earth at Hutton,[268] where Mr. and Mrs. Pease were entertaining a large
party, chiefly of semi-Quaker relations, including Miss Fox of Falmouth,
who is most interesting and agreeable. Mrs. Pease is as delightful as
she is beautiful, and the place is an oasis of good works of every kind.
Thence I came here, meeting Mr. Waldegrave Leslie and Lady Rothes at the
station. As we drove up to the haunted castle at night, its many turrets
looked most eerie and weird against the moonlit sky, and its windows
blazed with red light. The abundance of young life inside takes off the
solemn effect--the number of charming children, the handsome cordial
boys, the winning gracious mistress; only Lord Strathmore himself has an
ever sad look. The Bishop of Brechin, who was a great friend of the
house, felt this strange sadness so deeply that he went to Lord
Strathmore, and, after imploring him in the most touching manner to
forgive the intrusion into his private affairs, said how, having heard
of the strange secret which oppressed him, he could not help entreating
him to make use of his services as an ecclesiastic, if he could in any
way, by any means, be of use to him. Lord Strathmore was deeply moved,
though he said that he thanked him, but that in his most unfortunate
position _no one_ could ever help him. He has built a wing to the
castle, in which all the children and all the servants sleep. The
servants will not sleep in the house, and the children are not allowed
to do so.
“I found a large party here, and was agreeably surprised to see Lady
Wynford come down to dinner. Then Lady Holmesdale appeared, with her
piteous little white-mouse aspect; Mr. and the charming Mrs.
Streatfeild, Lady Strathmore’s sister; Miss Erica Robertson, and Lord
and Lady Rosehill.
“There is much of interest in the life here--the huge clock telling the
hours; the gathering in early morning for prayers by the chaplain in the
chapel, through a painted panel of which some think that the secret
chamber is concealed, though others maintain that it is entered through
Lord Strathmore’s study, and occupies the space above ‘the crypt’--an
armour-hung hall where we all meet for dinner, at which the old Lion of
Lyon--gold, for holding a whole bottle of claret, which the old lords
used to toss off at a draught--is produced. There are lions everywhere.
Huge gilt lions stand on either side in front of the drawing-room
fireplace, lions are nut-crackers, a lion sits on the letter-box, the
very door-scraper is guarded by two lions.
“The boys are charming, so very nice that one cannot believe any curse
can affect them. Claudie (Glamis) is very handsome, and looks strikingly
so in his Scotch dress. Frank is ill now, but most engaging.
“To-day, as I was drawing, Mr. Waldegrave Leslie gave a curious account
of his life at Lady Rothes’ castle--that they themselves inhabit the
ghost-room, and that the ghost comes frequently, and not only groans,
but _howls_; they often hear it. When Lady Rothes’ brother died, the
episcopal service was read over him in the house by a clergyman, and the
ghost then howled so horribly that the service was quite inaudible, and
eventually had to be stopped. He said they did not mind the ghost, but
that Lady Rothes’ Dandie Dinmont dog was distracted with terror when it
came, and crept upon the bed quivering convulsively all over.
“Lady Rosehill has been meeting Mr. (Dicky) Doyle, the genial fairy
lover, who told her that one day when a man was walking down Pall Mall
with a most tremendous swagger, somebody walked up to him and said,
‘Sir, will you have the kindness to tell me, _are_ you anybody in
particular?’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 29._--Yesterday was Sunday, and we had three services in the
chapel, which is painted all over with figures of saints by the same man
who executed the bad paintings of the Scottish kings at Holyrood. The
sermons from Mr. Beck, the chaplain, head of ‘the Holy Cross’ in
Scotland, were most curious: the first--apropos of All Saints--being a
mere catalogue of saints, S. Etheldreda, S. Kenneth, S. Ninian, &c.,
and their virtues; and describing All Saints’ festival as ‘the Mart of
Holiness’: the second--apropos of All Souls--speaking of prayers for the
dead as a duty inculcated by the Church in all ages, and taking the
words of Judas Maccabeus as a text.”
