so richly endowed by Nature contaminated by such abject and ludicrous
public monuments!--the enormous monument of Walter Scott, a ludicrous
copy in stone of the Bishop’s throne at Exeter: the sort of lighthouse
which closes Princes Street (a monument to Lord Nelson, I was told): the
statue of the Duke of Wellington, who has lost his hat in a perfectly
futile struggle with his restive horse, which is standing on its
tail:--worst of all, the figure of the Prince Consort (in Charlotte
Square), being adorned by specimens of each class of society, the most
ridiculous of all being a peer and peeress in their robes.
“This morning I drew in the Grassmarket. The crowd was most tiresome
till it took the idea that I was Sir Noel Paton, the popular Edinburgh
artist. I tacitly encouraged the idea, when I found the result
was--‘Dinna ye see it’s Sir Noel Paton hissel drawing the cassel? then
let Sir Noel see, mon.’
“In the afternoon I went with Mrs. Stewart to the exhibition of
Raeburn’s pictures--nothing but Raeburns, though many vast rooms are
filled with them; and deeply interesting it is thus not only to follow
one great, too little appreciated, painter through life, but to be
introduced to the whole world of his illustrious contemporaries.
Raeburn’s pictures may be slight, and may have faults of colouring, and
even of drawing, but his men never fail to be gentlemen and his women
are always ladies--very pleasant people too generally, and people it is
delightful to live with. ‘A great portrait should be liker than the
original,’ wrote Coleridge. The noblest portrait here seemed to me to be
that of Alexander Adam, Rector of the High School, a serious and holy,
but engaging old man. Lady Mackenzie of Coul is a sweet, refined, and
beautiful woman. As a rule, the old men’s portraits are the best--their
shaggy eyebrows, their vigorous old age, the sharp shadows of their
chins, so vividly and carefully drawn, and all the _delicacies_ of
expression centred in the eyes. There were numbers of such old men’s
portraits, in which the dead grandfather must still often seem to share
the inner family life of many a quiet country-house. It shows the
extraordinary change in the value popular feeling places upon art when
one recollects that the works of Watts and Millais cost from £2000 to
£3000, while these pictures--far more pleasing, far more like those they
represent, and, though more sketchy, cleverer and more original--used to
cost only £10.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 21._--We have been out to New Hailes, the old Dalrymple house,
now inhabited by Lord Shand. The characteristic of the house is its
library, which, however, is rather useless, as the bookcases are
seventeen feet high, and there is no ladder to reach the upper shelves
by.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 22._--Excursion to Pinkie, the fine old house of the Hopes, near
Musselburgh--crenellated, machicolated, picturesque as possible. Charles
Edward slept there when triumphant from Prestonpans. There is a noble
gallery upstairs with a painted ceiling, and a secret passage and
staircase. Lady Hope was very kind.[235]
“In Edinburgh I have been, for the first time, received as a sort of
mild literary lion, and have found it very amusing. A quantity of people
came to call--professors, the bishop, and others.”
* * * * *
“_Ravensworth Castle, Nov. 26._--I have been much enjoying a visit here,
and the cordial affection which abounds in my dear Liddell cousins. Old
General Stanhope[236] is here, and told us--
“‘A gentleman was riding over the Yorkshire Wolds late in the gloaming,
when his horse started at something. With the perseverance of a good
rider, he forced the horse to return to the spot where he had started,
when he saw with horror that he had been frightened by a dead body,
evidently of a murdered man, lying by the side of the road. A dog was
sitting by the body, and as he rode up it ran away.
“‘Without losing his presence of mind for an instant, without thought of
lingering to hunt up police, &c., the rider set spurs to his horse and
pursued the dog. He pursued it a great distance, and eventually saw it
enter a low solitary public-house.
“‘He then put his horse into the wretched stable of the place and
entered the house. In the brick kitchen three men were drinking, one man
by himself, two men together; curled up by the fire was the dog.
“‘The rider called for beer or whisky and sat down. Meanwhile he
observed his companions. The two men talked together of quite
indifferent subjects; the solitary man said nothing. At last the
gentleman got up and gave the dog a great kick. It ran to the lonely
man, who said in a fury, “What do you mean, sir, by kicking my dog?”--“I
mean that I chose to do it,” he replied; “and furthermore, I mean that I
arrest you for murder, and I call upon _you_ (turning to the other two
men) to assist me in arresting this murderer.”
