where Sir R. Wallace received us. His riches are untold and
indescribable. He showed them very pleasantly, and had much that was
interesting to tell about them.”
* * * * *
“_July 3._--To Syon with the Lockers and Leslies. So few people came at
first, owing to the wet, that we were most cordially welcomed by the
Duke and Lady Percy. Soon it cleared and half London began to pour in;
but the long wide galleries never seem crowded. I reached the
conservatories with Mary and Lily Hughes, and the gardener showed us
some bamboos which, he said, grew twelve inches a day!”
* * * * *
“_July 4._--Oh, the constant variety of the tangle of London life! This
morning was occupied by a special farewell service in Henry VII.’s
chapel at Westminster for Arthur Gordon and Victor Williamson going out
to Fiji. Arthur Stanley preached, standing behind the altar over Edward
VI.’s grave, a most pagan little sermon about Alexander and Priam and
the sacred fire of Troy as a comfort to wandering souls! We all received
the Sacrament together, and then took leave of the travellers in the
Chapter-House.”
* * * * *
“_July 5._--A reprieve from duties to the Prince, who has gone to
Windsor and Aldershot. I had the great happiness of seeing Lady
Castletown and Mrs. Lewis Wingfield again after four years. It is
delightful to see any one who ‘knows how’ to enjoy themselves: every one
wishes it, but scarcely any one has an idea how it is to be done.
“At dinner at Sir Rutherford Alcock’s I heard the startling news of the
death of Frances, Lady Waldegrave.[311] To me she was only a lay figure,
receiving at her drawing-room door, but I remember her thus ever since I
was a boy at Oxford, when she was living at Nuneham. In spite of her
faults, she had many and warm friends: Lord Houghton sobbed like a child
on receiving the news in the midst of a large party. News which affected
me more personally was the death of dear young Charlie Ossulston[312]
from cholera in India.... I heard it at the Speaker’s party, which was
most beautiful, with windows wide open to the river in the glory of full
moonlight, with which the many lamp-reflections were vainly contending,
gold against silver, upon the wavelets.”
* * * * *
“_Sunday, July 6._--To Bedford Chapel to hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach
on the world as an arena and men as gladiators. ‘But who are the
witnesses on the encircling seats?’ These he described, from dwellers
in the present life to a crowd, such as that painted ‘by artists of
illimitable ideas but limited powers,’ of the glorious army of apostles,
confessors, and martyrs, who all diverge from Christ as a centre.”
* * * * *
“_July 10._--A charming party at Syon, where I walked about with dear
old Lady Barrington. A very pleasant dinner at Lord Brownlow’s, where
was a whole succession of beautiful ladies--the lovely hostess herself,
Lady Pembroke, Lady Lothian, Lady de Vesci, Lady Wharncliffe, Mrs.
Reginald Talbot, &c. These high-bred beauties are indeed a contrast to
those known as the ‘professional beauties.’ Most exquisite singing in
the evening, then a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s to meet the Duke
and Duchess of Edinburgh.”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--Dined at Sir Dudley Marjoribanks’--Brook House a beautiful
interior with marvellous china. There was such a procession of Earls and
Countesses, that it fell to my share to take Mrs. Gladstone in to
dinner. Disraeli had said to her, ‘Now _do_ take care of Mr. Gladstone;
you know he is _so_ precious.’”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--The dear Prince Imperial’s funeral. I was very sorry not to
go, but my Prince evidently thought I could not, having known him so
well and yet having no recognised place.
“Our whole hearts are with the Empress. How many instances there have
been of her perfectly noble character since she has been in England.
None are more striking than that which regarded M. Guizot. He had hated
the Imperial government, he had reviled the Emperor: there was no ill
which he did not wish him. But his youngest son, Guillaume, got into
serious money troubles, and eventually he borrowed a large sum--£4000 it
is said--from the Emperor. It was concealed from his father. Long, very
long afterwards, when the Emperor was dead, M. Guizot found it out. It
was agony to him. It was most difficult to him to pay the money, but he
determined to do it at any sacrifice, and he wrote to tell the Empress
so. The Empress answered by telegraph--‘L’Impératrice donne, mais elle
ne prête pas.’”
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Lady Ashburton had asked the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden
to dinner as well as my Prince, so I went to help her by acting Master
of the Ceremonies and receiving the royalties in the hall of Kent House.