* * * * *
“_Gorhambury, Nov. 20._--It was dark when I reached the St. Albans
Station yesterday. Lord Verulam’s carriage was in waiting for guests: I
got into it with three others. ‘Lord Beaconsfield was with us in the
train,’ said the young lady of the party, ‘and I am sure he is going to
Gorhambury, and oh! I _am_ so glad he has taken a fly.’ We drove up to
the great porticoed house in the dark, and a small winding staircase
took us to a great lofty hall, furnished as a sitting-room. Here we
found Lady Verulam, two of her daughters, Lady Catherine Weyland, &c.
Other guests appeared at dinner--the sallow basilisk face of Lord
Beaconsfield: his most amusing secretary, Montagu Corry: Lord Exeter,
with long black hair: Lady Exeter, tall, very graceful and
refined-looking, but with the coldest manner in the world: a young Lord
Mount-Charles: Scudamore Stanhope, remarkably pleasant: Charlie
Duncombe, very pleasant too: Lady Mary Cecil: Dowager Lady Craven,
always most agreeable.
“Lord Verulam is permanently lame and on two crutches, but most
agreeable and kindly. This morning I sat to draw the ruin of Lord
Bacon’s house (Lady Craven saved it when it was going to be pulled
down). The place is full of relics of him, his observatory in the park:
the ‘Kissing Oak,’ beneath which Queen Elizabeth embraced him: the
‘Queen’s Ride,’ used when she came to visit him: curious painted
terra-cotta busts of his father and mother and of himself as a child, in
the library: and in the dining-room a large portrait of his brother,
which he (the brother) painted himself, the most prominent feature being
his legs, of which he was evidently exceedingly proud.
“In the afternoon I drove with Lady Exeter, Lady Catherine Weyland, and
Lady Jane Grimston to St. Albans, and went over the abbey with Mr.
Chapel, the delightfully enthusiastic clerk of the works, who repeatedly
exclaimed, ‘It is the pride of my life, sir; it is the pride of my
life.’ He has most beautifully put together, from the fragments found,
the two great shrines of the place, of St. Alban and St. Amphipolis
(Arthur Stanley doubts the existence of the latter saint, and thinks the
name was only that of a cloak), not adding or inventing a single bit;
and the whole interior of the abbey has been hitherto done in the same
way, being perhaps the one church in England really restored, not
remodelled. In returning we stopped at St. Michael’s to see the tomb of
Lord Bacon, represented as he sat in his chair--‘sic sedebat.’”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 21._--At dinner last night and all day Lord Beaconsfield seemed
absorbed, scarcely noticed any one, barely answered his hostess when
spoken to. Montagu Corry[269] said that his chief declared that the
greatest pleasure in life was writing a book, because ‘in that way alone
man could become a creator:’ that his habit was to make marionettes,
and then to live with them for some months before he put them into
action. Lately he had made some marionettes; now he was living with
them, and their society occupied him entirely.
“To-day Lord Verulam showed me many of the relics of the house--the
decision of his ancestor, Judge Crook, releasing Hampden: a deed of
free-warren from Henry II. confirming to one of his ancestors another
deed of his grandfather Henry I.: the portrait of Edward Grimston
(1460), the oldest known authentic portrait in England, representing a
man who fought at Towton, but afterwards made peace with Edward IV.,
lived in retirement, and is mentioned in the Paston Letters.
“Lord Verulam told me of his discovery that Lord Lovat was seventy-three
at the time of his execution, not eighty, as is generally affirmed. The
supposed date of his birth and the date of his learning to fence tend to
confirm this, and his _smiling_ when he looked upon his coffin-plate on
the scaffold and the line he quoted from Horace.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 25._--On Friday I drove with Lord Verulam in his victoria to
Wrothampstead. The old house there is one of the long many-gabled
houses, vine-covered, with windows and chimneys of moulded brick,
standing, backed by fine trees, in a brilliant garden. Inside it is
gloriously panelled, and has a staircase approached by balustraded gates
with a tapestried room at the top of it. It belongs to a Mr. Lawes, who
for a long time was supposed to be wasting all his time and most of his
money in chemistry, but at length by his chemistry he discovered a cheap
way of making a valuable manure, and ‘Lawes’s manure’ has made him a
millionaire.
