an interesting party. Lord Castletown[117] talked of his youth at
Holland House, when he was brought up there as the ward of Lord Holland.
‘Lord H. was most indulgent, and was always finding amusements for me.
One day, two days before the end of the Eton holidays, he asked me to go
somewhere. “No, sir,” I said, “I cannot do that, because I have got my
holiday task to finish.”--“And what is your task?” said Lord Holland.
“Latin verses on St. Paul preaching at Athens, seventy lines.”--” Oh,
what a grand subject,” said Lord Holland; “leave it for me. I will do
your task for you, and do you go out and amuse yourself.” And he did it
all but four lines, and then some important business called him away,
and he gave them back to me, saying I must finish them as well as I
could. It was a most grand set of verses, and when I gave them up to
Keats, he would read them aloud before the whole school. In the middle
he said, “Who wrote these, sir?”--“I, sir.”--“You lie, sir,” said Keats.
At last he came to the last four lines. “You wrote these, sir,” he said.
I heard no more of it, but I never got back my copy of verses.
“‘Once I escaped from Eton, and Lord Holland caught me--found me in the
streets of London. He made me get into his carriage at once, and told
the man to drive to the White Horse Cellar, whence the coach started for
Eton. Unfortunately for me, there was one starting at once, and he made
me get in. I remonstrated, saying that I had not got my things. “They
shall be sent after you,” he said. “But I shall be flogged,
sir.”--“Serve you right, too; I hope you will be flogged,” he said. I
looked very piteous, and as I got into the coach he said, “Well,
good-bye, John; I hope you’ll be flogged,” and he shook hands with me,
and in my hand I found a five-pound note. He was always doing those kind
things.
“‘At Holland House I saw everybody most worth seeing in Europe. All that
was best flowed in to Lord Holland, and he was equally hospitable to
all. The Whigs, not only of England, but of all the world, came to him.’
“Lady Castletown told a story of a Russian Princess who had a very
hideous maid. One morning her maid came to her looking very much
agitated--perfectly _défaite_. The Princess asked her what was the
matter, when she said, ‘Oh, I have had the most extraordinary night. As
I was going to bed, I saw a man’s foot under the bed. I was going to
ring the bell when he stopped me by saying, “Oh, don’t ring; I have been
brought into this predicament by my hopeless passion for you. I felt
that there was no other chance of seeing you, so I ran this risk.”
Seeing that he was serious, and never having had a proposal before, I
could not but talk to him; and we talked all night, and now it is all
settled, and we are to be married.’--‘Well,’ said the Princess, ‘that is
very strange; and now I am going to court, so where are my
diamonds?’--‘Oh, of course where they always are,’ said the maid; but,
when she looked, they were gone: the lover had taken them. ‘Of course
that is what he came for,’ said the Princess; ‘do you think he would
have come for _you_?’ And the diamonds were never recovered.”
[Illustration: HOLLAND HOUSE (THE LILY GARDEN).][118]
* * * * *
“_August 8._--Came to Chevening. The house strikes one by its
overwhelming impression of sadness. The sunshine is all blotted out
since last year by the death of its beloved mistress last winter;[119]
but I am glad I came, as it gives pleasure, and I am glad I was asked so
soon, as it shows their liking to have me. Walking with Lady Mahon[120]
between the same beds of tall flowers amongst which I walked with Lady
Stanhope last year, she spoke of her very touchingly, how, though there
might be many pleasures and interests left in life, there was always the
feeling that there never could be what _had_ been--the warm interest in
others, the cheerful sunny nature which radiated on all it came in
contact with. The illness was very sudden, and little alarm felt till
just the end. Her last words to her poor broken-hearted husband were,
‘Do not fret, love; I shall soon be quite well now.’ Lady Mahon said
that Lord Stanhope’s heroic determination to bear up for all their sakes
enabled them to follow his example.”
