[421] This was my last visit to the kind and excellent Lotteringo della Stufa, who died at Castagnolo, Feb. 26, 1889, after a long and painful illness.
[422] From “Days near Rome.”
[423] From “Days near Rome.”
[424] From “Days near Rome.”
[425] From “Central Italy.”
[426] From “Central Italy.”
[427] From “South-Eastern France.”
[428] From “North-Eastern France.”
[429] Lady Gage died a few months after, and left Hengrave to Lord Kenmare, who sold it.
[430] Ockwells was afterwards bought by my friend Stephen Leech, who restored it thoroughly and then sold it again.
[431] Frances Mary, daughter of Christopher Blackett of Wylam, widow of the Vicomte du Quaire.
[432] Emma, sister of Sir Francis Seymour.
[433] Margaret, daughter of T. Steuart Gladstone, Esq., of Capenoch.
[434] Anne, daughter of the Earl of Wemyss and March, wife of the 4th Earl of Warwick.
[435] Edward Heneage Dering was the author of several books. His last, a novel—“The Ban of Maplethorpe”—was only completed the day before his sudden death in November 1892. His grandmother, Lady Maria Harrington Price, and my grandmother. Lady Paul, were first cousins.
[436] From “South-Eastern France.”
[437] From “South-Eastern France.”
[438] From “South-Eastern France.”
[439] From “South-Eastern France.”
[440] From “South-Eastern France.”
[441] From “South-Eastern France.”
[442] From “South-Eastern France.”
[443] From “South-Eastern France.”
[444] From “South-Eastern France.”
[445] From “South-Eastern France.”
[446] From “South-Eastern France.”
[447] From “South-Eastern France.”
[448] From “Sussex.”
[449] He had been sub-editor of the Times.
[450] From “Walks in London.”
[451] Prince Abu’n Nasr Mir Hissanum, Sultanah of Persia; Devawongse Varspraker of Siam; and Komatsu of Japan.
[452] Princess “Liliuokalani.” Queen Liliuokalani was deposed January 1893, after a reign of only two years.
[453] Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham.
[454] Fourth daughter of the 3rd Marquis of Exeter, afterwards Lady Barnard.
[455] Lady Alma Graham, youngest daughter of the 4th Duke of Montrose.
[456] I never saw Mrs. Procter again; she died March 5, 1888. She liked to see people to the last. Every Sunday and Tuesday she admitted all who came to her as long as she could; then she saw a portion: up to the last few weeks she saw one or two. As Landor says, “She warmed both hands before the fire of life, and when it sank she was ready to depart.”
One day a young man remonstrated with Mrs. Procter for not going to see an exhibition of Sir Joshuas which was open at that time. “I have seen them all,” she said. “Why, Mrs. Procter, there has never been such an exhibition before.”—“I beg your pardon; there has been.”—“Why, when?”—“In 1808, and—where were you then?”
Mrs. Procter used to tell how she had been at the jubilee of George III., and would add that if she could see the jubilee of Queen Victoria she would say her “Nunc Dimittis;” and she did see it, and the Queen expressed a wish that Mrs. Procter, who was invited to her garden-party, should be especially presented to her.
Mrs. Procter—Anne Benson Procter—was born Sept. 11, 1799, being the daughter of Mr. Skepper, a small Yorkshire squire. Her mother, a Benson, who was aunt of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name, married, as her second husband, Basil Montagu, Q.C. In 1823, Miss Skepper married Bryan Waller Procter, known as Barry Cornwall, described by Patmore as a “simple, sincere, shy, and delicate soul,” well known to his contemporaries by his songs set to music by popular composers. He died in 1874.
[457] Née Janet Duff Gordon.
[458] Second daughter of the 1st Earl of Kilmorey, aged 95.
[459] Henry Cowper, than whom no one was a more universal favourite, or more deservedly so, died a few months after this.
[460] Afterwards Lady Swansea.
[461] Third son of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, married Ellen, 2nd daughter of the 19th Earl of Morton.
[462] Lady Gertrude Talbot, daughter of the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.
[463] Esquire being written as well as Reverend, is supposed to have been intended to indicate the son of a baronet.
[464] In 1890 Mr. Pigott died, and the new Rector destroyed the character of Bemerton by adding largely to the rectory in red brick.
[465] The Earl of Caledon’s place in Hertfordshire.
[466] The 16th Earl, father of the Princesses Doria and Borghese.
[467] Browning.
[468] From “North-Western France.”
[469] Sir John Saville’s.
[470] Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland, who died August 21, 1891.
[471] Afterwards Duchess of Portland.
[472] Louisa, daughter of Henry Drummond, Esq., died 1890.
[473] Algernon-George, 6th Duke of Northumberland.
[474] How well I remember, when somebody remonstrated with Lady Marian for “burning the candle at both ends,” the quickness with which she answered—“Why, I thought that was the very way to make two ends meet.”
[475] Her father, Benjamin Bathurst (third son of Henry Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich), travelling as envoy from the British Government to the Emperor Francis, was about to enter his carriage at the door of the Swan Inn at Perleberg, between Berlin and Hamburg, when he disappeared and was never heard of again. Her brother was killed by a fall from his horse in a race at Rome. Her sister, Emmeline, who married (1830) Lord Castle Stuart, and afterwards (1867) Signor Pistocchi, I have often seen at Rome.
[476] From “South-Eastern France.”
[477] From “South-Western France.”
[478] From “South-Eastern France.”
[479] From “South-Western France.”
[480] Mr. Challoner Chute, of the Vyne, died, deeply regretted, May 30, 1892.