While I was waiting, watching at the window, a fair young man arrived
unattended and ran upstairs. I took no notice of _him_. Then I received
the Prince Royal properly, escorted him as far as Lady Ashburton’s
curtsies, and came back to wait for the young Grand Duke. At last Lady
Ashburton sent down to tell me he was _there_, had been there the whole
time: he was the young man who ran upstairs.
“I had much talk with him afterwards--a tall, simple, pleasing-mannered
youth, much more responsive than my Prince, and good-looking, though
very German in appearance. There were glees at dinner, sung in the
anteroom, and a large party and concert in the evening.”
* * * * *
“_July 16._--A beautiful party at Holland House. There was quite a mass
of royalty on the lawn--the Prince and Princess of Wales and their
little girls (in pink trimmed with red), the Edinburghs, the Connaughts,
the Tecks, with their little girl and two nice boys in sailor’s dress,
the Duchess of Mecklenbourg, the Prince of Baden, and my Prince. The
royal children were all in raptures over some performing dogs, which
really were very funny, as a handsome Spitz looked so ecstatically
delighted to ride about on the lawn on a barrel pushed by a number of
other dogs.
“Dined at Lord Muncaster’s, where I sat by Lady Cairns and Mrs. Cross,
both worth listening to. The Muncasters, by M. Henri’s aid, have given
quite an old Flemish interior to a handsome commonplace house in Carlton
Gardens.
“A concert afterwards at Lady Brownlow’s--all the three beautiful
sisters were there, and most lovely in their different phases.”
* * * * *
“_July 18._--Luncheon with young Lady Morley and dinner with her
mother-in-law, then to a concert at Stafford House. The Duchess (of
Sutherland) talked much and affectionately of my sister, whom so few
remember now. The Spanish Students were ranged with their instruments on
the broad landing of the staircase, and the whole scene was like that
of the play of ‘Hamlet.’ The Prince of Wales walked about and talked,
winning good opinions by the attention with which he always seems to
listen to whoever is speaking to him.”
* * * * *
“_July 19._--Went down with the special train to Hatfield, and drove up
from the station to the house with old Lady Ailesbury. An immense party
of Dukes and Duchesses, &c., were already collected to welcome the
royalties, Lady Salisbury receiving them in a large rough straw
garden-bonnet. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden arrived early, and I
was sent off with him to see the old Elizabethan buildings, the stables,
&c. He is extremely pleasing, responsive, and conversable, and his
admiration of the place was most intense and natural. I walked about
with different friends till the royal party drove up in six carriages.
They were all going to stay at Hatfield till Monday, fifty people,
besides servants. I came back at eight.”
* * * * *
“_July 21._--Met the Prince Royal at Waterloo Station, where a great
many people were collected to see him off. Lady Marian Alford joined us,
and we floated into Hampshire in a royal saloon carriage. I went to my
Prince in the little private compartment, and had a long talk with him,
in which all the growing mists of the London season seemed to be swept
away at once, and our intimate trust and affection for each other
restored upon its old footing.
“Carriages from Lady Waterford met us at Holmsley, and we had a
pleasant but rather cold drive through the forest. In the gothic porch
of Highcliffe, Lady Waterford was waiting with Mr. and Lady Jane Ellice,
and Miss Lindsay. Alwyn Greville came in the evening, and a few people
to dinner. The ladies sang, Miss Lindsay recited, and the Prince also
sang a little.”
* * * * *
“_July 22._--A misty day, but still, and Highcliffe delightful.
“The King had said so much to the Prince about Lady Waterford, that he
is at his very best here, and he has had well-worth-while conversation
with Lady Marian. We drove with Colonel Thursby’s four-in-hand to Herne
Park, and in the afternoon looked for fossils on the cliffs, where M. de
Printzsköld sank up to his knees in a bog of black mud. In the evening
there was a little ball, opened by the dear Lady herself with the
Prince.... The Prince was enchanted with everything, and said he would
rather sit by either of ‘the three ladies’ at Highcliffe[313] than by
the most beautiful young lady in England.”
* * * * *
“_July 23._--The Prince was so anxious that I should go with him to
Devonshire that I consented to leave Highcliffe with him after
breakfast. We had a pleasant journey through the rich Somersetshire
orchards, and during a wait at Templecombe, a ramble with the Prince to
the church. We have met the Swedish equerries again, and life is not
always quite as easy as it has been without them: however, though we
have our ups and downs, we have also our downs and ups, and ‘si gravis,
brevis,’ is a proverb one can always remember.”