* * * * *
“_August 10, Sunday._--This afternoon I drove with Lord Stanhope in the
long grassy glades of the park, the highest and prettiest of which gave
a name to the place--Chevening, ‘the Nook in the Hill.’ We drove
afterwards from one fine young Wellingtonia which he had planted to
another, examining them all, and came back by the Spottiswoodes’. It is
a fine old place, intended as an imitation of the Villa Doria at Rome,
and though in nowise like Villa Doria, it has a look of Italy in its
groves of ilexes and its cypresses. Lady Frederick Campbell[121] lived
here. Her first husband was the Lord Ferrers who was hanged, and some
evidence which she gave was instrumental in bringing about his
condemnation. Lord Ferrers cursed her, saying that her death would be
even more painful than his; and so in fact it was, for in 1807 she was
burnt in one of the towers of the house, from spontaneous combustion it
is said. Nothing was found of her but her thumb, she was so completely
consumed, and ever since it is said that the ghost of Lady Frederick
Campbell wanders in the grounds at night, brandishing her thumbless
hand, and looking for her lost thumb. The place lends itself to this
from its wonderful green glades lined with cedars and guarded by huge
grey stone vases.
“Coomb Bank was afterwards bought by the Claytons, who spent all they
had in the purchase and had nothing left for keeping it up, so
eventually they sold it to Mr. Spottiswoode, the King’s Printer, to whom
the monopoly of printing Bibles and Prayer-books has been the source of
a large fortune. Mr. Spottiswoode himself is a most remarkable man, who,
for hours before his daily walk to the City, is occupied with the
highest mathematical speculations, and returns to spend his evenings in
studies of the most abstract nature. It is said that the present
generation is more indebted to him than to any other person for its
improved powers of analysis. He has made no important discoveries yet,
but he probably will make them, if he lives long enough. His character
seems to be a wonderful combination of profound knowledge and power and
profound humility.”
* * * * *
“_August 11._--A semi-wet day, spent chiefly in the library, which is
attached to the house by a corridor full of portraits. In the afternoon,
though it poured, we had a long drive on the Chart. The Spottiswoodes
dined, and Mrs. Spottiswoode sang very old music.”
* * * * *
“_August 12._--Came to Cobham. It has a beautiful approach across the
broken ground of a very wild park with grand old trees. In the hollow is
the old house, which is immense, of red brick with projecting oriels and
towers. Lady Darnley[122] received me in the library; she has an
unintentionally haughty manner, but when you are accustomed to her, you
find that she is charming--
‘Si sta placido e cheto,
Ma serba dell’ altiero nel mansueto;’[123]
and soon it seemed as if one had known her all one’s life. The children
came dropping in--two grown-up daughters, two little girls, Lord
Clifton, and two fine frank younger boys--Ivo and Arthur. There are many
guests.”
* * * * *
“_August 13._--A most pleasant morning sitting with Lady Darnley under
the fine old trees drawing the house, and seeing the rooms and the
pictures, which are mostly dull--chiefly nymphs and satyrs with very few
clothes on--two very fine Titians being the redeeming part of the
gallery. The pictures are wisely devoted to the public; they are too
uncomfortable to live with, and the Chatham people adore them.
[Illustration: COBHAM HALL.]
“I find this house, where no one is too clever, but every one is
pleasant nevertheless, a great rest after Chevening, where I always felt
struggling up to an intellectual level which I have no right to and
which I cannot attain. Apropos, the last morning Lord Stanhope talked
much of the origin of words, and said ‘Beldam’ came from ‘Belle dame’
used satirically.”
“_August 15._--Returned to Holmhurst. Mr. Thomas, the landscape
gardener, travelled with me. He spoke of an obnoxious American coming
into a great hotel at Liverpool and boasting of how much finer American
hotels were--‘a hundred times the size,’ &c. The man he addressed
listened quietly and then said, ‘But you have not yet seen our great
hotel at Southampton, sir; it is a mile long, will accommodate 5000
people, and all the waiters wait on horseback.’--‘I guess that’s a lie,
sir,’ said the American. ‘Yes, it is,’ replied the Englishman, ‘but then
I thought you were telling lies.’”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 28._--A very pleasant visit of two days to the Shaw-Lefevres.
They are certainly one of the happiest and most united of families. We
made a delightful excursion of sixteen miles to Sutton Court, where they
lived formerly. It must be very seldom that, after a lapse of ten years,
a father and mother can return to such a place in old age with their
family of the original seven unbroken, only many others added. Sutton,
the beautiful old house of the Westons, inlaid with terra-cotta, is just
the place for a story, with the closed wing where the ivy forces its way
through the walls and wreaths round the frames of the old family
portraits, which, rent and forlorn, flap in the gusts of wind whenever a
distant door opens. Then there is the still-used Roman Catholic chapel,
with its priest and its country congregation.”
