. He described the eccentric Mr. Peate, who lived in Trinity, but never came out of his rooms except to dinner or supper,when he always appeared to the moment. When Dr. Parr dined, Mr. Peate drew him out in Combination Room, but retired at the usual hour; only on going away, he walked up to Dr. Parr and said, ‘I will take leave of you, sir, in words which may possibly not be unfamiliar to you,’ and made a long set complimentary speech in honour of learning; it was all taken word for word from an essay Dr. Parr had published many years before; Peate’s memory was so very extraordinary. It was not, however, always very convenient, for if a neighbour at dinner affirmed an opinion, Peate would sometimes say, ‘On such a day or such a year you expressed such and such an opinion, which was exactly the reverse of this,’ for he never forgot anything, even the very terms of an expression.
“There is here in Salisbury the usual familiar society of a cathedral close—the Canon in residence and the other inhabitants meeting and going in and out of each others’ houses at all hours. With Canon Douglas Gordon I have been to the Palace, where we found the Bishop in his garden, which is quite lovely, the rich green and brilliant flowers sweeping up into and mingling with the grey arcades and rich chapels of the cathedral; and from all points the tall heaven-soaring spire is sublime, especially in the purple shadows of evening, with birds circling ceaselessly round it.
“The Palace has a grand dull room full of portraits of deceased bishops, where we had tea. Bishop Moberly, who is still rather schoolmasterish, has no end of daughters, all so excellent that it has beenobserved that whenever a colonist sends home for a commendable wife, you may, with the most perfect confidence, despatch a Miss Moberly.”
“August 16.—To Breamore, the fine old Elizabethan house of Sir Edward Hulse, almost gutted by fire some years ago. I was taken up to the housetop to survey several surrounding counties, and sat the rest of the afternoon with the family in the shade of the old red gables. Two very handsome boys, Edward and Westrow, asked for a story.”
“Stanmer Park, August 18.—I came here yesterday to Lord Chichester’s. It is a moderate house in a dullish park, with fine trees and a bright flower-garden. We pray a great deal, and Lord Chichester—who is intensely good—makes little sermons at prayers.... Lord Pelham is very amusing under a quiet manner. ‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones, my love, so I am coming out to you,’ he is just saying, as he steps through the open window to his wife upon the verandah.”
“Oct. 4.—A most charming visit to Lady Mary Egerton at Mountfield Court. Mr. Charles Newton[186]of the British Museum is here, who is always charming, with ripple of pleasantest anecdote and kindly, genial manners. He says:—
“General Skenk had a monkey and a parrot, which hated each other. One day he imprudently went out, leaving them alone together in a room. When hecame back, the monkey was sitting in his arm-chair, bleeding profusely, and looking very sheepish and ashamed of himself, while the floor was covered with feathers. The parrot had disappeared, but while General Skenk was looking for any further remains of it, out from under a sofa walked a perfectly naked bird, and said, ‘What a hell of a time we’ve had!’
“Mr. Newton was at a spiritual séance. An old man of the party was told that the spirit manifested was his wife, upon which he said:—
“‘Is that you, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, it’s me.’
“‘Are you ’appy, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, very ‘appy.’
“‘’Appier than you were with me, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, much ‘appier.’
“‘Where are you, ‘’Arriet?’
“‘In ‘ell.’
“Mr. Newton says that the cry of the wood-pigeon is ‘Sow peas, do, do.’ There is a bird in Turkey of which the male seems to say a string of words meaning ‘Have you seen my sheep?’ when the female replies, ‘No, I have not seen them.’ They are said to be a shepherd and shepherdess who lost all their sheep and died of a broken heart, when they were turned into birds. But the interesting point is that the story is found in an old Greek novel—‘Longus.’
“‘The origin of the Torlonia family,’ said Mr. Newton, ‘is very curious. When Pius VII. wished to excommunicate Napoleon I., he could not find any one who was bold enough to affix thescomunicato the doors of the Lateran. At length an old man who soldmatches was found who ran the risk and did it. On the return of the Pope in triumph, the old man was offered any favour he liked, and he chose the monopoly of tobacco. From that time every speculation that the Torlonias entered upon was sure to answer.’
“The late Prince Torlonia, being at Naples, went into the room where the public appointments were sold by auction. He left his umbrella there, and went back to get it while the sale was going on. The bidders, chiefly Neapolitan nobles, were aghast to see the great Torlonia reappear, and at last, after some consultation, one of them came up to him and said they would give him 60,000 francs if he would leave. Instead of showing the intense astonishment he felt at this most unexpected proposal, Torlonia only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘È póco,’ and they gave him 100,000.