Part 1

Leaves from the Note-Books

of

Lady Dorothy Nevill

EDITED BY RALPH NEVILL

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1907

PREFACE

When, some time ago, a collection of my mother’s reminiscences was given to the public, we received a large number of suggestions that a second similar volume would be certain of the same cordial welcome as was extended to the first. The following pages, containing memories and observations extending over a long period of years, are the result of these kindly exhortations.

The task of arrangement and of selection from my mother’s scrap-books and note-books has been carried out by me under her supervision; and I have also included as many recollections, hitherto unpublished, as her very excellent memory was able to furnish. Of the many anecdotes which are given, the majority, it is hoped, are here told for the first time in print; most of them, indeed, recount personal experiences of her own or of some of the well-known people with whom during a long life it has been her privilege to meet. In preparing the volume valuable assistance, which it is our desire here gratefully to acknowledge, has been rendered by many well-wishers, some of them old friends, some of them unknown to us except by their encouraging and helpful letters.

It may be added that my only aim in the pages which follow has been to arrange a mass of material—some of it no doubt old, but a great deal, I hope, new—in such a form as may interest and amuse the reader and thus serve to occupy a few leisure hours. If failure be the result, the blame must be laid entirely at my door; while should the book in any measure achieve its aim, the whole credit belongs properly to my mother.

RALPH NEVILL.

CONTENTS

I

PAGE My scrap-books—A female politician of other days—Souvenirs of past elections—_The Nottingham Lamb_—Bernal Osborne and his Irish friend—Taxes—Political caricatures—Sir F. Carruthers Gould—Sir Frank Lockwood—Lord Vernon and the Pope—Old menus—Weddings of the past—Some anecdotes—Mrs. Norton—The Duchess of Somerset—_The Owl_—The Fourth Party—Sir Henry Drummond Wolff—The Comte de Paris and the Primrose League—Lord Randolph Churchill and his resignation of office 1

II

Society—Conversation and the lack of it—Miss Gordon Cumming and Munro of Novar—The Duke of Wellington’s hatred of publicity—Sir Robert Peel’s wedding at Apsley House—Mr. Delane—An eccentric patron—A curate’s wit—The Stock Exchange and the West End—Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar’s drive home—American influence—Lions—Mr. Watts and the crinolette—Matchmaking—Lady Beaconsfield—Some anecdotes—Lord Henry Lennox and the Duchess of Cleveland—Maria, Marchioness of Ailesbury—Frances, Lady Waldegrave 22

III

Country houses—Letter from Lord Beaconsfield—Political influence of landowners—Guests down with the fish—Longleat—Hinchingbrooke—Goodwood—Old-time country visitors—Colonel Nelthorpe and “Wulliam”—the Norfolk Militia in the ’fifties—My father and Casanova—A good-natured giant—Old Lady Suffield—Lord George Bentinck—Admiral Rous—George Payne and Lord Alexander Lennox—Religion of the former—The Duchess of Cleveland and Battle Abbey—Anecdotes—Duke William of Normandy 41

IV

Lady Holland’s girlhood at Battle Abbey—Her “court” at Holland House—Her relationship to myself—Her ways—Her insolence—Anecdotes—Lady Palmerston—Cobden and Lord Palmerston—Lord John Russell—Lady Jersey and Lady Londonderry—Their social influence exerted in favour of Mr. Disraeli—Letters from Lady Beaconsfield—Her dinners—Lord Lyndhurst and Mr. Disraeli—Interesting letter from the latter—His difficulties in early life—His opinion of Mr. Gladstone—An ingenuous diplomatist 59

V

A memorandum by Napoleon—English opinions concerning him in other days—His effigy burnt at Norwich—The Chevalier de Bardelin—Interesting relics at Highclere—My sight of Marie Louise—The Emperor at Mass—His love of church bells—Sir Henry Drummond Wolff’s visit to Elba—Hears recollections of Napoleon’s gardener—Anecdotes—The Emperor and General Lecourbe—Baron von Kleist—Mr. Manning—Napoleon in London—“The Midnight Review” 78