* * * * *
“_Powderham Castle, Oct. 4._--A week here has been most delightful. I
had not felt certain how much I might like it, how much my dear friend
of old days might be changed by lapse of time and new relations. I can
only say that, if he is changed, it is in being more entirely and
perfectly delightful than ever, more indescribably thoughtful for
others, more filled with plans for the good of every one, and withal so
simple, so free from cant, that all else seems unchristian and mundane
by comparison. Lady Agnes is the one person I have seen who is quite
entirely worthy of him, and it does seem as if a reward of such
perfectly beautiful lives was given even in this life, that they should
have been thrown together.
“I arrived about half-past five. Powderham has a low park, rising into
high ground as it approaches the castle, which has a gateway and
courtyard. Here Charlie was walking about amongst orange-trees in large
boxes like those at the Tuileries. The bedrooms are dilapidated and
falling into decay: Lord Devon will not restore them, nor will he set
any of his estates free by selling the rest, but he goes on planting
quantities of Wellingtonias in his park and making expensive fences
round them. In himself he is charming, with a perfect and entirely
courteous manner. Colonel and Mrs. Heygarth have been here, he still
lame with shot in the leg from the battle of the Alma, where he was
wounded again while lying on the ground, having been noticed because he
tried to save Lord Chewton, who was lying near him, and whom a Russian
soldier was about to murder.
“With Charlie and Lady Agnes I have been completely at home and
perfectly happy. One day we went to the sands, and walked along them to
Dawlish. But yesterday was quite charming; I had much wished to go to
Lady Morley at Whiteway, and after luncheon we set off--Charlie, Lady
Agnes, and I. When the narrow lanes grew too steep for the
pony-carriage, we left it under a hedge, and putting a saddle on Jack
the pony, rode and walked by turns up the hill and across the wild heath
of the open moor: Charlie rode pick-a-back behind Lady Agnes. In the
woods we met Morley, greatly surprised to see us arrive thus. The others
were out, but Morley showed all the curiosities of the house, which were
many in a small way. Just as we were setting off, Lady Morley and Lady
Katherine returned, and, after many pro’s and con’s, we stayed to a most
amusing dinner, and only set off again at 10 P.M. with lanthorns in
pitch darkness. Morley and Lady Katherine walked with us the first three
miles over the wild moor with _their_ lanthorn, and then we dived down
into the eerie lanes closely overhung with green and fringed with ferns,
and most lovely were the effects as the lanthorn revealed one gleam of
glistening foliage after another out of the darkness. When we reached
home at 11 P.M., we found the servants alarmed and a horseman sent out
to search for us; and no wonder.
“I was ill all night from having eaten junket at Whiteway. Charlie says
this Devonshire dainty is so called from the Neapolitan
_joncetta_--cream on rushes. In Devon they pretend it is a relic of the
Roman invasion!
“We have just been to church at Kenton. An immense funeral party (from
last week) walked in, two and two, with great importance and occupied
three pews. They sat through the whole service, as if too overwhelmed
by their late grief to rise, and the women held handkerchiefs to their
faces, and rocked, and shook the crape bows upon their bonnets, while
waiting for the expected ‘funeral discourse.’ The people here are
delightfully primitive. The other day, at a dinner Lord Devon gave, a
man of the place rose to propose his health, and comprised all that
needed to be said in--‘I don’t know what Lord Devon du, but all I du
know is that if more would du as Lord Devon du du, there wouldn’t be so
many as would du as they du du.’
“The wife of a neighbouring clergyman was very seriously ill of a
strange and mysterious complaint. It was observed that her worst attacks
always came on after her husband had administered the Sacrament to her.
Mr. O., who was attending her, studied her case very much, and came to
the conclusion that, if the peculiar symptoms she exhibited came from
unnatural causes, they could only be produced by a single and very rare
drug. Forthwith he set himself to find out if there was any place in the
neighbourhood where that drug was sold, and at last he did find it. He
asked at the place if they had sold any of it. ‘Oh, yes; to the parson
at ----; he bought some yesterday.’ As Mr. O. was going home he met the
clergyman himself. He stopped him and said, ‘I have just found out that
yesterday you bought some drugs at M.: now if Mrs. X. is worse
to-morrow, I shall know what has caused it.’ That afternoon the
clergyman went down to the shore to bathe, and he never returned. He was
known to be a splendid swimmer, and he was seen to swim far, far out to
sea.