“Yesterday we went to Tittenhanger, already familiar to me from Lady
Waterford’s descriptions. It is a charming old house, utterly
Cromwellian, most attractive and engaging, depending for its effect upon
its high overhanging roofs, and the simple, admirable brick ornaments of
its windows. The rooms are full of beautiful pictures and china, but
Lady Caledon was not there, and it is always a loss not to see the owner
_with_ a place.
“It was on hearing some one mention this house that Sydney Smith made
the impromptu--
‘Oh, pray, where is Tittenhanger?
Is it anywhere by Bangor?
Or, if it is not in Wales,
Can it, perhaps, be near Versailles?
Tell me, in the name of grace,
Is there really such a place?’
“Lady Lilian Paulet was very absurd at dinner with her story of an
American who said that, going down Piccadilly, he met a mad dog, so, as
he could not avoid him, he thrust his hand down its throat and pulled
out its inside; after which the dog ran on still, but it could no longer
say ‘bow-wow,’ it could only say ‘wow-bow.’
“It was amusing _seeing_ Lord Beaconsfield at Gorhambury: _hear_ him I
never did, except when he feebly bleated out some brief and ghastly
utterance. His is an extraordinary life. He told Lord Houghton that the
whole secret of his success was his power of never dwelling upon a
failure; he ‘had failed often, _constantly_ at first, yet had never
dwelt on it, but always gone on to something else.’”
[Illustration: TITTENHANGER.][270]
* * * * *
“_Burghley, Nov. 29._--I have been glad to come to the place which is
often called ‘the finest house in England’--a dictum in which I by no
means agree. The guests are a row of elderly baronets of only hunting
and Midland-county fame. An exception is Sir John Hay, a thorough old
_gentleman_ (an Admiral) and very agreeable. I took a Miss Fowke in to
dinner, and complained to her of the number of old baronets. ‘Yes,’ she
said, ‘they are old and they are numerous, and the central one is my
father.’
“The house is immense, but has little internal beauty. There is a series
of stately rooms, dull and oppressive, with fine tapestry and china, and
a multitude of pictures with very fine names, almost all misnamed--a
copy of the well-known Bronzino of the Medici boy being called Edward
VI.; a copy of the well-known Correggio in the National Gallery being
marked as an original by Angelica Kauffman, &c.[271] In a small closet
is a number of jewelled trinkets, including Queen Elizabeth’s watch and
thimble, and there hangs the gem of the picture collection--‘The Saviour
Blessing the Elements,’ a very expressive but most unpleasing work of
Carlo Dolci. It is the halo of the great Lord Burghley which gives the
place all its interest. He lies on his back in a scarlet robe under a
canopy in St. Martin’s Church at the entrance of the town, and close by
is a cenotaph to his father and mother, who are buried at St.
Margaret’s, Westminster. All the five churches of Stamford have merit,
and the town is interesting and picturesque.
“Lord Exeter, with his lank black hair and his wrinkled yellow
jack-boots high above the knee, looks like a soldier of Cromwell. In the
evening he and the whole family dance incessantly to the music of a
barrel-organ, which they take it in turn to wind.[272]
“The great idol of family adoration is ‘Telemachus’--the memory of
Telemachus, or rather a whole dynasty of Telemachi, for they are now
arrived at Telemachus X. The bull Telemachus I. gained more than £1000
at small county cattle-shows. His head is stuffed in the hall; his
statue in silver stands in the dining-room (where there are also silver
statues of Telemachus II. and III.), and his portrait hangs on the
wall.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 6._--On Tuesday, at King’s Cross, I met Elizabeth Biddulph, Marie
Adeane, Alethea Grenfell, and the Dalyells, and we came down together, a
merry party, to Hertford, whither the Robert Smiths sent to fetch us to
their picturesque new house of Goldings. Alethea is full of the story of
Jagherds (near Corsham)--that ‘in the difficulty of finding a house
there suitable for the clergyman, an old manor-house was suggested,
which seemed to meet all requisites. The Bishop (Ellicott) himself went
to see it, and was quite delighted with it, and the clergyman went to
reside there. But his servants would not stay, his governesses would not
stay; all said they were worried out of their lives by the figure of a
lady in blue, which appeared all over the house and on all possible
occasions; and at last the clergyman himself gave in and went away. With
the next clergyman the same thing happened, and he appealed to the
Bishop. The Bishop said he never could tell why he suggested it, but in
his answer he said, “If the apparition comes again, I should advise you
to throw as much sympathy as you can into your manner, and ask what you
can do for it.” Soon after he heard from the clergyman that this had
quite succeeded. The blue lady had appeared again, and the clergyman
immediately, with an appearance of the utmost sympathy in his
countenance, said, “Madam, is there nothing in the world I can do for
you?”--upon which a seraphic smile came over the face of the spirit, and
it vanished away and never appeared again.’