* * * * *
“_July 24._--Torbay is bluer than I ever saw the Bay of Naples, and the
sun shines on the red rocks of Paignton and the white sails flitting
over the limpid water. My windows look into the grounds of Rockend--the
steep field, the little wood, the very windows of the house connected
with many of the miseries of my childhood.[314] I have wandered on the
terraces--to the rock walk; the seat where I used to see Uncle Julius
and Aunt Esther sitting in the first year of their marriage; ‘Cummany’s
Corner,’ where ladies-finger and coronilla grow still; the tower where
Aunt Lucy used to meditate and pray. Almost all the friends--and enemies
too--of my childhood have passed away now, and it is in places like this
which recall them so vividly, that I feel the longing Webster describes
in the ‘Duchess of Melfi’:--
“‘O that it were possible we might
But hold some two days’ conference with the dead!
From them I should learn something I am sure
I never shall learn here.’”
“_July 26._--I took leave of the Prince in his bedroom before he was
dressed. Our real separation must come soon; and though in many ways I
shall feel wonderfully set free when my responsibility is over, my heart
always yearns toward him.”
* * * * *
“_Lyme Hall, August 6._--After two days at Thornycroft in familiar
scenes, I have come to Lyme to receive the Prince Royal. Only Mr. and
Mrs. Davenport are here, with their pretty daughter, engaged to marry
Tom Legh.”
* * * * *
“_August 7._--The Prince arrived from Manchester. I went to receive him
at Disley Station and to present Mr. Legh, who had never seen him
before. James II.’s rooms were prepared for him.”
* * * * *
“_August 8._--I sat out much of the day with Mrs. Legh, while the Prince
played at lawn-tennis, and in the afternoon I drove with Mrs. Legh and
Mrs. Davenport along the hills and moor, while he rode with the others.
He is much delighted with the great Lyme dogs, and is to have one of
them; to his great disappointment the wild cattle have almost ceased to
exist. He will only be interested in facts, never in vision or its
emotions, and it is no use to tell him that--
“‘Man’s books are but man’s alphabet,
Beyond and on his lessons lie--
The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky:
The love of beauty, blossomed soil,
The large content, the tranquil toil.’”[315]
* * * * *
“_August 9._--Left Lyme with the Prince and the Davenports in a saloon
carriage to Crewe. I sat alone with the Prince most of the time in the
inner compartment. We parted at Crewe intending to meet again in three
days’ time.”
* * * * *
“_Betton House, August 10._--With the dear old Tayleurs. To church at
Mucklestone, and afterwards to Mr. Hinchcliffe’s charming vicarage
garden. From the church tower Margaret of Anjou watched the battle of
Blore Heath, and in the village the same family (with the same name)
still officiate as blacksmiths, one of whose members shoed the Queen’s
horse backwards to be ready for her escape if it was needed, and thus
saved her.”
* * * * *
“_August 11._--To Buntingsdale, beautiful as in childish
remembrance,[316] with the real scent of the lime-trees, which has often
come back to me in dreams.”
* * * * *
“_Glamis Castle, August 13._--I arrived at Glamis at 9 P.M., and found
an immense party in the house--Sir James and Lady Ramsay, Lord and (the
very charming) Lady Sydney Inverurie, Lord and Lady Northesk, and many
others. Lord Strathmore has made great preparations, and the Prince
would have had the most royal reception here which he has met with
anywhere; but, to the great inconvenience of every one, he has put off
leaving Hopetoun, where he is, being ill with toothache.
“I have been sitting out much with Lady Sydney Inverurie, who went for
her wedding tour to--Japan! She is most amusing about her children and
the agony they keep her in as to how to answer their questions. One had
just asked her ‘Who cut God’s hair?’ and upon her describing the events
of Eden, asked why Adam and Eve did not climb over the walls and get out
the other way, because the angel could not come after them, as God had
commanded him to _stay_ at the gate.”
* * * * *
“_August 15._--I have greatly enjoyed this visit at Glamis, and am glad
to feel the cousinly tie drawn closer to the Lyon boys individually as
well as collectively. Miss Macdonald was very amusing in her stories.
“A Bishop (Wilberforce of course) remonstrated with a country curate in
his diocese for driving tandem. The curate said, ‘Well, my Lord, I
cannot see that there is more harm in my driving my horses before each
other than in my driving them side by side.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Bishop,
‘there really is a fitness in things; for example, if I put my hands so
(folding them together), no one can reproach me, but if I put them _so_
(cutting a snooks), they might reproach me very much indeed.’