“‘And the man confessed.’
“General Stanhope also gave an interesting account of how old Lord
Braybrooke, going to a farm to see some cows, was struck by something in
one of the farming men. At last, suddenly slapping him on the shoulder,
he exclaimed, ‘Good God! you are De Bruhl!’ and it was a man who had
been well known in the world, son of the Bruhl of the famous Terrace at
Dresden, the friend of Augustus of Saxony, who had been ruined by the
Prince Regent, and had sunk lower and lower, till he came to be a farm
labourer, unrecognised and unnoticed for years.
“Talking of dreams, General Stanhope said--
“‘Lady Andover, who was the daughter of Lord Leicester, was with her
husband[237] at Holkham, and when one day all the other men were going
out shooting, she piteously implored him not to go, saying that she had
dreamt vividly that he would be shot if he went out. She was so terribly
eager about it, that he acceded to her wishes, and remained with her in
her painting-room, for she painted beautifully in oils, and was copying
a picture of the “Misers” which was at Holkham. But the afternoon was
excessively beautiful, and Lady Andover’s strong impression, which had
been so vivid in the morning, then seemed to wear off, till at last she
said, “Well, really, perhaps I have been selfish in keeping you from
what you like so much because of my own impressions; so now, if you care
about going out, don’t let me keep you in any longer.” And he said,
“Well, if _you_ don’t mind, I should certainly like to go,” and he went.
“‘He had not been gone long before Lady Andover’s impression returned
just as vividly as ever, and she rushed upstairs and put on her bonnet
and pursued him. But, as she crossed the park, she met her husband’s own
servant riding furiously without his coat. “Don’t tell me,” she said at
once; “I know what has happened,” and she went back, and locked herself
into her room. His servant was handing him a gun through a hedge, it
went off, and he was killed upon the spot.’
“‘The same Lady Andover had a dream of a minor kind which came curiously
true. She said to her sister that she had dreamt most vividly that she
was standing with her under the portico at Holkham; that they were both
dressed in deep mourning--thick black bombazine; and that they were
watching a great funeral leave the house, but that it was not going in
the natural direction of the churchyard, but the other way, up the
avenue.
“‘A month after, the two sisters were standing under the portico,
dressed in deep mourning for old Queen Charlotte, and the funeral of
Lady Albemarle, who had died in the house, was going away up the avenue.
Lady Andover said to her sister, “Don’t you remember?”’
“Apropos of second sight, General Stanhope said--
“‘Did you ever hear of a man they used to call Houghy White? When I was
young, I went with him down to Richmond on a water-party, which was
given by Sir George Warrender. Houghy was then engaged to be married to
a niece of Beau Brummel, as he was called, and when we returned from
Richmond, we went to spend the evening at her mother’s house, and there
Houghy told this story.
“‘He was aide-de-camp to the old Duke of Cambridge when he was in
Hanover, and was required by the Duke to go with him on a shooting-party
into the Hartz Mountains. He, and indeed two of the Duke’s other
aides-de-camp, were then, I am sorry to say, very much in love with the
wife of a fourth--a very beautiful young lady--and they were all much
occupied by thoughts of her. At the place in the Hartz to which they
went, there was not much accommodation, but there was one good room with
an alcove in it and four beds. The two German equerries slept in the
alcove, and the two English aides-de-camp in two beds outside it. In the
night White distinctly saw the lady they all so much admired come into
the room. She came up to both of the beds outside the alcove and looked
into them; then she passed into the alcove. He immediately heard the
equerry on the right cry out “Was haben sie gesehn?” and the other--the
husband--say, “Ach Gott! Ich habe meine Frau gesehn?”
“‘White was terribly impressed, and the next day entreated to excuse
himself from going out shooting with the Duke. The Duke insisted on
knowing his reason, upon which he told what he had seen, and expressed
his conviction that his friend was dead. The Duke was very much annoyed,
and said, “You are really, as a matter of fact, so much occupied with
this lady that you neglect your duties to me: I brought you here to
shoot with me, and now, on account of whimsical fancies, you refuse to
go: but I insist upon your going.” However, White continued to say, “I
must most humbly beg your Royal Highness to excuse me, but I cannot and
will not go out shooting to-day,” and at last he was left at home. That
evening, the mail came in while they were at dinner, and the letters
were handed to the Duke. He opened them, and beckoned White to him.
“You were quite right,” he said; “the lady died last night.”’