VI

The Bourbons—Mdlle. Félicie de Fauveau and her vow—Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon—A buried treasure—Madame du Barry and her bankers—Her lost jewels—A possibility of existence at some bank—Her destroyers—Zamor and the Englishman Grieve—Mrs. Atkyns and the Dauphin—Her gallant effort to save the Queen—Naundorff—An American Dauphin—Eleazar Williams—Mystery surrounding the death of Louis XVII 98

VII

Travelling abroad—Munich—Lack of comforts—Baths and bathing, then and now—A careless traveller—A carriage on a railway truck in recent years—The last of the Sedan-chairs—An eccentric menu—Abraham Hayward—Acclimatising crayfish—English truffles—Change in dinner hour—Old English fare—Careless housekeeping—Cookery books—Soyer and his wife—An obsolete custom—The triumph of tobacco 120

VIII

London of the past—Eccentricities of modern architecture—Dreary modern streets—Decay of the picturesque—The dignity of old London—“The only running footman”—Berkeley Square and its memories—Lady Cowper—Lord and Lady Haversham—Charles Street and Mayfair—Curzon Street and Piccadilly—Wimborne House—A great party—Changes since the ’sixties—The last of the apothecaries—Lady Londonderry—The Sultan and his Ambassadress—Shadows of the past 140

IX

The London parks—Old prints—Rural London—Deer in Hyde Park—Its gates—Proposed railway station in the Park—Riots—Origin of the name “Rotten Row”—An unlucky suitor and his trousers—Lady Diana Beauclerk and the Baron de Géramb—Decadence of dress—The _vis-à-vis_—The end of duelling—Lord Camelford’s will—His burial-place—The first Lord Camelford—His Lines on Lady Hervey 160

X

Family pictures—Nelson and the Walpoles—A group by Devis—A fine old French picture saved by Mr. Cobden—Eccentricity of Lord Hertford—Dr. Schlieman’s bequest—Some beautiful books in Lord Carnarvon’s collection—Fashion in art—Sir Patrick Grant and the red cloak—Mr. Graves—Lord Leighton—Mr. Aidé—A genial artist—Sir David Wilkie—Scene-painting and art—Stewart relics—Silhouettes—Anecdotes of William IV.—Lady Georgiana Curzon and “Ugly Mugs”—Watch-papers—The origin of Christmas cards 179

XI

Collecting—Old watchstands—Samplers—Needlework pictures—Old military prints—French engravings—French furniture—The Hôtel de Ménars—Mr. Alfred Rothschild’s collection—The Tilsit table at Hertford House and its history—A £20,000 commode in danger—Eccentricity of Mr. Hawkins—Old English furniture inadequately represented in National Collections—Chippendale and the austere Sheraton—An apostle of good taste—Lady Hamilton’s cabinet—Furniture supports—Knole and its treasures—Origin of the dumb-bell—A gifted lady 203

XII

Favourites of the past—Siamese cats—Sir William Gregory—A feline tragedy—A dog’s last farewell—Chinese dogs at Goodwood—A reluctant swain—Mr. Mallock’s epitaph—Sandringham—Riding and driving—Anecdote of a parrot—Strange diet of a stork—My choughs and their nests—Disappointed hopes—An unwelcome arrival—Mr. Darwin’s interest in my garden—Mr. Cobden’s letter from Algiers—His interest in my silkworms—Garden books—Some pretty verses by Mr. Lowe 226

XIII

A Diorama of Florence—Vauxhall Gardens—Causes of their end in 1855—_Fête_ at Cremorne—The Coliseum—Rinks and Roller-skating—Aquariums—Zazel and Mr. Watts—Nelly Farren—The rise of the Music Hall—A visit to Evans’—Paddy Green as a collector—The Opera in old days—Taglioni and Cerito—Paul Bedford—Mr. Toole—His joke upon Sir Henry Irving—The Exhibition of 1851—Houdin, the Prince of Conjurers—Theatre at Rome—Old days at Töplitz—A libel upon the Queen 246

XIV

Changes—Old customs—Country houses—A dispirited Conservative—Wigs—The last Bishops to wear them—Some witty replies—Nightcaps—Dr. Burney and Nelson—Posy rings—Mutton-fat candles in 1835—Belvoir Castle—Old-world country life—Poachers—The last of the smugglers—A terrible crime—Hanging in chains—Pressing to death—Books bound in the skin of criminals—Sussex roads—Old ironwork—Cowdray—The monk’s curse—Otway’s birthplace—Trotton—Charles James Fox—Midhurst and its tokens—Oratory in the country 265