“To-night Lady Agnes talked of her grandmother, who, at sixteen, was
sent down to speak to the housekeeper at Audley End. The woman, who was
raving mad, shut the door and said, ‘Now you must say your prayers at
once, for I have a commission from heaven to kill you.’--‘Oh, you cannot
dare to do that,’ said the girl without hesitation, taking up a white
napkin which lay upon the table and giving it to her with an air of the
utmost conviction, ‘for here is a reprieve.’ And the woman gave in at
once.”
* * * * *
“_Anthony, Plymouth, Oct. 7._--On Monday I went to Exeter to my Aunt
FitzGerald,[124] who was greatly pleased to see me. Her house is
charming, full of relics, and, as she says, certainly ‘shows that she is
_somebody_.’ Over the dining-room chimney-piece hangs a magnificent
Mignet of the Duchess of Portsmouth. There are interesting pictures of
Lord Edward FitzGerald, and beautiful china given by Frederick the Great
to the Duchess of York, and by her to Pamela. Most of the drawing-room
furniture is from Malmaison.
“Yesterday I came here to Anthony (the Pole-Carews). It is a strange
drive from Plymouth, through endless courts, dockyards, &c., and then
crossing an arm of the sea by a ferry, which was very rough when I came,
and worse at night, when the family crossed to a ball; but, as Mr. Carew
says, it is very well to have the sea between him and such a population
as that of Plymouth.
“This house is perfectly charming--the old hall and its pictures, the
oak staircase, the warm tapestried sitting-room--all, as it were,
typical of the broad christian kindness and warm-hearted cordiality of
its inmates. It is a house in which no ill is ever spoken, and where
scandal sits dumb; where, with the utmost merriment, there is the most
sincere religious feeling, and yet an entire freedom from cant and what
is called ‘religious talking.’ There is here a mutual spirit of
forbearance, and an absence of all egotism and self-seeking, which is
more instructive than a thousand sermons; and it almost seems as if it
were arranged that what might be the asperities of any one member of the
family should be softened and smoothed out by the qualities of another.
Mrs. Carew is the picture of a warm-hearted, most loving English mother,
who enters into and shares all the interests, all the amusements, of her
children; and between the father and his sons there is none of the
shadow which so often exists, but the truest confidence and
friendship.”[125]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 11._--It is only by a long stay that one learns all that the
Carews really are--the perfect charm of this most united and beautiful
family life. Just now their goodness has been especially drawn out by
the parting of Captain Ernest Rice and his wife in this house, he going
to India for three years. The Carews especially _wished_ it to be here,
that they might soften it to both, and wonderfully have they helped
them through--cheering, enlivening, nerving, where it was possible, but
never intruding comfort when the natural burst of grief must come.
“It has been very pleasant seeing the different guests come and go. The
Dean of St. Paul’s and Mrs. Church have been here. He is an excellent
person, but very nervous and twitchy.[126] She has a repose of goodness
which sets you at rest with her, and imparts a confidence in her at
once.
“Sir John and Lady Duckworth were here for two days. His father was
military governor of Portsmouth. One day his mother was crossing the
green at Mount Wyse when the sentry stopped her. ‘Do you know who you
are speaking to?’ she said. ‘No, I don’t,’ he replied, ‘but I know you
are not the governor’s cow, and that is the only thing which has any
business here.’
“Lord Eliot[127] was also here. I found great grace in his sight, and
was most pressingly invited to Port Eliot. I went on Saturday. He met me
at the station, and I was almost walked off my feet for four hours,
being shown every picture in the house, every plant in the garden, and
every walk in the woods. There is a limit in what ought to be shown, and
Lord Eliot has never found it out.
“Still Port Eliot is a beautiful place. The house and the grand old
church of St. German’s Priory--chiefly Norman--stand close together, on
shaven green lawns, radiant with masses of flowers and backed by
luxuriant woods, amid which walks open here and there upon glimpses of
rock and terraces near one of the salt fiords which are so common in
this country.
“Lord St. Germans,[128] who is paralysed, is a beautiful and venerable
old figure, with white hair and beard, wheeling himself about in a
chair. Lord Eliot returned with me to Devonport, and introduced me to
the frightful sights of that most hideous place.
“Some of the pictures at Port Eliot are beautiful, the most so that of
Lady Cornwallis--so simple and stately in its lines. It is engraved, but
without the figure of a child, probably not born at that time, but
introduced afterwards in the picture.