“Lately the Bishop had a letter from an old clergyman at Wisconsin in
America, who wrote to him that an aged parishioner of his had sent for
him on his deathbed, saying that he could not die happy without
recounting the facts of a crime which he had witnessed in his boyhood.
He had been taken by a gang of highwaymen who held their headquarters at
Jagherds Court in Wiltshire, and while there was witness to many deeds
of violence committed by them. Amongst others, they carried off a young
lady, and in the row and quarrels which ensued, the young lady was
murdered at Jagherds Court.
“The old clergyman, not knowing what to do with this confession, thought
the best way was to write it to the Bishop of the diocese in which
Jagherds was situated, and he wrote it to the Bishop of Gloucester, who
verified the whole, finding his correspondent a veritable clergyman, &c.
The Bishop of Gloucester told the story last week at Lord Ducie’s.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Dec. 16._--I have been intensely busy. The life of Madame
de Bunsen _unfolds_ itself in her letters more than any life I have ever
heard of. I long for the time to come when I may begin to unite, my
links, but at present I have only been making extracts--such extracts!
Her power of expression is astonishing. I discover so much that I fancy
I have felt myself, and never been able to put into words. I see in the
vast piles of MS. the means of building a very perfect memorial to her.”
* * * * *
“_Ampthill, Christmas Day, 1877._--I came here yesterday from
Holmhurst.... It was a great pleasure to find charming old Sir Francis
Doyle here with his son and daughter. Sir Francis talks incessantly and
most agreeably, and makes the mornings as interesting as the evenings.
‘C’étaient des matinées excellentes, pour lesquelles je me sentirais
encore du gout,’ as Talleyrand used to say. Sir Francis has just been
saying, apropos of how little one knows the true characters of those one
meets:--
“‘H. told me a curious thing one day. He went to dine with a cabinet
minister (I suppress the name), and there came down a lady, the
governess, cherished by the family--“a perfect treasure.” He recognised
her at once as a lady he had known very well, very intimately indeed.
She sank after that, sank into the lowest depth of that class of life.
“I used to help her with money,” he said, “as long as I could, but at
last she sank too low even for that, quite out of my sphere of
possibilities altogether, and here I found her reinstated. As I was
questioning what I ought to do, she passed near me and said only, ‘I
have sown my wild oats.’ I never told of her: I had nothing to do with
placing her where she was.”’
“With the same intention Sir Francis told a curious story of ‘Two
Shoes,’ a boy at Eton:--
“‘Two Shoes took a box to a boy-friend of his who was in another house
and said, “A number of curious things are happening in my house, and
this box contains things of value to me; I wish you would let it stay
here for a little.” The boy said, “Yes, you may leave your box, provided
only that it contains no money: I will not be responsible for anything
with money in it.” Two Shoes said there was no money in the box, and it
was left. Afterwards, when the box was moved, a great rattle as of
sovereigns was heard inside, and as the tutor of the house whence it had
been taken declared himself robbed at the same time, the boy in whose
charge the box was left thought it necessary to declare what had
happened. The sixty sovereigns lost by the tutor were found in the box.
Two Shoes was expelled.... H. went down into ---- shire lately, and there
he found Two Shoes confidential solicitor to half the county.’
“Apropos of the secret crimes of so-called ‘religious people,’ Sir
Francis said--
“‘I am quite sure that Abigail murdered her husband; that one is quite
left to understand. He could not have died of the shock of having
escaped David. Oh, no; she was a religious woman, so she waited till six
o’clock on the Sabbath evening, and then she poisoned him.’