XV

Retrospection—The first train from Norwich—Disappearance of coaches—Railway mania of the ’forties—Hudson and his house—Steam carriages of the past—Letter franking—Society and its love of pleasure—Bridge—Decrease of betting and increase of speculation—Changes in Parliament—The late Mr. Bradlaugh—An unfortunate speech—Growth of the Press—Lady Seymour and the cook—Louis Napoleon—His witty criticism—The Franco-German war—_Paris Herself Again_—Mr. Mackenzie Grieves—The overflow of London—Disappearance of nursery gardens—Modern villagers—Folklore—Friends who have passed away 291

APPENDIX

SOME SECRET NEGOTIATIONS OF THE PRETENDER WITH SIR ROBERT WALPOLE 317

INDEX 343

PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES

LADY DOROTHY NEVILL. Painted by G. F. WATTS, R.A., in 1844 _Frontispiece_

LADY DOROTHY NEVILL. From a Portrait by the Hon. HENRY GRAVES _Face page_189

I

My scrap-books—A female politician of other days—Souvenirs of past elections—_The Nottingham Lamb_—Bernal Osborne and his Irish friend—Taxes—Political caricatures—Sir F. Carruthers Gould—Sir Frank Lockwood—Lord Vernon and the Pope—Old menus— Weddings of the past—Some anecdotes—Mrs. Norton—The Duchess of Somerset—_The Owl_—The Fourth Party—Sir Henry Drummond Wolff—The Comte de Paris and the Primrose League—Lord Randolph Churchill and his resignation of office.

It has always been a passion with me to collect odds and ends of every sort and put them into scrap-books and note-books. Consequently I now have many volumes filled with old squibs, cuttings, photographs, scraps of verse, menus of banquets, and other trifles which, together with notes scribbled at the side, recall many pleasant and amusing days now long vanished into the past. In many of my books, I must confess, the contents are arranged in the most haphazard fashion, which now and then produces some rather amusing contrasts; for instance, opening one at hazard I came upon an old broadside of 1832 entitled “The Great Battle for Reform,” side by side with a picture post-card dealing with the Suffragette agitation,—a combination which brought into my mind the following little anecdote. Long before the days of advanced female politicians, in the year 1832, an elderly couple, peacefully sleeping in their four-poster, were one morning roughly aroused at an early hour by their excited maid-servant who, bursting into the bedroom, bawled out, “It’s passed! It’s passed!” Extremely annoyed, the old lady called out from inside the bed-curtains, “What’s passed, you fool?” “The Reform Bill,” shouted the girl, “and we’re all equal now”; after which she marched out of the room, purposely leaving the door wide open to show her equality.

I possess many mementoes of old elections; amongst them an election favour or ribband on which is embroidered “Disraeli,” a souvenir sent me by Lord Beaconsfield in the early days of his political career.

Mr. Bernal Osborne, amongst others, also used to remember my passion for collecting, and, consequently, I have a good many old election addresses and squibs which are now beginning to possess some slight antiquarian interest.

In 1868, at Nottingham, there was a tremendous electoral struggle, in which no less than five candidates took part. Mr. Bernal Osborne, who eventually found himself at the bottom of the poll, was one of these, and sent me a curious little paper which was published during the progress of what was a very acrimonious contest. This was an ephemeral sheet, called _The Nottingham Lamb_, a copy of which I still retain, issued apparently for the sole purpose of chaffing all five candidates.

As has been said, Mr. Osborne was defeated at this election; he did not indeed succeed in again entering the House of Commons till 1870, when he was returned for Waterford, the Irish constituency which, after his Nottingham defeat, he had unsuccessfully wooed in 1869. Subsequent to this election party feeling ran so high that Mr. Osborne had to be smuggled out of the town in a covered car, some of his opponent’s supporters having announced their intention of lynching him. A few days afterwards he wrote to a friend: “I am slowly recovering from the success of an Irish election.” Mr. Bernal Osborne, as is well known, possessed the derisive faculty in an abnormal degree, and this he could not help exercising everywhere, even in the House of Commons. He was, indeed, the hero of many amusing incidents which convulsed that august assembly, and even to-day tales are told of his readiness in banter and repartee. I do not, however, know whether the following little story is generally known.