“Lizzie Williamson said:--
“‘I remember quite well how a very charming young surgeon came into this
neighbourhood, a Mr. Stirling; he was beloved by everybody, and though
he was as poor as a church-mouse, he had not an enemy in the world.
After his medical rounds, he was in the habit of riding home through a
lovely wooded lane which there is near Gibside, with trees on each side
and the river below. One day--one Friday--as he was riding home this
way, he was shot by some men concealed amongst the bushes. His body was
dragged into the wood and was searched and rifled; but he was very poor,
dear man; he had nothing but his watch, and the brutes took that: and
that is all I have to say about him.
“‘On the night before, the wife of Mr. Bowes’s agent, who was in the
habit of going every week to receive money at the lead-mines, some miles
distant from Gibside, awoke dreadfully agitated. She told her husband
that she had had a most terrible dream, and conjured him, as he loved
her, to stay at home that day, and not to go to the mines. She said she
did not know the place herself, but she saw a wooded lane above a river
and some men hiding in bushes, and she saw him come riding along, and
the men shoot at him from behind, and drag him into the bushes. He
laughed at her, and said of course he could not neglect his duty to his
master for such an idle fancy as that, and that he must go to the mines.
“‘She fell asleep again, and she dreamt the same thing, and she
urgently entreated and implored him not to go. He said, “I must; the men
will be expecting me; they are to meet me there, and I have really no
excuse to give.”
“‘She fell asleep the third time, and she dreamt the same thing, and
awoke with agonised entreaties that her husband would accede to her
wishes. Then he really began to be frightened himself, and at last he
said he would make a concession; he would go to the mines, but he would
not go by the wooded lane at all (for he was obliged to allow there was
such a place), but would both go and return by the high moorland way on
the other side the river.
“‘So the agent was saved and the poor young surgeon was murdered in his
place.
“‘The watch which had been taken was found afterwards in a pawnbroker’s
at Durham, and the men who pawned it were traced and taken: Cain and
Rain were their odd names. In the hand of the murdered man was found a
button of pink glass, imitation amethyst, which exactly matched those on
Cain’s waistcoat, with a bit of the stuff hanging to it, as if the dead
man’s hand had clenched it in a struggle. But Cain’s friends got hold of
the discovery, and sowed the wood with similar pink buttons, which were
found; so _that_ evidence went for nothing and Cain got off, but every
one believed that he and Rain did it.
“‘Years afterwards, Cain was ill and sent for Harry,[238] and confided a
secret to him under strict vows of secrecy, and no one knows what that
secret was.’”
* * * * *
“_Kinmel, Nov. 30._--I left Ravensworth early on Monday to go to Ridley
Hall. In a few minutes after arriving, White the butler came to say that
Cousin Susan would see me. She was in her little sitting-room, half
sitting up on her sofa before an immense fire. At above eighty, her face
and figure have still the look of youth which they had at thirty-five,
and that quite unaided by art, though not by dress. She has now quite
lost the use of her feet, and is cut off from all her usual employments,
her garden, her walks, her china, and, if it were not that she is so
long inured to solitary habits, her life would be indeed most desolate.
She talked all afternoon and evening, chiefly about Tyneside politics or
family reminiscences. She asked me whom _I_ thought she had better leave
her fortune to. I said, ‘After Mr. Bowes, to one of the Strathmore
boys.’ She would not take leave of me at night, pretending she should
see me next day, but I knew then that she did not mean to do it. She
said, as I went out, ‘You may think that you have given me _one_ happy
day.’
“I slept at Chester on Tuesday, and walked round the walls by moonlight,
most picturesque and desolate, with only the tramp of an occasional
wanderer making the night more silent by its echoes.
“Yesterday I came here. A beautiful ascent through woods leads from the
seaboard to this house, magnificent in the style of a Louis XIV. château
externally, with Morris paper and colour inside. There is a man party
here--Lord Colville, Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, Lord de Lisle, Hedworth
Williamson, Lord Delamere. Hedworth is most amusing, and Lord de Lisle
not without a quaint humour.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 1._--To-day being a hunting day, most of the men breakfasted in
pink in the hall. We drove with the Harringtons to the old Shipley house
of Bodryddan,[239] where young Mrs. Conwy received us. The fine old
house has been altered by Nesfield--‘restored’ they call it--but, though
well done in its way, the quaint old peculiar character is gone. This
generation, too, has sent its predecessors into absolute oblivion. Only
the pictures keep the past alive at all, and they very little. There was
a lovely portrait of a little girl with a dog in Mrs. Conwy’s
sitting-room. ‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, somebody, some sort of
great-aunt,’ she supposed, ‘the dog was rather nice.’ It was Amelia
Sloper,[240] Dean Shipley’s most cherished niece, the idol of that house
and of all that lived in it in a past generation. One could not help
remembering how that child’s little footsteps were once the sweetest
music that house ever knew, and now her very existence is forgotten
there, but her picture is preserved because ‘she had rather a nice
little dog.’”