“His stories of old times and people are endless. He said--
“‘I always keep a reminiscence of poor Lady Davy to laugh at. It was one
of those great days at Stafford House, one of their very great gala
days, and Lady Davy was in the hall in the greatest anxiety about her
carriage; and she, little woman, walked up to one of those very
magnificent flunkeys, six feet high at least and in resplendent livery,
and besought him to look after her carriage. I never saw any one _so_
civil as that man was. “I have called your Ladyship’s carriage three
times,” he said, “and it has not answered, but if your Ladyship wishes,
I will try again.”
“‘I saw the second act of that little drama. I went through the door,
beyond the awning, just when the footman was stalking haughtily and
carelessly among the link-boys and saying disdainfully, “Just give old
Davy another call.”’
“At dinner the conversation turned on Lord and Lady Lytton. She was a
Miss Doyle, a distant cousin of Sir Francis, and shortened his father’s
life by her vagaries and furies. After his father’s death Sir Francis
left her alone for many years; then it was represented to him that she
had no other relations, and that it was his duty to look after her
interests, and he consented to see her, and, at her request, to ask Sir
E. Bulwer to give her another hundred a year. This Sir Edward said he
was most willing to do, but that she must first give a written
retractation of some of the horrible accusations she had brought against
him. When Lady Bulwer heard that this retractation was demanded of her,
she turned upon Sir Francis with the utmost fury, and abused him with
every vile epithet she could think of. She afterwards wrote to him, and
directed to ‘Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, Receiver of her Majesty’s
Customs (however infamous), Thames Street, London.’ ‘But,’ said Sir
Francis, ‘I also had my day. I was asked as to her character. I
answered, “From _your_ point of view I believe her character to be quite
immaculate, for I consider her to be so perfectly filled with envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, as to have no possible room
left for the exercise of any tenderer passion.”’ Lady Bulwer appeared on
the hustings against her husband. His son told Sir Edward, ‘Do you know
my Lady is here?’--‘What, Henry’s wife!’--‘No, _yours_.’ She said, ‘He
ought to have gone to the colonies long ago, and at the Queen’s
expense.’”
* * * * *
“_Ampthill, Dec. 26._--This morning Sir Francis was attracted by the
portrait of old Lady Carlisle hanging by the drawing-room door, and he
said, ‘That portrait always reminds me of something Lady Carlisle said
once. I was speaking to her of the death of one of her sisters, and she
said, “We were all very sorry, very sorry indeed; but she (pointing to
another sister), she _cared_.”’
“For my benefit Sir Francis narrated the story of the thirty-nine
Yaconines.
“In Japan, there was one Daimio who was in rivalry with another, and who
was superseded by him, and of course his honour could not stand that, so
he committed ‘the happy despatch.’ His followers ought to have avenged
him, it was Japanese etiquette that they should, but they did not; they,
lamented and howled, but they did nothing, and the chief of them in his
agony lay down in the gutter and remained there fasting for several
days. Then one day the head-follower of the successful Daimio, passing
by, saw him in the gutter, and spurned him with his foot and said, ‘You
beast, you coward, you brute! do you intend to lie there and let your
master go unavenged?’ but the man still lay crouched and grovelling and
took no notice.
“But a time came when the followers of the successful Daimio were
dispersed, and then the thirty-eight servants of the dead man arose and
went to him, and kneeling around him said with courtesy, ‘We do not wish
to cut your throat, do not compel us; take the happy despatch;’ but the
Daimio would not take their advice, he could not bring his mind to it;
so then the Yakonines performed their duty, and they cut his throat.
When they had done that, the thirty-eight Yakonines summoned all the
people together to attend them, for they were about to perform their
final duty, their ‘happy despatch’ to the manes of their master, and the
thirty-eight performed it, amid the acclamations of the people over
their fidelity even to death. But when, afterwards, men came to count
the corpses, behold there were thirty-nine: the enemy who had spurned
the Yakonine as he lay in the gutter repented when he saw that he had
accused him falsely, and had silently joined the procession of death:
there were thirty-nine Yakonines who died.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 27._--Last night a French play was acted, ‘Madame Choufleuri
reçoit chez elle.’ Mr. Lowther, who was merely an old French gentleman
spectator, created for himself a part which was a whole dumb dramatic
performance in itself.