Mr. Osborne had a great friend, an Irishman, and also a Member of Parliament, though of quite opposite political views. This gentleman, whose name was Tom Corrigan, was not by any means a teetotaller; indeed, malicious people said that he never addressed the House except when under the inspiration of sherry. On a certain night “Tom” chanced to follow Bernal Osborne in a debate upon some Irish question or other, and at once began: “What does my honourable friend know of Ireland? I answer, nothing, or less than nothing. We all know the lines of the poet—

A little learning is a dangerous thing” . . .

“Go on, Tom,” interjected his friend across the House; “go on, and quote the next line!”

“And why should I be after quoting the next line, Mr. Speaker, sorr?”

“Because, Tom,” again interrupted Bernal Osborne, “the next line should particularly suit you, for it runs: ‘Drink deep,’ Tom, ‘Drink deep.’”

Mr. Osborne was always very severe upon those who spoke above their own capacity and other people’s comprehension. His favourite butts in the House of Commons, indeed, were those pompous and Pharisaical members whose _doctrinaire_ views he was ever ready to deride.

Amongst the political squibs in my scrap-book there is one directed against the over-taxation which in long-past days certainly did press very heavily upon the people of England. Exceedingly well written, it is, I believe, an extract from an article by Sydney Smith, published in the _Edinburgh Review_ about 1820. In the form of what we should to-day call a political leaflet, it is rendered all the more effective by the manner in which the words are arranged, and also by the very adroit use made of capital letters:—

TAXES upon every Article which enters into the Mouth, or covers the Back, or is placed under the Foot;

TAXES upon every thing which is pleasant to See, Hear, Feel, Smell, and Taste;

TAXES upon Warmth, Light, and Locomotion;

TAXES on every thing on Earth and the Waters under the Earth; on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home;

TAXES on the raw Material;

TAXES on every value that is added to it by the industry of Man;

TAXES on the SAUCE which pampers Man’s appetite, and the DRUG that restores him to health; on the ERMINE which decorates the JUDGE, and the ROPE which hangs the CRIMINAL; on the BRASS NAILS of the COFFIN, and the RIBBANDS of the BRIDE.

AT BED or AT BOARD, COUCHANT or LEVANT, WE MUST PAY.

The School Boy whips his TAXED Top; The Beardless Youth manages his TAXED Horse with a TAXED Bridle on a TAXED Road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his Medicine which has paid 7 PER CENT, into a Spoon which has paid 30 PER CENT, throws himself back upon his CHINTZ BED which has paid 22 PER CENT, MAKES HIS WILL, and expires in the arms of an Apothecary who has paid £100 for the privilege of putting him to death.

HIS WHOLE PROPERTY IS THEN TAXED FROM 2 to 10 PER CENT;

Besides the Probate, large Fees are demanded for burying him in the Chancel;

his virtues are handed down to posterity on TAXED MARBLE; and he is then gathered to his Fathers to be

TAXED

NO MORE.

The old broadsides are now represented by the leaflets and posters which so plentifully abound during modern elections. Within the last thirty years election posters have assumed many different developments, though, as a rule, it must be said that they are lacking in the incisive if rather brutal force which characterised the cartoons and caricatures of other days. The attempt once made by the late Mr. Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, to put a tax upon lucifer matches, called forth, I remember, a perfect flood of ephemeral literature, as well as a quantity of derisive illustrations, which no doubt played some part in causing the abandonment of what was regarded as a very unpopular tax. A terra-cotta statuette of Mr. Lowe standing upon a match-box is one of my treasures, and another is a match-box crowned with the bust of the politician in question.

Mr. Gladstone—his pastime of tree-felling, his habit of sending post-cards, and his collars—afforded the caricaturist a very congenial subject to work upon. I still have a very malicious cartoon entitled “Khartoum _v._ Criterion,” in which the Grand Old Man is pictured holding his sides with laughter in a box at the play, whilst above is shown the death of General Gordon at Khartoum. As a matter of fact, by no possibility could Mr. Gladstone have known that the very evening on which he was going to the Criterion, Gordon was being done to death in the far-off Soudan; and whatever may have been his faults, callousness or inhumanity was most certainly not numbered amongst them.