* * * * *
“_Tatton Park, Dec. 2._--This is a very pleasant, roomy country-house in
an ugly park. The great feature is the conservatories, in one of which a
gravel walk winds between banks of rock and moss and groves of tree-fern
like a scene in Tasmania.
“Lady Egerton[241] shows to great advantage in her own house. On small
subjects her conversation is frivolous, but on deeper subjects she has
acute observation and a capital manner of hitting the right nail on the
head, and she certainly gives her opinion without respect of persons.
Yesterday, Wilbraham Egerton and Lady Mary[242] dined, the latter most
attractive. Lady Egerton was very amusing, especially about old Lady
Shaftesbury and her having ‘established a lying-in hospital for cats.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 4._--Yesterday we went to church at Rostherne. Going through the
park gates, Mrs. Mitford (Emily Egerton) told the story of Dick
Turpin--whose propensities were not known to his neighbours, and who
constantly dined with her grandfather--having been terrified at that
gate one night as he rode away, by thinking that he saw the ghost of one
of his victims, and that it was believed to be haunted ever since.
“Rostherne Church stands on a terrace above the mere, into which one of
its bells is said to have slipped down, and a mermaid is supposed to
come up and ring it whenever one of the family at Tatton is going to
die. It is the most poetical legend in Cheshire. Old Mrs. Egerton[243]
told it one day at dinner. A short time after, the butler rushed into
the drawing-room, and begged the gentlemen of the house to come and
interfere, for two of the under-servants were murdering one another.
Mrs. Egerton’s special footman had told the story of the mermaid in the
servants’ hall, and another servant denied it. The footman declared that
it was impossible it should not be true, for his mistress had said it,
and a desperate fight ensued.
“Miss Wilbraham[244] is here from Blyth--a most pleasant, easy, natural
person, who draws beautifully, and makes herself most agreeable.
“To-day we have been to luncheon at Arley. It is a noble house, raised
by the present Mr. Warburton[245] on the site of an old moated building,
which was, however, spoilt before his time. In front is a leaden statue
of a Moor, like those at Knowsley and Clement’s Inn. The blind Mr.
Warburton wrote the well-known hunting songs. He lived through his eyes,
but bears the loss of them with a noble cheerfulness. All around are
devoted to him, not only his own family, but tenants and workmen, and it
is a touching proof of this, that, when anything new is to be
constructed, the workmen always make a ‘blind plan’ of it, that he may
feel and know it--a bit of wood representing one kind of wall, a ridge
of sealing wax another: and so he is still the adviser and soul of it
all.
“Mr. Gladstone is an old friend of his, and, with silence as to
politics, was come to cheer and amuse him.
“Lady Egerton was most comical with Mr. Gladstone. ‘I told you you would
never rest,’ she said; ‘how could you be so stupid as to think it? A man
with brains cannot rest. Now how can you have come to do such a number
of foolish things? However, if I was you, I would quiet down: indeed I
do not despair of you yet.’ At luncheon Mr. Gladstone said she did a
good deal of work in a very short time, for she totally demolished the
Board of Education and the Church of England, and eventually established
the Pope as the head of Christianity throughout the world.
“Before luncheon, Mr. Warburton took me away to see some prints in the
library. We found there a Mr. Yates, a clergyman, and there was a most
animated and interesting conversation between him and Mr. Gladstone on
the logical difference between ‘Obedience’ and ‘Submission,’ which Mr.
Yates considered to be the same and I thought so too, but quite see from
Mr. Gladstone’s explanation that it is not so. He illustrated it by
Strossmeyer, who was quite willing to _submit_ to the doctrine of Papal
infallibility, but turned restive at _obedience_, which involved
subscription, and prevented any power of antagonistic action on his own
faith any more. They spoke much of obedience to the decrees of a judge
in Church matters. Mr. Gladstone said that while clergy were bound to
_submit_ to a judge’s decree, and while they had no right to inquire his
reasons (two judges often arriving at the same decision from perfectly
different reasons), he did not see why they might not state that the
views they maintained, according to their own conscience, were at
variance with the decision, though, as members of the Church of England,
they were bound to submit to it.