“In the winter the Duchess of Leinster had a large Christmas party for
her servants, and took particular pains to make it agreeable for them.
Afterwards she asked her old housekeeper how she had enjoyed it. ‘Oh,
your Grace, I should have enjoyed it very much indeed, if something most
dreadful had not happened, which has made me perfectly
miserable.’--‘What can it have been?’ said the Duchess. ‘Oh, it was
something so dreadful, I really cannot tell your Grace: I was so
dreadfully insulted by the butler, I really cannot repeat his
words.’--‘Oh, but you really must,’ said the Duchess. ‘Well, your Grace,
if I really must, I must tell your Grace that I was coming out from
supper, and I had only had the wing of a pheasant and a little bit of
jelly, and I met the butler, and he said to me “Is your programme
_full_?” Now your Grace will allow that _that_ was so insulting that
pleasure was not to be thought of afterwards.’
“Miss Erica Robertson said:--
“‘Bishop Wilberforce was going, in a visitation tour, to stay at a very
humble clergyman’s house. The maid was instructed that, if he spoke to
her, she was never to answer him without saying “My Lord.” When the
Bishop had written his letters, he asked who would take them to the
post. “The Lord, my boy,” said the terrified maid.’”
* * * * *
“_August 24._--I left Glamis on Monday, and went by Dalmally to Oban
through the Brender Pass--beautiful exceedingly, the mountains so varied
and encircling such varied waters.
“On Thursday, at dawn, I saw all the mountains meeting their shadows in
the still waters of Oban Bay, and determined to go to Staffa. It was a
crowded, rolling, smelly steamer, and I was very miserable, but rather
better than worse when the fresh air in the Atlantic made up for the
additional rolling. At twelve we reached Iona--different from what I
expected, the island larger and the ruins smaller, and without the
romantic effect of those on Holy Island. Still, of course, the interest
is intense of the cradle of Scottish Christianity, the Throndtjem of
Scotland. I found some pleasant boys, sons of a Glasgow merchant,
sketching, and made great friends with them. An agony of Atlantic swell
brought us to Staffa, but oh! how grand it is!--the grandest cathedral
of nature, black with age and roofed with golden vegetation, rising out
of the blue sea and lashed by the white foam. I drew a little on the
basaltic columns opposite Fingal’s Cave, whilst the mass of the
passengers were landing and scrambling about the cavern, and then my boy
friends and I climbed the long staircases to the top, where the breezy
downs are enamelled with flowers, and the view is most sublime--of the
Atlantic, the islands in their fantastic shapes, the distant ghost of
shadowy mountains in Skye, and the turbulent waves beneath. I never saw
any single place which makes such an impression of natural sublimity.
“How the interests and emotions of life are mingled! In the train, on
leaving Glamis, I heard of the death of my dear uncle-like cousin Lord
Bloomfield, and while I was drawing Dunolly Sir John Lefevre was passing
away! Though the delicate thread which bound his life to earth was so
indescribably frail, it _had_ lasted so long, that it is difficult to
realise that his loving sympathy and the holy example of his beautiful,
humble, and self-forgetful life are removed from us. He was the best man
I have ever known and the truest friend. His sweet courtesies were
unbounded. His advice was always worth taking, for it was always
unselfish, always carefully considered, and it always came from the
heart. While I honoured him like a father, he was so genial that I could
also love him as an intimate friend.”
* * * * *
“_Ascot, August 25, 1879._--I am thankful to have come here to the
Lefevres’ to-day, so filled with crushing sorrow to all my dear cousins,
though no one can help being comforted in the beautiful recollections of
the beloved father--of his boundless love to all, and his painless
passage, full of thankfulness and love to the last, to the full fruition
of that love in the unseen.
“I walked with his children to the church, where his coffin already
lay[317] in the chancel covered with garlands. Lord Eversley and Emma
Lefevre were there, and many others. The grave was in a sheltered corner
of the churchyard, a sunny peaceful spot, and there, with aching hearts,
we laid him.”
* * * * *
“_Ledbury Court,[318] Sept. 13._--This is just the sort of place which
is pleasantest--great comfort and no pretension, rather under than over
a very good income. The house, many-gabled and quaint, is _in_ the old
street of the town, but you drive into a large paved court with a
porter’s lodge and pavilion, and clipped bay-trees in tubs like those of
an old hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain. Behind, pleasant modern rooms
and an oak library open upon lawns with brilliant flowers, beyond which
a deer-park extends up wavy hills to a high terrace with a noble view
over the western counties.