A political caricaturist of modern days, whose works I collect, is Sir F. Carruthers Gould. His wit, indeed, always of the most good-natured description, is one of the most valuable assets of the Liberal party, whilst the very moderation of his sarcasm, combined with an almost preternatural aptitude for hitting off a situation, makes the work of this talented caricaturist tell in a quite unusual degree.

The best amateur caricaturist I ever knew was the late Sir Frank Lockwood, who used every year to send his friends some whimsical design of his own composition. Among the New Year’s cards which he sent me—souvenirs I still cherish—the best of a clever series is, I think, the one I received at the end of 1893. In this Old Father Time is pictured as a butler holding out a champagne bottle labelled 1894, whilst another, 1893 sec, lies empty on the ground. Underneath is written, “A fine wine, and not so dry as the last.” On another, Time—as a sportsman carrying a dead pheasant, 1895—is shown keenly eyeing an astonished young bird (1896) perched upon a milestone, the while he murmurs, “I’ll have a shot at you next, my little man.” Sir Frank Lockwood was a great loss to all his friends, for a more agreeable, clever, and cheery companion never lived.

Looking over an old scrap-book of mine I came upon some Italian caricatures of the carnival at Rome in the old days, when the Pope was still an independent sovereign. These had been collected when I was travelling in Italy with my mother about the year 1842. The carnival, I remember, was not particularly gay. There were immense crowds, and a perpetual rain of confetti and dead battered flowers, which increased to a perfect storm when our carriage passed any house inhabited by our friends. The people of Rome, however, enjoyed it all immensely, and a young lady said to me, “If Paradise be half as delightful as the carnival, what can be so happy?” Some English people, however, said it was more like Purgatory!

During our travels at that time, when going by sea on a Tuscan vessel from Genoa to Naples, we met Lord Vernon, who was our fellow-passenger as far as Leghorn. He talked a great deal about Dante, the study of whose works was his hobby, and also gave us a very lively description of his interview with the Pope.

His Holiness, he said, after some very complimentary remarks, had inquired of him how he translated the passage at the beginning of Canto vii. of the “Inferno”—

“Papé Satan, Papé Satan, aleppé.”[1]

The difficulty, Lord Vernon told us, was overcome by his telling the Pope that a great diversity of opinion existed as to the passage in question, and he would therefore be especially grateful to his Holiness if he, the highest authority possible, would tell him what the exact meaning of it might be. The Pope, however, who was just as quick at parrying home-thrusts as Lord Vernon, changed the subject, and pounced upon another passage, describing the effect of sunshine upon a rock, which he said he had been able to verify one day near his convent when he was a Carmelite monk. Lord Vernon then said to him, “Your Holiness’s observation is most valuable, and, with permission, I will put it in a note to the translation I am making.” “No, no!” exclaimed the Pope; “non bisogna mai nominare il Papa,”—“There is no need whatever to mention the Pope at all.”

Anything which recalls the past becomes of interest as time goes on, and some of the mementoes of other days which I have carefully preserved bring vividly back to one’s mind scenes now almost historical, as well as the people who figured in them.

Programmes of public meetings and menus of banquets are amongst the trifles which I have collected and kept, and of these I have a considerable number. The menus I sought for with the greatest eagerness were those of public lunches or dinners attended by some great orator or politician, and when I got them I generally managed also to obtain the signature of the guest or guests of the evening, which naturally adds very greatly to their interest. Of these souvenirs recalling great social functions of the past, I have in particular a quantity of the time of the Jubilee of 1887, which has now become almost an historic memory. Besides their interest as souvenirs, these menus may one day be interesting as illustrating the way in which the people of our time dined. As a matter of fact, there has been very little change in the number and nature of the dishes served at public dinners and banquets during the last thirty-five years, as can be seen from some menus I still retain as a remembrance of the entertainments given to the late Shah of Persia (that is the one before the last), on his first visit to this country in 1873.

Other relics which I treasure are certain old cards of invitation to parties, weddings, and other social functions, which recall to my mind friends for the most part, alas, long since passed away.