“Altogether, it was a very interesting visit, and I was glad Mr.
Gladstone said he wished it had not been such a short one. He and Mrs.
Gladstone were both most cordial.
“Here, at Tatton, is a number of pictures set into panels round the
staircase, full-lengths of Cheshire gentlemen, moved hither from Astbury
Hall, where the originals met to decide whether they should rise for
Prince Charlie, and finally elected not to risk their estates. In the
dining-room is a picture of a hand shaking out an empty purse by Rubens,
signed; it was sent to Charles V. when he had forgotten to pay the
painter for his work, to remind him. Lord Egerton has many charming
miniatures in his room, and--a gift to one of his ancestors--Queen
Elizabeth’s ‘horn-book,’ being the alphabet and the Lord’s Prayer set in
a frame of silver filagree and covered with talc (horn). He told us of
some one who, wishing effectually to protect his land from poachers, put
up--‘Aspleniums and Polypodiums always on these premises.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 6._--Yesterday we drove to Wythenshawe.[246] It is a most
engaging old house, very well restored, all the historical points
retained--the low narrow door inside the other, through which the
defenders forced the conquerors to pass as their condition of surrender
after their siege by the Commonwealth, when the family was heavily
fined: the ghost-room, where a soldier shot in the siege still appears:
the difference in the panelling of the oak drawing-room, where the
panels were smashed in by a cannon-ball. There is another ghost--a
ghastly face of a lady, who draws the curtains and looks in upon a
bride on the first night she sleeps in the house after her marriage: the
late Mrs. Tatton saw it.”[247]
* * * * *
“_Betton House, Dec. 9._--Wednesday morning was lovely. We drove to
Rostherne Manor, Lady Mary Egerton’s charming modern house, with a
lovely view over the wide shining mere to the Derbyshire hills; on the
right, the church tower on a wooded hill, and in the foreground the
terraced garden with an old leaden figure of Mercury.
“I came away to Hodnet, where the great new house perfectly swarmed with
Heber Percy cousins, and next morning I went with Ethel Hood to Stoke.
There is nothing but the ghost of our memories there now--even the
church pulled down, all that made the place touching or beautiful to us
swept away.”
* * * * *
“_Betton, Dec. 10._--It has been a great pleasure to go to church with
the Tayleurs at dear old Market Drayton, and to sit in the great green
baize room in the family gallery, with a large fire burning in an open
hearth--a pleasant contrast to the wretched open seats which are the
fashion now, though it might recall the exclamation of a Frenchman on
seeing a similar pew--‘Pardi! on sert Dieu bien à son aise ici.’ Yet
even at Drayton the respectable red-cloaked singers have given place to
bawling choristers.
“I always feel, in the neighbourhood of the winding Terne, as if I were
carried back into my child-life with my dear adopted grandparents, the
one happy part of my boyhood, so different from the many bitter days at
Hurstmonceaux.”
* * * * *
“_Sherborne Park, Dec. 12._--At Bourton-on-the-Water were many people
waiting. In the dark I recognised Lord and Lady Denbigh, and then a
young lady came up with her husband and spoke to me. ‘I cannot see in
the least who you are.’--‘Oh, then I shall leave you to guess, and you
will find out by-and-by.’ It was Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley. With him
and Lord Powerscourt, and a fat old gentleman much muffled up, whom I
took for Sir Hastings Doyle, and who turned out to be Mr. Alfred
Denison, I travelled in a carriage to Sherborne. It is a very fine house
of Inigo Jones, of rich yellow stone, with short fluted columns between
the windows; but in effect it is overwhelmed by the church, which is
close upon it, and crushes it with its spire. The living rooms are
delightfully large, airy, and filled with books, flowers, and pictures.
“I had a pleasant dinner, seated by Mr. Denison, who told me much about
his curious collection of books on angling, of which he has some of the
early part of the fifteenth century, and about 500 editions of Izaak
Walton. He has even a Latin treatise on the Devil’s fishery for souls.
He was just come from Chatsworth, and had seen there a volume for which
£12,000 had been refused, the original of Claude’s ‘Liber Veritatis.’