[481] The picture belongs to Mr. Morison.
[482] From “South-Eastern France.”
[483] From “Venice.”
[484] A few months after this happy visit to my dear friend Sir Howard Elphinstone came the terrible news of his sudden death at sea.
[485] Georgiana, third daughter of Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond.
[486] The four seraphim are recognised by the Moslems as Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Israel. Before the birth of the Prophet they were supposed to speak, and to give warning of coming catastrophes. Thus they have been permitted to survive the other ancient mosaics of St. Sophia.
[487] Marion Crawford’s novel.
[488] Joseph Maier, the eminent wood-sculptor.
[489] “Die Früchte der Passionbetrachtung.”
[490] “I know no guilt like that of incontinent speech. How long Christ was silent before He spoke, and how little He then said.”—Carlyle, in Reid’s Life of Lord Houghton.
[491] A passage in Richard Kurd’s Sermons (vol. ii.), which I had read long ago, would come back to me during this terrible hour. “In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half-confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested.”
[492] John Inglesant.
[493] Paul Verlaine.
[494] The birth of John, Henry, and Thomas Palmer is perhaps the only well-authenticated instance of a fortnight intervening between the eldest and the youngest child produced at a birth. It is described by Fuller. Their mother was Alice, daughter of John Clement. Sir Henry lost his life in the defence of Guisnes, of which he was governor. Sir Thomas was beheaded for the part which he took for Lady Jane Grey.
[495] Née Magniac.
[496] Austin Dobson, “Angiola in Heaven.”
[497] From “Biographical Sketches.”
[498] From “Northern Italy.”
[499] Onions and lettuces. The lower classes in Rome call all the smaller vegetables fruit.
[500] “Yes, lady; it is enough for me to think of that shoemaker who made me pay seven francs instead of five, and I cry directly.”
[501] A mineral fountain near Rome.
[502] William Wetmore Story died—deeply loved by children, friends, indeed by all who came within his genial and invigorating influence—at Vallombrosa, Oct. 7, 1895, aged 77. His excellent wife had passed away before him.
[503] From “Days near Rome.”
[504] Planted by S. Dominic, and supposed to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Dominican Order.
[505] From “Days near Rome.”
[506] From “Venice.”
[507] Lady Emily Pierrepont, daughter of Earl Manvers, widow of Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp.
[508] Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford.
[509] I have since heard that this was Louise de Rohan Chabot, whom his father forbade Lord Orford to marry, because she was a Roman Catholic. She was the love of his life, which was wrecked, and he became a Roman Catholic himself—such is Nemesis!
[510] This was the man who one day went up to the great, the beloved Bishop Brooks, the most popular man in America since Washington, and said, “And do you really believe all that you say?” “I wanted to knock him down, the little moth-eaten angel,” said the Bishop in recounting it afterwards.
[511] At Lincoln he had “a fair tomb of marble,” with the punning legend, “Longa terra mansura ejus, Dominus dedit.” The reference is to the Vulgate—Job xi. 9. At Eton he had an epitaph on brass.
[512] I never saw the beloved Lord Arthur Hervey again: he died June 1894.
[513] From “Sussex.”
[514] From “Sussex.”
[515] Lord John George Beresford.
[516] G. V. Watts, R.A.
[517] Henry Fuseli or Fuessli, an Anglo-Swiss.
[518] The famous J. M. W. Turner.
[519] The Marquises of Sligo are Earls of Altamont.
[520] From “The Gurneys of Earlham.”
[521] Carlyle.
[522] Chateaubriand.
[523] From “North-Western France.”
[524] From “North-Western France.”
[525] From “North-Western France.”
[526] From “North-Western France.”
[527] From “Biographical Sketches.”
[528] Alas! this was actually the case a very few months afterwards. The dear Canon Venables died of influenza on the 5th of March 1895, and his gentle loving wife only survived him one day.
[529] She was daughter of an Earl of Thanet.
[530] Shakspeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
[531] “Whose voice seemed faint through long disuse of speech.”
[532] Of “Diana Tempest,” &c.
[533] In “The High Tide in Lincolnshire.”
[534] Philip Henry, 4th Earl.
[535] Jerome K. Jerome.
[536] Memoires de “Madame.”
[537] “John Inglesant.”
[538] Henri Frederic Amiel.
[539] Louisa May, daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott.
[540] In three years the sale amounted to 87,000 copies.
[541] Daughter of Rev. Edward Payson, afterwards Mrs. Hopkins.
[542] Thomas Hardy, the novelist, resides at Max Gale, near Dorchester, amid the scenery of his Wessex novels and stories.
[543] Mrs. Beecher Stowe in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
[544] The others were Lady Wellesley, Lady Stafford, and Mrs. M’Tavish.
[545] Bought out of a cart in Paris, died 1753.
[546] The second saying, ‘I have been here three months, and have seen a little;’—the third, ‘I have been here three years, and am only beginning to understand it.’
[547] Alfred Tennyson in 1892.
[548] George Eliot’s Letters.
[549] This very popular and promising son of Lord Carlisle was killed at the battle of Omdurman, September 2, 1898.
[550] Wordsworth.
[551] Coleridge, ‘Fears in Solitude.’
[552] “Arridet placidum radiis crispantibus aequor.”—Rutilius.
[553] Lady Winchelsea’s “Reverie.”
[554] Eccl. vii. 29.
[555] De Musset.
[556] Author of “A Lilac Sun-Bonnet,” &c.
[557] Author of “A Window in Thrums,” which brought him £4000.
[558] Madame de Staël.
[559] Afterwards bought by his descendant for £8000.