“On Wednesday we went to the musical festival at Hereford. The cathedral
is entirely ruined by restoration--a disgusting polychrome roof, and a
piteous glazed-tile floor replacing the ancient pavement consecrated by
five centuries. After the Oratorio we went to luncheon with the Bishop,
Dr. Attley, and at the palace I met many old friends.
“Yesterday we went to Eastnor. Lord and Lady Somers were away, but we
saw the gardens, which would be beautiful if they were not spoilt by too
many pines and araucarias, and the house, a hideous castle of Otranto,
so unworthily occupying a noble situation. It contains a few fine
pictures, but the rooms are frightful.”
* * * * *
“_Holme Lacy, Sept. 14._--My visit at Ledbury was a very happy one,
Libbet so cheerful and pleasant, Charlie Adeane so engaging and
affectionate, dear Lady Hardwicke so delightful, and Alick Yorke so
amusing.
“I came here last night, met at the station by Sir Henry Stanhope. It
has been a magnificent place, but was injured as much as possible by the
late possessor with the assistance of the ignorant architect who built
Lord Dudley’s house in Park Lane, who tried hard to turn it from a
French château into a Grecian villa. Some of the ceilings, however, are
quite glorious, and there are many fine portraits.... Lady Scudamore
Stanhope, ‘the most popular woman in the county,’ was Sir Adam Hay’s
eldest daughter Dora.”[319]
* * * * *
“_Cheltenham, Sept. 15, 1879._--I do not know when, if ever, I have seen
anything so beautiful as the park at Holme Lacy. All Sunday afternoon I
wandered with Sir Henry Stanhope in its glorious glades, with fern nine
feet high, grand old oaks, white-stemmed beeches, and deep blue depths
of mossy dingle. The garden too is quite a poem--such a harmony of
colour backed by great yew hedges and grand old pine-trees. Seven
hundred people on an average come to see it on the days it is shown, and
no wonder.... We went to service at an old church full of tombs of the
family, and afterwards to the rectory close by, where there is a
wonderful old pear-tree, of which the branches always take root again
when they fall off, and cover an immense extent, sometimes producing as
much as 2000 gallons of perry.
“In coming hither I stayed to see Gloucester--scarcely worth while, all
is so modernised. Yet the cathedral tower and crypt are beautiful, and
the Norman nave fine. I saw there the tomb of an ancestor, Sir
Onesiphorus Paul, of whom I knew nothing before, but it appears from his
epitaph that he was ‘the first to put into practice the humane designs
of Howard as to prison discipline.’”
* * * * *
“_Cheltenham, Sept. 16._--Mrs. Orlando Kenyon is staying here with the
Corbetts. She was a Cotton, and is a very charming person. She described
going with her cousin Miss Cotton (now Dowager Marchioness of Downshire)
to Peover for a ball. Just as they were setting off news arrived of the
death of her cousin’s grandfather, old Mr. Fulke Greville. However, as
the visit was settled, it was decided that it should take place, only
that Miss Cotton should not go to the ball and her cousin should. They
slept together at Peover. In the night Miss Cotton woke Mrs. Kenyon and
said, ‘I have had such an extraordinary dream. I have seen my mother
moving backwards and forwards between the doors at the end of the room,
not walking, but apparently moving in the air--floating with a quantity
of gossamer drapery round her; and when I close my eyes, I seem to see
her still.’ In the morning the cousins returned to Combermere.
“Just before dinner a servant called Mr. Cotton (Mrs. Kenyon’s father)
and said Lord Combermere wanted to speak to him. ‘Oh,’ said Miss Cotton,
springing forward, ‘then I am sure some news has come by the post,’ and
she tried to insist upon following her uncle, but he would not allow
her. Mr. Cotton came back greatly agitated, but insisted on their all
going in to dinner. It was a most wretched meal. Afterwards he told the
son and daughter that their mother had died (just after her father’s
funeral) very suddenly, just when she had appeared at Peover.
“We went yesterday to Southam, the beautiful old house of the De la
Beres. After the De la Beres became extinct, it was bought by Lord
Ellenborough, and it contains a mixture of relics of the two
families--charming old furniture and pictures, including a grand Holbein
of Edward VI. One of the De la Beres saved the life of the Black Prince
at Crecy, and a Prince of Wales’s helmet and feathers over a
chimney-piece commemorate the fact. Three Miss Sergisons of Cuckfield
Park inhabit the house now--kindly, pleasant old ladies.”
* * * * *