“On Friday I had a charming drive with Mrs. Carew to ‘the Hut,’ through
the narrowest lanes imaginable. An old clergyman near this, Mr. Wood,
was driving there, who told things in a most slow and solemn manner. He
said, ‘Mrs. Wood was dreadfully frightened as we were driving, and said
we should be upset. I said, “ My dear, it is imposs”----“ible,” I could
not say, for we were over.’
“Last night (Sunday) the family sang hymns beautifully in the hall. ‘No
horrid Gregorians,’ said Miss Julia, ‘for the old monks only sang those
by way of penance, so why should we sing them?’”
* * * * *
“_Stone Hall, Plymouth, Oct. 13._--Another pleasant family home! I came
on Monday to the George Edgcumbes. I had known Mrs. Edgcumbe well
before at Rome, but had never seen her ‘dear old man,’ her ‘bird,’ &c.,
as she calls her kind old husband.[129] They do not dislike having
married their three daughters at all. It is less _embarras_ in their old
age, and they enjoy having a constantly open house full of kindly
hospitalities to their neighbours. Young Alwyn Greville has been here
twice since I came, and I like him increasingly. It is a charming old
house, close to the town, but its tall trees and disordered garden give
it a quaint look, which one would be sorry to see rectified. There is a
view across the still reaches of the harbour, with masses of timber
floating close by and great ships lying far off, nearer the beautiful
woods of Mount Edgcumbe. Close by are many delightful walks amongst the
rocks, and varied views. We went to ‘the Winter Villa,’ a luxurious
sun-palace with a great conservatory, backed by natural rock. The late
Lord Mount Edgcumbe lived here for many years, quite helpless from
rheumatic gout. It was his mother[130] who was buried alive and lived
for many years afterwards. It was known that she had been put into her
coffin with a very valuable ring upon her finger, and the sexton went in
after the funeral, when the coffin was put into the vault, to get it
off. He opened the coffin, but the ring was hard to move, and he had to
rub the dead finger up and down. This brought Lady Mount Edgcumbe to
life, and she sat up. The sexton fled, leaving the doors of the vault
and church open. Lady Mount Edgcumbe walked home in her shroud, and
appeared in front of the windows. Those within thought it was a ghost.
Then she walked in at the front door. When she saw her husband, she
fainted away in his arms. This gave her family time to decide what
should be done, and they settled to persuade her it had been a terrible
delirium. When she recovered from her faint, she was in her own bed, and
she ever believed it had been a dream.
“On Monday we went in the Admiral’s steam-pinnace to Cotehele; Mrs.
Wilson, Mrs. Freemantle, and Charlie Williamson with us. I sat outside
the little cabin, and it was charming--gliding up the quiet river past
the richly wooded banks. Up steep woods we walked to Cotehele, an
unaltered old house, with gate-tower, courtyard, chapel, armour-hung
hall, and dark tapestried bedrooms. Within the entrance are ever-fresh
stains like blood, which you can mop up with blotting paper. Sir Richard
Edgcumbe went out, bidding the porter, on peril of his life, to let no
one in without a password. To prove his obedience, he came back himself
and demanded entrance. The porter, recognising his master’s voice, let
him in, upon which Sir Richard cleft open his skull with his battle-axe
as he entered. The so-called blood forms a dark pool, and looks as if it
had been spilt yesterday. Some say it is really a fungus which only
grows where blood has been shed, and that the same existed on the site
of the scaffold on Tower Hill.
“In the wood of Cotehele is a little chapel standing on a rock above the
river. It was built by one of the Edgcumbes in the Wars of the Roses,
who, closely pursued, vowed it if he escaped in safety. In desperation
he threw his cap and coat into the river from hence, and concealed
himself in a hollow tree: his enemies thought he was drowned.”
* * * * *
“_Rockwood, Oct. 16._--I came from Plymouth here to the John Boyles’.
Mr. Boyle is failing rapidly, tenderly cared for by his son Edmund and
his daughter Mrs. Quin. The house is delightful and most comfortable. We
have been a charming drive by Babbicombe and Watcombe. At St. Mary
Church we saw the two great churches--Roman Catholic and High Church. In
the churchyard of the latter Bishop Phillpotts and his wife are buried
under simple crosses of grey Cornish granite. Watcombe is a curiously
tumbled valley, full of grassy knolls interrupted by red rocks.”
* * * * *